TL;DR:
- AI21 Labs, a provider of cloud-based language models, secures $53 million in funding.
- The funding round, led by Intel Corp. and Comcast Corp., raises AI21’s valuation to $1.4 billion.
- The company’s flagship product, Wordtune, has gained millions of users over the past three years.
- AI21’s cloud-based platform, AI21 Studio, offers versatile language models accessible through APIs.
- Jurassic-2 series, AI21’s core offering, excels in text generation, rewriting, summarization, and more.
- Developers can customize models using proprietary training data for enhanced accuracy.
- The company plans to enhance task-specific language models and expand its workforce.
Main AI News:
In a remarkable development, AI21 Labs Ltd., a trailblazing provider of cloud-based large language models tailored for developers, has announced a substantial infusion of $53 million in fresh funding. This financial injection serves as an extension to their Series C investment, initially unveiled this past August. Notably, this funding round was spearheaded by the venture capital arms of industry giants Intel Corp. and Comcast Corp., solidifying AI21’s valuation at an impressive $1.4 billion. This investment milestone elevates AI21’s total external funding to a staggering $336 million.
Founded in 2017 in the vibrant tech hub of Tel Aviv, AI21 emerged under the visionary leadership of co-Chief Executive Officers Ori Goshen and Yoav Shoham, alongside co-founder Amnon Shashua, who also serves as the CEO of renowned vehicle chipmaker Mobileye Global Inc. AI21 embarked on its journey by introducing Wordtune, an artificial intelligence writing assistant, to the world in 2020. Since then, the company has strategically shifted its focus towards delivering expansive large language models.
AI21’s platform of choice is the cloud-based AI21 Studio, offering developers access to these transformative language models through intuitive application programming interfaces. These APIs empower developers to seamlessly integrate AI21’s cutting-edge models into their software solutions. The results speak volumes, with AI21’s APIs powering thousands of production applications for their esteemed clientele.
At the core of AI21’s offering lies the formidable Jurassic-2 series, comprising three versatile large language models. These models excel in generating text, reimagining existing prose, summarizing extensive documents, and fulfilling various other language-related tasks. AI21 proudly asserts that Jurassic-2 ranks among the elite performers in Stanford University’s prestigious HELM benchmark, which meticulously evaluates the reliability and proficiency of language models.
One of AI21’s distinguishing features is the flexibility it affords developers. Customization is key, with developers having the option to fine-tune Jurassic-2 models using proprietary training data to enhance their precision. Remarkably, even a modest training dataset consisting of as few as 50 to 100 learning examples can yield substantial improvements in accuracy. This stands in stark contrast to conventional prompt engineering, where manual intervention is often required to refine input for neural networks.
AI21 Studio extends its capabilities further by offering a suite of specialized language models, each dedicated to a specific task, be it text generation or document summarization. Additionally, a dedicated neural network model is optimized to drive chatbots, catering to the burgeoning demand for interactive AI-driven conversations.
Notably, AI21 integrates several of these specialized large language models within its flagship product, Wordtune, which has garnered a substantial user base exceeding tens of millions over the past three years. Wordtune isn’t limited to text generation and rewriting; it also excels in swiftly summarizing web content, helping users extract critical information with efficiency.
Anthony Lin, Corporate Vice President of Intel Capital, praised AI21’s comprehensive approach, stating, “The AI21 full-stack offering combines foundation models with successful applications and operation tools that will help enterprises accelerate GenAI adoption.“
Conclusion:
AI21 Labs’ substantial funding and valuation highlight the growing demand for advanced language models. Their customizable approach and successful applications position them as a leader in the market, with the potential to further accelerate the adoption of AI-driven language technologies by enterprises. This development signifies a significant milestone in the evolution of language AI solutions.
