Latest news with #CLIP
New Indian Express
9 hours ago
- Business
- New Indian Express
'AI models can hallucinate or misfire'
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers immense potential, but it's not without challenges. Mohit Saxena, Co-Founder & CTO, InMobi & Glance told TNIE that there's the critical need for human oversight and that AI models can hallucinate or misfire, and in today's sensitive digital climate, ensuring responsible output is essential. 'We're investing in rigorous moderation infrastructure and developing new governance frameworks to mitigate these risks,' he said. He added that deep AI expertise is scarce. 'While surface-level applications like RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) are becoming common, true innovation requires depth in data science, ML infrastructure, and systems thinking—talent that's still hard to find.' But our global presence in Bengaluru, San Francisco, and the UK gives us broader access to specialised talent pools, the co-founder said. Talking about other key challenges, he said that AI infrastructure is expensive. Running advanced models at scale demands significant compute and energy. 'Our approach is rooted in frugality—we optimize model usage, leverage pre-processing, explore alternatives like TPUs (Tensor Processing Unit), and work closely with partners like Google to get the most out of every dollar,' he said. InMobi views AI not just as a tool, but as a foundational shift and its roadmap over the next one to three years is anchored in three key areas. 'First, we are reimagining engineering productivity with AI—helping experienced engineers scale faster and empowering fresh talent to leapfrog traditional learning curves. AI is now embedded into every aspect of how we build—whether it's writing code, improving observability, or boosting efficiency,' he said. 'Second, we are building intelligent automation into our core business processes—moving from simple scripting to AI agents that can deconstruct complex workflows, predict outcomes, and take action. This isn't just automation; it's autonomous decision-making at scale. Third, we're embracing the rise of agentic architecture—where agents talk to agents, not APIs (Application Programming Interface), to get work done. This is the future of system communication, and are actively developing for it,' he further said. InMobi is setting up a dedicated unit to track and accelerate engineering efficiency with AI, with a goal to complete most of the foundational work by year-end. The company is leveraging AI to generate high-impact formats—ranging from image-based ads to audio creatives—enabling brands to engage users across multiple touchpoints. It also uses AI to generate and summarize content at scale. In the visual content space, he said the company is leveraging Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) to bridge the gap between AI-generated creativity and real-world commerce through its Glance AI product. 'By using CLIP, we're able to understand and interpret AI-generated fashion looks—essentially decoding the visual style and identifying apparel elements within the image. These elements are then matched to real products from our extensive catalogue of brand and retail partners,' he explained. Even before the LLM (large language model) wave, the company has been leveraging AI for content generation at Glance. 'We're onboarding fresh engineering talent through structured bootcamps where AI adoption starts from day one—including access to AI assistants and hands-on experience with applied ML tools. Simultaneously, we're deepening our bench strength by hiring top-tier data scientists—we've onboarded over 50 employees in the past year alone, across domains like LLMs, DNNs (Deep Neural Networks), and imaging. We're also shifting our hiring lens—prioritising engineers with a strong aptitude in data science and statistical thinking. Our aim is that 80% of our workforce, both new and existing, to be highly AI- and ML-savvy in the next 1–2 years,' the co-founder and CTO informed.
