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It’s a first for the annual CNBC Disruptor 50 list: a company landing at No. 1 for the second year in a row.

Perhaps no surprise, that company is OpenAI. More than any other startup in the 12-year history of the Disruptor 50 list, OpenAI’s disruptive impact and potential is unparalleled.

What’s distinct about the company and the AI revolution it’s leading is that OpenAI is not working in opposition to incumbents but rather as a partner to tech giants and other large corporations. It’s serving as an ally to help navigate and implement unprecedented changes, with new tools that can be customized for consumers and enterprise data sets.

OpenAI is not unique, but rather, represents a generation of AI startups that are aligned with the giants because of the compute power, and the massive funding, required to accelerate artificial intelligence learning. In fact, 34 of this year’s Disruptor 50 companies describe AI as critically important to more than half of their revenue. Thirteen say that it is generative AI, specifically, that is critically important to the majority of sales.

More coverage of the 2024 CNBC Disruptor 50

OpenAI topped the list for an unprecedented second year due to the company’s ongoing pace of innovation. In the past year, OpenAI has grown dramatically, announcing a range of new products and services related to its GPT large language model and business partnerships, as its consumer subscription option and a range of enterprise licensing deals have helped it generate a reported $2 billion in annual revenue.

On Monday, OpenAI launched a new AI model and desktop version of ChatGPT, along with an updated user interface. In a livestream event, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said the new model, GPT-4o, is “much faster,” with improved capabilities in text, video and audio. “This is the first time that we are really making a huge step forward when it comes to the ease of use,” Murati said.

After a dramatic boardroom battle in November, in which CEO Sam Altman was ousted and then just a few days later brought back after outrage from investors and employees, the company strengthened its board and management structure, with Altman himself rejoining the board in March. The scramble to rehire Altman and his team revealed the depth of corporate and venture capital support for the OpenAI CEO as an innovator and leader.

Then in February, the company debuted its text-to-video generator Sora (later in the year, an audio AI, Voice Engine, was also unveiled in a limited test) and it completed a funding round that valued the company at a reported $80 billion, up from a reported $29 billion at the time it was named No. 1 on the Disruptor 50 list in 2023.

OpenAI's Brad Lightcap on new content tool, copyright claims and AI outlook

Altman has positioned himself as a thought leader in terms of AI regulation, after testifying last year before Congress about the need for smart and careful AI guardrails. And the company is at the center of a maelstrom of concern about artificial intelligence. OpenAI is the focus of regulatory scrutiny, with the FTC probing whether it broke consumer protection laws and the SEC looking at whether, during Altman’s brief ouster, investors were misled. Meanwhile, the company has beefed up its legal team as it fights a range of lawsuits, from publishing companies, including The New York Times, and individual artists, such as author Jodi Picoult, suing over copyright violation.

But at the same time, OpenAI has struck new deals with IAC’s publisher Meredith, parent of Food & Wine and People, and the Financial Times, to compensate them for the use of their IP, and to drive traffic back to their content.

AI’s wave extends to many industries

This wave of AI innovation echoes that of the rise of the internet around the turn of the century, and mobile and cloud revolutions, but has some distinct characteristics. The current wave of AI disruptors, such as Databricks (No. 5 on this year’s list), Anthropic (No. 7), Scale AI (No. 12), Cohere (No. 30), AlphaSense (No. 40) and Glean (No. 43) is marked by a rapid pace of change, with the progress made every year by large language models, as well as by their reliance on costly chips and infrastructure.

Unlike the founded-in-a-garage mythology that dominated the Googles and PayPals of prior tech cycles, these AI-driven companies need GPUs and data centers, which has led most of them to partner with giants ranging from Microsoft and Nvidia to Oracle, Salesforce, Amazon and Alphabet. As a result we may not see as many new entrants into the AI sector as so-called Web 1.0 and 2.0, but the companies that do succeed, like those on our Disruptor 50 list, have the potential to be far more impactful and disruptive.

This year’s Disruptor 50 companies are using AI — and other key technologies, such as robotics and the cloud — across a wide range of industries. 

Enterprise tech is the best-represented sector, with 14 companies on this year’s list, including Databricks and AlphaSense, which are using AI to drive efficiencies and better mine data across key industries like finance.

