OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Altman delivered the keynote address at the first ever Open AI DevDay conference.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
OpenAI announced its new, more powerful GPT-4 Turbo artificial intelligence model Monday during its first in-person event, and revealed a new option that will let users create custom versions of its viral ChatGPT chatbot. It’s also cutting prices on the fees that companies and developers pay to run its software.
OpenAI’s announcements show that one of the hottest companies in tech is rapidly evolving its offerings in an effort to stay ahead of rivals like Anthropic, Google and Meta in the AI arms race. ChatGPT, which broke records as the fastest-growing consumer app in history months after its launch, now has about 100 million weekly active users, OpenAI said Monday. More than 92% of Fortune 500 companies use the platform, up from 80% in August, and they span across industries like financial services, legal applications and education, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati told reporters Monday.
The event also included a surprise appearance by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
“The systems that are needed as you aggressively push forward on your road map require us to be on the top of our game, and we intend fully to commit ourselves fully to making sure you all… have not only the best systems for training and inference, but also the most compute,” Nadella told OpenAI CEO Sam Altman while onstage together. He added, “That’s the way we’re going to make progress.”
Earlier this year, Microsoft‘s expanded investment in OpenAI — an additional $10 billion — made it the biggest AI investment of the year, according to PitchBook, and in April, the startup reportedly closed a $300 million share sale at a valuation between $27 billion and $29 billion, with investments from firms such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. As recently as last month, OpenAI was reportedly in talks to close a deal that would lead to an $80 billion valuation.
In his speech Monday, Altman said the day’s announcements came from conversations with developers about their needs over the past year. And when it comes to GPT-5, Altman told reporters, “We want to do it, but we don’t have a timeline.”
Here’s what OpenAI announced Monday:
GPT-4 Turbo
OpenAI ChatGPT
GPT-4 Turbo is the latest AI model, and it now provides answers with context up to April 2023. Prior versions were cut off at January 2022. For example, if you asked GPT-4 who won the Super Bowl in February 2022, it wouldn’t have been able to tell you. GPT-4 Turbo can.
“We are just as annoyed as all of you, probably more, that GPT’s knowledge about the world ended in 2021,” Altman said in a speech Monday.
It also accepts a lot more input. While earlier versions limited you to about 3,000 words, the GPT-4 Turbo accepts inputs of up to 300 pages in length. It means you could ask it to summarize entire books.
GPT-4 also supports DALL-E 3 AI-generated images and text-to-speech. It also has six preset voices to choose from, so you can choose to hear the answer to a query in a variety of different voices.
OpenAI said GPT-4 Turbo is available in preview for developers now and will be released to all in the coming weeks.
OpenAI said it’s also cutting the prices for developers. “GPT-4 Turbo input tokens are 3x cheaper than GPT-4 at $0.01 and output tokens are 2x cheaper at $0.03,” the company said, which means companies and developers should save more when running lots of information through the AI models.
Personalized chatbots
Personalized chatbot builder
OpenAI
Until now, ChatGPT’s enterprise and business offerings were the only way people could upload their own data to train and customize the chatbot for particular industries and use cases. Now it’s adding the option for anyone to create custom chatbots.
AI “agents” are one of the buzziest uses of the technology recently, with many startups vying to offer the kind of personalized AI tools that consumers may already be familiar with via pop culture representations, such as Tony Stark’s J.A.R.V.I.S. in Marvel movies, or Pam in Disney Channel’s Smart House.
“Anyone can easily build their own GPT—no coding is required,” the company wrote in a release. “You can make them for yourself, just for your company’s internal use, or for everyone.Creating one is as easy as starting a conversation, giving it instructions and extra knowledge, and picking what it can do, like searching the web, making images or analyzing data.”
More than two million developers building their own tools using ChatGPT’s API will also be able to customize the chatbot, meaning consumers will likely see personalized AI chatbots popping up in many more places, including apps and websites they use regularly.
Open AI’s version of the App Store
OpenAI GPT Store
OpenAI
Now that users and developers can launch their own, personalized AI chatbots, OpenAI is introducing a new revenue driver for the company: Its own version of the app store.
The GPT Store allows people who create their own GPTs to make them available for public download, and in the coming months, OpenAI said people will be able to earn money based on their creation’s usage numbers.
“Once in the store, GPTs become searchable and may climb the leaderboards,” the company wrote in a release. “We will also spotlight the most useful and delightful GPTs we come across in categories like productivity, education, and ‘just for fun.'”