Globe and Mail
23-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Clip Money Inc. Reports First Quarter 2025 Results
TORONTO, May 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clip Money Inc. (TSX-V: CLIP) (OTCQB: CLPMF) (' Clip Money ' or the 'Company '), a company that operates a multi-bank self-service deposit system for businesses, is pleased to announce its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2025. The Company reported continued revenue growth in the first quarter of 2025, up 225% from Q1 2024, while cost of revenues were up only 35% during the same time period, maintaining high operating leverage into the new year. First Quarter Financial 2025 Highlights: Revenue for the first quarter of 2025 (' Q1 2025 ') was $972,706, compared to $299,176 in the first quarter of 2024 (' Q1 2024 '), which equates to 225% growth year-over-year (' YoY '). Q1 2025 revenue was down 16% quarter-over-quarter (' QoQ ') compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 (' Q4 2024 '), which was a function of Q4 seasonality from holiday shopping. Excluding the impact of seasonality, revenue grew 11% QoQ. Revenue growth continues to outpace changes in Costs of Revenue (' COR '). Q1 2025 COR of $1,009,557 was up 35% YoY, relative to 225% YoY revenue growth. YoY revenue growth for Q1 2025 was driven by a 153% increase in new deposit users, and a 10% increase in average monthly deposit revenue per user. Deposit revenue growth was supported by contribution from new products, namely revenue from Change Orders and implementation fees. New product revenue represented 22% of total revenue in Q1 2025 compared to 9% in Q1 2024. Operating expenses for Q1 2025 were $1,832,196, compared to $1,680,477 in Q1 2024, which represents a 9% YoY increase. Q1 2025 operating expenses were 8% higher QoQ compared to Q4 2024. Net loss for Q1 2025 was $2,280,281, compared to $2,397,212 in Q1 2024, which represents an improvement of 5% YoY. On February 24, 2025, the Company closed a non-brokered private placement of an unsecured convertible note for aggregate gross proceeds of $2,000,000 from Cardtronics Inc., a subsidiary of NCR Atleos Corporation. Network & Customer Highlights: Clip Money grew its leading shopping center network to 473 ClipDrop deposit units in Q1 2024, adding 29 additional shopping center locations in the quarter. Continued organic growth from existing customers led to 401 new users in the quarter. Existing customers drove immediate adoption at newly deployed mall locations. In addition, we welcomed several new retailers to the growing Clip customer base this quarter, including Pop Mart, Squishable, Spring Step Shoes, and Go Retail. Clip has been laying the groundwork for a major expansion of our U.S. business deposit network. In partnership with Green Dot, Clip will launch ClipCenter in Q2, adding over 4,000 over-the-counter deposit locations to complement our existing ClipDrop and Clip ATM footprint. This expansion supports our strategic goal of building the largest and most convenient business deposit network in the U.S.—a valuable utility for financial institutions, fintech's and businesses alike. Additional launch details will be shared in the weeks ahead. 'We are pleased with our Q1 results, which position Clip for continued growth through 2025. The ongoing addition of store locations by our largest customers underscores our commitment to delivering value and reliable, differentiated service in a category that has long been underserved. We also achieved a key strategic milestone this quarter with the expansion of our network through a partnership with Green Dot. This partnership will add more than 4,000 over-the-counter deposit locations at major big-box retail stores, significantly enhancing the scale, convenience and capacity of the Clip Network. We believe this expansion further strengthens our value proposition to financial institutions, fintech's and businesses nationwide. ' Joseph Arrage (CEO & Co-Founder) Corporate Update The Company also announces that the board of directors has approved the grant of an aggregate of 965,000 restricted share units (the ' RSUs ') and 27,500 options (the ' Options ', and together with the RSUs, the ' Awards ') to acquire common shares of the Company to certain directors, executives and employees of the Company to recognize their performance in 2024. The Awards will be issued on May 27, 2025. All of the RSUs to be awarded to directors will vest 12 months after the date of the grant, and all of the RSUs to be awarded to executives and employees will vest over three years, with one-third vesting every 12 months after the date of the grant. The Options will have a three-year vesting period, with an exercise price equal to the closing market price of Clip Money's common shares on May 26, 2025, and will expire 10 years from the date of the grant. The RSUs and Options will be governed by the terms of the Company's amended and restated omnibus equity incentive plan, under which an aggregate of 10,516,419 Common Shares are issuable. Additional Information The Company's interim condensed consolidated financial statements, notes to financial statements, and management's discussion and analysis for the three months ended March 31, 2025 are available on the Company's SEDAR+ profile at Unless otherwise indicated, all references to '$' in this press release refer to U.S. dollars. Forward‐Looking Statements This news release may contain forward‐looking statements (within the meaning of applicable securities laws) which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "believe", "anticipate", "project", "expect", "intend", "plan", "will", "may", "estimate" and other similar expressions. These statements are based on the Company's expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections and include, without limitation, statements regarding the future success of the Company's business. The forward-looking statements in this news release are based on certain assumptions. The forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Readers, therefore, should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Further, these forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and, except as expressly required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. About Clip Money Inc. Clip operates a multi-bank self-service deposit system for businesses through the Clip Money network that gives users the capability of making deposits outside of their bank branch at top retailers and shopping malls. Rather than having to go to their personal bank branch or using a cash pickup service, businesses can deposit their cash at any ClipDrop Box or ClipATM located near them. After being deposited, the funds will automatically be credited to the business' bank account, usually within one business day. The Company combines functional hardware, an intuitive mobile app and an innovative cloud-based transaction engine that maximizes business-banking transactions. Combined with mobile user applications, Clip offers a cost-effective and convenient solution for business banking deposits in metropolitan statistical areas across Canada and the United States. For more information about the Company, visit For further information, please contact:
Business Recorder
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
CLIP launched to accelerate homegrown climate tech solutions in Pakistan
KARACHI: In the face of escalating climate threats, Renewables First and New Energy Nexus have jointly launched Climate Innovation Pakistan (CLIP), a first-of-its-kind national platform dedicated to accelerating homegrown climate tech solutions. Pakistan ranks high amongst the most vulnerable countries to climate change, despite contributing less than 0.9% to global greenhouse gas emissions. The groundbreaking ceremony at the National Incubation Centre marks a significant milestone in addressing this existential climate challenge through technology driven solutions. The collaboration introduces two key components: a Climate Tech Incubator by Renewables First featuring a tailored curriculum for early-stage climate ventures, and a New Energy Academy established by New Energy Nexus to upskill the solar industry workforce. The discussion underscored the urgent need for specialized incubation programs and targeted capacity-building curricula, supported by a balanced mix of global and local subject matter experts and experienced founders. With the right policy environment in place, Pakistan's climate tech ecosystem stands at a pivotal juncture, presenting a ripe opportunity for disruption, innovation, and long-term impact. Muhammad Bilal Abbasi, General Manager Ignite Funds praised the initiative, noting that 'CLIP, not only adds value to the existing ecosystem but also helps to strengthen Pakistan's economy,' while affirming that Ignite's own Incubator will complement CLIP's work. Stanley Ng, Global Partnerships Director at New Energy Nexus highlighted the organization's global footprint and extensive experience sharing in the South Asian region. He elaborated on the idea of New Energy Academy and how it serves the solar workforce of Pakistan. Aafaq Ali, Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Solar Association, endorsed the collaboration as 'a very timely initiative,' emphasizing the urgent need for improved solar installation quality across the country. Ahtasam Ahmad from Renewables First presented his whitepaper 'Pakistan's Climate Tech Opportunity,' outlining both challenges and untapped potential within the nation's evolving startup ecosystem, while identifying implementation roadmap to scale the nascent vertical. The launch event featured an interesting panel discussion titled 'The Role of Ecosystem Support Organizations (ESOs) in building an investable climate tech pipeline'. All panelists agreed that impact investment offers the most viable path forward for innovation in climate tech in Pakistan, but unlocking it requires stronger collaboration between public and private actors, greater alignment between academia and industry, and tailored support for early-stage startups. Sayyed Ahmad Masood echoed similar views, emphasizing that 'a one-size-fits-all approach is not viable anymore.' He noted that incubators are now increasingly shifting toward customized support models, where programs are tailored to the specific needs, stages, and contexts of individual founders and startups. Shehryar Hyderi commented that 'Pakistan is still experiencing a funding drought,' but he anticipated that the post 2025 period could usher in a period of micro-recovery for the startup space with climate tech being a promising sector. Merai