Google’s Got A New Plan To Rival ChatGPT With Help From Another Startup – News18

(Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google is in talks to take a position lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in Character.AI, because the quick rising synthetic intelligence chatbot startup seeks capital to coach fashions and sustain with consumer demand, two sources briefed on the matter instructed Reuters.

The funding, which could possibly be structured as convertible notes, in response to a 3rd supply, will deepen the prevailing partnership Character.AI already has with Google, by which it makes use of Google’s cloud providers and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to coach fashions.

Google and Character AI didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Founded by former Google staff Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, Character.AI permits individuals to talk with digital variations of celebrities like Billie Eilish or anime characters, whereas creating their very own chatbots and AI assistants. It is free to make use of, however provides subscription mannequin that expenses $9.99 a month for customers who need to skip the digital line to entry a chatbot.

Character.AI’s chatbots, with numerous roles and tones to select from, have appealed to customers ages 18 to 24, who contributed about 60% of its web site visitors, in response to knowledge from Similarweb. The demographic helps the corporate place itself because the purveyor of extra enjoyable private AI companions, in comparison with different AI chatbots from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

The firm beforehand stated its web site had attracted 100 million month-to-month visits within the first six months since its launch.

Character.AI can also be in talks to lift fairness funding from enterprise capital traders, which may worth the corporate at over $5 billion, sources stated. In March, it raised $150 million in a funding spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz at $1 billion valuation.

The talks with Google are ongoing and phrases of the deal may change, stated the sources, who requested anonymity because the discussions are non-public.

Google has been investing in AI startups, together with $2 billion for mannequin maker Anthropic within the type of convertible notes, on prime of its earlier fairness funding. Anthropic makes use of Google’s cloud providers in addition to its newest model of TPUs.

That is a part of a latest pattern by which huge tech cloud providers suppliers are placing offers with AI firms to entice them to make use of sure cloud or {hardware} within the computer-intensive race to construct fashions and serve customers, together with Microsoft investments in OpenAI and Google and Amazon’s bets on Anthropic.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan stated at an occasion in San Francisco final week that the company is trying into cloud supplier investments in AI startups to look at any anti-competitive behaviors.

(This story has been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated news company feed – Reuters)