CapitalG’s Post

Must read on trends in GenAI from Menlo Ventures! Which app categories are taking off, Anthropic's meteoric rise in market share, and more. Tldr market growing 5-10X+ across the board. exciting times! and just getting started!

🚀 How to break the AI Code: A $500M Bet on the Future of AI Agents 🤖 What if building with #AI became as seamless as building an app on your phone? That’s exactly the vision behind /dev/agents , a startup co-founded by former Google and Stripe  execs who’ve raised $56M to create a groundbreaking operating system for #AIAgents. Why does this matter? 🧠👇 AI agents like those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft are already booking flights, writing code, and boosting productivity. But there’s a BIG problem: ⚙️ Developers lack a unified framework to connect and scale these agents across devices. /dev/agents is stepping in to create the "Android moment" for AI: 🌐 A cloud-based OS for seamless AI agent integration. 📱 A new user interface for natural, human-like interactions with AI across laptops, phones, and even cars. The founding team? Legendary. ✅ David Singleton  (Stripe CTO, Android VP at Google) ✅ Hugo Barra (Android product lead at Google, Oculus VP at Meta) ✅ Ficus Kirkpatrick (Android engineer, AR/VR VP at Meta) ✅ Nicholas Jitkoff (Chrome OS designer, Dropbox exec) This team has already shaped the last three generations of operating systems. Now, they’re designing the foundation for the next. As Index Ventures, CapitalG, and angel investors like OpenAI ’s Andrej Karpathy back this $500M-valued company, it’s clear: 💡 AI isn’t just a tool. It’s becoming an essential platform. Why you should care: 🔗 The future isn’t just about AI doing tasks—it’s about making AI the backbone of every interaction, across every device. 👉 What would YOU build if AI agents were as easy to deploy as mobile apps? #Innovation #TechLeadership

Former Android leaders are creating a revolutionary operating system for AI agents, aiming to simplify development and enhance user interaction. 🤖 /dev/agents Vision: Co-founded by Hugo Barra, David Singleton, and other ex-Google leaders, this startup aims to bring an "Android-like moment" to AI, providing a unified platform for building smarter, autonomous agents. 🌐 Next-Gen AI Integration: The cloud-based OS is designed for "trusted agents" that work seamlessly across devices, offering users convenience, reimagined privacy models, and innovative UI patterns tailored for AI interactions. 💡 Leadership Expertise: With backgrounds in Android, AR/VR, and design, the team—featuring Barra, Singleton, Ficus Kirkpatrick, and Nicholas Jitkoff—leverages decades of experience to rethink how AI can integrate with everyday technology. 📈 Broader AI Push: Major players like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are investing in AI agents, but /dev/agents seeks to simplify the development process, empowering smaller developers and startups to compete in this growing market. 🚀 A Developer’s Dream: The system focuses on reducing complexity, making it easier to build, deploy, and scale useful AI agents—potentially unleashing a wave of creative applications across industries. 🔒 Privacy and Trust at Core: The team emphasizes privacy-first design, ensuring that AI agents can be both powerful and trustworthy, addressing growing concerns around data security and ethical AI use. 🛠️ New Opportunities for Developers: By offering a dedicated platform with pre-built tools and APIs, /dev/agents aims to cut down development time, enabling creators to focus on building innovative, value-driven applications. #AI #Innovation #TechLeadership 🌟 Why It Matters: AI agents could revolutionize daily life, managing complex tasks like scheduling, research, and automation with minimal human intervention, allowing users to focus on higher-value activities. 📊 Developer Impact: By eliminating barriers to entry, this platform could democratize AI development, fostering creativity and innovation in sectors ranging from healthcare to entertainment. 🌍 Industry Disruption: If successful, /dev/agents could redefine how businesses and individuals interact with AI, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the digital ecosystem. ♻️ Repost if you enjoyed this post and follow me, César Beltrán Miralles, for more curated content about generative AI! https://lnkd.in/eN_46jXN

AI DAILY NEWS- 4/24/2024 • Nvidia to acquire Run:ai for up to $1 billion, strengthening its dominance in the AI stack with over 80% market share in high-end AI chips and accelerators. • Eric Schmidt-backed startup Augment, a rival to GitHub Copilot, launches out of stealth with $252 million in funding, offering an AI-powered coding platform. • Adobe's new AI model VideoGigaGAN can upscale low-resolution videos to 8x their original quality while preserving fine details. • Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it will take years for the company to make money from its generative AI initiatives, despite strong Q1 2023 financials of $12 billion net income on $36.5 billion revenue. • 44% of software engineers use AI tools, and Gartner estimates 75% of developers will use AI-driven coding assistants by 2028. • Meta heavily investing in AI and metaverse, with successful smart glasses collaboration with Ray-Ban showcasing multimodal AI capabilities.