Syed emphasized that the support ecosystem has not kept pace with the sector's needs, pointing out a critical gap between available resources and the actual requirements of climate tech ventures. She stressed that academic institutions must undergo a mindset shift, embracing change, adaptation, and greater alignment with real-world climate challenges to effectively nurture innovation. On gender inclusion, Zainab Saeed highlighted that despite structural challenges, the climate tech space holds immense untapped potential for women-led ventures. She stressed that unlocking this potential will require ecosystem support organizations (ESOs) to play a more intentional role in de-risking investments for female founders. This includes not only providing tailored mentorship and capital access, but also addressing the deeper systemic barriers, such as gendered perceptions of risk and limited visibility, that continue to sideline women in tech-driven innovation spaces. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Business Recorder
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
CLIP launched to accelerate homegrown climate tech solutions
KARACHI: In the face of escalating climate threats, Renewables First and New Energy Nexus have jointly launched Climate Innovation Pakistan (CLIP), a first-of-its-kind national platform dedicated to accelerating homegrown climate tech solutions. Pakistan ranks high amongst the most vulnerable countries to climate change, despite contributing less than 0.9% to global greenhouse gas emissions. The groundbreaking ceremony at the National Incubation Centre marks a significant milestone in addressing this existential climate challenge through technology driven solutions. The collaboration introduces two key components: a Climate Tech Incubator by Renewables First featuring a tailored curriculum for early-stage climate ventures, and a New Energy Academy established by New Energy Nexus to upskill the solar industry workforce. The discussion underscored the urgent need for specialized incubation programs and targeted capacity-building curricula, supported by a balanced mix of global and local subject matter experts and experienced founders. With the right policy environment in place, Pakistan's climate tech ecosystem stands at a pivotal juncture, presenting a ripe opportunity for disruption, innovation, and long-term impact. Muhammad Bilal Abbasi, General Manager Ignite Funds praised the initiative, noting that 'CLIP, not only adds value to the existing ecosystem but also helps to strengthen Pakistan's economy,' while affirming that Ignite's own Incubator will complement CLIP's work. Stanley Ng, Global Partnerships Director at New Energy Nexus highlighted the organization's global footprint and extensive experience sharing in the South Asian region. He elaborated on the idea of New Energy Academy and how it serves the solar workforce of Pakistan. Aafaq Ali, Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Solar Association, endorsed the collaboration as 'a very timely initiative,' emphasizing the urgent need for improved solar installation quality across the country. Ahtasam Ahmad from Renewables First presented his whitepaper 'Pakistan's Climate Tech Opportunity,' outlining both challenges and untapped potential within the nation's evolving startup ecosystem, while identifying implementation roadmap to scale the nascent vertical. The launch event featured an interesting panel discussion titled 'The Role of Ecosystem Support Organizations (ESOs) in building an investable climate tech pipeline'. All panelists agreed that impact investment offers the most viable path forward for innovation in climate tech in Pakistan, but unlocking it requires stronger collaboration between public and private actors, greater alignment between academia and industry, and tailored support for early-stage startups. Sayyed Ahmad Masood echoed similar views, emphasizing that 'a one-size-fits-all approach is not viable anymore.' He noted that incubators are now increasingly shifting toward customized support models, where programs are tailored to the specific needs, stages, and contexts of individual founders and startups. Shehryar Hyderi commented that 'Pakistan is still experiencing a funding drought,' but he anticipated that the post 2025 period could usher in a period of micro-recovery for the startup space with climate tech being a promising sector. Merai Syed emphasized that the support ecosystem has not kept pace with the sector's needs, pointing out a critical gap between available resources and the actual requirements of climate tech ventures. She stressed that academic institutions must undergo a mindset shift, embracing change, adaptation, and greater alignment with real-world climate challenges to effectively nurture innovation. On gender inclusion, Zainab Saeed highlighted that despite structural challenges, the climate tech space holds immense untapped potential for women-led ventures. She stressed that unlocking this potential will require ecosystem support organizations (ESOs) to play a more intentional role in de-risking investments for female founders. This includes not only providing tailored mentorship and capital access, but also addressing the deeper systemic barriers, such as gendered perceptions of risk and limited visibility, that continue to sideline women in tech-driven innovation spaces. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Forbes
