Latest news with #KorayKavukcuoglu
CNBC
23-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Alphabet to report Q2 earnings after the bell
Alphabet is set to report its second-quarter earnings after the bell Wednesday. Here's what analysts polled by LSEG are expecting: Wall Street is also watching these numbers in the report: Alphabet is among the megacaps expected to be a major driver of earnings growth during the second-quarter earnings season. Wall Street is anticipating the search giant to report a 10.9% increase in revenue and 15% growth in earnings per share. Shares of Alphabet haven't moved much this year, lagging the other Magnificent Seven stocks and the S&P 500. Investors are primarily concerned about the rise of artificial intelligence chatbots, which could impact Google's ability to remain competitive in search. During the second quarter, the search giant rolled out a number of new AI products. At its annual Google I/O conference in May, Google announced a new subscription tier, called "Google AI Ultra," that offers access to the company's "cutting edge" AI features for $249.99 per month. Google also unveiled its return to the smart glasses market with a $150 million partnership with Warby Parker — the two companies said they plan to launch a series of smart glasses as soon as next year. Google in May also announced a venture fund to invest in AI startups. As part of the "AI Futures Fund," eligible startups will receive Google investment, early access to AI models, and hands-on support from Google researchers, engineers and go-to-market specialists. They also get credits to use on Google Cloud. Additionally in May, Google began testing the placement of its "AI Mode" product on its home page, directly beneath the Google search. Earlier this month, OpenAI added Google to its list of suppliers, saying it expects to use the search company's cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT service. The announcement represented a win for Google, whose cloud unit is younger and smaller than those of Amazon and Microsoft. Google made a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing it would bring in Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and other top researchers at the artificial intelligence coding startup as part of a $2.4 billion deal that also includes licensing the company's technology. Internally, Google also made a number of personnel changes during the quarter. The company added the new role of chief AI architect when it elevated Koray Kavukcuoglu from his position as Google DeepMind's chief technology officer in June. Google also made more workforce reductions by offering buyouts to U.S.-based employees across several of its divisions, including search, ads and commerce. Alphabet made several strides with Waymo, its self-driving car unit, during the quarter. Waymo reached 100 million "real world, fully autonomous miles" driven on public roads, the company said last week. Waymo also announced expansions into new markets. In June, Waymo announced plans to drive vehicles manually in New York, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. In July, the company said it will do limited testing in Philadelphia and it began offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17, starting in Phoenix. The company also endured some less-flattering optics during the quarter. In June, Google's cloud suffered significant global outages knocking down or disrupting dozens of large internet services, including OpenAI and Shopify, among others.
Miami Herald
15-07-2025
- Miami Herald
Meta delivers eye-popping AI announcement
Catastrophic forgetting. Don't worry. I am not talking about politics. Catastrophic forgetting is a "lovely" feature of deep neural networks. They overwrite old knowledge when learning new things. There are different ways to mitigate this, but the problem persists. If this problem were solved, we wouldn't have new papers with new mitigation methods. The most recent one is from July 11, titled "Catastrophic Forgetting Mitigation Through Plateau Phase Activity Profiling." Science still doesn't know how human memory works. I don't even need to discuss different theories about how memories are "stored" in the brain to prove my point. Related: Microsoft wants to help you live longer Quote from a study, Beyond the Pump: A Narrative Study Exploring Heart Memory, should be enough: "Studies indicate that heart transplant recipients may exhibit preferences, emotions, and memories resembling those of the donors, suggesting a form of memory storage within the transplanted organ." What is the next big advancement for AI, artificial hearts? I've already written that there is no intelligence without consciousness, and you can't get consciousness by "building" intelligence. It does not work that way. Alas, I have to admit, forgetting is something that Homo sapiens does have in common with neural networks. Humans forget things too quickly. This is why our civilization works the way it does. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate "AI". Google's DeepMind is doing wonderful research on deciphering the way Dolphins communicate, which is a perfect example of how large language models are put to good use. Unfortunately, most companies are super focused on using LLMs to build "real" AI chatbots, which will lead nowhere. One company that has become hellbent on building the best AI in the universe is Meta Platforms. Don't you hate those horrible buzzwords like quiet quitting, career catfishing, and other cringeworthy horrors of LinkedIn? Well, I have one buzzword for Meta free of charge: panic investing. Meta (META) thinks the clock is ticking, and some other company might get the holy grail of all tech, such as AGI, superintelligence, or, to be comical, Skynet. Whoever makes that AI will be spared by the Terminators. That is how Meta's investing strategy makes it look. I covered Meta's string of recent investments, which ended with what to me looks like a desperate move. But let's go over that list again. Related: How Apple may solve its Google Search problem The investment speed shifted gear after Meta invested $14.8 billion in Scale AI and acquired a 49% nonvoting stake. The company poached big AI names like Alexandr Wang, Koray Kavukcuoglu, Dr. Jack Rae, voice AI expert Johan Schalkwyk, OpenAI researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai. The desperate move was hiring Apple's executive in charge of AI models, Ruoming Pang. Meta isn't stopping; if anything, it is shifting gears again and investing even more. Mark Zuckerberg posted his plan for superintelligence on Threads and Facebook on Monday. "We're also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence. We have the capital from our business to do this," said Zuckerberg in his message. Zuckerberg also said that Meta is building several multi-GW clusters. The first one, Prometheus, is supposed to go online next year. That is an interesting name choice, but it is a bit ominous. At least it isn't Skynet. More AI Stocks: Veteran fund manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms moveGoogle plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion moveAnalysts revamp forecast for Nvidia-backed AI stock According to Tom's Hardware, Elon Musk's xAI is buying an overseas power plant and shipping it to the U.S. xAI's new data center is supposed to be powered by one million GPUs and up to 2 Gigawatts of power under one roof, which could power almost 2 million homes. It looks like Zuckerberg needed to top this, so he also announced that Meta is building Hyperion, which will be able to scale up to 5GW over several years. So, I guess that will consume power for about 4.75 million homes. Nice, but why stop there? "We're building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan," said Zuckerberg. If this pace continues, Meta should announce a supercomputer covering a Rhode Island-sized area before the end of the year. Related: Oracle CEO sends blunt 2-word message on its business The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Miami Herald
09-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Meta makes a desperate-looking move, bites Apple
I remember watching Back to the Future II as a kid and thinking it would be so cool if someone made the hoverboard from the movie a reality. Sadly, it didn't happen, and it is still science fiction. Many companies are working hard to make artificial intelligence from science fiction movies a reality. Can they succeed and make this happen? Give me a hoverboard, and I'll believe so. Creating a software product that will become widely used is extremely difficult. As soon as the new market for the said product forms, competitors will come to take a piece for themselves. Related: OpenAI makes shocking move amid fierce competition, Microsoft problems While this isn't an exact rule, it looks like once the market "stabilizes," we get something in the range of one product with a monopoly to three competing products as a best-case scenario. Think of MS Windows, Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Google Search, Google Chrome, WhatsApp. We are still in the market formation stage for artificial intelligence. There is no "killer app" out there yet. If the market "stabilized" at this point, OpenAI would come on top, taking the second place would probably be Google. Who would be in the third place is difficult to tell, but telling that Meta and Apple wouldn't be in the top three is easy. Do you remember the "Metaverse"? The project that made Facebook change the company's name was supposed to be the "next chapter for the internet." Whatever that means, where is it? It's dead, though not officially. Admitting that the Metaverse is dead would be acknowledging that nearly $50 billion has been spent on futile efforts. Putting "unlimited" money into a product doesn't guarantee success. Unfortunately, Meta (META) hasn't learned this from the Metaverse failure, perhaps because it hasn't acknowledged that it was a failure. Related: Oracle CEO sends blunt 2-word message on its business Meta's AI efforts haven't been very successful, and the company has become very focused on improving its chances of winning the AI race. In June, Meta invested $14.8 billion in Scale AI and acquired a 49% nonvoting stake in the company. This acquisition prompted Meta's rivals to pull back from working with Scale. It wasn't the best investment, and it was expensive. They also hired