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This Week's AI: Crafting Unique Thanksgiving Menus

2024-11-27

Welcome to TechCrunch's regular AI newsletter! Every Wednesday, we bring you the latest in the world of artificial intelligence. This week, we're diving into the world of Thanksgiving and how chatbots can help create a unique and memorable feast. Whether you're the designated cook or just looking for some inspiration, read on to discover how AI can take your Thanksgiving to the next level.

Unlock the Potential of AI for Thanksgiving Delights

ChatGPT's Thanksgiving Menu

ChatGPT starts off with a fancy cocktail hour featuring whipped sweet potato and goat cheese crostini. For the appetizer, it suggests "pumpkin soup shooters with cinnamon crème fraîche," followed by a main course of miso-butter turkey with a ginger-soy glaze. On the side, it recommends a chili-lime corn bread and pistachio risotto. And for the big finish, it has you stick to staples like pie, cheesecake, and saffron-flavored ice cream.

According to ChatGPT, this menu takes familiar Thanksgiving flavors and elevates them through unexpected ingredients and combinations. Each dish tells a story and invites conversation, making the meal not just about food, but about shared experience and creativity.

Claude's Thanksgiving Menu

Claude goes for the moon with an appetizer of "butternut squash bisque with sage foam" that definitely checks the "unique" box. For the main course, it suggests "lavender and fennel dry-brined turkey with a honey-thyme glaze," an herbaceous departure from classic roast turkey. On the side, it recommends whipping out the fine liquor for a "wild mushroom and chestnut stuffing with aged sherry."

Claude writes that its creations take familiar Thanksgiving flavors and elevate them through unexpected ingredients and combinations. Each dish tells a story and invites conversation, making the meal not just about food, but about shared experience and creativity.

OpenAI's Sora Leaks

A group appears to have leaked access to OpenAI's video generator, Sora, in protest of what it's calling "art washing" on OpenAI's part. This has raised concerns about the security and ethics of AI technology.

OpenAI needs to address these issues and ensure that its technology is used in a responsible and ethical manner.

Amazon Backs Anthropic

Anthropic has raised an additional $4 billion from Amazon and has agreed to train its flagship generative AI models primarily on Amazon Web Services. This partnership could have a significant impact on the development and deployment of AI technology.

It remains to be seen how this partnership will shape the future of AI and what benefits it will bring to users.

AI App Connectors

In other Anthropic news, the company has proposed a new standard, the Model Context Protocol, for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides. This could make it easier for users to integrate AI into their existing workflows and applications.

The Model Context Protocol has the potential to revolutionize the way we use AI and make it more accessible and useful.

OpenAI Funds "AI Morality" Research

OpenAI is pouring $1 million into a Duke University research program to develop algorithms that can predict humans' moral judgments. This is an important step in ensuring that AI is developed with ethical considerations in mind.

By understanding human moral judgments, AI can be developed to make more ethical decisions and avoid causing harm.

YouTube Gets AI Backdrops

YouTube's Dream Screen feature for Shorts now lets users create AI-generated video backdrops. This could make it easier for content creators to add visual effects and enhance their videos.

With AI-generated backdrops, YouTube Shorts can become even more engaging and immersive for viewers.

Brave Adds AI Chat

Search engine Brave has introduced an AI chat mode for follow-up questions based on initial queries on Brave Search. This is an expansion of Brave's Answer with AI feature that provides AI-generated summaries of web searches.

Brave's AI chat mode makes it easier for users to get the information they need and have more engaging conversations with the search engine.

AI2 Open Sources Tülu 3

The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) has released Tülu 3, a generative AI model that can be fine-tuned and customized for a range of applications. This could make it easier for developers to build their own AI applications and services.

Tülu 3 has the potential to revolutionize the way we develop and use AI and make it more accessible to a wider range of users.

Crusoe Raises Cash

Crusoe Energy, a startup building data centers reportedly to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI, is in the process of raising $818 million. This could help the company expand its operations and bring more AI-powered services to market.

With the additional funding, Crusoe Energy could become a major player in the world of AI and data centers.

Threads Tests AI Summaries

Meta's Threads has begun testing AI-generated summaries of what people are discussing on the platform, taking a page from rival X. This could make it easier for users to stay up-to-date on the latest conversations and trends.

Threads' AI summaries could become an important tool for social media users and help them stay connected with the world around them.

