Connect with us

Published

on

X CEO Elon Musk leaves a U.S. Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 13, 2023.

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

The U.K. kicks off its landmark artificial intelligence summit on Wednesday, with political leaders and bosses of top AI firms gathering to hash out international agreement on how to address safe and responsible development of the rapidly advancing technology.

The two-day summit, which takes place on Nov. 1-2 at Bletchley Park, the iconic home of Britain’s World War II codebreakers, hosts government officials and companies from around the world, including the U.S. and China, two superpowers in the race to develop cutting-edge AI technologies.

It is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s chance to make a statement to the world on the U.K.’s role in the global conversation surrounding AI, and how the technology should be regulated. Ever since the introduction of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the race toward the regulation of AI globally has intensified.

Here’s who’s going

Major names in the technology and political world will be there. They range from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose private jet landed in the U.K. late Tuesday, to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk is attending on behalf of his AI startup xAI.

You can watch the biggest talks and speeches from the summit live here.

Here are the biggest names in tech and politics set to visit on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the full list of attendees and CNBC reporting:

  • Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk
  • Microsoft President Brad Smith
  • Google Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis
  • Meta AI chief Yann LeCun and President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg
  • Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky
  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
  • Anthropic CEO Dario AmodeiRE
  • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
  • Arm CEO Rene Haas
  • IBM Senior Vice President Dario Gil
  • Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustaffson
  • Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi
  • Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
  • Samsung Chief Technology Officer Cheun Kyung-whoon
  • Palantir CEO Alex Karp

Executives from South Korean electronics giant Sony and Chinese technology Alibaba and Tencent are also expected in attendance.

Who won’t be there?

Several leaders have declined to attend the summit and are instead sending representatives.

French President Emmanuel Macron.

Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images

They include:

  • U.S. President Joe Biden
  • Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
  • French President Emmanuel Macron
  • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

When asked whether Sunak feels snubbed by his international counterparts, his spokesperson told reporters Monday, “No, not at all.”

What the summit seeks to address

The main objective of the U.K. AI summit is to find some level of international coordination when it comes to agreeing some principles on the ethical and responsible development of AI models.

The summit is squarely focused on so-called “frontier AI” models — in other words, the advanced large language models, or LLMs, like those developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere.

It will look to address two key categories of risk when it comes to AI: misuse and loss of control.

Misuse risks involve a bad actor being aided by new AI capabilities. For example, a cybercriminal could use AI to develop a new type of malware that cannot be detected by security researchers, or be used to help state actors develop dangerous bioweapons.

Loss of control risks refer to a situation in which the AI that humans create could be turned against them. This could “emerge from advanced systems that we would seek to be aligned with our values and intentions,” the government said.

Will it succeed?

Sunak is walking a tightrope, as he seeks to boost investment from large tech firms in the U.K., while also convincing civil society groups that he is paying enough attention to the labor displacement risks posed by AI.

Of particular concern is the potential for the technology to replace — or undermine — human intelligence.

Ahead of the summit, more than 100 organizations, including the Trades Union Congress, Connected by Data and Open Rights Group signed a letter to the PM warning that the summit is a “closed door event” that is dominated by Big Tech firms and has “squeezed out” small businesses and artists.

These companies were not invited to attend.

Findings from a survey conducted by the Data and Marketing Association recently found that 43% of small and medium-sized enterprises don’t plan to innovate with AI in the next 12 months due to safety concerns.

Rachel Aldighieri, managing director of the DMA said that “actual uptake and usage of AI is still quite low” among members of the trade association.

“Even beyond SMEs, talking to big brands — banks and travel companies — they are seeing a lot of access to AI tools is still cut off because of you know, they want to mitigate risk,” Aldighieri told CNBC via phone on Tuesday.

Continue Reading

Technology

How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

Published

on

By

How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

Continue Reading

Technology

Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

Published

on

By

Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Technology

Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Published

on

By

Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

Read more CNBC tech news

Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Trending