Fintech is the second-best represented sector, with 10 companies on this year’s list, including Brex (No. 4), Chime (No. 22) and Ramp (No. 32), which have integrated AI assistants to streamline consumer interactions, generate suggestions and advise on efficient corporate budgeting.

In the health-care and biotech space, there are eight companies, including ElevateBio (No. 8), Generate Biomedicines (No. 25) and Spring Health (No. 45), using AI to accelerate drug development and improve patient outcomes.

And we’re seeing AI power the aerospace and defense industry. No. 2 on the list, Anduril, recently introduced new AI-powered drones, and uses an AI-powered operating system to infuse autonomy into a range of defense and security systems.

Just as every company, regardless of its industry, has become a tech company, pretty soon, every type of company will integrate AI.

The 2024 CNBC Disruptor 50: OpenAI becomes first back-to-back No. 1 company

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Etsy touts ‘shopping domestically’ as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

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Etsy touts 'shopping domestically' as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Etsy is trying to make it easier for shoppers to purchase products from local merchants and avoid the extra cost of imports as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs raise concerns about soaring prices.

In a post to Etsy’s website on Thursday, CEO Josh Silverman said the company is “surfacing new ways for buyers to discover businesses in their countries” via shopping pages and by featuring local sellers on its website and app.

“While we continue to nurture and enable cross-border trade on Etsy, we understand that people are increasingly interested in shopping domestically,” Silverman said.

Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers with mostly artisanal and handcrafted goods. The site, which had 5.6 million active sellers as of the end of December, competes with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon, as well as newer entrants that have ties to China like Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop.

By highlighting local sellers, Etsy could relieve some shoppers from having to pay higher prices induced by President Trump’s widespread tariffs on trade partners. Trump has imposed tariffs on most foreign countries, with China facing a rate of 145%, and other nations facing 10% rates after he instituted a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations. Trump also signed an executive order that will end the de minimis provision, a loophole for low-value shipments often used by online businesses, on May 2.

Temu and Shein have already announced they plan to raise prices late next week in response to the tariffs. Sellers on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, many of whom source their products from China, have said they’re considering raising prices.

Silverman said Etsy has provided guidance for its sellers to help them “run their businesses with as little disruption as possible” in the wake of tariffs and changes to the de minimis exemption.

Before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs took effect, Silverman said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in late February that he expects Etsy to benefit from the tariffs and de minimis restrictions because it “has much less dependence on products coming in from China.”

“We’re doing whatever work we can do to anticipate and prepare for come what may,” Silverman said at the time. “In general, though, I think Etsy will be more resilient than many of our competitors in these situations.”

Still, American shoppers may face higher prices on Etsy as U.S. businesses that source their products or components from China pass some of those costs on to consumers.

Etsy shares are down 17% this year, slightly more than the Nasdaq.

WATCH: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says sellers will pass cost of tariffs on to consumers

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: Sellers will pass increased tariff costs on to consumers

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Google’s antitrust woes are continuing to mount, just as the company tries to brace for a future dominated by artificial intelligence.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers.

The ruling, which followed a September trial in Alexandria, Virginia, represents a second major antitrust blow for Google in under a year. In August, a judge determined the company has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. 

Google is in a particularly precarious spot as it tries to simultaneously defend its primary business in court while fending off an onslaught of new competition due to the emergence of generative AI, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which offers users alternative ways to search for information. Revenue growth has cooled in recent years, and Google also now faces the added potential of a slowdown in ad spending due to economic concerns from President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.

Parent company Alphabet reports first-quarter results next week. Alphabet’s stock price dipped more than 1% on Thursday and is now down 20% this year.

Why Google's antitrust woes endangers its AI momentum

In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google’s anticompetitive practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users on the web. The trial featured 39 live witnesses, depositions from an additional 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google unlawfully controls two of the three parts of the advertising technology market: the publisher ad server market and ad exchange market. Brinkema dismissed the third part of the case, determining that tools used for general display advertising can’t clearly be defined as Google’s own market. In particular, the judge cited the purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld and said the government failed to show those “acquisitions were anticompetitive.”

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president or regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release from the DOJ that the ruling represents a “landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.”

