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In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen with a photo of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

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OpenAI on Thursday launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the high-powered artificial intelligence startup to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft‘s Bing and Perplexity.

ChatGPT search offers up-to-the-minute sports scores, stock quotes, news, weather and more, powered by real-time web search and partnerships with news and data providers, according to the company. It began beta-testing the search engine, called SearchGPT, in July.

The release could have implications for Google as the dominant search engine. 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. 

Shares of Alphabet were down about 1% following the news.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search

OpenAI

The move also positions OpenAI as more of a competitor to Microsoft and its businesses. 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.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote Thursday in a post on X that search is his “favorite feature we have launched” in ChatGPT since the chatbot’s original debut.

OpenAI says users can “search in a more natural, intuitive way” and ask follow-up questions “just like you would in a conversation.” The search model is a fine-tuned version of OpenAI’s most powerful AI model yet, GPT-4o, and is fueled in part by third-party search providers and content provided by news industry partners.

“I find it to be a way faster/easier way to get the information I’m looking for,” Altman said in a Reddit AMA on Thursday. “I think we’ll see this especially for queries that require more complex research. I also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response!”

OpenAI wrote in a Thursday blog post that it used feedback from its SearchGPT prototype to build out the feature and that it plans to “keep improving search, particularly in areas like shopping and travel, and leverage the reasoning capabilities of the OpenAI o1 series to do deeper research.”

ChatGPT will “automatically search the web based on what you ask,” according to an OpenAI blog post. Users can manually click the web search icon within ChatGPT to search if they choose.

Chats now include links to sources like articles or blog posts, which users can access by clicking the “Sources” button below the response to open a sidebar. OpenAI said it collaborated with its news partners, including The Associated Press, Reuters, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, Hearst, Dotdash Meredith, the Financial Times, News Corp., Le Monde, The Atlantic, Time and Vox Media.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search

OpenAI

All ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as members of SearchGPT’s waitlist, can access ChatGPT search starting Thursday, according to an OpenAI blog post. ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will get access in the next few weeks, and the product will roll out to users of ChatGPT’s free version “over the coming months,” per OpenAI.

OpenAI closed its latest funding round earlier this month at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and Big Tech companies. It also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.

OpenAI has in recent months experienced some controversy around its upcoming transition to a for-profit structure, as well as a string of executive departures. Jan Leike, a former safety team leader at the company, wrote on X while resigning that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at the company.

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CrowdStrike moves to dismiss Delta Air Lines suit, citing contract terms

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CrowdStrike moves to dismiss Delta Air Lines suit, citing contract terms

A Boeing 767-332(ER) from Delta Air Lines takes off from Barcelona El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain, on October 8, 2024. 

Joan Valls | Nurphoto | Getty Images

CrowdStrike moved Monday evening to dismiss Delta Air Lines’ lawsuit around the July cybersecurity outage that led to canceled flights and stranded passengers, arguing that the airline’s litigation was an attempt to circumvent the contract between the two companies.

The agreement between CrowdStrike and Delta includes a clause limiting CrowdStrike’s liability and a cap on damages, which the cybersecurity provider says Delta is now trying to skirt. CrowdStrike also argued in its filing that Georgia law prevents Delta from converting a breach of contract into tort claims.

“As an initial matter, Georgia’s economic loss rule specifically precludes Delta’s efforts to recover through tort claims the economic damages it claims to have suffered,” CrowdStrike wrote.

Delta said the July cybersecurity outage cost the company more than $500 million in canceled flights, refunds and passenger accommodations. It is seeking to recoup those costs from CrowdStrike through the suit. But the damage done to Delta’s reputation as a premium carrier can’t yet be quantified, nor has the impact of a Department of Transportation investigation into Delta over the outage.

Delta continues to rely on CrowdStrike services following the outage, likely because it is extremely difficult to change cybersecurity providers in systems as large and complicated as Delta’s. 

Still, CrowdStrike said it moved quickly to try and help Delta — offers the cybersecurity company says were rebuffed. “We are good for now,” one message from a Delta executive cited by CrowdStrike read. The cybersecurity company said its executives were in close contact on the day of the outage.

“Delta repeatedly rebuffed any assistance from CrowdStrike or its partners,” CrowdStrike wrote.

CrowdStrike further argues that Delta’s own practices and systems led to the widespread delays and cancellations, unlike other industry peers who recovered much more quickly from the outage.

“Delta was an outlier. Although Delta acknowledges that it took just hours—not days—for Delta employees to” remediate the outage, CrowdStrike wrote in its filing, “cancellations far exceeded the flight disruptions its peer airlines experienced.”

