Without a doubt, the past few months have been exciting for many of our AI Ecosystem Top 12 Pioneers. Since announcing the list earlier this year, we’ve been keeping a close eye on major announcements coming from whose strategies ripple through the AI ecosystem. Here’s a June recap presenting my highlights of the latest developments from our Top 12.
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NVIDIA Builds, Expands Partnerships
NVIDIA has deepened its partnership with its fellow pioneer, Microsoft, to further optimize NVIDIA GPUs and the NVIDIA AI Enterprise suite through Microsoft Azure Marketplace. The two companies have collaborated to streamline the deployment of Microsoft’s recently released Phi-3 small language models (SLMs) and NVIDIA’s cuOpt route optimization AI that helps plan real-time logistics.
NVIDIA also partnered with Hippocratic AI, a startup building a safety-first LLM for the healthcare industry. The company also deepened its partnership with Oracle to bring the latter’s cloud and AI services to NVIDIA’s computing and GenAI suite.
OpenAI Enlists PwC as Customer, Reseller
OpenAI penned a deal with PwC, which became the first reseller for ChatGPT Enterprise and its largest user. The professional services firm is applying OpenAI’s technology across its operations, including the application of the new ChatGPT-4o model to services including tax return reviews and proposal generation. PwC’s use of the technology not only saves human labor costs but also allows them to identify more use cases for their clients.
UiPath CEO Change, Microsoft Integration
UiPath announced that Rob Enslin resigned as CEO and board member, which became effective June 1, with founder and former CEO Daniel Dines re-appointed as CEO. I had a chance to speak with Dines earlier this year as the company was announcing several additions to the platform.
UiPath also announced integration between its Business Automation Platform and Microsoft Copilot for 365, allowing joint customers to automate knowledge work more easily and access UiPath’s capabilities directly from Microsoft 365 applications. For reference, Azure remains a preferred cloud platform for UiPath and the UiPath Automation Cloud.
Google Cloud Duet AI Boosts User Productivity
Google announced Duet AI within Google Workspace, building GenAI across Workspace apps to boost user productivity. Duet AI helps users in writing, organizing, visualizing, and accelerating workflows. Users can now generate images within Slides, analyze data more easily in Sheets, and generate unique backgrounds in Meets. I encourage you to read the announcement for more details on features.
Anthropic Adds API Connections
Anthropic continues to improve Claude, the company’s flagship language model. Recently, it announced Claude’s ability to use external tools through APIs. This ability is available across the entire Claude 3 model family on the Anthropic Messages API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.
Developers can leverage toolsets to enable Claude to extract structured data, automate tasks, and answer questions using APIs. Companies like StudyFetch, Intuned, and Hebbia have successfully integrated these capabilities and seen great performance and user experience improvements.
ServiceNow Sustains Innovation Pace
ServiceNow has not slowed the pace of innovation around AI in recent months.
At ServiceNow’s flagship partner event, Knowledge 24, the company and NVIDIA showcased AI avatars powered by NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for use in virtual agent experiences applicable for companies in retail and travel, for example.
ServiceNow also announced new AI-powered capabilities for engaging employees. It has embedded AI into the Talent Development studio to understand skills, support mobility, and enhance the mentoring of employees. They’ve also added AI features to Workplace Service Delivery to help companies act on real-time data in workplace management.
The company also announced a deeper alliance with Microsoft to integrate Now Assist with Microsoft Copilot — an integration with many implications for joint users of the two platforms.
Cohere’s Multilingual Models
Cohere announced a new model family called Aya 23, a set of LLMs covering 23 different languages, as part of its ongoing commitment to open research on multilingual models. The company is releasing both the 8B and 35B parameter versions of the family. Aya 23 contributes to a paradigm shift in how the ML community approaches multilingual AI research, aiming to support more languages as first-class citizens.
Concluding Thoughts
One interesting thing to note about these developments is the frequency of partnerships – NVIDIA and Microsoft, ServiceNow and NVIDIA, Microsoft and UiPath, OpenAI and PwC, and beyond. These alliances are a testament to the nature of the AI ecosystem right now, with players in the Top 12 (and beyond) engaging with others in myriad ways.
It’s exciting to see how each of the players evolves individually alongside the evolution of their role in the cloud. As always, stay tuned to the weekly AI Ecosystem Report as we’ll keep you updated on the progress of these AI pioneers and the AI world at large.
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