Enterprise capitalist companies are at all times on the hunt for the following huge factor—particularly when the present hype cycle begins to chill. Already nicely established in crypto initiatives, Andreessen Horowitz introduced on Thursday an funding in software program growth firm Character AI, builders of the Character AI chatbot.
The sequence A funding spherical totaled $150 million, was led by a16z, and contains funding from Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, SV Angel, and A Capital.
Together with the funding in Character AI, Andreessen Horowitz’s common companion Sarah Wang will be part of the Character AI board.
“If the web was the daybreak of universally accessible info, this second in A.I. might very nicely be the daybreak of universally accessible intelligence,” Wang tweeted, asserting the funding.
“We’re on the iPhone second of A.I.,” Wang wrote. “Like cellular and the web, the A.I. revolution begins with the patron.”
Launched in September 2022 by former Google software program engineers Noam Shazeer and Daniel Freitas, Character AI is an online software that generates textual content responses by way of pre-programmed character chatbots. Shazeer and Freitas function Character AI’s CEO and President, respectively.
Character AI says the funds will present the assets the corporate must develop throughout its “hypergrowth part.”
“We perceive the significance of offering an A.I. that really looks like your individual,” Character AI mentioned in a blog post. “That’s why our A.I. is customizable.”
Character AI chatbots may be personalized to swimsuit every consumer’s preferences, which the corporate says may function a sympathetic ear or an analytical problem-solver.
Character AI says that over 1 million A.I. characters have been created by means of its service, together with bots based mostly on Telsa and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Jackson, and fictional characters like Tony Stark and Saul Goodman.
These interactions include a disclaimer: “All the things characters say is made up.”
For the reason that launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022, the concept of implementing synthetic intelligence in blockchain has additionally taken off, with builders aiming to combine the know-how with sensible contracts and tokens.
Whereas sensible contracts are frequent in Web3, synthetic intelligence is changing into part of the blockchain trade as a number of tasks roll out A.I. tokens, together with Hera, ALI, NMR, and AGIX.
A.I. tokens are cryptocurrencies that intention to make use of synthetic intelligence to enhance safety, consumer expertise, and scalability.
In response to data from market intelligence agency Grand View Analysis, the burgeoning A.I. trade has been valued at over $136.6 billion in 2022 and is estimated to succeed in $196 billion in 2023.
Researchers on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, Alex Pentland, John Werner, and Chris Bishop, see a transparent path for A.I. to merge with blockchain know-how.
“At a macro degree, [blockchain and A.I.] can present a degree of transparency, accountability and analytics that by no means existed earlier than within the digital world,” the authors assert.
“We’ve got the flexibility to carry a brand new degree of trustworthiness to the worldwide financial system in addition to society writ giant. As a consequence, blockchain and A.I. have gotten the following supercycle and are the core of a very main societal transformation.”
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