The cybersecurity company’s stock took a sharp hit after the outage, plunging 44%. It’s since largely recovered from those losses, posting strong quarterly results even after lowering its guidance due to the incident. CrowdStrike has been helped by the relative stickiness of its products, especially at large enterprises.

A Delta spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

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Dexcom’s over-the-counter glucose monitor now offers users an AI summary of how sleep, meals and more impact sugar levels

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Dexcom's over-the-counter glucose monitor now offers users an AI summary of how sleep, meals and more impact sugar levels

The Dexcom logo is seen on a smartphone screen and in the background.

Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Dexcom on Tuesday announced an artificial intelligence feature for its Stelo continuous glucose monitor that gives users a personalized look into how meals, sleep and activity impact their glucose levels. It’s the first iteration of a new generative AI platform that the company has been building with Google Cloud

Stelo is an over-the-counter CGM that pokes through the skin to measure real-time blood sugar levels. The sensor launched in August and can be used by any adult who doesn’t take insulin. 

The report reflects Dexcom’s effort to make Stelo more personalized and engaging for consumers as it works to penetrate a new market. 

“The No. 1 feedback we get is users want to see more,” Jake Leach, chief operating officer at Dexcom, told CNBC in an interview. “They’re making an investment and wearing the product, and they want to be able to take the most advantage of all the data that they’re generating.”

Dexcom is using Google’s Gemini models and its Vertex AI platform as the foundation for its new AI offering. Vertex AI allows developers to build applications that synthesize different types of data, which can be notoriously challenging in health care. 

Leach said Dexcom is also exploring how its generative AI platform can be used across its other CGM products, but the company is proceeding extra carefully since patients rely on them to prevent medical emergencies. 

“It really felt like Stelo was the right place to do this for the first time,” he said.

An existing insights report has already been available to users within the Stelo app, but it followed a more standard template format each week. Dexcom believes the AI-generated report will be more valuable to users since it’s personalized, Leach said. 

If there’s a week where a user is not moving enough after meals, for instance, the report would include relevant tips and educational materials to help. 

Stelo’s AI reports don’t give users medical advice, though Dexcom has been using an AI framework from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to help guide the feature’s development, Leach said. The FDA approved Stelo in March. 

Eventually, Dexcom wants to use its generative AI platform to deliver real-time feedback to users instead of just weekly reports. The company is also exploring how the technology could act as a predictive indicator for potential problems, much like a check engine light on a car. 

“It gives you a sense for what could be going on, and recommendations of where you might want to go to seek more advice,” Chris Sakalosky, vice president of strategic industries for Google Cloud, told CNBC in an interview.   

Dexcom’s updated weekly report began rolling out to Stelo users this week.

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Databricks announces $10 billion financing at $62 billion valuation

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Databricks announces  billion financing at  billion valuation

Close-up of Databricks company logo on building facade, Rincon Hill, San Francisco, June 7, 2024.

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Databricks, one of the most valuable privately held companies, announced a $10 billion financing on Tuesday that values the software maker at $62 billion. 

With the money, Databricks will be able to provide liquidity to current and former employees, make acquisitions, and expand overseas, according to a statement. The company’s new valuation is up from $43 billion in 2023. Rival Snowflake was worth about $57 billion at Monday’s close.

Databricks sells software for analyzing and cleaning up data, and it also runs artificial intelligence models for clients. The software is available on the Amazon, Google and Microsoft clouds, which are also competitors. 

The company expects to generate positive free cash flow for the first time with a $3 billion revenue run rate in the quarter that ends on Jan. 31, Databricks said. The company’s revenue in the October quarter grew more than 60% year over year.

Investors in the financing, of which it has raised $8.6 billion to date, include Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, GIC, Iconiq Growth, Insight Partners, MGX, Sands Capital, WCM Investment Management and Wellington Management.

Technology investors have been anticipating a Databricks initial public offering for years. They may only have to wait a few more months.

ServiceTitan, a company with software for plumbers and others working in the trades, raised about $625 million in an initial public offering last week, and some investors have predicted that tech IPOs will become more frequent again in 2025 after a relative drought since late 2021.

Databricks did not offer new information about its expectations for an IPO on Tuesday.

“If we were going to go, the earliest would be, let’s say mid next year or something like that,” Ali Ghodsi, Databricks’ co-founder and CEO, said at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit in November.

Late-stage investors with large funds don’t have many options for what to back, Ghodsi said. 

“There’s nowhere to put it, really, except maybe Databricks, Stripe or, you know, maybe OpenAI,” Ghodsi said.

Databricks made its fourth appearance on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list of private companies in 2024.

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