Discussion with AI startup Character.ai
Focus on expanding research rather than acquisition... No agreement yet
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, are reportedly competing over collaboration with AI chatbot companies.
On the 25th (local time), the British daily Financial Times (FT) reported that Meta, the parent company of Facebook operated by Zuckerberg, and Musk's AI startup xAI are competing over collaboration with 'Character.AI'.
Character.AI was founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer, a former researcher of Google's deep learning AI team 'Google Brain'. It is an AI chatbot service that uses large language models (LLM) to provide conversations with various characters. It is popular among young people in the United States. It has also received support from Andreessen Horowitz, a representative venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.
According to FT, four insiders familiar with the matter said Meta recently held initial talks for a partnership with Character.AI, and Musk's xAI also had similar discussions. However, the talks between the companies have not yet led to an agreement.
FT explained that the interest of tech companies in Character.AI well reflects the recent trend of promoting collaboration and investment with AI startups to develop cutting-edge technology.
Due to the impact of global regulatory measures, big tech companies are hesitant to attempt acquisitions of AI startups, and discussions on collaboration with Character.AI are reportedly focused more on expanding research rather than acquisition.
For example, the $13 billion collaboration between Microsoft (MS) and OpenAI was investigated by U.S. and European competition authorities as a possible merger despite denials from both sides.
Meta is also known to have exchanged opinions regarding strategic partnerships with startups such as 'Adept', founded by OpenAI and Google AI developers, in addition to Character.AI.
Regarding the FT report, both Character.AI and Meta declined to comment, and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, last September, Meta created so-called 'AI persona' chatbots applying the personalities of celebrities, making them available on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and other platforms. xAI developed its own chatbot 'Grok' and provided it to premium subscribers of X (formerly Twitter).
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