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French President Emmanuel Macron attended the country’s premier technology event Viva Tech. Macron told CNBC France will “invest like crazy” into A.I.

Nathan Laine | Bloomberg | Getty Images

PARIS — France is making a major push to position itself as Europe’s hub for artificial intelligence, throwing its weight behind the fast-growing and much-hyped technology.

“I think we are number one [in AI] in continental Europe, and we have to accelerate,” French President Emmanuel Macron told CNBC’s Karen Tso last week.

Countries are looking to position themselves as AI hubs, because the technology is seen as revolutionary and therefore of strategic importance to governments around the world. AI is viewed as impacting industries from finance to healthcare, but has also been caught in the middle of the broader technology battle playing out between China and the U.S.

Hype around AI has been partly sparked by the viral nature of U.S. firm OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

AI was the phrase on everyone’s lips at France’s annual technology conference Viva Tech, from startups to established technology firms, along with companies from industries as diverse as cosmetics and banking.

Macron, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attended the event, adding the government’s backing to France’s tech push.

“We will invest like crazy on training and research,” Macron told CNBC, adding that France is well-positioned in AI due to its access to talent and start-ups forming around the technology.

French President Emmanuel Macron calls for global A.I. regulation

While the U.S is seen as the leader in AI by many measures, France hopes to catch up.

“Believe me this is clear that the U.S. is number one, for good reason because it is a huge domestic market … I want us to clearly bridge the gap and invest much more, develop much more and accelerate much more,” Macron said.

Paris’ ambitions face tough competition even within the European Union.

“France definitely has a chance to be the leader in Europe, but it faces stiff competition from Germany and the U.K.,” Anton Dahbura, Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, told CNBC via email.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the past week made his pitch for Britain to become a global AI center.

Dahbura said that, for France to find success, it will need to “use AI to build on the economic areas it’s already strong in,” such as manufacturing and pharmaceutical.

“It’s a key time to be strategic to identify specific areas of distinct competency and invest heavily in AI to build an edge,” Dahbura said.

French A.I. companies in focus

U.S. companies currently dominate the conversation around AI, with names such as Microsoft — which invested in OpenAI — and chipmaker Nvidia staying top of mind.

France doesn’t have an AI giant like the U.S., but wants to create two or three “big global players” in the technology, according to Macron.

it is banking on its startups to grow quickly. Underscoring the potential and hype of AI developments, four-week-old French startup Mistral AI raised 105 million euros to fund the company. A number of other local startups were showing off their wares at Viva Tech.

Global A.I. regulation in focus

Part of France’s pitch to be an A.I. hub leads on regulation around the technology.

The European Parliament greenlit the EU AI Act, a wide-sweeping first-of-its-kind regulation on artificial intelligence. It is not yet law, but, if passed, would bring a risk-based approach to regulation across the EU.

France has typically been seen as a proponent of strong regulation on technology — but it has taken issue with parts of the EU AI Act related to generative AI, the type of technology that underpins OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which it sees as too stringent.

“My worry is that in the recent past few weeks, the EU Parliament … has taken a very sort of strong stance on AI regulation, using, in some sense, this AI act as a way to try and solve too many problems at once,” Barrot, France’s digital minister, said on the provisions around generative AI.

France needs to work with the U.S. on A.I. regulation, finance minister says

France desires a global regulation on A.I., which it hopes to achieve through the G7 group that includes the U.S. and Britain, as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“From my point of view … I think we do need a regulation and all the players, even the U.S. players, agree with that. I think we need a global regulation,” Macron said.

U.S. seen as frenemy

France sees the U.S. as both a rival and an ally. French and European companies will try to compete with U.S. giants like Microsoft and Google, but Washington’s by-in is required for any kind of global regulation .

“Competition is always a good thing. So we have a very close cooperation with the U.S., but we also want to get access to our own AI intelligence and companies. So I think that having a fair competition between the U.S. and Europe and also a co-operation on some key devices is good for the U.S. and good for Europe,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, told CNBC.

“On regulation as well, I think this is absolutely vital to have an in-depth discussion with the American authorities on the best way of regulating artificial intelligence.”

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Chegg sues Google for hurting traffic with AI as it considers strategic alternatives

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Chegg sues Google for hurting traffic with AI as it considers strategic alternatives

Chegg seen at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 13, 2025. 

Danielle DeVries | CNBC

Chegg on Monday filed suit in federal district court against Google, claiming that artificial intelligence summaries of search results have hurt the online education company’s traffic and revenue.

The legal move come nearly two years after former CEO Dan Rosensweig said students engaging with OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant were cutting into Chegg’s new customer growth.

Chegg is worth less than $200 million, and in after-hours trading Monday, the stock was trading just above $1 per share. Chegg has engaged Goldman Sachs and will look at strategic options, including getting acquired and going private, President and CEO Nathan Schultz told analysts on a Monday earnings call.

Chegg reported a $6.1 million net loss on $143.5 million in fourth-quarter revenue, a 24% decline year over year, according to a statement. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $142.1 million in revenue. Management called for first-quarter revenue between $114 million and $116 million, but analysts had been targeting $138.1 million. The stock was down 23% in extended trading.

Google forces companies like Chegg to “supply our proprietary content in order to be included in Google’s search function,” said Schultz, adding that the search company uses its monopoly power, “reaping the financial benefits of Chegg’s content without having to spend a dime.”

Despite the suit, Chegg has its own AI strategy. It has drawn on Meta’s open-source Llama, as well as models from privately held Anthropic and Mistral, Schultz said. Chegg has also partnered with OpenAI, which the education company views as a competitor, alongside Google. The company reported that 3.6 million students had subscriptions in the fourth quarter, down 21%. Subscriptions include access to AI-powered learning assistance. Chegg also rents and sells textbooks.