As for revenue share for people who create custom chatbots featured in the store, the company will start with “just sharing a part of the subscription revenue overall,” Altman told reporters Monday. Right now, the company is planning to base the payout on active users plus category bonuses, and may support subscriptions for specific GPTs later.
“What OpenAI is really in the business of selling is intelligence — and that, and intelligent agents, is really where it will trend over time,” Altman told reporters.
New all-in-one image-generation, browsing and summarization
Until Monday, ChatGPT users had to hop between different apps and websites to use all of OpenAI’s tools, which contributed to a slightly higher learning curve. On Monday, the company announced it has streamlined its AI tools into one place: Using ChatGPT now offers image generation via DALL-E, browsing, data analysis, document upload and PDF search. Before now, Anthropic’s Claude was the only competitor chatbot to allow PDF search.
Copyright shield
As generative AI-related legal action is on the rise, Altman announced Monday that OpenAI will “step in and defend our customers” and “pay the costs incurred if you face legal claims around copyright infringement.” It echoes similar statements made by Google, Microsoft and Adobe.
Alibaba announced plans to release a pair of smart glasses powered by its AI models. The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s first foray into the smart glasses product category.
Alibaba
Alibaba on Monday unveiled a pair of smart glasses powered by its artificial intelligence models, marking the Chinese firm’s first foray into the product category.
The e-commerce giant said the Quark AI Glasses will be launched in China by the end of 2025 with hardware powered by the firm’s Qwen large language model and its advanced AI assistant called Quark.
The Hangzhou, headquartered company is one of the leaders in China’s AI space, aggressively launching new models with capabilities that compete with Western counterparts like OpenAI.
Many tech companies see wearables, specifically glasses, as the next frontier in computing alongside the smartphone. Quark, which was updated this year, is currently available as an app in China. Alibaba is stepping into the hardware game as a way to distribute the app more widely.
The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s answer to Meta’s smart glasses that were designed in collaboration with Ray-Ban. The Chinese tech giant will also now compete with Chinese consumer electronics player Xiaomi who this year released its own AI glasses.
Alibaba said its glasses will support hands-free calling, music streaming, real-time language translation, and meeting transcription. The glasses also feature a built-in camera.
Alibaba owns a range of different services in China from mapping to an online travel agent. Its affiliate company Ant Group also runs the widely-used Alipay mobile service. Alibaba said users will be able to use a navigation service via the glasses, pay with Alipay and compare prices on Taobao, its China e-commerce platform.
The firm has yet to release other details such as the price and technical specifications.
A Samsung flag flies outside the company office in Seoul, South Korea on February 05, 2024.
Chung Sung-jun | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Samsung Electronics has entered into a $16.5 billion contract for supplying semiconductors to a major company, a regulatory filing by the South Korean company showed Monday.
The memory chipmaker, which did not name the counterparty, mentioned in its filing that the effective start date of the contract was July 26, 2024 — receipt of orders — and its end date was Dec. 31, 2033.
Samsung declined to comment on details regarding the counterparty.
The company said that details of the deal, including the name of the counterparty, will not be disclosed until the end of 2033, citing a request from the second party “to protect trade secrets,” according to a Google translation of the filing in Korean.
“Since the main contents of the contract have been not been disclosed due to the need to maintain business confidentiality, investors are advised to invest carefully considering the possibility of changes or termination of the contract,” the company said. Its shares were up nearly 3% in early trading.
Local South Korean media outlets have said that American chip firm Qualcomm could potentially place an order for Samsung’s 2 nanometer chips.
While Qualcomm is a possibility, given its potential 2 nanometer project with Samsung, Tesla seems the more probable customer, Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at The Futurum Group, told CNBC
Samsung’s foundry service manufactures chips based on designs provided by other companies. It is the second largest provider of foundry services globally, behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
The company said in April that it was aiming for its foundry business to start mass production of its next-generation 2 nanometer and secure major orders for the advanced product. In semiconductor technology, smaller nanometer sizes signify more compact transistor designs, which lead to greater processing power and efficiency.
Samsung, which is set to deliver earnings on Thursday, expects its second-quarter profit to more than halve. An analyst previously told CNBC that the disappointing forecast was due to weak orders for its foundry business and as the company has struggled to capture AI demand for its memory business.
The company has fallen behind competitors SK Hynix and Micron in high-bandwidth memory chips — an advanced type of memory used in AI chipsets.
