Google has announced the launch of Gradient Ventures, a new venture fund from Google with technical mentorship for early-stage startups focused on artificial intelligence. Through Gradient, Google will provide portfolio companies with capital, resources, and dedicated access to experts and bootcamps in AI. We’ll take a minority stake in the startups in which we invest.
Google stated: “Many members of our team are engineers, so we’re familiar with the journey from big idea to product launch. The goal is to help our portfolio companies overcome engineering challenges to create products that will apply artificial intelligence to today’s challenges and those we’ll face in the future.
“Our portfolio is already growing, and our first companies are making progress, including Algorithmia, a marketplace for algorithms and functions, and Cogniac, a suite of tools used to create and manage visual models.”
The company strongly believes that through AI, yesterday’s science fiction is becoming today’s nonfiction.
“There’s everything to reimagine as we usher in this new era of technology—and we’re excited to work with entrepreneurs to start building it,” it said.
Microsoft on the other hand is planning to announce the creation of Microsoft Research AI, a dedicated unit within its global Microsoft Research division that will focus exclusively on how to make the company’s software smarter, now and in the future.
While Microsoft has long employed a veritable army of AI experts who have contributed their expertise to products and services including Microsoft Translator, the Microsoft Cortana digital assistant, and even the infamous rogue Tay chatbot, the company is taking another direction instead.
Microsoft Research Labs director Eric Horvitz told Business Insider that this new organization will bring roughly 100 of those experts under one figurative roof. By bringing them together, Horvitz says, Microsoft’s AI team can do more, faster, he says.
Horvitz describes the formation of Microsoft Research AI as a “key strategic effort;’ a move that is “absolutely critical” as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly important to the future of technology. All in all, Microsoft Research AI encompasses about 1/10th of the staff of the overall Microsoft Research group, with plans to grow.
Microsoft is also taking steps to make sure that artificial intelligence is being used responsibly, thanks to a new overseeing ethics board called Aether made up of top Microsoft execs from across the company. And a new “design guide” will provide Microsoft teams with insight into how to responsibly develop and deploy AI.