AI Overviews, as Google’s artificial intelligence summaries are called, are available in the company’s search engine in over 100 countries, with more than 1 billion users, the company said in October. They show up above links to other pages in search results.

A Google spokesperson told CNBC that the company will defend itself against Chegg’s suit.

“Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites,” the Google spokesperson said.

Chegg claimed that Google drew on Chegg’s collection of 135 million questions and answers on a variety of subjects in its model training data sets.

After training its models, Google can generate content that competes with information that publishers have on offer in search results, Chegg argued in its complaint. The online learning company included a screenshot of a Google AI Overview that borrows details from Chegg’s website but does not attribute the information. However, the relevant Chegg page does show up lower down in search results.

Chegg cited a federal judge’s ruling last August that Google holds a monopoly in the search market. The decision came after the Department of Justice in 2020 filed its landmark case, alleging that Google controlled the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance.

WATCH: Google unrolls AI Overviews in six more countries

Google unrolls AI Overviews in six more countries

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Hims & Hers shares tumble after company misses on margin, says may stop selling some weight loss drugs

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Hims & Hers shares tumble after company misses on margin, says may stop selling some weight loss drugs

Hims & Hers Health shares plunged 18% in extended trading on Monday after investors looked past better-than-expected revenue and earnings and focused instead on the disappointing gross margin.

Here’s how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG:

  • Earnings per share: 11 cents vs. 10 cents expected
  • Revenue: $481 million vs. $470 million expected

Revenue at the telehealth company increased 95% in the fourth quarter from $246.6 million during the same period last year, according to a release.

However, the company’s gross margin, or the profit left after accounting for the cost of goods sold, was 77%, while analysts polled by StreetAccount were expecting 78.4%.

It is the second big stock drop for Hims & Hers in a matter of days. The shares tumbled 26% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.

In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster GLP-1 medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The company was a breakout star within the digital health sector in 2024, in part because of the success of its popular new weight loss offering.

The company said its GLP-1 offering generated more than $225 million in revenue in 2024. The stock climbed about 200% for the year.

Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days.

Hims & Hers said on the earnings call that as a result, compounded semaglutide will likely not be offered on the platform after the first quarter.

“We will have to start notifying customers in the coming month or two that they will need to start looking for alternative options on the commercial dosing,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum said on the call. “I would suspect, just being very direct, that a lot of those patients will try to go into the open market and try to secure a branded option in some form factor.”

Some patients might still be able to access compounded semaglutide if it is clinically necessary, the company added.

The company’s weight loss offerings will primarily be composed of its oral medications and the generic medication liraglutide, which it plans to introduce on its platform this year. Excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide, Hims & Hers said it expects it weight loss offering will generate at least $725 million in revenue in 2025.

Hims & Hers also offers treatments for skin care, mental health, sexual health and hair care.

Revenue for non-GLP-1 products increased 43% to $1.2 billion for the full year, “meeting our previous 2025 revenue target a year early,” Chief Financial Officer Yemi Okupe said in a release.

“The success we are experiencing is a direct reflection of our improving ability to democratize access to high quality, personalized care across each of our specialties,” Okupe said.

Net income climbed to $26.01 million, or 11 cents per share, from $1.25 million, or 1 cent per share, a year prior. The company reported adjusted earnings of $54.1 million, meeting analysts’ estimates, according to StreetAccount.

For the first quarter, Hims & Hers expects to report revenue of $520 million to $540 million, while analysts were expecting $497 million. Adjusted earnings will be between $55 million and $65 million for the period, the company said.  

Hims & Hers will host its quarterly call with investors at 5:00 p.m. ET.

— CNBC’s Brandon Gomez contributed to this report.

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How AI is speeding the mining of valuable metals needed to power the clean economy

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How AI is speeding the mining of valuable metals needed to power the clean economy

As the clean energy economy expands, finding the minerals and metals that power it becomes increasingly critical. The answer might lie with artificial intelligence.

Electric cars, solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells all have one thing in common: the need for precious metals.

Historically, that’s required going through the arduous process of finding the metals and then getting them out of the ground. But new technologies from a slew of companies might be changing the game.

Kobold Metals, VerAI and a startup called Earth AI are in a race to get the metals to market as soon as possible. Earth AI combines AI-powered mineral discovery software with proprietary drilling technology. Its data goes back 50 years.

“We train our AI to learn from failures and successes of decades of hundreds of geologists that explored in the past to make much better predictions for where to look for metals in the future,” said Roman Teslyuk, CEO of Earth AI.

When the system finds what it thinks are metal deposits, Earth AI can drill down to verify it in just a tennis ball-sized hole. Teslyuk said that using this mining process takes half the cost and a fraction of the amount of time that was previously required. Individual annual mine revenues can range from $50 million to $3 billion, according to Mining Data Online.

“We drill down to 2,000 feet and grab a sample of rock that has never seen light, and the metals in that rock, they can build hundreds of millions of electric cars,” Teslyuk said. “They can turn our grid renewable. This rock can get us off hydrocarbons.”

Earth AI doesn’t explore around existing mines, but finds new areas and then sells that information to mining companies.

“The market for these minerals is massive,” said Jamie Lee, managing partner at Tamarack Global, an investor in Earth AI. “The way that they have approached this really caught our attention because there’s a there is a significant moat in their business model and the way that they’ve trained their large language model.”

Other investors include Y Combinator, Cantos Ventures, Scrum Ventures, Alpaca, Sparkwave Capital and Overmatch. The company has raised a total of $38 million.

Earth AI explores on its own, as well as with partners to find deposits faster. The company recently discovered one of the largest verified deposits of palladium in Australia using AI as part of a joint venture with Legacy Minerals.

CNBC Producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.

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