AI startup Genspark raises $100 million to compete with Google, source says
By Anna Tong
(Reuters) - Search startup Genspark has raised $100 million in a series A funding round, valuing the startup at $530 million, according to a source familiar with the matter, as the race to use artificial intelligence to disrupt Google's stranglehold on the search engine market heats up.
The Palo Alto-based company currently has over 2 million monthly active users, and the round was led by a group of U.S. and Singapore-based investors, the source said.
The company raised a $60 million seed round last June. Its CEO Eric Jing led Baidu's AI-powered smartphone and smart speaker Xiaodu unit.
Genspark is one of a number of startups attempting to uproot the search engine market dominated by Alphabet's Google. AI-generated search results can offer a single answer with citations, a potential user experience improvement compared to Google's link lists.
Google itself is experimenting with AI search results, while OpenAI's ChatGPT recently integrated internet search capabilities. Another big player in the AI search space, Perplexity, has raised funds valuing it at $9 billion.
According to its blog, Genspark says it has developed a feature capable of using multiple AI models that work together to conduct in-depth research online. OpenAI, Perplexity and You.com have also released similar products.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
37 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Why Apple's stock suddenly dropped a few minutes into its WWDC keynote
Apple shares sudden dropped a few minutes into its WWDC keynote on Monday. The culprit appears to be one word: Siri. About six minutes into the presentation, Apple's stock abruptly fell more than 2.5%, from roughly $206 to below $201. That's the equivalent of $75 billion in market value. Just seconds earlier, Apple software chief Craig Federighi was on stage recapping the Apple Intelligence features the company had already rolled out in recent months, such as Genmoji, smart replies, photo cleanup tools . Then he pivoted to Siri. That's when things got awkward. "We're continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal," Federighi said. "This work needed more time to reach our high quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year." Translation: Apple's long-promised AI revamp of Siri still isn't ready. Investors probably didn't like hearing that. Wall Street has been hoping and waiting for big AI advances from Apple for about a year. Expectations were not that high that WWDC 2025 would produce massive new progress here. However, competitors such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are racing ahead, with new generative AI models, chatbot upgrades and features coming out across the industry every week. Instead, on Monday Apple reiterated its message that major AI features are still in the works. Earlier this year, Apple had to pull ads after an industry watchdog said the company's "available now" claims about Apple Intelligence. including next-gen Siri, overstated what was actually ready. The delay underscores a deeper problem: Apple has been slow to build the infrastructure and foundational models that power modern AI. Apple's old playbook was to stay quiet until everything was perfect. But in the AI arms race, waiting may not win. These days, just admitting you're not ready is sometimes enough to wipe out tens of billions in market value.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Level AI Launches Naviant: The Future of AI Virtual Agents for Customer Experience
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Level AI, a leader in customer experience AI, today announced the launch of Naviant, a next-generation AI virtual agent built to deliver truly human-like conversations and transform how organizations engage with customers. Naviant addresses a growing challenge: balancing human empathy with the efficiency of automation. Level AI has long powered industry-leading Customer Experience Intelligence and Augmentation, including Voice of the Customer (VoC), Automated QA, Screen Monitoring, and Agent Assist. With Naviant, Level AI extends its proven closed-loop CX system to AI virtual agents, ensuring consistent quality and continuous improvement across hybrid contact centers with human and AI virtual agents. "Naviant isn't just another chatbot—it's an AI virtual agent purpose-built to drive operational excellence and empathetic conversations," said Ashish Nagar, CEO of Level AI. "Level AI's core until now is deeply understanding human agent conversations, uncovering quality and CX improvement opportunities. With Naviant, we apply the same intelligence to build human-like AI agents that continuously improve through quality monitoring and continuous improvement feedback loop." Key Differentiators: AgentIQ for Actionable Automation: Naviant goes beyond simple dialogues to take real actions—like modifying orders, updating CRM records, and resolving tickets—driving over 50% better customer resolution rates. DialogIQ for Human-like Conversations: Naviant understands tone, sentiment, and context in real time, delivering emotionally aware and natural conversations that feel personal and on-brand. EnlightIQ for Continuous CX Excellence: Level AI reviews 100% of virtual agent interactions, surfacing quality insights and identifying coaching opportunities—ensuring continuous learning and higher CSAT. Fast Deployment & Customization: Naviant is quick to deploy with intuitive setup and out-of-the-box integrations—no complex coding needed. Enterprise-Ready & Secure: Multilingual support, omnichannel readiness, and robust security ensure Naviant scales globally while meeting strict compliance standards. Solving Today's CX Challenges Customer experience leaders consistently cite slow deployment, robotic conversations, and limited visibility into AI virtual agent quality as critical issues. Naviant addresses these head-on by unifying automation, analytics, and QA in a single loop—delivering high-quality, adaptable AI interactions that match your brand's tone and values. Ben Huber, a leader at Topcon shared, "We made more progress with Level AI in four weeks than we had in six months with another vendor. The experience has been stellar, and the feedback from our users has been incredible." About Level AI Level AI helps leading brands like Affirm, Penske, Vista, and Carta transform their contact centers with AI-native solutions. To see Naviant in action, request a personalized demo at Media Contact: Colm Shalvey colm@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Level AI Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
At WWDC 2025, Apple introduces an AI-powered Shortcuts app
At WWDC 2025, Apple showed off a new AI-powered Shortcuts app. The company says Shortcuts can now tap into Apple Intelligence directly, and developers will be able to access Apple's on-device large language model (LLM). With Shortcuts, users will be able to access the AI models either on device or with Private Compute to generate responses that feed into the rest of their shortcut. For instance, a student could create a shortcut that uses AI to compare their audio transcription of their class lecture to their notes, then add key points they missed. They can also tap into ChatGPT to provide further responses that feed into their shortcut's input. Users will be able to tap into intelligent actions, which are a new type of shortcut that's enabled by Apple Intelligence. For instance, there are dedicated actions like those for summarizing text with AI (Apple Intelligence's Writing Tools) or creating images with Image Playground. Apple says the new features are available for testing starting Monday. The AI-assisted Shortcuts app follows the company's announcement last year of an AI-enhanced upgrade to its virtual assistant Siri, offering more personalized features and support. However, Apple then pushed back the launch, saying it would take longer to deliver than anticipated. At WWDC 2025, the company continued to make AI promises, including the introduction of an updated version of its Shortcuts app for scripting and automation. These AI changes could make Shortcuts easier to use for the less technically inclined, who have likely avoided using the app that has so far been more a part of a power user's toolkit. For example, popular shortcuts today can help you do things like make custom memes or GIFs, create meeting notes, track time spent on certain activities, create playlists, save PDFs, find out where a photo was taken, set location-based reminders, speed dial a friend, combine screenshots, shorten URLs, download files, save items to read later, and more. The update could also work as something of a stop-gap for Apple's delays to fully upgrade Siri with AI capabilities, as leveraging AI-assisted automation could make using the iPhone at least feel more efficient. (If you're willing to put in the work around shortcut creation, that is.) This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Sign in to access your portfolio
