Update to OpenAI Chronicle and Wrap-Up of the GenAI Unicorn Series

13 is a beautiful number. With this number, we wrap up our series on Generative AI Unicorns. So far, we've chronicled OpenAI, Anthropic, Inflection, Hugging Face, Cohere, Lightricks, Runway, Jasper, Replit, Character AI, AI21 Labs, Mistral AI, and Stability AI. Most likely, we will update this list and share more investigations as new unicorns with particularly interesting stories emerge, but for now – this episode is the last in the series. And it is about... OpenAI again: An Update.

We published our first article about OpenAI 8 (!) months ago when we had just a little over 1,000 readers. Now, with over 46,000 readers, we want to revisit their story, adding a few important updates about this titan of the GenAI world.

Enjoy the ride.

(FYI, stay tuned for the next series: it will be about AI Infrastructure Unicorns. They provide the hardware, software, and services necessary for generative AI companies but even if GenAI will someday become extinct, these infrastructure builders won’t stay without the job as they serve a much bigger industry of AI/ML models in general. Think Databricks, CoreWeave, Scale AI, etc. – for each of them, we will find a unique angle to cover!)

In the first part: OpenAI Chronicle: What Drives ChatGPT Creators, we covered:

• Founder’s intentions and internal friction

• Sam Altman’s vision

• Money situation and current investments

• GPT development history and other interesting products

• Safety & alignment

• Urge for regulations

• Bonus: What and Who is Open AI

It was published on June 07, 2023. So many things happened since then! Dive in →

At the end of June, CEO Sam Altman returned from a massive global tour. He traveled to 25 cities across 6 continents to speak with users, developers, policymakers, and the public, and hear about each community’s priorities for AI development and deployment. Nothing really interesting, but after the trip, the company summarized: Insights from global conversations.

In August, we talked to OpenAI General Counsel, Che Chang. We discussed how the OpenAI legal team uses ChatGPT, how they navigate legal uncertainty around new technology, and how they operate across different jurisdictions. Che also offered guidance for enterprises on navigating risks and liability when working with GenAI and provided insights into the future.

In general, OpenAI was moving at cosmic speed, delivering updates one after another. It all led to an exciting DevDay at the beginning of November, where OpenAI, among other things, introduced GPTs. GPTs allow for the customization of ChatGPT for specific uses, enabling the creation and sharing of tailored AI versions without coding, for tasks ranging from learning games to designing stickers, thereby enhancing daily life and work productivity. They also promised to open a sort of marketplace for them in the nearest future.

On November 9th, they announced OpenAI Data Partnerships: “We’ll work together with organizations to produce public and private datasets for training AI models.” “To ultimately make AGI that is safe and beneficial to all of humanity, we’d like AI models to deeply understand all subject matters, industries, cultures, and languages, which requires as broad a training dataset as possible.”

You can also check the other 12 Chronicles about GenAI Unicorns:

• Stability AI Chronicle: Why It Can Fail in 2024. Investigating the Thin Line Between Genuine Innovation and Strategic Exaggeration in AI.

• Mistral AI's Bold Journey. From Paris to Global Stage: The Unconventional Rise of a French AI Unicorn and Its Open-Source Revolution.

• Jasper AI: A Dilemma of a Thin Wrapper. GPT's Blessing and Curse on The Unicorn Turned Underdog.

• Anthropic Chronicle: Unveiling the Secrets of OpenAI's Rival. What vision drives it, how is it connected to effective altruism, and what is so special about Claude?

• Inflection AI: The Story of the Unforeseen and Secretive Unicorn with a $4 Billion Valuation. Why Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleyman, veterans of tech and AI, are so passionate about Inflection Pi, their business strategy and thoughts about AI risks.

• Democratizing AI: The Hugging Face Ethos of Accessible Machine Learning. How 3 founders turned their passion for sharing knowledge into a thriving ML community.

• Cohere AI Chronicle – Challenging Tech Giants With AI For All. Bringing Google-Quality AI to Everyone While Addressing Concerns About LLMs Biases.

• AI21 Labs: Being in Amazon's Bedrock without any investment from Amazon. How AI21 Labs Maintains Independence and Innovation While Collaborating with Amazon, Distinguishing Itself from Industry Giants Like OpenAI.

• Character AI's Journey: From Not Needed to Highly Valued. Challenging Conventions: How Character AI is Carving Its Niche Amidst Tech Titans (and Can It?)

• Replit: How to Compete Tech Giants by Democratizing AI in Coding.

• Runway Chronicles: Melding Art and AI in a Transient Tech Terrain. Watch Runway's evolution, learn the tech behind Stable Diffusion, as well as legal challenges, financials, and the company's mission to democratize generative AI.

• Lightricks: The Oldest Generative AI Unicorn. How to leverage AI for creator economy.

Stay tuned for the next AI Infrastructure Unicorns Series: we are aiming at Databricks!