The year-old startup behind Instinct, a personal AI assistant that’s caught fire with Silicon Valley insiders, is seeking more computing power, leveraging its early buzz as it faces new competition from giant Meta Platforms.

Over the last few weeks, Instinct, which launched to a select group of users earlier this year, has sometimes notified users that it is running at full capacity and “responses may be slower” as people use it for tasks such as negotiating bills and answering emails. More cash could help: the company is looking to raise $1 billion in new funding after recently raising $250 million, its founder and CEO Noah Shinn has recently told prospective investors, according to a person familiar with the statement.

Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg is teaming up with the former head of OpenAI’s Sora app to launch a new AI startup that would train its own video models and try to win over filmmakers, people familiar with the matter said.

The founders have been talking to potential investors including Andreessen Horowitz about raising significant funding for the new company, the people said.

Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger said in a post on X Tuesday night that his company does “earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” adding that he believes there’s a greater than a 10% chance that happens within the next decade.

The post immediately sparked outrage and concerns from ...

Gimlet Labs said late last week it had raised $300 million at a valuation of about $3 billion, in a round led by new investor Andreessen Horowitz. Today we have unreported details on how that round, which boosted its valuation by a whopping 16 times from its last PitchBook valuation, came together.

The three-year-old startup, which helps AI developers run models using different AI chips simultaneously, raised the round after the company’s executives told some potential investors that based on signed contracts, OpenAI was likely to spend more than $100 million a year on its services, according to a person familiar with the company. Such outlays, if they transpire, would be significant given it just emerged from stealth in October. 

This windfall would be in the future, however. “We have explored possibilities with Gimlet but we are not a paying customer,” said an OpenAI spokesperson.

Applied Compute, a year-old startup that helps companies run and customize open-source models with their own data, is discussing a new funding round that would value it at around $3 billion, more than double its valuation from a round announced four months ago, according to a person with knowledge of the funding.

The financing follows strong revenue growth in recent months. Applied Compute is currently generating around $50 million in annualized revenue, the person said, up nearly four times from what its CEO Yash Patil has said it was generating last November.

Legal AI startup Harvey is in talks to raise at least $500 million at a $15.5 billion valuation including the investment, a 40% premium to its last valuation five months ago. The fundraising follows a revenue surge at the legal AI startup, according to a person with knowledge of the fundraise.

Four-year-old Harvey is currently generating more than $350 million in annualized revenue, up more than 80% from the $190 million in annualized revenue it was generating in January, according to the person. Lightspeed Venture Partners has been interested in leading the round, the person said.

OpenAI is preparing to release a new model family, tentatively using the name “Astra,” with improved abilities to complete long-running tasks, according to three people briefed on the plans.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman demonstrated Astra to policymakers and regulators in Washington, D.C., this week, ...