“I think we are creating a new ‘camera’ with artificial intelligence (AI).”
‘Runway’, a generative AI startup located in New York, USA. Michelle Kwon, who is in charge of corporate operations and partnerships here, said in a recent interview with the Dong-A Ilbo, “Just as the world changed completely with the invention of the camera 200 years ago, AI will bring innovation to the storytelling field, including the film industry.” He emphasized that the AI craze is only just beginning.
Runway is considered a leader in ‘multimodal AI’ that creates a video by inputting photos or text. It was predicted that the standards for creativity in video art would change as technological barriers, such as making blockbuster movies for hundreds of thousands of won, would be lowered. Runway’s AI technology was also applied to the movie ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, which swept 7 Oscar categories last year.
Last year, the company became the first unicorn company (startup valued at more than $1 billion) with an enterprise value of $1.5 billion (2 trillion won) thanks to investments from Google and Nvidia. It’s been 5 years since founding the business.
Founded in 2018 by graduates of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Runway’s rise to unicorn status symbolizes the recent investment craze in AI startups in the United States. This is because last year’s corporate value more than tripled in five months. In the early days of starting the business, it was difficult to attract investment due to the perception of ‘what can generative AI be used for?’, but Manager Kwon explains that the atmosphere has changed significantly since Open AI’s Chat GPT showed its power last year.
According to investment data company Pitchbook, investment in U.S. AI startups last year amounted to $27 billion (35.4 trillion won). Two-thirds of these are led by three companies, Microsoft (MS), Google, and Amazon, which is characterized by overwhelming venture capital (VC) investment. They are competing to invest tens of trillions of won to find the ‘second open AI’ and dominate the AI ecosystem.
Due to the investment frenzy, Open AI’s corporate value was recently estimated at $100 billion (131 trillion won), and its value has tripled in 11 years. Competitor Antropic’s corporate value is also estimated to have nearly quadrupled in one year to $18 billion (24 trillion won) thanks to investments from Google and Amazon.
John Somorzai, CEO of Salesforce Ventures, another big player in AI investment, said, “More than 100 in-house experts are looking for gems that will differentiate themselves amid the hype about AI technology.”
AI startups that met at Salesforce’s ‘World Tour NYC’ held at the Jarvis Center in New York on the 14th of last month (local time) unanimously said, “The AI craze sparked by ChatGPT is only the beginning.” This means that while last year was filled with exaggerated optimism and fear regarding AI innovation and risks, this year will be the first year in which we can actually feel the introduction of AI, which will lead to a productivity gap.
Elizabeth Lucas, CEO of ‘Autogen AI’, an AI company that creates government bid proposals, met with reporters at the site that day and said, “We can write bid proposals eight times faster with AI that has been learned by collecting only the vast amount of proposal data within the company. In the past, it was ‘ The work I was devastated about, thinking, ‘I have thousands of things to do,’ will be finished by lunch. “There is no overtime,” she said. Autogen AI, founded in 2022, received a total of $69.5 million (KRW 85.57 billion) in investment from Salesforce and others last year.
Brad Epperson, vice president of Nexstar, a traditional media conglomerate and the largest regional broadcaster in the United States, also attended the on-site panel and said, “40% of advertising work is used to write reports. “Now, we can leave the reports to technology and let our employees go out into the streets and focus on their core job, customer management,” he declared.
Amid the AI craze, copyright and safety issues are also emerging, but optimism is also high. CEO Lucas said, “Trust begins with knowing where the AI data comes from. “This is why AI built solely from company internal data is attracting attention,” he analyzed.
New York =
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.