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OpenAI ranks as No. 1 on Disruptor 50 list with $30 billion valuation and 200 million users

No innovation has had a greater cultural impact and no technology product has made a bigger splash in the past six months than OpenAI‘s ChatGPT.

The Microsoft-backed startup’s generative artificial intelligence chatbot wowed consumers when it debuted at the end of November. It revealed a quantum leap in the ability of humans to seamlessly interact with AI, which in turn can access the entire information universe of the internet.

AI is having its iPhone moment. Apple’s breakthrough product sparked the invention of a new ecosystem of apps bringing users new services, ranging from Uber to Instagram, because suddenly they had a computer in their pocket. Coinciding with that mobile revolution was a computing one as well, with exponential power to shift data into the cloud.

Now we’re seeing a similar technological boom around AI. It’s not just about the startling experience of interacting with the latest chatbots. AI will influence, disrupt and accelerate every industry. In fact, it’s already happening.

With OpenAI topping this year’s Disruptor 50 list, there’s no question that the dominant theme not just for the annual ranking but for the venture-backed tech startup space as a whole is artificial intelligence.

And it’s not just companies that have AI at their core. We’re seeing a range of enterprise applications for AI to drive efficiency and new capabilities across companies and sectors of the market. Of the 50 companies on this year’s list, 21 told us that AI is critically important to more than 50% of their revenue.

Half of the companies in the top 10 of the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list feature key use of AI, and notably, they represent a diverse range of industries and use cases. Canva, the No. 3 company, is integrating ChatGPT into its design tools, giving customers a new way to be creative. No. 4 Disruptor Relativity Space is using AI to make 3D-printed rockets. No. 7 Disruptor Anduril Industries deploys AI to identify and attack security threats. U.K.-based renewable energy company Octopus Energy, No. 8 on this year’s list, uses AI to efficiently match energy supply and demand. No. 9 Lineage Logistics uses AI to optimize the movement of goods across the temperature-controlled supply chain.

More coverage of the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50

“I do think we are deep into a new technological wave and this is, I think, the biggest one in a while,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview with CNBC late last week.

No. 19 on the Disruptor 50 list, Scale AI, has worked with companies including OpenAI to label the massive amounts of data — images, text, voice and video — that the machines need to digest to become better learners. Also on the list is the No. 44 Disruptor, Cohere, which was founded by former Google Brain researchers who helped develop a new method of natural language processing — transformers — that enable systems to grasp a word’s context more accurately.

Altman said OpenAI is seeing artificial intelligence affect nearly every industry. He pointed to the legal profession as a prime example.

“What we’re hearing from customers using our API for legal companies is that it is totally transforming the way they work and the efficiency that any one lawyer can achieve and the accuracy, freeing people up to do more of what they do really well, and having this new tool to sort of give them as much leverage as possible,” Altman said.

“That is a pattern we’re seeing again and again in many industries, and I’m super excited about it,” he said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a keynote address announcing ChatGPT integration for Bing at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, Feb. 7, 2023.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

Its ability to make stock market investors skittish became clear when Alphabet‘s shares tanked after the rollout — which some employees called rushed — of its ChatGPT competitor, Bard, earlier this year. And in one of the sectors seen as being most acutely at risk from generative AI, education, Chegg saw its shares fall by close to half just because its CEO referenced an impact from ChatGPT on customer growth during its recent earnings call.

For now, OpenAI has a dual revenue stream: an enterprise software model where it charges companies for access to the platform, and a premium chat app it offers to consumers for $20 monthly, in addition to the free version.

“For now, we’re pretty happy with these two models. We’re super open to explain other things,” Altman said, “you know, when we’re very much at the very start of this technology.”

OpenAI’s business customers include Salesforce, Snapchat, and its backer Microsoft, which is bringing OpenAI’s generative AI technologies to its Bing and Edge internet browsers and Microsoft 365 suite of business software, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Microsoft’s cumulative investment in OpenAI has reportedly swelled to $13 billion, and the startup’s valuation is reported to be as high as $29 billion. The company declined to provide any funding or valuation data.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the ChatGPT boom: 'We need regulation'

The growth in the power of AI has been so rapid and dramatic it has sparked concern from politicians and regulators. Those looking to play in the space — including Elon Musk, who was an early co-founder of OpenAI and now says he will launch a competitor — are also speaking out about the risks. Musk, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and a range of professors and CEOs, signed an open letter in March from the Future of Life Institute, urging AI labs to stop training models that are more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Altman first responded in an appearance at a virtual event at MIT, saying that consistent safety guidelines were needed but that this proposed pause was “missing most technical nuance about where we need the pause.”