SK Hynix, the leader in HBM, has become the main supplier of these chips to American AI behemoth Nvidia. While Samsung has reportedly been working to get the latest version of its HBM chips certified by Nvidia, a report from a local outlet suggests these plans have been pushed back to at least September.
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
At Tesla, vehicle sales are slumping, profits are thinning and revenue from regulatory credit sales are poised to dry up due to Republican-led policy changes.
In the past, CEO Elon Musk’s futuristic promises have convinced investors to look past top and bottom line numbers.
Not now.
Following another fairly dismal earnings report this week, Musk told analysts on the call that Tesla’s electric vehicles will soon become driverless, making money for owners while they sleep. He also said Tesla’s robotaxi service, which the company recently started testing in a limited capacity in Austin, Texas, will expand to other states, with a goal of being able to reach half the U.S. population by year-end, “assuming we have regulatory approvals.”
It didn’t matter.
Tesla shares plummeted 8% on Thursday as investors focused on the immediate challenges facing the company, including the rapid rise of lower-cost EV competitors, particularly in China, and a political backlash against Musk that harmed Tesla’s brand in the U.S. and Europe.
Automotive sales declined 16% year-over-year in the second quarter for the EV maker, with weak sales numbers continuing in Europe and California. Musk said there could be a “few rough quarters” ahead because of the EV credits expiring and President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The stock bounced back some on Friday, gaining 3.5%, but still ended the week down and has now fallen 22% this year, the worst performance among tech’s megacaps. The Nasdaq rose 1% for the week and is up more than 9% in 2025, closing at a record on Friday.
“Look, we love robotaxis. And robots,” wrote analysts at Canaccord Genuity, who recommend buying Tesla’s stock, in a note after the earnings report. “Over time, Tesla is well positioned to benefit from these future-forward opportunities.”
The analysts, however, said that they’re focused on the profit and loss statement, writing: “But we love growth too, in the here and now. We need the P&L dynamics to turn.”
Analysts at Jefferies described the earnings update as “a bit dull.” And Goldman Sachs said Tesla’s robotaxi effort is “still small” with limited technical data points.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who has previously called himself “pathologically optimistic,” has been able to sway shareholders and send the stock soaring at times with promises of self-driving cars, humanoid robots and more affordable EVs.
But after a decade of missed self-imposed deadlines on autonomous driving, Wall Street is watching Tesla fall behind Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China.
In Tesla’s shareholder deck, the company said the second quarter marked the start of its “transition from leading the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries to also becoming a leader in AI, robotics and related services.” The company didn’t offer any new guidance for growth or profits for the year ahead.
Regulatory hurdles
Business Insider reported on Friday that Tesla told staff its robotaxi service could launch in the San Francisco Bay Area as soon as this weekend.
But Tesla hasn’t applied for permits that would be required to run a driverless ridehailing service in California, CNBC confirmed. The company would first need authorizations from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
The CPUC told CNBC on Friday, that under existing permits, Tesla can only operate a human-driven chartered vehicle service, not carry passengers in robotaxis.
Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, on May 30, 2025.
Daniel Cole | Reuters
On the earnings call, Musk and other Tesla execs claimed the company was working on regulatory approvals to launch in Nevada, Arizona, Florida and other markets, in addition to San Francisco, but offered no details about what would be required.
Within Austin, the company said its robotaxi service had driven 7,000 miles, and that Tesla has been restricting its robotaxis’ to roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour. The Austin service involves a small fleet of about 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles equipped with the company’s latest self-driving systems.
The Tesla robotaxis rely on remote supervision by employees in a customer service center, and a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat, ready to intervene if needed.
Compare that to what Alphabet said on its second-quarter earnings call the same day as Tesla’s results.
“The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, and the team is testing across more than 10 cities this year, including New York and Philadelphia,” Alphabet said. Meanwhile, Waymo has become significant enough that Alphabet added a category to its Other Bets revenue description in its latest quarterly filing.
“Revenues from Other Bets are generated primarily from the sale of autonomous transportation services, healthcare-related services and internet services,” the filing said. The Other Bets segment remains relatively small, with revenue coming in at $373 million in the quarter.
Regardless of investor skepticism, Musk is more bullish than ever.
On Friday, the world’s richest person posted on his social network X that he thinks Tesla will someday be worth $20 trillion. On the earnings call earlier in the week, he said that when it comes to AI for cars and robots, “Tesla is actually much better than Google by far” and “much better than anyone at real world AI.”
CORRECTION: The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, according to Alphabet. A previous version misstated the number of miles.