25-04-2025
- Forbes
Synthetic Minds: How AI Is Creating Its Own Reality Without Consciousness
Gowtham Chilakapati is a Director at Humana. He is an expert in enterprise data and AI systems with a focus on real-time analytics. getty As a technologist specializing in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) models and AI-driven decision systems, I have observed a critical paradox: AI models are now capable of constructing coherent realities that mimic human perception, yet they remain fundamentally unconscious and unaware of the realities they generate. From my experience developing AI-driven assistants and enterprise automation solutions, I have witnessed firsthand how AI systems synthesize multi-modal data, hallucinate responses and simulate intelligence, often convincing enough to be mistaken for true cognition. Let's explore whether these synthetic minds actually perceive the world they build or if they are simply statistical illusionists. Throughout my career working with enterprise AI systems, one of the biggest challenges has been ensuring AI-generated insights are grounded in reality rather than fabricated extrapolations. Unlike human cognition, which derives meaning from lived experiences and sensory interaction, AI constructs reality by assembling fragmented data into a probabilistic representation. Multi-modal AI models—such as OpenAI's CLIP, Google's Gemini and Meta's SeamlessM4T—combine text, images and even audio to create internally consistent narratives. However, their perception is hollow—they recognize patterns but lack intentionality or subjective awareness. For instance, when I worked on streamlining real-time AI-driven customer interactions, I found that AI-generated responses were convincing but often lacked deeper contextual awareness. The model could mimic human dialogue patterns but failed to recognize emotional subtleties or unspoken intent, making its responses feel robotic despite their surface-level coherence. A major pitfall in AI-driven analytics is hallucination—the phenomenon where models generate plausible but false information. I encountered this while developing fraud detection algorithms for financial services, where AI models often flagged non-existent risks based on overfitting historical anomalies, rather than true emergent fraud patterns. Hallucinations are a form of synthetic reality construction, where AI fills gaps in its data with statistically likely but fabricated content. However, there is a fundamental distinction between AI hallucination and human imagination: • Human imagination is rooted in emotions, past experiences and abstract reasoning. • AI hallucination is driven by probabilistic associations without underlying comprehension. This difference became clear when working with AI-powered knowledge retrieval systems. The AI-generated reports looked factually sound, yet deeper inspection revealed inconsistencies due to missing context. AI's ability to generate a convincing but flawed version of reality makes it an impressive tool—but also a dangerous one when unchecked. One of the most fascinating applications I've worked on is decision intelligence AI—systems that provide strategic insights to executives by analyzing vast amounts of structured and unstructured data. The challenge is that while AI can make incredibly sophisticated correlations, it lacks strategic intent and adaptive reasoning. For example, in portfolio management automation, I saw AI models predict market trends with high accuracy. Yet, when faced with unprecedented economic events, they failed to reassess core assumptions—an ability that defines true human strategic thinking. The AI was unable to redefine its own reality the way humans do in response to new paradigms. If AI is to move beyond being a synthetic illusionist into something more autonomous and self-aware, it will likely require an embodied cognition framework. This means AI must: • Interact physically with the real world (beyond data streams and simulations). • Develop self-referential memory that shapes future decisions (instead of just iterative tuning). • Recognize the implications of its outputs beyond pattern matching. In my experience developing AI-powered automation, I have seen that true decision making requires more than just data synthesis—it demands an understanding of cause and effect, moral weight and subjective valuation. Current AI lacks this awareness, meaning that while it can construct compelling versions of reality, it cannot truly perceive them. As AI continues to advance, the lines between statistical simulation and synthetic cognition will blur even further. However, AI remains a reflection of human intelligence rather than an independent entity. It builds synthetic realities, but it does not live within them. My work in AI deployment for finance, healthcare and enterprise automation has reinforced a crucial truth: AI amplifies human decision making, but it does not replace the intuitive, strategic and morally grounded perception of reality that humans possess. While AI will continue to generate highly complex synthetic minds, true cognitive perception remains a uniquely human frontier. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
