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Google on Thursday announced a major rebrand of Bard, its artificial intelligence chatbot and assistant, including a fresh app and subscription options. Bard, a chief competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is now called Gemini, the same name as the suite of AI models that power the chatbot.

Google also announced new ways for consumers to access the AI tool: As of Thursday, Android users can download a new dedicated Android app for Gemini, and iPhone users can use Gemini within the Google app on iOS.

Google’s rebrand and app offerings underline the company’s commitment to pursuing — and investing heavily in — AI assistants or agents, a term often used to describe tools ranging from chatbots to coding assistants and other productivity tools.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the firm’s commitment to AI during the company’s Jan. 30 earnings call. Pichai said he eventually wants to offer an AI agent that can complete more and more tasks on a user’s behalf, including within Google Search, although he said there is “a lot of execution ahead.” Likewise, chief executives at tech giants from Microsoft to Amazon underlined their commitment to building AI agents as productivity tools.

Google’s Gemini changes are a first step to “building a true AI assistant,” Sissie Hsiao, a vice president at Google and general manager for Google Assistant and Bard, told reporters on a call Wednesday.

Google on Thursday also announced a new AI subscription option, for power users who want access to Gemini Ultra 1.0, Google’s most powerful AI model. Access costs $19.99 per month through Google One, the company’s paid storage offering. For existing Google One subscribers, that price includes the storage plans they may already be paying for. There’s also a two-month free trial available.

Thursday’s rollouts are available to users in more than 150 countries and territories, but they’re restricted to the English language for now. Google plans to expand language offerings to include Japanese and Korean soon, as well as other languages.

The Bard rebrand also affects Duet AI, Google’s former name for the “packaged AI agents” within Google Workspace and Google Cloud, which are designed to boost productivity and complete simple tasks for client companies including Wayfair, GE, Spotify and Pfizer. The tools will now be known as Gemini for Workspace and Gemini for Google Cloud.

Google One subscribers who pay for the AI ​​subscription will also have access to Gemini’s assistant capabilities in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet, executives told reporters Wednesday. Google hopes to incorporate more context into Gemini from users’ content in Gmail, Docs and Drive. For example, if you were responding to a long email thread, suggested responses would eventually take in context from both earlier messages in the thread and potentially relevant files in Google Drive.

As for the reason for the broad name change? Google’s Hsiao told reporters Wednesday that it’s about helping users understand that they’re interacting directly with the AI ​​models that underpin the chatbot.

“Bard [was] the way to talk to our cutting-edge models, and Gemini is our cutting-edge models,” Hsiao said.

Eventually, AI agents could potentially schedule a group hangout by scanning everyone’s calendar to make sure there are no conflicts, book travel and activities, buy presents for loved ones or perform a specific job function such as outbound sales. Currently, though, the tools, including Gemini, are largely limited to tasks such as summarizing, generating to-do lists or helping to write code.

“We will again use generative AI there, particularly with our most advanced models and Bard,” Pichai said on the Jan. 30 earnings call, speaking about Google Assistant and Search. That “allows us to act more like an agent over time, if I were to think about the future and maybe go beyond answers and follow-through for users even more.”

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Super Micro hires new auditor to maintain Nasdaq listing; shares pop 23%

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Super Micro hires new auditor to maintain Nasdaq listing; shares pop 23%

Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7. 

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Embattled server maker Super Micro Computer said on Monday that it’s hired BDO as its new auditor and submitted a plan to Nasdaq detailing its efforts to regain compliance with the exchange. The shares jumped 23% in extended trading.

“This is an important next step to bring our financial statements current, an effort we are pursuing with both diligence and urgency,” Super Micro CEO Charles Liang said in a statement.

Super Micro is late in filing its 2024 year-end report with the SEC, and said earlier this month that it was looking for a new accountant after its previous auditor, Ernst & Young, stepped down in October. Ernst & Young was new to the job, having just replaced Deloitte & Touche as Super Micro’s accounting firm in March 2023.

Super Micro said it told Nasdaq that it believes it will be able to file its annual report for the year ended June 30, and quarterly report for the period ended Sept. 30. The company said it will remain listed on the Nasdaq pending the exchange’s “review of the compliance plan.”

Shares of Super Micro soared more than twentyfold over a two year period from early 2022 until their peak in March of this year. But the stock has been hammered on troubling news about its compliance with Nasdaq. Once valued at about $70 billion, the company’s market cap was at $12.6 billion at the close on Monday, following a 16% rally during regular trading.

