Artificial intelligence could cost many of us our careers — but that doesn’t mean we should stop its development, says journalist Megan J. McArdle. As she watches AI encroach on her own craft, she shares a fresh take on the 19th-century Luddites, who tried to destroy machines that would upend their trade.
Source: Youtube
IBL News | New York
AI startup Perplexity — known for its AI-generated summaries of search results — unveiled its web browser, called Comet, in its battle against Google, aiming to reach users directly without having to go through Chrome, the leading navigator.
For now, Comet will be available to subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-per-month Max plan, as well as a small group of invitees who signed up for a waitlist.
This web browser includes a new AI agent, Comet Assistant, a toolbar intended to summarize emails and calendar events, manage tabs, and navigate web pages.
Recently, Google has deployed several AI integrations into Chrome, along with its AI mode, an AI search product that bears a resemblance to Perplexity.
OpenAI is also considering launching its own browser to compete with Google, having hired key members from the original Google Chrome team in the last year.
Techcrunch, which tested the performance of Comet, wrote that “it does seem to offer some new capabilities that may just give Perplexity a leg up over the competition in the modern browser wars.”
University of Tennessee researchers are turning to artificial intelligence to come up with treatment plans for breast cancer patients more quickly.
Source: Youtube
Amarillo Animal Management and Welfare has partnered with Petco Love Lost, a nonprofit organization, to implement an artificial intelligence database that uses facial recognition technology to help reunite lost pets with their families.
Source: Youtube
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright says there is no plan for a tariff carveout for the energy industry as the country expands its power resources to fuel AI demand.
Source: Youtube
Human intelligence vs. artificial intelligence: complementary, not competitive.
Source: Youtube
The future of work is arriving faster than expected.
Source: Youtube
IBL News | New York
AI infrastructure, developer tools, observability, and workflow orchestration startup LangChain Inc. has raised $100 million in new funding at an approximate $1 billion valuation led by IVP, according to TechCrunch.
The company [the team in the picture above] had previously raised $35 million in two rounds from investors, including Benchmark Capital Management Company, Sequoia Capital, and Amplify Partners, reportedly valuing LangChain at $200 million at the time.
Founded in 2022 as an open-source project by engineer Harrison Chase, LangChain develops infrastructure and tools designed to simplify the creation of applications powered by LLMs for developers and companies. The company provides modular components that connect LLMs with data, tools, application programming interfaces, and workflows, enabling more advanced and interactive AI behavior.
LangChain’s core offering is a framework that enables developers to chain together calls to LLMs, search systems, and other tools. This approach supports complex, multi-step reasoning, agent-based workflows, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation pipelines.
The startup’s open-source code has addressed these problems by providing a framework for building apps on top of LLM models. It has become a hugely popular project on GitHub (111,000 stars, over 18,000 forks).
The company offers various tools to assist users in managing and interacting with LLMs, including LangSmith, a separate, closed-source product for observability, evaluation, and monitoring of LLM applications, specifically agents.
LangSmith has led the company to achieve annual recurring revenue (ARR) between $12 million and $16 million, according to TechCrunch.
Competitors of LangSmith are open-source Langfuse and Helicone.
There’s also LangServe, a tool for turning LangChain applications into production-ready APIs. The tool makes it easier to deploy and scale language model workflows in real environments without building infrastructure from scratch.
Stacey Abrams on her new book and the ethical questions of AI.
Source: Youtube
