Latest news with #OpenAI
Business Insider
16 minutes ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Alphabet (GOOGL) Looks to Checkmate OpenAI With AI Search Strategy
As an investor in Alphabet (GOOGL), I've noticed the growing narrative: that Google is in 'managed decline,' threatened by OpenAI's rapid rise with ChatGPT. This perspective, popularized across podcasts and media, paints Alphabet as bloated, slow, and vulnerable to being overtaken. However, I believe these claims are premature. Confident Investing Starts Here: Rather than merely facing competition, Alphabet is quietly evolving its Search business with Gemini AI. Far from declining, the company appears to be strengthening its competitive edge, positioning itself for sustained growth and long-term outperformance. Google's Gemini Is Far More than a Clone Alphabet has launched the Search Generative Experience (SGE), an AI-powered update to incorporate directly into traditional Search results. Unlike ChatGPT, which runs independently from typical Search behavior, the Gemini-driven SGE is seamlessly integrated into the conventional Search page we've all known for decades. In Alphabet's latest quarterly update for Fiscal 2025, SGE already has over 1.5 billion active users each month, which serves as evidence of extremely rapid adoption. It's clear to me that Alphabet understands its users well: instead of fully reinventing the Search experience, they have enhanced it, drawing from decades of user experience and data. This hybrid version deepens user trust, providing an engaging user experience while limiting incentives for users to migrate to competing products and services. Gemini Doesn't Just Maintain Revenue, It Increases It Another significant aspect of Google's Gemini integration is the clear presence of monetization. Alphabet purposely kept advertising in the mix of SGE. Right in the AI-generated Search responses, you get relevant sponsored responses and product placements. This keeps Google's precious ad chassis model intact without breaking income from it. For instance, searching for 'best running headphones' features prominently sponsored product recommendations and advertisements. The most recent reports from Alphabet show near-double-digit year-over-year increases in Search ad revenue, confirming that this monetization strategy works well for Alphabet. Gemini increases the user's Search experience, verifying this monetization strategy without detracting from the core Alphabet revenue stream. Therefore, it not only maintains Google's current cash flow but also potentially opens up additional opportunities for highly targeted advertising, solidifying Alphabet's lead. Why OpenAI May Face Problems Competing Long-Term OpenAI, while exciting to the market with AI-driven Search via ChatGPT, will face more significant structural limitations compared to Alphabet. It seems that most of the monetization OpenAI will do revolves around subscriptions or application fees, which is far less lucrative, sticky, and sustainable than Alphabet's ad revenue model. This will potentially be a long-term competitive disadvantage for OpenAI when competing with Alphabet, which is underpinned by deeper financial capital and infrastructure. That said, I do think there is enough room for many successful players in this industry. OpenAI's models shouldn't be underestimated, and it is currently the market-leading company for generative AI. The field is still open to play for, and I see many dominant companies winning big, with both Google and OpenAI claiming the limelight similarly. Margins Under Fire Shouldn't Deter GOOGL Investors That said, Alphabet faces significant challenges in managing the substantial costs associated with operating the computing infrastructure necessary for Gemini. AI-powered Search is likely to be significantly more expensive than traditional search, which could put long-term pressure on profit margins. To mitigate this, Alphabet must continue diversifying its revenue streams. Waymo, part of the 'Other Bets' segment, offers one promising avenue. Its autonomous ride-hailing service is already operational in parts of the U.S., though it faces steep competition from Tesla's (TSLA) emerging autonomy network. There's also uncertainty around user behavior. As AI tools—including Google's own subscription-based chatbots—gain traction, they could begin to siphon traffic away from traditional Search. This shift could reduce ad-driven revenue and lead to further margin pressure, potentially forcing Alphabet to lean more heavily on subscription-based models similar to ChatGPT. As a result, some degree of valuation multiple compression may be warranted over the longer term. Still, these risks seem manageable when viewed in light of Alphabet's strong history of adapting its business model to generate durable long-term returns as markets evolve. Is GOOGL a Buy, Sell, or Hold? On Wall Street, GOOGL has a consensus Strong Buy rating, based on 29 Buys, nine Holds, and zero Sells over the past three months. The average GOOGL price target is $199.14, indicating a 15% upside potential over the next 12 months. Alphabet's Moat Isn't Shrinking, It's Evolving The narrative that Alphabet is in 'managed decline' strikes me as an overblown reaction to broader shifts in the tech landscape. In truth, Alphabet is actively leveraging its vast distribution network, proprietary data assets, and mature monetization infrastructure to carve out a defensible position in the evolving AI ecosystem. Rather than showing signs of weakness, Alphabet is executing a strategic evolution—methodically and without premature fanfare. For long-term growth investors seeking both innovation and resilience, Gemini is a strong indicator that Alphabet remains a formidable force. It's not just keeping pace with change; it's positioning itself to deliver sustained, high-quality alpha in a rapidly transforming market.
