Week in AI: Arianna Huffington backs health startup, Sierra signs lease

No longer leading her eponymous news publication, Huffington is now at the helm of Thrive Global.

By Sara Bloomberg - Staff Reporter

July 11, 2024, 02:32pm PDT

The OpenAI Startup Fund and Arianna Huffington's wellness company Thrive Global launched a new personalized, AI-powered health coaching startup called Thrive AI Health. The Alice L. Walton Foundation invested in the new company alongside OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global, though the amount of the initial investment was not disclosed.

In an open letter published at Time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington explained that the goal is "to build a customized, hyper-personalized AI health coach that will be available as a mobile app and also within Thrive Global’s enterprise products."

Full story: OpenAI Startup Fund, Arianna Huffington launch AI health coaching startup

Former Salesforce executive Bret Taylor and former Google executive Clay Bavor co-founded Sierra Technologies, which is developing a generative AI chatbot for businesses.

Sierra Technologies

Real Estate Deals

Bret Taylor's new AI startup Sierra has leased more than 40,000 square feet in San Francisco. Real estate reporter Sarah Klearman has more details.

Full story: Bret Taylor's AI startup Sierra signs 40,000-square-foot lease in SoMa

Rules and regulations

Several California bills to regulate the artificial intelligence industry are advancing through the state legislature. They include Senate Bill 1047 which is also known as the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act; Assembly Bill 2930 which would set requirements for assessing and reporting potential harms; and Senate Bill 942, known as the California AI Transparency Act, would require specific large developers of generative systems to identify content produced with generative AI software.

Stories:

AI safety bill passes committee vote in Sacramento

More AI regulations advance in California Legislature

Departures

Microsoft is giving up its observer seat on OpenAI's board, and Apple is abandoning its own short-lived bid to take an observer seat, as well, according to a recent report.

The change in strategy could be an attempt to deflect some regulatory scrutiny. The European Commission has been sniffing around the deals between Microsoft and OpenAI. Closer to home, the Dept. of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have also divvied up their own investigations.

Full story: Microsoft, Apple drop OpenAI board observer seats

Two now-former Humane AI employees have launched their own artificial intelligence startups. Brooke Hartley Moy and Ken Kocienda oversaw strategic partnerships and engineering, respectively, at Humane. Their new company, Infactory, is focused on providing accurate search results. TechCrunch has more details.

Amazon poached several executives and other employees from San Francisco-based Adept AI, including the startup's co-founder and CEO David Luan. Luan, four other co-founders and the other employees will work on Amazon's AGI autonomy team, Bloomberg News reported. Amazon will also license Adept's technology. Around 20 employees remain at Adept which appointed Head of Engineering Zach Brock as the startup's new CEO.

Funding rounds to know

Palo Alto-based Ario raised $16 million to develop a personal assistant which it describes as a "“universal basic AI," Venture Beat reported, and the focus is on helping users manage and control their personal online data.

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is backing a Singapore-based AI crypto startup called Sentient Labs which recently raised $85 million in seed funding, Bloomberg News reported. The startup is building an open-source platform to help individual developers get paid for their contributions to AI-powered tools.