AI Market News: World Leaders Issue 'Seoul Declaration,' Microsoft's AI Plays at Build 2024 and More

1. World Leaders Issue 'Seoul Declaration' for Safe AI

At the AI Seoul Summit, global leaders issued the “Seoul Declaration” for “safe, innovative and inclusive” AI. The declaration affirms their “common dedication to fostering international cooperation and dialogue” on AI in the face of its “unprecedented advancements” and impact on economies and societies. The representatives are from around the world: Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S.

2. Microsoft Advances AI at Build 2024

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft made around 60 announcements, many tied to AI, at its Build 2024 conference for developers: related to its Azure cloud computing; Copilot AI assistant line; Edge browser; 365 productivity software; Power Platform low-code line; and Windows operating system. Microsoft says it is committed to equipping users with the tools “they need to flourish in these revolutionary AI times.”

3. Meta Forms AI Product Advisory Council

Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg created a product advisory council to provide guidance to the company’s management team on AI and other technologies, according to Bloomberg. The Meta Advisory Group will reportedly include four executives: Stripe Co-Founder and CEO Patrick Collison; former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman; Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke; and Charlie Songhurst, an investor and former Microsoft executive. The council members won’t be paid.

4. TikTok Unveils TikTok Symphony

TikTok introduced TikTok Symphony, a creative AI suite that’s designed to combine “human imagination with AI-powered efficiency” to help marketers scale content development, creativity and productivity on TikTok. The suite is set up to make tasks, such as writing a script and producing a video, “simple.” The company says it is inviting brands to “come test and learn with us.”

5. Council of the EU Gives Final Approval of AI Act

The Council of the EU gave the “final green light” to the EU AI act. The council says the act follows a risk-based approach — and the“higher the risk to cause harm to society, the stricter the rules.” The council believes the law, which includes several new governing bodies and fines, can “set a global standard for AI regulation.”

6. Microsoft AI CEO: AI Could Help Create 'Next 1,000 Einsteins'

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, described that if AI provides “super high-quality personalized information” and “support and kindness” to everyone, it can help society produce the “next 1,000 Einsteins that help us unlock all of our biggest social challenges that we’re facing in climate, food, health care, education and so on for the next century,” according to VentureBeat. Suleyman made the comments in an interview with Microsoft Chief Communications Officer Frank Shaw before Build 2024. He added that he’s been focused on creating “emotionally intelligent” experiences with AI tools.

See more: AI Market News: Windows PCs, OpenAI's Sky Voice and More

7. Scale AI Raises $1B

San Francisco-based Scale AI, a data platform provider for ML development, closed a $1-billion Series F financing round, including participation by NVIDIA, Amazon and Meta. The company says the round gives it a $13.8-billion valuation. Scale AI, founded in 2016, plans to accelerate the “abundance of frontier data that will pave our road to AGI.” The company names Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta as users.

8. G42 and Microsoft Leading $1B Investment in Kenya

U.A.E.-based G42, an AI firm, Microsoft and other stakeholders will lead “the arrangement” of an initial investment of $1 billion in a digital ecosystem in Kenya. The initiative will include a data center built by G42 and its partners to run Microsoft Azure, local language AI model R&D and AI skills training as well as launching the East Africa Innovation Lab to help develop and implement AI. The investment is expected to support economic development across east Africa.

9. Adobe Releases Express for Enterprise

San Jose, California-based Adobe, a digital experience company, introduced Adobe Express for Enterprise, an AI platform designed to help companies accelerate marketing content creation and extend content production to other departments. The platform is powered by Adobe Firefly Image Model 3. It is also integrated with several other Adobe products.

10. Meta Team Introduces Chameleon Family of Models

A group of Meta researchers shared a 27-page research paper to present Chameleon, a family of early fusion, token-based mixed-modal models designed to understand and generate images and text in “any arbitrary sequence.” The team outlines model training, alignment and architectural parameterization. They report Chameleon achieves "strong performance across a wide range of vision-language benchmarks.”

11. DeepL Nets $300M

Cologne, Germany-based DeepL, a language AI company, secured $300 million in its latest financing round. The company says the round gives it a $2-billion valuation. DeepL, founded in 2017, plans to invest in research and product innovation, global market expansion and talent recruitment in several areas, including AI research, product, engineering and go to market. The company names Zendesk, Nikkei and Coursera as users.

12. French Startup H Secures $220M

The French AI model company H, formerly Holistic AI, raised $220 million in “initial” financing, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly plans to produce models capable of “reasoning, planning and performing complex tasks.” The team includes French scientists who worked at Google DeepMind.

13. Suno Lands $125M

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Suno, an AI music company, received $125 million in financing. Suno, founded in 2022, will use the funds to accelerate product development and grow its team. Some of the company’s team previously worked at Meta, TikTok and Kensho.

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