If your product or service isn’t “AI-powered” yet, you may have missed the marketing memo. From jackets to toasters to water filters, AI is in everything these days. The reason is that there is no regulation for what is called “AI-powered”. Until then, it’s all free real estate.
This marketing phenomenon has permeated the pitch decks of startups seeking funding. “The number of companies applying AI as a business enabler has multiplied in the last six months,” said Vatsar Kanakiya, his CTO at 100X.VC.
And investors are buying it too. Despite a fundraising winter in the startup industry overall, AI startups are still hot as money continues to pour in. According to Crunchbase data, from Nov. 30, 2022 to May 30, 2023, in the six months since ChatGPT’s launch, AI startups received a whopping $23.9 billion in funding, while AI startups Corporate funding was $13.5 billion. in the previous half year. This shows that the funding fever for AI companies has nearly doubled, despite overall declines in funding and declining industry-wide valuations.
Not just start-ups, big tech companies and others are on board the AI gravy train. Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others are pouring billions into AI investments, starting a sort of AI arms race. Not to lag behind, his IT firms in India have also taken a proactive stance, with TCS, Infosys and Wipro unveiling generative AI services and products last month.
Now, if you think this is the first time an entrepreneur, investor, company, or advertiser has performed this ballet of buzzwords, turn the clock back to the not-too-distant past, when today’s buzzwords were arguably “crypto.” Let’s. Right-wing, right-wing, and centrist startups were vying for a piece of the crypto pie, with terms like tokenization, Web3, decentralization, blockchain, NFTs, metaverse, and DeFi everywhere.
From January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, cryptocurrency startups have raised a staggering $30.2 billion, according to Crunchbase data. Big tech companies were also making big strides in cryptocurrencies. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft – they all invested billions of dollars in the cryptocurrency, blockchain and metaverse space. Social networking giant Facebook has gone one step further and changed its name to Meta to strengthen its metaverse credentials. The digital asset revolution was on the horizon, about to burst into our lives, and finance was about to be democratized like never before.
But in 2022, interest rates will rise, prompting investors to divest from risk assets. The collapse of major cryptocurrency players such as Terra Luna, 3AC, Celius, Voyager, BlockFi and FTX has since plunged the sector into an even deeper abyss. Gone are the cryptocurrency crazes, and so are the choruses of cryptocurrency buzzwords.
Will the AI-powered company buzzword ballet be different this time? Will AI companies stay where they are or will they go with the wind? And what will be the next round of buzzwords? Huh? Quantum? Neuro? Or is it something completely unexpected?
@akancvedi