Altman continues to advocate for regulation. “We really need regulation here. We’ve been calling for it since the start of the company,” he said. “I think we’re going to get some regulation, and we’ll get more over time. And I think that’s really critically important. So I’m happy that it’s happening.”

“I think to get to the future where we have as much of the good use of AI and minimize the what could be quite bad uses of AI,” Altman said, “there’s just no way around having regulation here. We have regulation for other industries with much less powerful technology. So we should definitely have it here.”

Reid Hoffman, partner at venture capital firm Greylock, was an early investor in OpenAI and is now an investor in a number of AI companies and the co-founder of AI startup Inflection. He said he finds some of the criticism to be more dangerous than OpenAI.

“A bunch of it is well-intentioned; there are a bunch of different ways AI can play out,” said Hoffman, who is also on the Microsoft board of directors and had served on the OpenAI board before stepping down due to potential conflicts of interest. “Some of it is less well intentioned: ‘Everyone else, slow down so I can speed up.’ And this is one of those things where it is overall a mistaken effort. … The call to slow down is, in fact, less safe than what they’re proposing,” he said, referring to OpenAI and Altman.  

In addition to concerns about AI being used to manipulate or mislead, Altman said he is working to tamp down on bias within OpenAI’s systems.

“A big part of that is what we call RLHF, or reinforcement learning from human feedback, where we take these models that are pretrained on a significant fraction of the internet and we can sort of push them in certain ways,” Altman said. “We can teach the models like, ‘Hey, there’s a bias here in the data. You shouldn’t act this way.'” He said that from GPT-3 to GPT-4 the company has been able to make great strides in reducing bias in the model. 

As companies including OpenAI battle bias and push for smart regulation, they’re also working with the established tech behemoths, such as Microsoft, and leaders in all sorts of industries to help them evolve, so they’re not disrupted.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: Getting this right is 'one of the most important questions of our time'

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Inside a Utah desert facility preparing humans for life on Mars

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Inside a Utah desert facility preparing humans for life on Mars

Hidden among the majestic canyons of the Utah desert, about 7 miles from the nearest town, is a small research facility meant to prepare humans for life on Mars.

The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that runs the Mars Desert Research Station, or MDRS, invited CNBC to shadow one of its analog crews on a recent mission.

MDRS is the best analog astronaut environment,” said Urban Koi, who served as health and safety officer for Crew 315. “The terrain is extremely similar to the Mars terrain and the protocols, research, science and engineering that occurs here is very similar to what we would do if we were to travel to Mars.”

SpaceX CEO and Mars advocate Elon Musk has said his company can get humans to Mars as early as 2029.

The 5-person Crew 315 spent two weeks living at the research station following the same procedures that they would on Mars.

David Laude, who served as the crew’s commander, described a typical day.

“So we all gather around by 7 a.m. around a common table in the upper deck and we have breakfast,” he said. “Around 8:00 we have our first meeting of the day where we plan out the day. And then in the morning, we usually have an EVA of two or three people and usually another one in the afternoon.”

An EVA refers to extravehicular activity. In NASA speak, EVAs refer to spacewalks, when astronauts leave the pressurized space station and must wear spacesuits to survive in space.

“I think the most challenging thing about these analog missions is just getting into a rhythm. … Although here the risk is lower, on Mars performing those daily tasks are what keeps us alive,” said Michael Andrews, the engineer for Crew 315.

Watch the video to find out more.

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Apple scores big victory with ‘F1,’ but AI is still a major problem in Cupertino

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Apple scores big victory with 'F1,' but AI is still a major problem in Cupertino

Formula One F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, U.S. – October 23, 2022 Tim Cook waves the chequered flag to the race winner Red Bull’s Max Verstappen 

Mike Segar | Reuters

Apple had two major launches last month. They couldn’t have been more different.

