Global Finance Magazine: Microsoft’s AI Race

February 4, 2023

The face of artificial intelligence (AI)

Running Point and its chief investment officer, Michael Ashley Schulman, CFA, were quoted by New York based Global Finance Magazine in an article — by Mark Townsend, Microsoft’s Latest AI Race — regarding the implications for Microsoft on its $10 billion investment into OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, as well as the implications for other major technology companies and AI in general.

Microsoft’s investments into OpenAI

Microsoft’s original $1 billion investment into Open AI in July of 2019 had the potential to benefit the entire open software world. Its current $10 billion investment in Open AI (ChatGPT’s owner), however, is an aggressive move likely to put Google and all other search engine and office software competitors on notice. With OpenAI’s technology one can gain keen understanding about a topic by asking ChatGPT a single thoughtful question whereas with a normal internet search one would have to run a series of probing queries.

AI will eat itself🤖

Microsoft will own approximately 49% of OpenAI and be able to incorporate the artificial intelligence technology into its Office and email functionality so that users can interact with the software using natural language to automate repetitive tasks, gather information, easily create charts or content, and effectively translate output into multiple languages. We will just have to be careful when AI reads, absorbs, and regurgitates other AI-generated content😏

The cloud component

The advantages to Microsoft only compound because OpenAI has been trained on Microsoft’s Azure cloud and is optimized for it; thus anyone else using it would want to buy time and bandwidth on Azure as well as hire AI engineers experienced with Azure. This could help Azure take market share away from Amazon’s cloud service, AWS.

Quoted article excerpt is below:

The success of ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 prompted a venture capital rush into new AI-generated text and graphics technologies, according to Michael Ashely Schulman, founding partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors.

“Regulated industries like medicine and finance are prime examples where customized AI might be not only desired but required,” he says. In 2022, he says investors channeled at least $1.37 billion into generative AI companies in 78 deals, citing data from PitchBook.

The Face of AI — Graphics and design by Yrtist.com

“As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership.”

Amit Ray, AI Scientist, Author of Compassionate Artificial Intelligence

Disclosure: The opinions expressed are those of Running Point Capital Advisors, LLC (Running Point) and are subject to change without notice. The opinions referenced are as of the date of publication, may be modified due to changes in the market or economic conditions, and may not necessarily come to pass. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Forward-looking statements cannot be guaranteed. Running Point is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Running Point’s investment advisory services and fees can be found in its Form ADV Part 2, which is available upon request. RP-23-13