Kagan: AI companies to keep an eye on

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For more than a year, we have been hearing quite a bit about AI. How OpenAI, as well as how all the giants of the day including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, are heavily investing in and integrating AI into their operations. That being said, there are countless smaller artificial intelligence firms that are also very important. However, they do not get the same recognition. That’s about to change.

These smaller and mid-sized companies don’t get the kind of attention they deserve and frankly need. They are focused on research and development in their corner of the industry. 

Being on the radar to investors and customers lets them play a role in the billions of dollars companies are investing today into their systems to go AI.

AI companies need to be seen and heard in a noisy and chaotic industry

The problem is all the public relations and marketing oxygen seems to be focused on the big players.

Smaller and newer players are also important, and they deserve to be on the radar as well.

That’s one reason this column will focus on some of these lesser known, but important AI companies and technologies.

One of the biggest and most urgent challenges for companies is to be found. To be seen and heard over the noise and chaos of the AI industry. 

IBM World of Watson was a huge AI event, then they vanished

AI funding has gone through many ups and downs over time. 

An example is IBM Watson. Then entered the public marketplace in 2011. They started out by popping up as a contestant on the TV game show Jeopardy. That was their coming out party.

The world did not know about AI except from fiction stories. In fact, with Watson, IBM did not use the term AI. IBM wanted us to use the term Watson. 

They may have wanted the recognition, however that was a marketing mistake. 

In 2016 they held the IBM World of Watson event. This was a massive and impressive tradeshow with impressive ideas and companies and speakers from around the world.

At that point, IBM Watson seemed unstoppable. 

However, if you think about it, we have not talked it much at all in recent years. It seems Watson had vanished. Now, IBM is trying to reboot with their WatsonX.

IBM is an historic American brand. They are a brilliant company with outstanding ideas, however their marketing was not up to par. They needed to be much clearer in their advertising and public relations.

AI has rotated between gold rush days and AI Winter

This was just one example, but as you can see, there are times of mad rushes, then quiet times in the industry called AI Winter.

We don’t know for sure whether today’s current AI rush will continue, or whether it will take a breather, as AI has in the past. 

That being said, the idea of AI is real. It’s not going away. It continues to grow, step by step and today it seems every corporation, government and organization is investing billions of dollars to be a leader in the new AI marketplace.

Lets take a look at a few of the most powerful or well-funded AI companies so far in 2024:

• xAI with Elon Musk as their leader raised roughly $6 billion in 2024.
• Anthropic with Dario Amodei raised roughly $2.7 billion in 2024.
• CoreWeave was said to have raised $1.1 billion in May. 
• Xaira Therapeutics with Marc Tessier-Lavigne raised around $1 billion.
• Figure AI with CEO Brett Adcock raised around $675 million.
• Cohere was said to have raised $450 million in June from investors like Nvidia, Cisco and Salesforce. 
• Cyera with Yotam Segev raised roughly $300M.
• Augment with Scott Dietzen as CEO raised $227 million.
• Glean with Arvind Jain raised $200 million.
• Cognition AI with CEO Scott Wu raised $196 million.
• Celestial AI with CEO Dave Lazovsky raised $175 million.
• Perplexity AI with Aravind Srinivas raised $136 million.

How can smaller companies get seen and heard?

So, as you can see, there are quite a few companies to consider, and this list is growing. In fact, this is just a partial list to keep track of.

Investors, workers, customers, regulators, the media and more must look at AI as a force going forward. Certain levels of technology will lead and change from time to time.

Which company and which technology will win today and for the near future is always the key question.

As time goes on, I will follow this space and write in more detail about certain key companies, key leaders and the changing important technologies.

If you know of other companies to keep an eye on, keep me posted.

Remember, every company needs to be seen and heard over the loud noise and the chaos this vibrant and changing industry creates every day. That is the key challenge for every player.