Fun times with Will Ruben, Karthik Dinakar and Eric M. at Google's AI Startup Trailblazer event in New York yesterday! Main takeaways from the discussion 👇 - AI is just a tool to solve specific problems, avoid getting caught in the hype and always remember the user/business problem you're solving. Non AI solutions are good to solve problems too! - Try to build magical experiences for your users, chat is just the start of AI UX paradigms. Don't have users worrying about prompts & evals --> that's for developers of AI apps - And general early stage startup advice: idea validation, getting your first customers, maintaining balance while running a startup and how to keep moving fast Reach out if you want to chat with me about any of this!

How do you square the circle with Microsoft's hire of Inflection's co-founder and majority of staff with the fact that the startup's shareholders seem sanguine or even happy? Inflection will continue to operate under new chief executive Sean White, and pivot to providing its generative AI technology to businesses and developers, from a previous focus on its consumer chatbot Pi. Inflection board member and co-founder Reid Hoffman said it was “a good day for everyone involved in Inflection AI” and that the company’s investors would see “good future upside”, according to the FT https://lnkd.in/eYbi7EWb But the surprise hiring of Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Inflection and co-founder of DeepMind, and 70 (!) of its staff to run a new Microsoft division focused on pushing further into the market for consumer-facing AI applications effectively guts the startup that only a year ago Microsoft and Nvidia poured $1.3bn into. Elsewhere the FT reports how Barings is suing a startup for poaching 20 of its staff and there's ongoing litigation about HSBC hiring ex-SVB staff https://lnkd.in/eK_UFDkP Obviously, from Microsoft's viewpoint, the move avoids the need to go through antitrust and being caught up in the hassles that saw Adobe's $20bn acquisition of Figma struck down or the endless delays for Cisco buying Splunk for $28bn. But, still, how - what's in it for Inflection shareholders for Reid to be 'happy' there's still upside? Feedback welcome At least, in a brighter moment, there's one CEO out there who seems to understand corporate venturing. Michael Walker, a portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein, told the FT part of Nadella’s “genius” was understanding that “truly breakthrough innovations rarely happen inside big companies, they come from startups”. Better late than never for some folks it seems to catch up that venturing can help the bottom line and share price when done well, as GCV analysis has found https://lnkd.in/eaX7SPT2

Meta’s future is AI, AI, and more AI Meta’s second quarter earnings continue the same story from the previous quarter: generative AI may be here, but it’s going to take a long time to make money. The good news for Meta is that, unlike pretty much every AI startup, it already makes a lot of money. Last quarter, the company made just over $39 billion in revenue, up 22 percent from a year ago, and about $13.5 billion in profit, up 73 percent. 3.27 billion people use at least one of Meta’s apps every day. That kind of scale and money buys the ability to make big bets, which Zuckerberg is famous for doing. On Meta’s Wednesday earnings call, CFO Susan Li reiterated to investors that financial returns from its recent AI investments will “come in over a longer period of time.”... Continue reading… https://lnkd.in/dubTjqRX

Your DAILY Dose of the LATEST A.I. News 🚨 Today's Story - Meta’s bold AI move👇 Our Report: Six months after he dissolved the ‘Responsible AI’ team, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has created a product advisory council that will provide guidance on Meta’s AI efforts. 🔑 Key Points: The advisory council will advise Meta’s management team giving insights and recommendations on technological advancements, innovation, and strategic growth opportunities. The group is composed of four executives: Patrick Collison (Stripe co-founder), Nat Friedman (ex-GitHub CEO), Tobi Lütke (Shopify CEO), and Charlie Songhurst (ex-Microsoft exec). They haven’t been elected by shareholders (unlike the board of directors), will not be paid for their duties, will operate separately from the board, and will have no legal responsibilities. 🤔 Why you should care: The formation of this new advisory council comes after Zuckerberg announced plans to spend $35B on AI-focused products ($5B more than initially forecasted) and believes Meta “has the potential to become the leading AI company in the world,” even though its immediate efforts might not yield immediate results.

You're about to witness the birth of a new era in AI—and it's coming from the minds behind Android. Hugo Barra and his team of ex-Android leaders are building the operating system for AI agents at their startup, /dev/agents. But here's the thing: As companies race to create autonomous digital assistants, we need to pause and ask ourselves—are we ready for this? AI agents promise to make decisions and complete tasks with minimal human input. It sounds like a sci-fi dream come true, but it also raises crucial questions: → How much control are we willing to surrender to AI? → What happens when these agents make mistakes or develop biases? → Will this technology widen the gap between those who have access and those who don't? The creation of an AI agent OS is a monumental step, but it's one we need to take with great care and foresight. As we marvel at the potential of this technology, let's not forget to consider its implications for society as a whole. Because in the end, it's not just about what AI can do—it's about what we, as humans, choose to do with it. #AIAgents #AutonomousAI #SocietalImpact #JamieBykovBrett #BykovBrettEnterprises