🌟Perplexity’s Big TikTok Ambition

Today we will discuss:

• Sponsored: Nume—AI-powered CFO insights to help startups manage finances with clarity and confidence

• Perplexity is back with another TikTok bid—This time with transparency and AI at the center

• Don’t miss this week’s Workflow Wednesday—AI strategy unlocked with Claude 3, Google Gemini, and SEOwind;now available at only $20/month! 

• Google vs. OpenAI—How Google lost the AI lead and what it’s doing to regain it

• In other AI news today—Google rolls out Gemini’s real-time AI video features, FuriosaAI rejects an $800M acquisition offer from Meta, Google introduces AI-generated podcasts from Gemini’s Deep Research, and Cloudflare traps web-scraping bots in an ‘AI Labyrinth’

• Saved the best for last—10 must-try AI tools

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Perplexity is back with another TikTok bid and a plan to overhaul it with AI

Key Points 

• Perplexity has made a second bid for TikTok, promising to rebuild its algorithm with transparency.

• The AI startup plans to integrate search, add video citations, and open-source TikTok’s recommendation system if its bid succeeds. 

♨️News - For the second time this year, AI search startup Perplexity has put in a bid to acquire TikTok, outlining its vision in a newly published blog post. 

🧐What’s their plan? Perplexity isn’t just looking to buy TikTok. It wants to transform it. If successful, the company says it would:

1. Rebuild the algorithm from scratch in U.S.-based data centers with American oversight. 

2. Make recommendations transparent by open-sourcing the system. 

3. Add citations to videos, similar to its own search features.

4. Integrate search so users can explore TikTok’s video library more effectively.

5. Improve personalization by linking TikTok and Perplexity accounts.

6. Introduce AI translations for multilingual access.

🤓Why this matters - Perplexity says it can rebuild the platform’s algorithm “without creating a monopoly,” setting itself apart from tech giants and investor groups that might keep ByteDance’s influence intact.

🤔Can Perplexity actually pull this off? The company first expressed interest back in January, but with deep-pocketed competitors like Oracle, Microsoft, and investor-led groups in the mix, it’s unclear how much weight its offer holds. Analysts estimate TikTok’s U.S. operations could be worth $30 billion to $50 billion, while Perplexity itself is still in early talks for funding that would value it at $18 billion. 

Read the full story here. 

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Google’s AI push and the race to catch up with OpenAI

Key Points 

• After ChatGPT’s success, Google declared a "code red," launching Bard in 100 days with a shaky debut. 

• Merging DeepMind and Google Brain into Gemini, Google is now pushing AI advancements but still faces stiff competition.

🤖Google’s missed opportunity - When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it took the world by surprise. But Google, which had pioneered many of the key AI breakthroughs, wasn’t caught off guard. It was just hesitant. Concerns over misinformation, bias, and reputational risks kept it from launching AI chatbots at scale. That caution gave OpenAI and Microsoft an opening, and they ran with it.

👨‍💻Scrambling to keep up - The pressure was immediate. Google’s leadership declared a “code red” and rushed to launch Bard in just 100 days. Engineers worked around the clock, and teams were restructured, but the rollout wasn’t smooth. A high-profile mistake in Bard’s demo led to a $100 billion drop in Alphabet’s market value overnight. 

🤹‍♂️Big moves, bigger challenges - Determined to compete, Google merged DeepMind and Google Brain into a single AI unit, now called Gemini. The company has since pushed out new AI models and features, trying to prove it can move just as fast as its rivals. But it’s still facing intense competition from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic. On top of that, analysts warn Google could lose up to a quarter of its search ad revenue to antitrust rulings in the coming years.

🥇Can Google regain the top spot? Its stock has recovered, and Gemini is making progress. But in AI, being second isn’t enough. Google now has to move fast without losing control.

Read the full story here.