AI levels playing field for startups, Big Tech in Asia

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Baidu Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are all sprinting to get ahead in the race to create the world’s best chatbot, and yet, the one that sparked this global frenzy was a startup.

OpenAI is now very well funded, courtesy of a $10 billion commitment from Microsoft, but it does suggest that the moment we’re in harbors opportunity for the little guys.

The biggest challenge with artificial intelligence today is how to best use it, and startups will always have the advantage of being able to experiment more freely. Google’s ChatGPT rival, Bard, cost the company $120 billion in market value overnight after the machine made a mistake during a public demonstration.

Entrepreneurs in China and India said tech giants will have to work in tandem with startups to win the race. The former has the huge computational power and proprietary data troves needed to make a chatbot sound intelligent — and the other has the agency to try bold, and potentially foolish, things.

One example is Urvin Soneta’s Synth AI Labs Inc., an Indian startup whose software transcribes and summarizes audio conversations for corporate customers. Soneta, 26, said small companies can own a niche and don’t have to go after a giant market from the start like a big tech company does.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Baidu Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are all sprinting to get ahead in the race to create the world’s best chatbot, and yet, the one that sparked this global frenzy was a startup.

OpenAI is now very well funded, courtesy of a $10 billion commitment from Microsoft, but it does suggest that the moment we’re in harbors opportunity for the little guys.

The biggest challenge with artificial intelligence today is how to best use it, and startups will always have the advantage of being able to experiment more freely. Google’s ChatGPT rival, Bard, cost the company $120 billion in market value overnight after the machine made a mistake during a public demonstration.

Entrepreneurs in China and India said tech giants will have to work in tandem with startups to win the race. The former has the huge computational power and proprietary data troves needed to make a chatbot sound intelligent — and the other has the agency to try bold, and potentially foolish, things.

One example is Urvin Soneta’s Synth AI Labs Inc., an Indian startup whose software transcribes and summarizes audio conversations for corporate customers. Soneta, 26, said small companies can own a niche and don’t have to go after a giant market from the start like a big tech company does. Bloomberg