Building 'responsible AI' is still a challenge for top AI firms (as multiple news cycles this week have proven).

I'll be discussing AI safety with experts from Cohere, Hugging Face, and Salesforce today at 2pm ET, which should be an interesting convo. Tune in:

The Briefing: The Scarlett Johansson saga shows Sam Altman’s naughty streak. Plus, could ScarJo win if she sues OpenAI?

theinformation.com/articles/sam-a…

From aaron holmes.

And there it is: Microsoft just announced new 'Agents' capabilities for Copilot meant to complete multistep tasks asynchronously without human supervision

New rule: If a cybersecurity company licenses the Barbie brand to create CIO Barbie as a marketing campaign, you might want to take a closer look at its financials. aaron holmes natasha mascarenhas

theinformation.com/articles/how-l…

NEW: How did Lacework go from one of the most promising startups in cybersecurity ($8b) to aborted deal talks with a rival (at <$200m)?

natasha mascarenhas and I dug into what happened, and it's a cautionary tale of reckless spending and management dysfunction: theinformation.com/articles/how-l…

In a LinkedIn post just now, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott confirms my report this morning that MAI is Microsoft's new AI model in the works (while tamping down hype):

Scoop: Microsoft is training its own large language model, internally labaled MAI-1, with Mustafa Suleyman leading the effort. The model is around 500B parameters and could compete directly with LLMs from Google, OpenAI, etc. Details: theinformation.com/articles/meet-…

Update: Wiz has abandoned its bid to acquire Lacework for $200m after conducting due diligence, according to a source familiar. Lacework was previously valued at $8.3 billion and has raised $1.8 billion. theinformation.com/briefings/wizs…

It's always interesting, and somewhat telling, when The Information article from a while ago starts trending in our system. Here's today's:

theinformation.com/articles/to-un…

ICYMI here's the link to the story: theinformation.com/articles/insid…

Six unicorn startups could seek a sale as pressure from rivals and customers rises.

theinformation.com/articles/the-c…

By aaron holmes

This prediction from 2022 has aged pretty well: theinformation.com/articles/seven…

news: Pressure mounting on cybersecurity startups.

Lacework raised $1.8 BILLION from investors, now in talks to sell to Wiz for ~10% of that, per Cory Weinberg aaron holmes

theinformation.com/articles/10-bi…

SCOOP: Wiz is in advanced talks to acquire Lacework, one of its competitors, for $150m-$200m. The deal is a sharp discount from Lacework's latest valuation of $8 billion as of 2021. w/ Cory Weinberg theinformation.com/articles/10-bi…

New: Microsoft is working on new AI agent capabilities for its Copilot products in an effort to drive more adoption. The company plans to announce some of the features at its Build conference next month: theinformation.com/articles/to-un…

Microsoft has apparently taken down all of its WizardLM models on Hugging Face, which is causing problems for HF customers. CEO Clem Delangue says he’s trying to get answers from Microsoft

CISA just disclosed that federal agencies were breached by the recent Russian hack of Microsoft. That confirms my reporting from last month, which revealed that Russian hackers stole emails from Microsoft's federal agency customers: cisa.gov/news-events/di…

New: OpenAI has invited former employees to participate in its $86 billion tender offer.

The move reflects continued demand in the ChatGPT-maker, even while some VCs sit out the share sale due to the startup's high price.

W/ Jon Victor:

theinformation.com/briefings/open…