Super Micro has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom, due to its relationship with Nvidia. Sales last fiscal year more than doubled to $15 billion.

On Monday, Super Micro announced that it was selling products featuring Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip called Blackwell. The company competes with vendors like Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in packaging up Nvidia AI chips for other companies to access.

Super Micro was added to the S&P 500 in March, reflecting its rapidly growing business and then-soaring stock price. Less than two weeks after the index changes were announced, Super Micro reached its closing high of $118.81.

The troubles began within months. In August, Super Micro said it wouldn’t file its annual report with the SEC on time. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company, and said in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was at the early stages of a probe into the company.

The month after announcing its report delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq, indicating that the delay in the filing of its annual report meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline was Monday.

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Canva hires former Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg to run finance ahead of expected IPO

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Canva hires former Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg to run finance ahead of expected IPO

Kelly Steckelberg attends an Evening from the Heart LA 2022 Gala hosted by the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health at Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys, California, on May 5, 2022.

Araya Doheny | Getty Images

Canva, a high-valued design software startup that competes with Adobe, said Monday that it hired Kelly Steckelberg as its chief financial officer, five years after she helped take Zoom public and then guided the company through its Covid-19 pandemic surge.

Founded in 2013, Canva was valued recently at $32 billion, a drop from its peak of $40 billion in 2021.

“Kelly’s impressive track record as a strong leader and strategic thinker, combined with her proven expertise in scaling enterprise companies, make her the perfect addition to our leadership bench,” Canva said in an emailed statement.

Canva is generating about $2.5 billion in annualized revenue and boasts 220 million monthly users. The company is widely viewed as a top initial public offering candidate for venture-backed tech companies after a historically slow period for new offerings dating back to early 2022.

On Monday, ServiceTitan, which sells software for the trades, filed to list on the Nasdaq. Cerebras, a maker of artificial intelligence chips, has been on file since late September, and online lender Klarna said last week that it has confidentially filed its IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Canva spokesperson declined to comment on the startup’s timeline for an IPO.

Steckelberg held financial positions at Cisco and was CEO of online dating company Zoosk before joining Zoom in 2017. Steckelberg is based in Austin, Texas, while Canva has its headquarters in Sydney, Australia.

Zoom went public with Steckelberg’s help in 2019. The video-chat company saw its market cap soar to upward of $160 billion in October 2020, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, as users working from home swarmed to the app. Zoom has since lost more than 85% of its value.

Steckelberg announced her departure from Zoom in August after seven years at the company. Last month, former Microsoft executive Michelle Chang replaced Steckelberg as Zoom’s CFO.

Canva’s previous finance chief Damien Singh resigned in February after the company said it was conducting an internal investigation surrounding inappropriate behavior.

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Cloud software company ServiceTitan files to go public on Nasdaq

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Cloud software company ServiceTitan files to go public on Nasdaq

ServiceTitan offices in Draper, Utah.

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ServiceTitan, a company that sells software to contractors such as plumbers and roofers, on Monday filed to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “TTAN.”

The filing suggests that investors could be getting more interested in next-generation software companies. Just a few, including Reddit and Rubrik, debuted on public markets in the U.S. this year, and chipmaker Cerebras filed for an initial public offering. There were basically no tech initial public offerings in 2021 or 2022 as central bankers pushed up interest rates to flight inflation, making investors less willing to bet on money-losing challengers.

Based in Glendale, California, ServiceTitan offers cloud software for advertising, scheduling jobs, dispatching, producing invoices and taking payments. It had a $35.7 million net loss on $193 million in revenue in the quarter that ended on July 31, according to the filing. Revenue was up about 24% year over year, and the quarterly loss had narrowed from almost $52 million.

ServiceTitan’s revenue growth rate will stand out for people investing in cloud stocks, who have seen rates sag with few new public companies in the sector. The average growth rate for Bessemer’s Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index, the basis for the WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, is 16.6%.

The company was originally founded in 2007 by Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan, whose fathers were both residential contractors. While most ServiceTitan customers are small and medium-sized businesses, it has started focusing more on selling products to big companies and construction customers, according to the filing.

ServiceTitan plans to keep up to 5% of shares in the IPO for eligible clients, the founders’ friends and family members and others through a directed share program.

Investors include Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Iconiq and TPG. Iconiq on its own controlled 24% of the compan’s Class A shares.

Competitors include Salesforce and SAP, along with specialty companies such as HouseCall Pro, Jobber and Workwave.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup are among the company’s IPO underwriters.

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