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DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at a 2017 event in China.

Source: Alphabet

Alphabet‘s AI lab, DeepMind, cut employee costs by 39% last year, according to a recent filing with a U.K. government agency.

For the 2022 financial year, staff costs and other related expenses were 594.5 million pounds (nearly $731 million), down from 969.4 million pounds (nearly $1.2 billion) in 2021 — translating to an almost 39% reduction in employee costs, per the filing. Following those cuts, in January, DeepMind announced it would shutter its first-ever international artificial intelligence research office in Edmonton, Canada. 

DeepMind’s staff budget cuts occurred during the tech industry’s self-proclaimed “year of efficiency,” and Alphabet itself helped lead the charge. In September 2022, CEO Sundar Pichai announced plans to “make the company 20% more productive,” and over the past year Alphabet has conducted mass layoffs, slowed hiring, cut travel and entertainment budgets, paused construction on at least one office campus and reduced investment for experimental projects such as its Area 120 tech incubator.

Following DeepMind’s employee cost cuts in 2022, Alphabet executives discussed plans to allocate resources to key revenue drivers, such as AI, on its first-quarter earnings call of 2023. But part of that decision was bringing AI-focused groups Google Brain and DeepMind under one umbrella with “pooled computational resources.” 

“Beginning in the second quarter of 2023, the costs associated with teams and activities transferred from Google Research will move from Google Services to Google DeepMind within Alphabet’s unallocated corporate costs,” Pichai said during a spring earnings call. 

DeepMind’s 2022 profit was about 60.9 million pounds (nearly $74.9 million), down from 102.4 million pounds (nearly $126 million) in 2021 — a decrease of more than 40%. 

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Epic Systems sued by CureIS Healthcare for alleged ‘scheme to destroy’ its business

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A sign that reads “Epic Intergalactic Headquarters” on campus.

Epic Systems

CureIS Healthcare, a managed care services company, filed a civil lawsuit against Epic Systems on Monday night, alleging the electronic health record, or EHR, giant has carried out a “multi-prong scheme to destroy” CureIS’ business.

CureIS offers technology and managed services for government programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and other state health initiatives. In a 40-page complaint that was made public on Tuesday, CureIS claims Epic has interfered with its customer relationships, blocked access to necessary data and raised unfounded security concerns, among other anticompetitive practices.

Epic, the leader in the EHR market, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The lawsuit is the latest legal battle facing Epic, which houses medical records for about 280 million patients in the U.S. and offers other health-care tools. Data startup Particle Health filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in September, alleging Epic has used its dominance in the EHR space to stifle competition in other markets that use that data. 

“Particle’s claims are baseless,” Epic told CNBC in a statement at the time.

CureIS’ suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The company is being represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, the same firm that is representing Particle.

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Fintech company Chime files for Nasdaq IPO

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Fintech company Chime files for Nasdaq IPO

Pavlo Gonchar | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Financial technology company Chime on Tuesday filed paperwork to go public on the Nasdaq. The company intends to file under the ticker symbol “CHYM.”

“Chime is a technology company, not a bank,” the company said in its prospectus, noting it’s not a member of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Still, the company cited Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank and Wells Fargo as competitors.

Most of Chime’s new members who arrange for direct deposit previously did direct deposit elsewhere, “most commonly with large incumbent banks,” the company said.

According to the filing, Chime picks up revenue from interchange fees associated with purchases that members make with Chime debit cards and credit cards. Banks collect interchange fees, which are generally a percentage of the transaction value, plus a set amount for each transaction depending on the rates determined by card networks such as Visa. The banks then pass money on to Chime.

In the March quarter, Chime generated $12.4 million in net income on $518.7 million in revenue. Revenue grew 32%. At the end of March, Chime had 8.6 million active members, up about 23% year over year. Average revenue per active member, at $251, was up from $231. It has members in all 50 states, and 55% of them female. The average member age is 36.

Around two-thirds of members look to Chime for their “primary financial relationship,” Chime said. The term refers to those who made at least 15 purchases using its card or received a qualifying direct deposit of at least $200 in the past calendar month.

Chime offers a slew of other services in addition to its cards. Eligible members with direct deposit can borrow up to $500 with a fixed interest rate of $5 for every $100 borrowed. The company doesn’t charge late fees or compound interest.

Following an extended drought, IPOs looked poised for a rebound when President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. CoreWeave’s March debut provided some momentum. But Trump’s tariff announcement in April roiled the market and led companies including Chime as well as trading platform eToro, online lender Klarna and ticket marketplace StubHub to delay their plans.

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EToro is now scheduled to debut this week, and digital health company Hinge Health issued its pricing range for its IPO on Tuesday, win an expected offering coming soon. Chime’s public filing is the latest sign that emerging tech companies are preparing to test the market’s appetite for risk. Last month Figma said it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering.

Chris Britt, Chime’s co-founder and CEO, told CNBC in 2020 that it would be ready for an IPO within the next 12 months. But in late 2021 markets turned negative on technology as inflation picked up, prompting central bankers to ratchet up interest rates.

Chime was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, with 1,465 employees. It ranked 22nd on CNBC’s 2024 Disruptor 50 list of privately held companies.

Investors include Crosslink Capital, DST Global, General Atlantic, Iconic Strategic Partners and Menlo Ventures.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

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Google is testing AI search on its homepage

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Google is testing AI search on its homepage

Visual China Group | Getty Images

Google‘s stalwart search button has a new neighbor: AI Mode.

The artificial intelligence feature is being tested directly beneath the Google search bar beside a “Google Search” button, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget. The new feature, though not widely available yet, is being tested in a location where Google rarely makes changes.

A company spokesperson confirmed the feature began rolling out to some users over the last week.

The spokesperson said the company tests many experiments with its users of “Labs,” Google’s experimental unit that tests new features for those who opt-in. They added that tested products don’t always go on to launch broadly.

The latest feature test shows Google is considering using its most valuable real estate to expose users to its AI technology as it continues to be under pressure to compete in generative AI-driven search.

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Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Alphabet investors have been concerned that OpenAI could take market share from Google in search by giving consumers new ways to seek information online. 

In October, OpenAI pushed further and launched “ChatGPT search,” positioning the company to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Microsoft has invested close to $14 billion in OpenAI, yet OpenAI’s products directly compete with Microsoft’s AI and search tools, such as Copilot and Bing.

Though the company’s flagship AI product Gemini has shown equal or better performance than top competition, it has been trying to grow its user base to compete with ChatGPT.

Google’s Gemini AI product has 35 million daily active users, according to a recent Google analysis revealed during an antitrust court session in April. That was compared to ChatGPT’s estimated 160 million daily active users, the analysis stated.

Google is testing using “AI Mode” on its most valuable real estate: It’s home webpage.

The Alphabet-owned company began testing home page designs internally in 2023, CNBC first reported. At the time, one potential design showed the home search page offering five different prompts for potential questions placed beneath the main search bar, replacing the current “I’m feeling lucky” bar. It also tested a small chat logo inside the far right end of the search bar.

Google in March announced it would be testing “AI Mode” for select users, however the description showed it would be testing the widget on Google’s results page — not its home page. In its March announcement, the company billed it as an early experiment in Labs to do “more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities so you can get help with even your toughest questions.”

The company this week launched an investment fund called “AI Futures Fund,” aimed at investing in AI startups. The company said eligible startups would have early access to its AI models.

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