In August, Google hired executives and engineers from artificial intelligence (AI) startup Character AI. In June, Amazon did the same with recruits from Adept AI. And in March, Microsoft had already caused a stir by taking over part of the Inflection AI team, including its co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, a former DeepMind employee. However, this company had been created just two years earlier to compete with the chatbot ChatGPT and was valued at $4 billion (3.6 billion euros), after having raised 1.3 billion in capital. These poachings were felt throughout the sector and were seen as a sign of the economic pressure to which, after a period of euphoria, young AI companies are now subjected, in the United States or Europe.
“Often AI startups spend a lot and can survive a year or two at most without raising funds”explained, at the beginning of September, Clément Delangue, co-founder of Hugging Face, in an interview with World. “I think that[en 2024] We are going to see more attention on the profitability of AI startups.”added the general director of this platform for publishing AI tools and models, stating that he was contacted every week “ten start-ups” wishing “to be redeemed”.
The sky has darkened somewhat since some have deplored the existence of a speculative bubble in generative AI, which allows texts, images or sounds to be generated and processed. “Generative AI: Too much expense for too little benefit?” investment bank Goldman Sachs asked in June. The cost of computing to train and operate AI, as well as the persistence of errors in its responses, raise questions about the pace of its implementation in companies.
Major investments
In addition, start-ups, often manufacturers of AI models or services, also have to deal with digital giants – both partners and competitors: Through their cloud business services subsidiaries (dematerialized IT), they provide start-ups with computer calculations and distribute their models. In addition, Google, Microsoft or Meta can implement AI assistants in their own smartphones, search engines, social networks or office software.
Even the company behind ChatGPT, a leader in the sector, is raising doubts. “How can OpenAI survive?”, asked, in July, in a provocative post, AI communicator and critical essayist Ed Zitron, doubting the possibilities of “to make profitable” the company. According to the media The information, OpenAI’s revenues have doubled in a year and are now over $3 billion a year. But its deficit is $5 billion, due in particular to the $4 billion paid to its partner Microsoft for computing. Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI, but the start-up is reportedly trying to raise more than $5 billion, which would value it at $150 billion, according to the American press.
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