Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, more than triple its valuation from a year ago. The funding round is being led by the venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, people familiar with the matter said. The $60 billion valuation includes the money Anthropic plans to raise in the round.
Source: AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funds Valuing It at $60 Billion
Google unveiled the latest version of its TV operating system at CES 2025 on Monday. It uses the company’s Gemini AI assistant to summarize the biggest news of the day for you. By asking Gemini to play your “News Brief,” the AI assistant will scrape news stories from across the internet and headlines posted by trusted news channels, and will produce a brief summary to catch you up on the day’s events.
Source: Google unveils an AI-powered TV that summarizes the news for you at CES 2025
The stock photo industry has been gasping for air, struggling to adapt to a market that continues to be extremely challenging. Over the past two decades, licensing prices for rights-managed (RM) images have plummeted by 20–50%, while royalty-free (RF) prices have dropped even more sharply, by 50–80%. The rise of microstock and subscription models has driven licensing fees as low as $0.27 per image.
Source: The Shutterstock-Getty Images Merger: A Bold Move in a Shifting Landscape – Kaptur
As much as it may be alarming that advertising really does work on us, consider that with advertising the subconscious or subtle effects are being designed and intentionally driven by ad creators. In the case of generative AI, a great deal of what goes into creating the content, no matter what its purpose, is based on an algorithm and human actors are less in control of what that model generates.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has deleted a host of fake social media profiles generated by artificial intelligence after a backlash against what Gizmodo called an invasion of “AI-powered slop.” The AI avatars managed by the platform include “Liv”, who “posts photos of children that do not exist, and “Jade”, who posts photos of her non-existent vinyl collection. “The AI apocalypse is here and it’s far stupider and more depressing than we were promised.”
Investments in generative AI, which encompasses a range of AI-powered apps, tools, and services to generate text, images, videos, speech, music, and more, reached new heights last year. According to data from financial tracker PitchBook compiled for TechCrunch, generative AI companies worldwide raised $56 billion from VCs in 2024 across 885 deals.
A joint team from Google Research and DeepMind has developed a training method called SALT (Small model aided large model training) that cuts training time by up to 28 percent while improving performance. The key innovation? Using smaller language models as assistant teachers. The researchers also created an enhanced version called SALTDS that carefully selects training data, focusing on examples where the smaller model performs well.
Source: Google finds new way to train AI models using smaller ‘teacher’ models
Adobe has been one of the biggest creative brands to embrace the potential of generative AI with Adobe Firefly, and in doing so has divided the creator community. But Adobe’s approach to including AI features in Photoshop and other software has been nuanced, and it’s been done in tandem with clear initiatives designed to protect artists and copyrights. The idea is to add creator-first AI tools to its software, as well as develop new AI-first tools, like Adobe Project Concept AI while setting up tools to protect ownership.
Source: Adobe sets out its approach to AI art and copyrights for 2025
Back in May, OpenAI said it was developing a tool to let creators specify how they want their works to be included in — or excluded from — its AI training data. But seven months later, this feature has yet to see the light of day. Called Media Manager, the tool would “identify copyrighted text, images, audio, and video,” to reflect creators’ preferences “across multiple sources.” It was intended to stave off some of the company’s fiercest critics, and potentially shield OpenAI from IP-related legal challenges.
Source: OpenAI failed to deliver the opt-out tool it promised by 2025
The members of the U.S. Supreme Court are generally not known for being tech-savvy. However, in a recent First Amendment decision involving online platforms content-moderation policies, several justices flagged an even bigger question — how should the First Amendment be applied to content generated by artificial intelligence (AI)?