Potential ad disruption

If regulators force the company to divest parts of the ad-tech business, as the Justice Department has requested, it could open up opportunities for smaller players and other competitors to fill the void and snap up valuable market share. Amazon has been growing its ad business in recent years.

Meanwhile, Google is still defending itself against claims that its search has acted as a monopoly by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. Google said in August, immediately after the search case ruling, that it would appeal, meaning the matter can play out in court for years even after the remedies are determined.

The remedies trial, which will lay out the consequences, begins next week. The Justice Department is aiming for a break up of Google’s Chrome browser and eliminating exclusive agreements, like its deal with Apple for search on iPhones. The judge is expected to make the ruling by August.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) listen as U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with American and Indian business leaders in the East Room of the White House on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

After the ad market ruling on Thursday, Gartner’s Andrew Frank said Google’s “conflicts of interest” are apparent by how the market runs.

“The structure has been decades in the making,” Frank said, adding that “untangling that would be a significant challenge, particularly since lawyers don’t tend to be system architects.”

However, the uncertainty that comes with a potentially years-long appeals process means many publishers and advertisers will be waiting to see how things shake out before making any big decisions given how much they rely on Google’s technology.

“Google will have incentives to encourage more competition possibly by loosening certain restrictions on certain media it controls, YouTube being one of them,” Frank said. “Those kind of incentives may create opportunities for other publishers or ad tech players.”

A date for the remedies trial hasn’t been set.

Damian Rollison, senior director of market insights for marketing platform Soci, said the revenue hit from the ad market case could be more dramatic than the impact from the search case.

“The company stands to lose a lot more in material terms if its ad business, long its main source of revenue, is broken up,” Rollison said in an email. “Whereas divisions like Chrome are more strategically important.”

WATCH: U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad-tech monopolies

U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad tech monopolies

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

Jason Citron, CEO of Discord in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The New Jersey attorney general sued Discord on Thursday, alleging that the company misled consumers about child safety features on the gaming-centric social messaging app.

The lawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court by Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state’s division of consumer affairs, alleges that Discord violated the state’s consumer fraud laws.

Discord did so, the complaint said, by allegedly “misleading children and parents from New Jersey” about safety features, “obscuring” the risks children face on the platform and failing to enforce its minimum age requirement.

“Discord’s strategy of employing difficult to navigate and ambiguous safety settings to lull parents and children into a false sense of safety, when Discord knew well that children on the Application were being targeted and exploited, are unconscionable and/or abusive commercial acts or practices,” lawyers wrote in the legal filing.

They alleged that Discord’s acts and practices were “offensive to public policy.”

A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company disputes the allegations and that it is “proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer.”

“Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today,” the spokesperson said.

One of the lawsuit’s allegations centers around Discord’s age-verification process, which the plaintiffs believe is flawed, writing that children under thirteen can easily lie about their age to bypass the app’s minimum age requirement.

The lawsuit also alleges that Discord misled parents to believe that its so-called Safe Direct Messaging feature “was designed to automatically scan and delete all private messages containing explicit media content.” The lawyers claim that Discord misrepresented the efficacy of that safety tool.

“By default, direct messages between ‘friends’ were not scanned at all,” the complaint stated. “But even when Safe Direct Messaging filters were enabled, children were still exposed to child sexual abuse material, videos depicting violence or terror, and other harmful content.”

The New Jersey attorney general is seeking unspecified civil penalties against Discord, according to the complaint.

The filing marks the latest lawsuit brought by various state attorneys general around the country against social media companies.

In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of over 40 state attorneys general sued Meta over allegations that the company knowingly implemented addictive features across apps like Facebook and Instagram that harm the mental well being of children and young adults.

The New Mexico attorney general sued Snap in Sep. 2024 over allegations that Snapchat’s design features have made it easy for predators to easily target children through sextortion schemes.

The following month, a bipartisan group of over a dozen state attorneys general filed lawsuits against TikTok over allegations that the app misleads consumers that its safe for children. In one particular lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia’s attorney general, lawyers allege that the ByteDance-owned app maintains a virtual currency that “substantially harms children” and a  livestreaming feature that “exploits them financially.”

In January 2024, executives from Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X were grilled by lawmakers during a senate hearing over allegations that the companies failed to protect children on their respective social media platforms.

WATCH: The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta.

The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta: Former Facebook general counsel

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