Scale AI CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead a new superintelligence project. It looks like Meta has its own buzzword now. I guess they didn't like artificial general intelligence (AGI). Meta also successfully poached other big AI names like Koray Kavukcuoglu, Dr. Jack Rae, and voice AI expert Johan Schalkwyk. At the end of June, Meta hired OpenAI researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, the WSJ reported. Apple (AAPL) has been struggling on the AI front. I wrote about this year's underwhelming WWDC presentation. The company is under tremendous pressure to make a change quickly. Rumors are floating around that it might acquire Perplexity AI. If the rumors are true, Apple's AI team must feel like the company is about to tell them they failed and are getting replaced by a better team, even if they get to keep their jobs. I wouldn't like to be in their position. More AI Stocks: Veteran fund manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms moveGoogle plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion moveAnalysts revamp forecast for Nvidia-backed AI stock Taking Apple's AI problems into account makes Meta's latest move look desperate. Meta poached Ruoming Pang, Apple's top executive in charge of AI models. Meta offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year to seal the deal, reported Bloomberg. If the Perplexity rumors are true, no one can blame Pang for jumping ship. I don't see this strategy working out for Meta. Hiring a bunch of big names who are probably used to being "team leaders" and paying them ridiculous sums that "regular" team members won't get can't be good for that team's morale. An additional problem is that executives and team leaders who are used to being in charge may not be great team players. Who knows, perhaps the second time's the charm? Related: Microsoft wants to help you live longer The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alphabet (GOOGL) Reaffirmed as ‘Overweight' by Morgan Stanley as Google Appoints New Chief AI Architect
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the . On June 11, Morgan Stanley reiterated the stock as 'Overweight'. According to the firm, the 'latest data show GOOGL's leadership is stable to improving.' 'GOOGL's leading position ('first place to go') remains largely intact across ecommerce, travel, autos, financials and healthcare.' On the same day, Google also added a chief AI architect to its leadership ranks. The company continues to prioritize artificial intelligence, adding the technology to more of its products. The company has confirmed that Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google DeepMind's chief technology officer, has been chosen for the new senior vice president position. Kavukcuoglu will be reporting directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, helping with product strategy and accelerating 'how we bring our world-leading models into our products, with the goal of more seamless integration, faster iteration, and greater efficiency.' Photo by Kai Wenzel on Unsplash Kavukcuoglu's appointment as chief AI architect follows pressures that the company has been facing to create money-making products from its flagship AI technology. AI competition is getting fiercer each passing day. However, tech companies are finding it hard to show significant returns. Analysts on Wall Street currently have a consensus 'Buy' rating on the stock. The average price target of $200 implies a 13% upside; however, the Street-high target of $250 implies an upside of 41%. While we acknowledge the potential of GOOGL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información
Tahawul Tech
12-06-2025
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Google appoints new Chief AI Architect
Google recently appointed insider Koray Kavukcuoglu to lead its future AI-powered product development. Kavukcuoglu, former chief technology officer of Google's DeepMind AI lab, is taking on the newly created title of chief AI architect. He will also become a new senior vice president, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Kavukcuoglu will continue serving as Google DeepMind's CTO, reporting to its CEO Demis Hassabis, Pichai said in the memo. 'In this expanded role, Koray will accelerate how we bring our world-leading models into our products, with the goal of more seamless integration, faster iteration, and greater efficiency', Pichai said. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, faces market pressure to demonstrate financial returns on its AI-related capital expenditures, which are expected to hit $75 billion this year, while maintaining its bottom line against the threat of competing AI offerings, as well as antitrust enforcement. Google said it would put artificial intelligence into the hands of more web surfers and teased a $249.99-a-month subscription for its AI power users at its annual I/O conference in May, along with a flurry of demos that included new smart glasses. Pichai said in a recent memo that Alphabet was 'entering a new phase of the AI platform shift.' He told reporters that the rise of generative AI was not at the full expense of online search. Source: Reuters Image Credit: Stock Image
