11–20 of 34 posts
Maybe those projections are wrong, and I certainly love all the energy in this space, but it feels like a lot of investors are going to get burned.
1. Many startups claiming AI are simply doing things with data; research shows two-fifths have no AI programs in their products [1]. 2. Round-closing announcements trail the actual closing by several months. Not to mention the actual raising and diligence takes months (even more so for larger/later rounds). Thus the $ reported here does not factor in covid19 and the current economic crisis, as implied. [1] https://ww…
I've spent an unhealthy amount of time at presentations, conferences, seminars and meetups. With that, on your first point, I'm more inclined to believe somewhere around 90% have absolutely no "AI" or "ML" for that matter in their products. And a large fraction of those who do have re-used existing open source solutions without digging a lot into them. De omnibus dubitandum est, of course, but this is the impression…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure it's mainly platforms. https://hbr.org/2020/03/navigating-the-new-landscape-of-ai-p... I've personally been seeing several pop up for helping with training+deployment for edge-oriented applications like Edge Impulse and Latent AI.
Latent Sciences?? https://latentsci.com/
https://a16z.com/2020/02/16/the-new-business-of-ai-and-how-i... a very good take. Most AI startups are struggling to scale because models are hard to scale and generalize compared to SaaS. There'll be some fortunes made for sure, but we're still very early in building out these businesses and mostly these seem to be VC's who are (were?) desperate for "deep-tech" portfolio items to make them sound "bleeding-edge" at C…
Most ML companies have one, funded ones have two, and profitable ones have the right balance of three. Funding an ML company that isn't 85th percentile on at least two is dumb.
If you don't have some AI in your company, you won't get investors.
Almost none of the company leaders or even VCs fully understand what AI even is or does. They just like to hear thats its there. If you don't have some AI in your company, you won't get investors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've spent an unhealthy amount of time at presentations, conferences, seminars and meetups. With that, on your first point, I'm more inclined to believe somewhere around 90% have absolutely no "AI" or "ML" for that matter in their products. And a large fraction of those who do have re-used existing open source solutions without digging a lot into them. De omnibus dubitandum est, of course, but this is the impression…
Your suspicion is largely correct, in my experience. I've worked as a consultant on a number of different AI / ML projects for start-ups. Most aren't doing anything all that new or groundbreaking from an ML point of view. Their real innovation is usually more about applying ML to industries / areas where it hasn't been used much before. But that doesn't get the investor dollars flowing in, so the founders try to make…
This is what __REALLY__ bugs me. Personally I'd love to see money poured into actual R&D rather than people abusing the "ML" and "AI" acronyms. Investors don't care about your R&D at all and commonly see it as a huge risk factor. Which it is of course. A semi-working prototype has a much better chance of succeeding so they stick to that.
But as a consequence many people(myself included) are not even bothering with pitching anything to anyone and invest their own money, time, resources and savings into it. Blocking? Yes. Painful? Absolutely. Slow? Incredibly. I'm sure the next AI winter is around the corner, if it isn't here already: The virus outbreak might be the catalyst that triggers(or has triggered) it, given the staggering amount of people going full "I have AI which will provide a cure, vaccine and time travel to go back in time and warn the world, just gimme cash". I doubt anyone would deliver on any of those promises(and that's me being optimistic). But the crisis will likely push a lot of investors to pour millions into the empty promises that have a few buzzwords thrown in. I hope I'm wrong.
"Anonymous Indians"