DeepMind's AlphaQubit

DeepMind has developed a new AI system called AlphaQubit that can accurately identify errors inside of quantum computers. This is an important step in improving the reliability of quantum computers and making them more useful for a wide range of applications.

AlphaQubit has the potential to revolutionize the way we use quantum computers and make them more accessible and reliable.

Runway's Frames Model

Runway has released a new image-generation model called Frames that offers better stylistic control than most. The model is slowly rolling out to users of Runway's Gen-3 Alpha video generator and can reliably create images that stay true to a particular aesthetic.

Runway's Frames model has the potential to revolutionize the way we create and edit images and make it easier for content creators to bring their visions to life.

Nvidia's Fugatto

Nvidia has unveiled a model called "the world's most flexible sound machine," dubbed Fugatto. The chip giant's model can create a mix of music, voices, and sounds from a text description and a collection of audio files. It can even generate things that don't exist in the real world.

Fugatto has the potential to revolutionize the way we create and experience sound and make it easier for musicians and content creators to bring their ideas to life.

On October 21, a significant event took place in the world of Nasdaq traders. A new ticker, NBIS, emerged, a truncation of Nebius. This fledgling player in the AI cloud infrastructure space had been quietly building its presence. Many casual observers might have wondered where this company came from, as there was little of the usual fanfare surrounding startups' IPO journeys. But Nebius is an unusual beast, a public company with the essence of a startup.

Yandex's Journey and the Birth of Nebius

Nebius actually became public 13 years ago in May 2011 as Yandex N.V., the Dutch holding company of the Russian internet giant Yandex, often dubbed the "Google of Russia." At the end of 2021, it reached a peak valuation of $31 billion. However, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, everything changed. Nasdaq halted trading in Yandex N.V. shares due to sanctions, and a year later, it announced the delisting. But Yandex successfully appealed, undergoing a restructuring process that took an additional 16 months to complete. This divestment led to the creation of Nebius AI, an AI cloud platform with its own Finnish data center.The new business was spearheaded by Arkady Volozh, the Russian Yandex co-founder and former CEO. He was removed from a European sanctions list in March after publicly condemning Russia's assault on Ukraine.

The Core Nebius Business

The core Nebius business sells GPUs "as-a-service" to companies in need of "compute" - processing power and resources for tasks like running algorithms and executing machine learning models. Last month, the company debuted a holistic cloud computing platform for the "full machine learning lifecycle," spanning data processing, training, fine-tuning, and inference.With the restructuring complete and Volozh free to run the show from the new headquarters in the Netherlands, Nasdaq green-lit Nebius to recommence trading last month. This situation was unprecedented - a public company with trading paused and now resuming under a new name and different business proposition.In the first month of trading, Nebius had a somewhat tepid re-entry. It was significantly down on its $18 billion market cap before trading halted in February 2022, but it has since yo-yoed between $3.5 billion and $4.75 billion, showing signs of settling.Volozh explained to TechCrunch that building infrastructure is capital intensive, and the public markets are the easiest and cheapest way to access capital in the current hot tech space. But there was uncertainty about how the public markets would respond to this new entity.

Nebius' Competitors and Expansion Plans

Nebius competes with the usual hyperscaler cloud behemoths. Its more direct rivals are other alternative cloud startups like CoreWeave, which has raised a lot of cash this year. While CoreWeave is expanding from the U.S. to Europe, Nebius is moving in the opposite direction, announcing plans to extend its presence to the U.S. with a new GPU cluster in Kansas City (on the Missouri side) scheduled to go live in early 2025. The company has also opened "customer hubs" in San Francisco and Dallas and plans a third in New York by the end of the year.

The Nebius Group's Additional Businesses

Under the Nebius Group umbrella, there is a triumvirate of additional businesses. Avride is an autonomous vehicle company based in Texas, descending from Yandex's self-driving unit. It was an early trailblazer in Russia but had its plans disrupted by the war. The team working on Yandex's autonomous vehicle project transitioned to Avride last year and is now based in Austin via Tel Aviv.Last month, Avride announced a significant multiyear partnership with Uber, with its sidewalk food delivery robots landing on Uber Eats in Austin and its self-driving cars set to join the Uber platform later.Toloka is a platform specializing in data labeling and quality control for large language models and related AI systems. It has clear synergies with Nebius's core infrastructure business but serves different customers. Nebius works with generative AI startups seeking compute, while Toloka works with bigger companies like Amazon and Hugging Face.TripleTen, on the other hand, is a direct-to-consumer product offering online coding bootcamps for those looking to transition into the technology sector. It is somewhat of an outlier in the Nebius group and is currently breaking even. Volozh acknowledges it won't be a big revenue driver like the infrastructure business but has potential to provide meaningful income and will remain part of the group.