CNN
28 minutes ago
- Business
- CNN
China's DeepSeek releases update to AI model that sent US shares tumbling earlier this year
Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek released an update to its R1 reasoning model in the early hours of Thursday, stepping up competition with US rivals such as OpenAI. DeepSeek launched R1-0528 on developer platform Hugging Face, but has yet to make an official public announcement. It did not publish a description of the model or comparisons. But the LiveCodeBench leaderboard, a benchmark developed by researchers from UC Berkeley, MIT, and Cornell, ranked DeepSeek's updated R1 reasoning model just slightly behind OpenAI's o4 mini and o3 reasoning models on code generation and ahead of xAI's Grok 3 mini and Alibaba's Qwen 3. Bloomberg earlier reported the update on Wedneday. It said that a DeepSeek representative had told a WeChat group that it had completed what it described as a 'minor trial upgrade' and that users could start testing it. DeepSeek earlier this year upended beliefs that US export controls were holding back China's AI advancements after the startup released AI models that were on a par with or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost. The launch of R1 in January sent tech shares outside China plummeting in January and challenged the view that scaling AI requires vast computing power and investment. Since R1's release, Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent have released models claiming to surpass DeepSeek's. Google's Gemini has introduced discounted tiers of access while OpenAI cut prices and released an o3 mini model that relies on less computing power. The company is still widely expected to release R2, a successor to R1. Reuters reported in March, citing sources, that R2's release was initially planned for May. DeepSeek also released an upgrade to its V3 large language model in March.
Free Malaysia Today
30 minutes ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
DeepSeek releases an update to its reasoning model
DeepSeek earlier this year upended beliefs that US export controls were holding back China's AI advancements. (AP pic) SHANGHAI : Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek released an update to its R1 reasoning model in the early hours of today, stepping up competition with US rivals such as OpenAI. DeepSeek launched R1-0528 on developer platform Hugging Face, but has yet to make an official public announcement. It did not publish a description of the model or comparisons. But the LiveCodeBench leaderboard, a benchmark developed by researchers from UC Berkeley, MIT, and Cornell, ranked DeepSeek's updated R1 reasoning model just slightly behind OpenAI's o4 mini and o3 reasoning models on code generation and ahead of xAI's Grok 3 mini and Alibaba's Qwen 3. Bloomberg earlier reported the update yesterday. It said that a DeepSeek representative had told a WeChat group that it had completed what it described as a 'minor trial upgrade' and that users could start testing it. DeepSeek earlier this year upended beliefs that US export controls were holding back China's AI advancements after the start-up released AI models that were on a par or better than industry-leading models in the US at a fraction of the cost. The launch of R1 in January sent tech shares outside China plummeting in January and challenged the view that scaling AI requires vast computing power and investment. Since R1's release, Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent have released models claiming to surpass DeepSeek's. Google's Gemini has introduced discounted tiers of access while OpenAI cut prices and released an o3 Mini model that relies on less computing power. The company is still widely expected to release R2, a successor to R1. Reuters reported in March, citing sources, that R2's release was initially planned for May. DeepSeek also released an upgrade to its V3 large language model in March.
