Alphabet’s Google is in talks to make investments lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in Character.AI, because the fast-growing synthetic intelligence chatbot startup seeks capital to practice fashions and sustain with consumer demand, two sources briefed on the matter advised Reuters.
The funding, which might be structured as convertible notes, in accordance to a 3rd supply, will deepen the present partnership Character.AI already has with Google, in which it makes use of Google’s cloud providers and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to practice fashions.
Google and Character AI didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Founded by former Google workers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, Character.AI permits folks to chat with digital variations of celebrities like Billie Eilish or anime characters, whereas creating their very own chatbots and AI assistants. It is free to use, however presents subscription mannequin that prices $9.99 (roughly Rs. 831) a month for customers who need to skip the digital line to entry a chatbot.
Character.AI’s chatbots, with varied roles and tones to select from, have appealed to customers ages 18 to 24, who contributed about 60 % of its web site site visitors, in accordance to knowledge from Similarweb. The demographic helps the corporate place itself because the purveyor of extra enjoyable private AI companions, in contrast to different AI chatbots from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
The firm beforehand mentioned its web site had attracted 100 million month-to-month visits in the primary six months since its launch.
Character.AI can also be in talks to increase fairness funding from enterprise capital buyers, which might worth the corporate at over $5 billion (roughly Rs. 41,605 crore), sources mentioned. In March, it raised $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,248 crore) in a funding spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz at $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,321 crore) valuation.
The talks with Google are ongoing and phrases of the deal might change, mentioned the sources, who requested anonymity because the discussions are non-public.
Google has been investing in AI startups, together with $2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,642 crore) for mannequin maker Anthropic in 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 current pattern in which large tech cloud providers suppliers are placing offers with AI firms to entice them to use sure cloud or {hardware} in the computer-intensive race to construct fashions and serve shoppers, together with Microsoft investments in OpenAI and Google and Amazon’s bets on Anthropic.
US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan mentioned at an occasion in San Francisco final week that the company is trying into cloud supplier investments in AI startups to study any anti-competitive behaviors.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
