😺 Is AI in a bubble? Our take.

Welcome, humans.

Michael Bommer, a terminal cancer patient, told NPR he created an interactive clone of himself for his wife after he passes. He used a service called Eternos, feeding it 300 sentences in his voice and 150 life stories so that AI could respond as if it were him.

We’re not here to judge, but this concept feels eerily similar to “Be Right Back,” a Black Mirror episode where software mimics deceased loved ones. Spoiler alert: like most Black Mirror episodes, this one doesn’t end well…

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

• OpenAI’s new revenue numbers show the bull market is alive and kicking.
• Apple & OpenAI aren’t paying each other for their partnership (yet).
• Perplexity is planning revenue-sharing deals with publishers.
• OpenAI is beefing up its lobbyist team.

Valuations might be sky-high, but not for OpenAI.

Venture Capitalists love frothy things, from lattes to term sheets for AI startups. In May alone, AI companies raised $12.4B, 40% of ALL global venture capital funding.

Many of these companies have raised funds at sky-high valuations. So high, that we’re left wondering if we’re on the brink of an AI bubble.

Sure, startup valuations have always been a bit crazy in Silicon Valley. Still, it has spilled over into public markets, which has us somewhat concerned—Nvidia stock is up 169% YTD and is valued similarly to Apple and Microsoft, whose revenue is more than double Nvidia’s.

On the other hand, perhaps more reflective of the AI market than Nvidia is OpenAI, the crème de la crème of AI. ChatGPT is quite literally the first thing most people think of when they hear AI.

Yesterday, we learned that OpenAI has more than doubled its annualized revenue to $3.4B in the past six months.

That’s an *insane* number for only two years of monetizing your products. For context, $3.4B is more money than Pinterest, Peloton, OR Dropbox made in 2023.

While we have no idea what their bottom line looks like (OpenAI has previously gone into the red), their valuation for being the world’s hottest tech startup (ever?) isn’t so wild either: OpenAI’s last valuation of $86B means it’s valued at about 25x forward revenue.

• That’s lower than Nvidia’s 26.32 forward revenue multiple, and Nvidia is nearly 40 times larger than OpenAI.
• And way lower than Yahoo’s 114x revenue multiple back in 2000, when it was valued at $125B…
• And way, way lower than other AI startups like Cohere, which just raised money at 142x its revenue.

Why it matters: $3.4B in annualized revenue is proof that businesses are showing real demand for AI products and services. This is just 19 months after we got ChatGPT! So no, we wouldn’t say we’re in an AI bubble just yet, but ask us again in a few months.

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Around the Horn.

• Apple and OpenAI aren’t paying each other for ChatGPT’s integration into Apple devices.
• Perplexity is planning revenue-sharing deals with publishers who are used in its search results.
• OpenAI is expanding its international team of lobbyists—the size of its global affairs team increased from 3 to 35 last year.
• Yahoo is incorporating AI features from Artifact—the AI news app it acquired—into the Yahoo News app.
• OpenAI CTO Mira Murati suggested that the models they’re developing might not be that much better than GPT-4.

Treats To Try.

1. Aidentified is an AI prospecting tool for financial firms to find qualified leads (raised $12.5M).
2. Inscope helps accounting teams complete financial reporting and technical accounting tasks in minutes (raised $4.3M).
3. Sixfold helps insurance companies streamline their underwriting process to analyze risks more accurately (raised $15M).

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

Intelligent Insights.

• How AI Image Models Work (link).
• Stressing Over Your Next Home Renovation Project? Let AI Handle It. (link).
• AI Will Become Mathematicians’ ‘Co-Pilot’ (link).
• How to Use AI to Create Role-Play Scenarios for Your Students (link).
• Microsoft’s Nadella Is Building an AI Empire. OpenAI Was Just the First Step. (link).

A Cat's Commentary.