☕️ Google Enters The "Gemini Era"

Google doesn't seem to be intent on letting OpenAI have the spotlight for long with its GPT-4o, as the company recently had its Google I/O 2024 keynote with a whole suite of AI news to go over. In other parts of the world, though, Elon Musk's xAI looks into renting $10 billion worth of Oracle's AI servers, Anthropic expands to Europe with Claude, and Meta announces the end for Workplace. Join us at AI Tangle as we untangle this week's happenings in AI.

Google I/O 2024 touts the "Gemini era" as the company reveals a near-endless list of AI releases

Google is entering what the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, calls the "Gemini era" in the recent Google I/O 2024 keynote, and there's a seemingly endless list of AI releases to cover. With ethical and responsible AI development as one of the main points of the I/O as well, Google is setting itself up for AI dominance. Despite the excitement of many, there are quite a few people disappointed with the lack of non-AI-related news at the I/O keynote, questioning Google's overeagerness towards AI.

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What did Google showcase at the I/O?

The Google I/O 2024 had two focal points: Gemini 1.5 Flash, along with Gemini 1.5 Pro's upgrades, and the universal AI agent dubbed Project Astra. Gemini 1.5 Flash is Google's lightweight Gemini model focused on cost and speed, while Gemini 1.5 Pro got upgraded to a 2 million token-long context window. Google is also seemingly ​reviving Google Glass from the dead with Project Astra​, a universal AI agent aimed to succeed where its predecessor failed.

A list of other news include:

• Google Search, powered by a custom Gemini model

• A 6th generation TPU for technical infrastructure, Trillium, with 4.7x computing performance improvements​

• ​Veo, the company's most capable video generation model to date

• Personalized Gems, custom-made experts on subjects of users choosing

• Gemini Nano with Multimodality to Pixel phones later this year

• ​Imagen 3, Google's most high-quality text-to-image model

• A family of models designed for education, LearnLM

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Elon Musk's xAI nears a deal to rent $10 billion worth of Oracle's AI servers

Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, is reportedly in talks with Oracle to rent AI servers for a total of $10 billion, which would make xAI one of Oracle's largest customers. The deal aims to boost xAI's capabilities to compete with AI offerings from OpenAI and Google, as Grok hasn't been able to keep up. However, the negotiations are still ongoing, and a deal is not guaranteed. Oracle's co-founder, Larry Ellison, previously announced that xAI had contracted to train AI models on Oracle's Gen2 Cloud.

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Ilya Sutskever bids farewell to OpenAI as he departs from the company after almost a decade

OpenAI's chief scientist and the man behind the infamous failed coup against Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, has announced his departure from OpenAI after almost a decade of working at the startup. In an X/Twitter post, Sam Altman states that Jakub Pachocki, the company's director of research, will be taking over Sutskever's role as Pachocki will continue "spearheading the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five, and fundamental research in large-scale RL and deep learning optimization."

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Reddit and OpenAI shake hands to make the content of the platform available to train AI

To diversify Reddit's cashflow beyond just advertising, Reddit and OpenAI recently penned a deal that would allow OpenAI to use the content on the platform to train its AI models, detailed ​in a blog post​, additionally becoming a Reddit advertising partner. Following this, Reddit's shares rose 10.5% to $62.31, and as of Wednesday's close, the stock price is up nearly 12% from its initial debut in March. This deal mirrors a similar deal that Reddit made with Google to train its models also, worth a reported $60 million a year.

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Anthropic expands Claude to Europe and raising more funds

Anthropic, the developers behind the well-received Claude 3 AI chatbot, has recently expanded its availability to Europe with support for multiple more languages. The company is also in talks to raise more money, having already secured nearly $8 billion at an $18.4 billion valuation. Anthropic is focusing on work and enterprise applications, and is seeing growth in key European markets while preparing to comply with the EU's AI Act.

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Meta will be shutting down Workplace, end of service by late 2026

Workplace, Meta's alternative to Microsoft's Teams and Slack workplace communication apps, is being discontinued, according to Meta spokesperson Ashley Zandy. The app, formerly known as Facebook @ Work with a public debut in 2016, will be available for customers up until August 31, 2025, after which the app will become read-only and expert-only. After June 1st, 2026, users will no longer be able to use the app in any way, and the app's data will be deleted entirely.

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Berlin's trawa offers renewable energy relief for SMEs after a €10 million round of funding

Berlin's trawa has recently raised €10 million in a seed funding round led by Balderton Capital to help small and medium businesses (SMEs) tackle Europe's energy crisis. The startup simplifies renewable energy procurement through an AI platform that lets SMEs buy from green sources while optimizing costs based on consumption data. Its software also integrates businesses' solar/battery systems for comprehensive energy management, with trawa's solution promising 30% annual savings amidst soaring electricity prices.

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The Accelerated Decline of The Web (3-min read)

The decline of the web, becoming dead due to bots and AI, might be accelerated with the release of Google's Search. In this Axios article, writer Scott Rosenberg weighs in on what's going on and what can and should be done.

A Battle for AI Dominance (5-min watch)

OpenAI recently announced its latest model called GPT-4o, just days before Google I/O. Join Fireship on YouTube for a recap of the announcements at Google I/O and determine who is currently winning the artificial intelligence race.