First, Apple revealed some of the artificial intelligence advancements it had been working on in the past year when it released developer versions of its operating systems to muted applause at its annual developer’s conference, WWDC. Then, at the end of the month, Apple hit the red carpet as its first true blockbuster movie, “F1,” debuted to over $155 million — and glowing reviews — in its first weekend.

While “F1” was a victory lap for Apple, highlighting the strength of its long-term outlook, the growth of its services business and its ability to tap into culture, Wall Street’s reaction to the company’s AI announcements at WWDC suggest there’s some trouble underneath the hood.

“F1” showed Apple at its best — in particular, its ability to invest in new, long-term projects. When Apple TV+ launched in 2019, it had only a handful of original shows and one movie, a film festival darling called “Hala” that didn’t even share its box office revenue.

Despite Apple TV+ being written off as a costly side-project, Apple stuck with its plan over the years, expanding its staff and operation in Culver City, California. That allowed the company to build up Hollywood connections, especially for TV shows, and build an entertainment track record. Now, an Apple Original can lead the box office on a summer weekend, the prime season for blockbuster films.

The success of “F1” also highlights Apple’s significant marketing machine and ability to get big-name talent to appear with its leadership. Apple pulled out all the stops to market the movie, including using its Wallet app to send a push notification with a discount for tickets to the film. To promote “F1,” Cook appeared with movie star Brad Pitt at an Apple store in New York and posted a video with actual F1 racer Lewis Hamilton, who was one of the film’s producers.

(L-R) Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton, Tim Cook, and Damson Idris attend the World Premiere of “F1: The Movie” in Times Square on June 16, 2025 in New York City.

Jamie Mccarthy | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Although Apple services chief Eddy Cue said in a recent interview that Apple needs the its film business to be profitable to “continue to do great things,” “F1” isn’t just about the bottom line for the company.

Apple’s Hollywood productions are perhaps the most prominent face of the company’s services business, a profit engine that has been an investor favorite since the iPhone maker started highlighting the division in 2016.

Films will only ever be a small fraction of the services unit, which also includes payments, iCloud subscriptions, magazine bundles, Apple Music, game bundles, warranties, fees related to digital payments and ad sales. Plus, even the biggest box office smashes would be small on Apple’s scale — the company does over $1 billion in sales on average every day.

But movies are the only services component that can get celebrities like Pitt or George Clooney to appear next to an Apple logo — and the success of “F1” means that Apple could do more big popcorn films in the future.

“Nothing breeds success or inspires future investment like a current success,” said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

But if “F1” is a sign that Apple’s services business is in full throttle, the company’s AI struggles are a “check engine” light that won’t turn off.

Replacing Siri’s engine

At WWDC last month, Wall Street was eager to hear about the company’s plans for Apple Intelligence, its suite of AI features that it first revealed in 2024. Apple Intelligence, which is a key tenet of the company’s hardware products, had a rollout marred by delays and underwhelming features.

Apple spent most of WWDC going over smaller machine learning features, but did not reveal what investors and consumers increasingly want: A sophisticated Siri that can converse fluidly and get stuff done, like making a restaurant reservation. In the age of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, the expectation of AI assistants among consumers is growing beyond “Siri, how’s the weather?”

The company had previewed a significantly improved Siri in the summer of 2024, but earlier this year, those features were delayed to sometime in 2026. At WWDC, Apple didn’t offer any updates about the improved Siri beyond that the company was “continuing its work to deliver” the features in the “coming year.” Some observers reduced their expectations for Apple’s AI after the conference.

“Current expectations for Apple Intelligence to kickstart a super upgrade cycle are too high, in our view,” wrote Jefferies analysts this week.

Siri should be an example of how Apple’s ability to improve products and projects over the long-term makes it tough to compete with.

It beat nearly every other voice assistant to market when it first debuted on iPhones in 2011. Fourteen years later, Siri remains essentially the same one-off, rigid, question-and-answer system that struggles with open-ended questions and dates, even after the invention in recent years of sophisticated voice bots based on generative AI technology that can hold a conversation.

