The Sequence Radar - Issue #967: Last Week in AI: The Models Got Smarter. The Money Got Nervous.
Wall Street discovers the limits of exponential optimism, while Google, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines keep making the future more interesting.
TL;DR
- Google released Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, a video generation model with a 30% price cut, offering improved editing and consistency.
- OpenAI announced GPT-6 Cyber, a specialized cybersecurity model that achieved higher scores in vulnerability discovery.
- Thinking Machines Lab introduced Inkling 2 Small, a large Mixture-of-Experts model with adjustable reasoning effort.
- AI-linked tech and chip stocks, including Nvidia, experienced a major sell-off, with the Nasdaq Composite entering correction territory.
- Acquisition news includes Palo Alto Networks eyeing Clutch, Dropbox acquiring Tigris Data, and Meta acquiring Conductor.
- fal announced a Series F funding round of $1.3 billion at a $16 billion valuation.
- 42AI emerged from stealth with $62.5 million in seed funding for its behavioral world model.
- Elon Musk addressed usage limits for Grok Bot due to high operational costs.
- Shield AI plans to acquire Echodyne for $5.3 billion and is raising significant funding.
- OpenAI is reportedly in talks to acquire Pierre Computer Company and has raised $11 billion in a new funding round valuing it at $1.25 trillion.