KPMG Invests $2B in AI and Cloud Services, Expanding Microsoft Partnership

Pivot 5: 5 stories. 5 minutes a day. 5 days a week.

1. KPMG Invests $2B in AI and Cloud Services, Expanding Microsoft Partnership

KPMG LLP is investing $2 billion in AI and cloud services over the next five years, expanding its partnership with Microsoft Corp. The investment aims to automate various aspects of KPMG's tax, audit, and consulting services, enabling faster analysis and more strategic advice for clients. KPMG Chairman and CEO, Bill Thomas, emphasized that the plan is to enhance the workforce's capabilities with AI, not to eliminate jobs.

As part of the expanded partnership, KPMG will be among the first to access Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI assistant, before its public launch. KPMG will also bring more workloads to the Azure cloud platform, which it already uses to access the OpenAI service for building and running its own AI applications. The company expects to generate about $12 billion in additional revenue through the five-year partnership.

The investment comes at a challenging time for KPMG, which has faced slowing growth in its consultancy business. However, the firm remains optimistic, with a significant portion of its investment going towards generative AI to improve work around environmental, social, and governance issues, and to unify massive datasets for tax reporting and analysis of ESG-related transactions.

Read the full story here

2. eBay Leverages Generative AI and Computer Vision to Enhance Customer Experience

eBay, the e-commerce giant, is integrating generative AI and computer vision to revolutionize its marketplace and deliver highly personalized shopping experiences. During the VentureBeat Transform 2023 conference, Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, chief AI officer, and Xiaodi Zhang, vice president of seller experience at eBay, discussed the company's ambitious plans to scale its robust AI infrastructure.

eBay is leveraging generative AI throughout its platform to streamline the purchasing process for both buyers and sellers. The company aims to create captivating ways for purchasers to discover products, boosting user satisfaction and eliminating obstacles. Zhang highlighted the company's significant investments in improving the selling experience and listing flow, addressing challenges such as determining item descriptions, pricing, and the appropriate level of information.

eBay has also established an Office of Responsible AI to tackle issues such as bias measurement and hallucination assessment. Mekel-Bobrov emphasized the importance of leveraging foundational models while accounting for their limitations, including the lack of diversity. The company is actively exploring solutions to these harder problems, demonstrating its commitment to responsible AI integration.

Read the full story here

3. Nvidia Invests $50M in Recursion for AI-Driven Drug Discovery

Nvidia, the renowned chipmaker, is investing $50 million in Recursion Pharmaceuticals to accelerate the development of the biotech firm's AI models for drug discovery. The announcement led to an 80% surge in Recursion's stock, while Nvidia shares also rose by over 2%. Recursion uses AI models to identify and design new therapies, which it offers to other drugmakers, including Roche and Bayer.

Recursion will utilize its extensive biological and chemical datasets, exceeding 23,000 terabytes, to train its AI models on Nvidia's cloud platform. These datasets grow by hundreds of terabytes every week, according to Recursion CEO Chris Gibson. Nvidia could potentially license these AI models on BioNeMo, its cloud service for generative AI in drug discovery.

Recursion is currently conducting human trials for five of its drugs, with data readouts expected next year. These include a drug for a neurovascular disease caused by brain malformation and a treatment for a specific type of ovarian cancer. The investment by Nvidia underscores the growing interest in AI within the pharmaceutical industry.

Read the full story here

4. OpenAI to Train Models on Associated Press News Stories

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab, has entered into an agreement with The Associated Press (AP) to train its AI models on AP's news stories for the next two years. The deal grants OpenAI access to AP's archive content dating back to 1985. In return, AP will gain access to OpenAI's "technology and product expertise," although the specifics of this aspect are not yet clear.

AP has been exploring AI features for several years, generating reports about company earnings since 2014 and later automating stories about Minor League Baseball and college sports. Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, stated that AP's feedback and access to their high-quality, factual text archive would help improve the capabilities and usefulness of OpenAI's systems.

Earlier this year, AP announced AI-powered projects to publish Spanish-language news alerts and document public safety incidents in a Minnesota newspaper. The outlet also launched an AI search tool to help news partners find photos and videos in its library based on "descriptive language." Despite these advancements, AP maintains that it "does not use it in its news stories."

Read the full story here

5. Infinite Canvas Raises $6M for UGC Games, Including Fortnite

Infinite Canvas, a studio known for promoting user-generated content (UGC) on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, has announced a $6 million funding round. The company plans to use the funds to promote CreatureCraft and other UGC games under its umbrella. CreatureCraft, a Discord game that has quickly gained 100,000 users, uses generative AI to create unique cards designed by players, which can be used in battles or sold to earn in-game currency.

The funding round was led by Bitkraft, with participation from HBSE, Warner Music Group, J Ventures, Lightshed, Day One Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Crossbeam. Infinite Canvas co-founder Tal Schar expressed the belief that generative AI technology would revolutionize their efforts to bridge the gap between players and developers, turning every player into a creator.

Sebastian Park added that the company raised the funds to push the envelope around the creator-consumer ratio, aiming to ensure that more consumers become creators. The company sees tools like GenAI as a means to empower players, potentially enabling a one-to-one ratio of players to creators.

Read the full story here