Headlines

• Axelera AI Secures $68M to Challenge NVIDIA (VB) - The Netherlands-based startup plans to expand its AI processing unit (AIPU). Axelera’s proprietary digital in-memory computing technology accelerates matrix operations, offering high energy efficiency.

• Mailchimp’s AI Vision: Transforming SMEs (FB) - Ambitious plans to provide an end-to-end AI automation solution, aiming to streamline operations, boost growth, and enable strategic decision-making with AI across a suite of tools.

• The rise of Model-as-a-Service, MaaS (FB) - Companies are launching customizable AI models tailored to specific industries and use cases, often in collaboration with major cloud providers.

• TikTok’s “Genie” AI Chatbot (SF) - TikTok’s parent company ByteDance filed a US trademark application for “Genie” in May, revealing plans for an AI chatbot with capabilities beyond simple search recommendations.

Today’s Story

AWS Probes Perplexity Over Alleged Data Scraping Violations after Several publications, including Forbes and Wired, have accused the company of using their web archives to train its AI models without consent or compensation.

In fact, Forbes alleged that Perplexity is creating “knockoff stories” using similar wording and lifted fragments from its articles without adequate citation.

An AWS representative confirmed that Amazon is investigating whether Perplexity is breaking its rules, which prohibit using AWS services for any illegal activity. In addition, all AWS clients must follow the instructions in websites’ robots.txt files, which typically do not allow data scraping.

Amid ongoing copyright battles, the use of content by publishers to train AI models without a licensing deal in place is very much an ongoing question.

Launches

Research

AI Game Characters Offer Window into the Human Mind

AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) in video games could enable neuroscientists and psychologists to probe more deeply into the mysteries of the human brain and behavior.

Scientists have long used video games as research tools to study learning, navigation, decision-making, and cooperation. Now AI characters could greatly expand the possibilities.

Rich, immersive game worlds filled with realistic AI characters would allow researchers to cheaply and easily study how people respond to various social settings and interactions at scale.

Tool Spotlight