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Sachin Dev Duggal, CEO, Builder.ai, April 19, 2023.

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

LONDON — Microsoft invested an undisclosed sum into Builder.ai, a startup that helps companies make applications without any coding experience, doubling down on its artificial intelligence efforts.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, Builder.ai falls into the camp of startups that make so-called “no-code” and “low-code” platforms. Its software allows anyone from tech-shy artists looking to sell their work online to design professionals with limited programming experience to develop and manage apps.

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Through a strategic partnership, Microsoft plans to integrate Builder.ai’s own AI assistant Natasha into its Teams video and chat software to let customers build business apps within the platform. Builder.ai will also enhance Natasha by leveraging Microsoft’s AI algorithms to make it sound more human, the company said.

The collaboration will give Builder.ai and its clients access to Microsoft’s Azure suite of cloud tools, including a set of AI services it offers through a tie-up with U.S. startup OpenAI, Builder.ai said. Developers on the Microsoft Azure platform will also be able to tap into Builder.ai’s network of experts, it added.

“We’re all convinced that the future of software is going to be where the customer doesn’t need to be technical,” Duggal told CNBC in an interview. “What we’re really doing is bringing together a world where customers are able to build software, run software, host software.”

“For Microsoft, it opens up not only a brand new customer that’s become digital native, but somebody that’s coming on to the Azure Cloud, where that building of the software is leveraging core parts of the Microsoft stack, as well as the Builder stack. So I think from that perspective, it’s really quite holistic. And the mission really is to empower the next 100 million software applications.”

Jon Tinter, corporate vice president of business development at Microsoft, said the deal marked “an extension of our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

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“We see Builder.ai creating an entirely new category that empowers everyone to be a developer and our new, deeper collaboration fuelled by Azure AI will bring the combined power of both companies to businesses around the world,” Tinter said in a statement.

Builder.ai and Microsoft declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Microsoft has massively expanded its investments in AI lately, plowing a reported $13 billion into OpenAI, the company behind popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, and incorporating the firm’s AI language processing software into its Bing search engine and Office productivity apps.

The deal signifies a further bid by Microsoft to ramp up its efforts in AI, which has become a key focus for the company as it looks to become a leader in the technology and compete more aggressively in search with fellow technology giant Google.

The Alphabet-owned company has made investments of its own into AI, seeking to make digital entities more conversational and humanlike with its LaMDA language processing model, and rolling out a rival to ChatGPT called Bard.

Microsoft already offers its own suite of no-code app development tools. With Builder.ai, it is hoping to advance its expertise in this area.

A critical component of the deal for Builder.ai is the endorsement of the world’s second-most valuable tech company, Duggal said.

“If you imagine we’re going to go speak to big enterprise … who’s going to ask us about competency at that point?” Duggal told CNBC. “It gives you a huge leverage from go to market [strategy], which in itself benefits both partners.”

Builder.ai has raised a total of $195 million in funding to date, according to Crunchbase data. It is one of numerous startups that have benefited from renewed investor interest in AI technology lately.

At the same time, advances in the technology have led to concerns from researchers that it is getting too powerful. In March, a group of tech heavyweights including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wrote an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of AI more powerful than GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large language model.

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Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4 billion data privacy settlement

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Google agrees to pay Texas .4 billion data privacy settlement

A Google corporate logo hangs above the entrance to the company’s office at St. John’s Terminal in New York City on March 11, 2025.

Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

Google agreed to pay nearly $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle allegations of violating the data privacy rights of state residents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday.

Paxton sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully tracking and collecting the private data of users.

The attorney general said the settlement, which covers allegations in two separate lawsuits against the search engine and app giant, dwarfed all past settlements by other states with Google for similar data privacy violations.

Google’s settlement comes nearly 10 months after Paxton obtained a $1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorized use of biometric data by users of those popular social media platforms.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.

“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” said Paxton.

“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in the settlement, which involves allegations related to the Chrome browser’s incognito setting, disclosures related to location history on the Google Maps app, and biometric claims related to Google Photo.

Castaneda said Google does not have to make any changes to products in connection with the settlement and that all of the policy changes that the company made in connection with the allegations were previously announced or implemented.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Castaneda said.

“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

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Virtual chronic care company Omada Health files for IPO

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Virtual chronic care company Omada Health files for IPO

Omada Health smart devices in use.

Courtesy: Omada Health

Virtual care company Omada Health filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital health company that’s signaled its intent to hit the public markets despite a turbulent economy.

Founded in 2012, Omada offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension. The company describes its approach as a “between-visit care model” that is complementary to the broader health-care ecosystem, according to its prospectus.

Revenue increased 57% in the first quarter to $55 million, up from $35.1 million during the same period last year, the filing said. The San Francisco-based company generated $169.8 million in revenue during 2024, up 38% from $122.8 million the previous year.

Omada’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million during its first quarter from $19 million during the same period last year. It reported a net loss of $47.1 million in 2024, compared to a $67.5 million net loss during 2023.

The IPO market has been largely dormant across the tech sector for the past three years, and within digital health, it’s been almost completely dead. After President Donald Trump announced a sweeping tariff policy that plunged U.S. markets into turmoil last month, taking a company public is an even riskier endeavor. Online lender Klarna delayed its long-anticipated IPO, as did ticket marketplace StubHub.

But Omada Health isn’t the first digital health company to file for its public market debut this year. Virtual physical therapy startup Hinge Health filed its prospectus in March, and provided an update with its first-quarter earnings on Monday, a signal to investors that it’s looking to forge ahead.

Omada contracts with employers, and the company said it works with more than 2,000 customers and supports 679,000 members as of March 31. More than 156 million Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition, so there is a significant market opportunity, according to the company’s filing.

In 2022, Omada announced a $192 million funding round that pushed its valuation above $1 billion. U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity’s FMR LLC are the largest outside shareholders in the company, each owning between 9% and 10% of the stock.

“To our prospective shareholders, thank you for learning more about Omada. I invite you join our journey,” Omada co-founder and CEO Sean Duffy said in the filing. “In front of us is a unique chance to build a promising and successful business while truly changing lives.”

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Google would need to shift up to 2,000 employees for antitrust remedies, search head says

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Google would need to shift up to 2,000 employees for antitrust remedies, search head says

Liz Reid, vice president, search, Google speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022.

Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images

Testimony in Google‘s antitrust search remedies trial that wrapped hearings Friday shows how the company is calculating possible changes proposed by the Department of Justice.

Google head of search Liz Reid testified in court Tuesday that the company would need to divert between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, roughly 20% of Google’s search organization, to carry out some of the proposed remedies, a source with knowledge of the proceedings confirmed.

The testimony comes during the final days of the remedies trial, which will determine what penalties should be taken against Google after a judge last year ruled the company has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.

The DOJ, which filed the original antitrust suit and proposed remedies, asked the judge to force Google to share its data used for generating search results, such as click data. It also asked for the company to remove the use of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones. 

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The DOJ also proposed the company divest its Chrome browser but that was not included in Reid’s initial calculation, the source confirmed.

Reid on Tuesday said Google’s proprietary “Knowledge Graph” database, which it uses to surface search results, contains more than 500 billion facts, according to the source, and that Google has invested more than $20 billion in engineering costs and content acquisition over more than a decade.

“People ask Google questions they wouldn’t ask anyone else,” she said, according to the source.

Reid echoed Google’s argument that sharing its data would create privacy risks, the source confirmed.

Closing arguments for the search remedies trial will take place May 29th and 30th, followed by the judge’s decision expected in August.

The company faces a separate remedies trial for its advertising tech business, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.

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