K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
1) Language AI will take center stage, with more startups getting funded in NLP than in any other category of AI.
Language is humanity’s most important invention. More than any other attribute, it is the defining hallmark of our species’ intelligence.
Naturally, language pervades every facet of every business activity across every sector. The ability to accurately automate language therefore opens up virtually unbounded opportunities for value creation.
The field of natural language processing (NLP) has been upended and turbocharged in the past few years by a foundational new technology known as transformers, first introduced by Google researchers in a 2017 paper. We are only now reaching the point at which this dazzingly powerful technology is mature enough to be productized and commercialized at scale. A revolution in language AI, and thus in business, is around the corner.
Venture capitalists will plow record amounts of money into NLP startups in 2022. Leading NLP startups Hugging Face (last valued at $440M) and Cohere (last valued at $200M) will both become unicorns next year.
In the months and years ahead, expect a Cambrian explosion in NLP startup innovation as entrepreneurs identify a vast array of language-based activities across the economy to optimize, automate and transform using AI.
2) Databricks, DataRobot and Scale AI will all go public.
These three companies are among the first wave of big winners in the modern AI economy. They each provide tools and infrastructure to help other companies build AI, reflecting the common theme across technology cycles that infrastructure precedes applications.
All three companies boast astonishingly high revenue growth rates. All three raised big rounds in 2021 from “pre-IPO” investment firms, which typically invest in companies shortly before they go public: Databricks from Franklin Templeton; DataRobot from Altimeter and Tiger Global; Scale AI from Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Tiger Global.
Companies often make a high-profile CFO hire in preparation for an upcoming IPO. DataRobot announced this April that it had hired Damon Fletcher (formerly Tableau CFO) for the role. Databricks CFO Dave Conte, meanwhile, previously served as CFO of Splunk, where he took the company public in 2012. Don’t be surprised to see Scale AI make a high-profile CFO hire early in the new year.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2021/12/22/10-ai-predictions-for-2022/?sh=1c956546482d
Language is humanity’s most important invention. More than any other attribute, it is the defining hallmark of our species’ intelligence.
Naturally, language pervades every facet of every business activity across every sector. The ability to accurately automate language therefore opens up virtually unbounded opportunities for value creation.
The field of natural language processing (NLP) has been upended and turbocharged in the past few years by a foundational new technology known as transformers, first introduced by Google researchers in a 2017 paper. We are only now reaching the point at which this dazzingly powerful technology is mature enough to be productized and commercialized at scale. A revolution in language AI, and thus in business, is around the corner.
Venture capitalists will plow record amounts of money into NLP startups in 2022. Leading NLP startups Hugging Face (last valued at $440M) and Cohere (last valued at $200M) will both become unicorns next year.
In the months and years ahead, expect a Cambrian explosion in NLP startup innovation as entrepreneurs identify a vast array of language-based activities across the economy to optimize, automate and transform using AI.
2) Databricks, DataRobot and Scale AI will all go public.
These three companies are among the first wave of big winners in the modern AI economy. They each provide tools and infrastructure to help other companies build AI, reflecting the common theme across technology cycles that infrastructure precedes applications.
All three companies boast astonishingly high revenue growth rates. All three raised big rounds in 2021 from “pre-IPO” investment firms, which typically invest in companies shortly before they go public: Databricks from Franklin Templeton; DataRobot from Altimeter and Tiger Global; Scale AI from Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Tiger Global.
Companies often make a high-profile CFO hire in preparation for an upcoming IPO. DataRobot announced this April that it had hired Damon Fletcher (formerly Tableau CFO) for the role. Databricks CFO Dave Conte, meanwhile, previously served as CFO of Splunk, where he took the company public in 2012. Don’t be surprised to see Scale AI make a high-profile CFO hire early in the new year.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2021/12/22/10-ai-predictions-for-2022/?sh=1c956546482d