Forbes
44 minutes ago
- Business
- Forbes
15 Amazing Generative AI Tools For Lawyers And Legal Tasks
Discover the top AI tools transforming the legal world for professionals and consumers alike, from ... More contract automation to court claims. For seasoned lawyers, as well as laypeople, simply trying to make sense of a tricky contract, new tools powered by generative AI promise to transform the way we engage with the law. Legal professionals often devote large chunks of their time to drafting contracts, researching previous cases, preparing documents for submission to court, or reviewing case law. Even for non-lawyers, many everyday tasks can require diving into legal concepts and principles—wading through corporate T&Cs, tenancy agreements, consumer rights advice or business compliance. Fortunately, lawyers—professional and armchair varieties—are finding that there's a wealth of genAI tools out there that can make their lives easier. So here's my rundown of some of the leading apps, tools, and services that help with legal tasks. Some can help law firms and professionals automate dull and repetitive jobs, while others aim to make the legal systems and courts more accessible to laypeople. Harvey AI is among the market-leading legal AI platforms. Like many of the tools here, it's built on LLM technology (in this case, OpenAI's GPT models that also power ChatGPT). However, it's been fine-tuned to be particularly efficient when it comes to legal tasks such as research, contract analysis and compliance. As well as the vast amounts of training data at its disposal, it is further fine-tuned on domain-specific legal knowledge to ensure firms get assistance that's tailored to their own way of working. Harvey now also offers agentic genAI capabilities, allowing it to work autonomously on carrying out longer, multi-step tasks. LexisNexis has existed for more than 50 years as a database of legal information, including court decisions, judgments and case law. Today, it's been given a generative AI upgrade in the form of Lexis+, which is designed to act as an AI legal assistant. Users—generally legal professionals—can engage through a conversational search interface in order to create tailored legal documents, and correspondence, as well as identify relevant case law, statutes and legal commentary. It also provides instant summaries of complex legal texts and integrates with Lexis's Shepard Citation Service, ensuring citations are correct and up-to-date. This is a web-based platform offering generative AI tools for a wide variety of legal tasks often faced by consumers and laypeople, including fighting parking charges, reclaiming debts and disputing bank fees. It isn't purely AI-based—there is a strong community element to the service, too, and plenty of articles giving useful advice on a number of consumer rights, data protection and privacy issues. Billed as the "consumer AI champion," it can be used to generate dispute letters, file claims and navigate complex court processes no matter how inexperienced a user is in legal matters. Operated by Thompson Reuters, CoCounsel is an AI legal assistant that crunches through repetitive digital workloads like reviewing documents, researching case law, and identifying critical questions. It has developed a reputation as trustworthy among law firms due to a focus on robust data protection and privacy safeguards. CoCounsel has also added what it calls agentic functionality to its platform. Although it isn't yet clear what their AI agents will do, it's speculated that the legal industry will be heavily impacted by the adoption of these next-generation AI tools that promise even greater levels of automation. GenAI-powered lawtech platform was built to streamline the creation of legal documents and the negotiation involved in contracts and agreements. Specifically tailored for startups and small businesses without full in-house legal teams, it offers AI-customized legal templates from employment contracts to NDAs, covering any standard documentation that smaller organizations might require. As it's designed to be used by non-professionals as well as professionals, it features powerful functionality around reducing complexity and providing easy-to-digest explanations of contract clauses. That's far from all of the tools out there designed for lawyers and armchair lawyers. If none of the above do exactly what you need, take a look at one of these: Blue J AI-powered research assistant designed to help accountants and other professional services understand tax laws. ContractPod AI Users of enterprise legal AI platform ContractPod can access Leah, a virtual legal assistant capable of in-depth analysis. Garfield AI Use AI to simplify the process of recovering personal debts through the UK court system. Iubenda Automate the creation of privacy policies, cookie policies, T&Cs, and other pages so that website operators stay on the right side of the law. Ivo Enterprise platform offering automated contract review to streamline corporate workflows. Latch AI-assisted professional tools for automating contract negotiations. LawConnect Free AI-powered answers to legal questions. LegalEase Designed to 'level the playing field' by simplifying law for non-lawyers. PatentPal Generative AI tools designed for intellectual property lawyers, offering assistance with writing patent applications. Sana Sana Labs offers AI agents trained to work in legal business environments.
Asharq Al-Awsat
an hour ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
HUMAIN's CEO: We Will Launch $10 Billion Venture Capital Fund
HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia's new AI start-up backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), will launch a $10 billion venture capital fund as part of the kingdom's efforts to become a global AI leader, the company's CEO, Tareq Amin, told the Financial Times (FT) on Wednesday. Amin said HUMAIN will launch its fund this summer and will focus on investing in start-ups in the US, Europe and Asia. HUMAIN is now looking for a US tech company to become an equity partner in its data center business, he said, adding that the company was in talks with OpenAI, venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and Elon Musk's xAI. Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister, launched HUMAIN one day prior to US President Donald Trump's recent state visit to Riyadh. The President was accompanied by top executives including Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altmer and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. HUMAIN has already struck deals with Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services and Qualcomm worth $23 billion, according to Amin. He said the company aims to have 1.9GW of data center capacity by 2030, increasing to 6.6GW by 2034. The project's cost is estimated at $77 billion. 'The plan is to process 7% of global AI training and inferencing by 2030,' the FT quoted Amin as saying. Initial plans include a 50MW data center using 18,000 Nvidia GPUs, with expansion to 500MW requiring approximately 180,000 chips. HUMAIN has also partnered with AMD on a $10 billion joint venture to provide 500MW of capacity over five years. It is investing $2 billion with Qualcomm to co-develop chip design and data center capabilities. Under the deal, Qualcomm will establish a chip design center in Riyadh employing 500 engineers. Amin said that within 30 days, HUMAIN will begin the procurement process for chips from US companies. The CEO is hopeful that the sales will be supported by the Trump administration.