The Core Nebius AI Cloud Business

For the core Nebius AI cloud business, the company already has its fully owned data center facility in Finland and plans to triple its capacity to 75 megawatts. It is also building out additional sites at co-location facilities to increase capacity and reduce latency by bringing processing closer to customers. In addition to the Kansas location announced this week, Nebius has already unveiled a new GPU cluster in Paris that goes live this month.Further down the line, Nebius plans to build more of its own data centers in both Europe and the U.S. Given the time it takes to build, using co-location facilities is a quicker way to bridge the gap, which is why it is adopting a hybrid approach.Volozh emphasized that building data centers takes a long time, about a year and a half to two years, and they can't wait. That's why they have these co-locations in Paris and Kansas City.

In today's economic landscape, where there is often much talk of doom and gloom, an interesting trend is emerging - entrepreneurship is on the rise in the United States. In 2024, an average of 430,000 new business applications were submitted each month, representing a significant 50% increase from 2019. This surge in business startups is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit that still thrives in the country.

However, a Contrasting Trend in the Accounting Field

While entrepreneurship shows remarkable growth, the number of accountants needed by these new businesses is actually on the decline. Nearly 75% of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are expected to retire within a decade, and fewer graduates are choosing accounting as a career due to the relatively lower pay compared to fields like technology and finance.

Serial Entrepreneur David Phillips and His Venture Fondo

Serial entrepreneur David Phillips has recognized this growing gap and has launched his latest venture, Fondo. This innovative platform uses software, artificial intelligence (AI), and accounting experts to provide a comprehensive bookkeeping service specifically designed for startups and small- and medium-sized businesses.Phillips founded Fondo in 2020 after successfully selling his coding school startup, Hackbright, to Capella University in 2016. His experience and expertise as an angel investor, having invested in over 85 startups including Rippling, Flexport, and Liquid Death, have equipped him well to build a successful accounting service.The 4-year-old startup operates on a subscription-based model and has already achieved remarkable success. It has secured approximately 1,200 customers, reached an annual recurring revenue of $6 million, and is profitable. Some of its notable customers include ElevenLabs, Karat, PostHog, Campus, and Limitless AI."To date, we have saved our customers over $75 million in Delaware Franchise Tax and helped them receive over $16 million back from the IRS in tax credits," Phillips proudly stated.

Securing Funding and Doubling Down on Traction

To further strengthen its position and build on its existing success, Fondo recently raised an oversubscribed $7 million seed round. The round was led by Money Forward, a Tokyo-based fintech company, with participation from renowned investors such as Y Combinator, Motley Fool Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, a16z Scout Fund, Index Ventures Scout Fund, and Twenty Two Ventures. This valuation of the company at $66 million reflects the market's confidence in Fondo's potential.

What Sets Fondo Apart

Fondo is not alone in recognizing the opportunity in the accounting space for small- and medium-sized businesses. However, Phillips believes that Fondo differentiates itself by offering an "all-in-one solution" tailored specifically for high-growth startups."Traditionally, founders have relied on separate services for each financial function, which leads to inefficiencies and a higher risk of errors. Fondo combines all these services into one platform, simplifying financial and tax operations for startups," he explained.

Using Proceeds for Growth

The company will utilize the funds from the recent seed round to invest in product development and automation. It is also building an AI agent that will serve both its internal team and customers. This AI agent will enable users to extract valuable insights and analysis from their financial statements, accounts, cash flow, and other important financial data.Currently, Fondo has about 70 employees and is actively recruiting in various roles such as product, engineering, accounting, and more."We are dedicated to building a robust product that evolves with the changing needs of startups. This includes expanding our analytics and reporting capabilities, integrating with other tools that founders commonly use, and enhancing our tax-saving options. Additionally, we are exploring ways to support startups as they expand internationally and navigate the complexities of global compliance," Phillips emphasized.