Humane Inc., a startup founded by former Apple executives, has announced that it has raised $100 million in its latest investment round and has partnered with OpenAI – the creator of the widely popular ChatGPT tool.
In a press release, the company said the latest investment round was led by Kindred Ventures, which included significant participation from the likes of SK Networks, Microsoft, LG Technology Ventures and Volvo Cars’ Tech Fund.
Humane Inc. was founded and managed by husband and wife team Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, both of whom served as directors of Apple’s human interface and operating system team until their departure in 2016.
The duo shared on Wednesday that it will partner with OpenAI to integrate its artificial intelligence (AI) technology into Humane devices to bring their service to customers at scale.
Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, was one of the few early investors to join the new funding round for Humane.
“Our first device enables people to take AI with them wherever they go. It is an exciting time and we have focused on building the platform and device that can fully exploit the true power and potential of this technology,” Chaudhri said in a statement, noting that he is “extremely proud” to to collaborate with partners. and employees on his new startup.
“We are at the dawn of the next computer age and believe that together we can begin the journey to fundamentally reshape the role of technology in people’s lives,” added Chaudhri.
The news comes as Microsoft announced earlier this year that its new premium messaging service, Teams Premium, is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The company also announced that it will invest billions of dollars in OpenAI as part of a third phase of a collaboration between the two companies.
ChatGPT – which launched in November – is a free tool that automatically generates human-like answers to user questions in a way that is more advanced than previous technology.
The new innovative technology has recently raised the concerns of many parents and educators, with some saying that students could use that ChatGPT platform to cheat on assignments. Schools in New York City and Seattle have since banned the tool over those concerns.
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