AI Market News: Amazon Backs Anthropic Again, Databricks' LLM and More

Here's the latest news on artificial intelligence — just for you:

Amazon Investing $2.75B More in Anthropic

Seattle-based Amazon is investing an additional $2.75 billion in the San Francisco-based AI company Anthropic, the maker of Claude foundation models and the chatbot Claude. Amazon’s investment in Anthropic now totals $4 billion, following a $1.25-billion investment last fall. Amazon says various customers, such as ADP, Genesys and Siemens, are using Claude models through Amazon Bedrock, its platform to build GenAI apps with various foundation models.

Databricks Releases Open-Source DBRX LLM

The San Francisco-based data and AI company Databricks launched DBRX, a general, open-source LLM that it claims “outperforms all established open-source models on standard benchmarks.” DBRX is designed for companies to build and train custom LLMs. Databricks is seeing a trend among customers: they’re replacing proprietary models with open-source models, said Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO, Databricks.

Meta Cautions US on Restricting AI

Menlo Park, California-based Meta tells the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration that a “restrictive approach” to sharing AI models could allow foreign technology to “become the global norm,” according to Bloomberg. Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, reportedly argued for open-sourcing models.

Visa Expands AI Capabilities

Visa added AI-powered risk and fraud prevention offerings for companies to its Visa Protect suite. The offerings are designed to reduce fraud across transactions on and off Visa’s network as well as immediate account-to-account and card-not-present (CNP) payments. AI is “essential” in the “era of modern commerce,” said Antony Cahill, global head of value-added services, Visa.

Google Testing GenAI Images to Help Shoppers

Google is introducing an experimental generative AI feature for search users with specific shopping requirements. After a user inputs their query, they can tap “Generate images” to see an image of their vision. The user can then click the image and scroll to see options for sale. The feature is available to users in the U.S. who have opted into Search Generative Experience within Search Labs.

See more: 10 Top AI Companies Defining the Market

AI Blockchain Partners Form Artificial Superintelligence Alliance

The AI blockchain partners SingularityNET, a decentralized AI network, Fetch.ai, an AI platform, and Ocean Protocol, a decentralized data exchange platform, launched the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. The partners say the alliance creates an open-source, decentralized network through a “multi-billion token merger.” The crypto tokens FET, OCEAN and AGIX will be merged into a single ASI token that will function across the combined network.

US Treasury Publishes Report on AI Cybersecurity Risks in Finance

The U.S. Department of the Treasury released the report “Managing Artificial Intelligence-Specific Cybersecurity Risks in the Financial Services Sector.” The report identifies “significant opportunities and challenges that AI presents to the security and resiliency of the financial services sector.” The 52-page report outlines various steps to address AI-related operational risk, cybersecurity and fraud.

NTIA Calls for Audits of AI Systems

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is calling for independent audits of “high-risk” AI systems in its “AI Accountability Policy Report.” The policy recommendation is one of eight in the 43-page report related to guidance, support and regulation.

Observe Closes $115M Round

San Mateo, California-based Observe, an observability company for machine-generated data, closed its $115-million Series B financing round, including participation from Snowflake Ventures. Observe, founded in 2017, plans to expand its market presence in North America. The company names Snowflake, VMware and Nasdaq as users.

Hume AI Raises $50M

New York-based Hume AI, an AI company focused on human well-being, secured $50 million in Series B financing. Hume AI, founded in 2021, will use the funds to continue developing its “emotionally intelligent” Empathetic Voice Interface API, which it released in beta. The “empathetic” LLM behind the API is trained on millions of human interactions, according to the company.

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