Apple’s strongest rivals, including Android parent Google, have done way more to integrate sophisticated AI assistants into their devices than Apple has. And Google doesn’t have the same reflex against collecting data and cloud processing as privacy-obsessed Apple.

Some analysts have said they believe Apple has a few years before the company’s lack of competitive AI features will start to show up in device sales, given the company’s large installed base and high customer loyalty. But Apple can’t get lapped before it re-enters the race, and its former design guru Jony Ive is now working on new hardware with OpenAI, ramping up the pressure in Cupertino.

“The three-year problem, which is within an investment time frame, is that Android is racing ahead,” Needham senior internet analyst Laura Martin said on CNBC this week.

Apple’s services success with projects like “F1” is an example of what the company can do when it sets clear goals in public and then executes them over extended time-frames.

Its AI strategy could use a similar long-term plan, as customers and investors wonder when Apple will fully embrace the technology that has captivated Silicon Valley.

Wall Street’s anxiety over Apple’s AI struggles was evident this week after Bloomberg reported that Apple was considering replacing Siri’s engine with Anthropic or OpenAI’s technology, as opposed to its own foundation models.

The move, if it were to happen, would contradict one of Apple’s most important strategies in the Cook era: Apple wants to own its core technologies, like the touchscreen, processor, modem and maps software, not buy them from suppliers.

Using external technology would be an admission that Apple Foundation Models aren’t good enough yet for what the company wants to do with Siri.

“They’ve fallen farther and farther behind, and they need to supercharge their generative AI efforts” Martin said. “They can’t do that internally.”

Apple might even pay billions for the use of Anthropic’s AI software, according to the Bloomberg report. If Apple were to pay for AI, it would be a reversal from current services deals, like the search deal with Alphabet where the Cupertino company gets paid $20 billion per year to push iPhone traffic to Google Search.

The company didn’t confirm the report and declined comment, but Wall Street welcomed the report and Apple shares rose.

In the world of AI in Silicon Valley, signing bonuses for the kinds of engineers that can develop new models can range up to $100 million, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

“I can’t see Apple doing that,” Martin said.

Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo bragging about hiring 11 AI experts from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s DeepMind. That came after Zuckerberg hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead a new AI division as part of a $14.3 billion deal.

Meta’s not the only company to spend hundreds of millions on AI celebrities to get them in the building. Google spent big to hire away the founders of Character.AI, Microsoft got its AI leader by striking a deal with Inflection and Amazon hired the executive team of Adept to bulk up its AI roster.

Apple, on the other hand, hasn’t announced any big AI hires in recent years. While Cook rubs shoulders with Pitt, the actual race may be passing Apple by.

WATCH: Jefferies upgrades Apple to ‘Hold’

Jefferies upgrades Apple to 'Hold'

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Musk backs Sen. Paul’s criticism of Trump’s megabill in first comment since it passed

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Musk backs Sen. Paul's criticism of Trump's megabill in first comment since it passed

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who bombarded President Donald Trump‘s signature spending bill for weeks, on Friday made his first comments since the legislation passed.

Musk backed a post on X by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who said the bill’s budget “explodes the deficit” and continues a pattern of “short-term politicking over long-term sustainability.”

The House of Representatives narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Thursday, sending it to Trump to sign into law.

Paul and Musk have been vocal opponents of Trump’s tax and spending bill, and repeatedly called out the potential for the spending package to increase the national debt.

On Monday, Musk called it the “DEBT SLAVERY bill.”

The independent Congressional Budget Office has said the bill could add $3.4 trillion to the $36.2 trillion of U.S. debt over the next decade. The White House has labeled the agency as “partisan” and continuously refuted the CBO’s estimates.

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The bill includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts, increased spending for immigration enforcement and large cuts to funding for Medicaid and other programs.

It also cuts tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles, a particularly sore spot for Musk, who has several companies that benefit from the programs.

“I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post in early June as the pair traded insults and threats.

Shares of Tesla plummeted as the feud intensified, with the company losing $152 billion in market cap on June 5 and putting the company below $1 trillion in value. The stock has largely rebounded since, but is still below where it was trading before the ruckus with Trump.

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Tesla one-month stock chart.

— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger and Erin Doherty contributed to this article.

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