谷歌正式宣布收购人工智能初创公司Character.AI，并将其团队纳入麾下。据报道，Character.AI的管理层周五向员工宣布，公司投资人的股票将以每股约88美元的价格被谷歌收购，这一价格约为2023年A轮融资时股票价值的2.5倍，当时Character.AI的估值为10亿美元。这一消息引起了广泛关注，因为在AI领域，独角兽公司正争先恐后地寻求被大型科技公司并购，以期获得稳定的发展资金和资源。
Character.AI是一家专注于聊天机器人和语音人工智能技术的公司，其产品允许用户与个性化聊天机器人进行互动，包括与动漫人物、电视名人和历史人物的超现实交流。尽管Character.AI的用户基数相对较小，但公司一直在努力削减成本并探索新的商业模式。此次收购，Character.AI的联合创始人兼首席执行官Noam Shazeer和总裁Daniel De Freitas将重返谷歌，并带领一部分研究人员加入谷歌DeepMind的研究团队。
谷歌发言人表示，公司特别欢迎机器学习领域的杰出研究员Noam Shazeer的回归，并将继续通过可转换票据提供融资。Character.AI自2021年11月由Shazeer和De Freitas离开谷歌后创办，部分原因是他们对谷歌的官僚作风感到不满。此次收购，谷歌将获得Character.AI的模型授权，并将部分员工纳入其Gemini AI项目。
值得注意的是，随着AI技术的快速发展，资源雄厚的大厂在AI领域的竞争中占据了优势地位。谷歌此次收购Character.AI，不仅能够增强其在AI领域的实力，也将进一步推动AI技术的发展和应用。同时，这一举动也引发了反垄断监管机构的关注，他们正在调查微软与Inflection的交易，以确定是否应被视为需向政府报告的收购。
随着谷歌对Character.AI的收购，AI领域的竞争格局或将发生新的变化，而Character.AI的员工和投资者也将迎来新的发展机遇。
英语如下：
Title: “Google Acquires AI Unicorn Character.AI: Big Bucks for its AI Team”
Keywords: Google Acquisition, AI Technology Integration, Investor Returns
Content: Google has officially announced its acquisition of the artificial intelligence startup Character.AI, bringing its team under its wing. According to reports, the management of Character.AI announced to its employees on Friday that the company’s investors’ stocks will be acquired by Google at a price of around $88 per share. This price is about 2.5 times the value of the stock at the time of Character.AI’s 2023 Series A financing, when the company’s valuation was $100 million. The news has attracted widespread attention, as in the AI sector, unicorn companies are scrambling to be acquired by large tech firms in order to seek stable development funds and resources.
Character.AI is a company specializing in chatbot and voice artificial intelligence technologies. Its products allow users to interact with personalized chatbots, including surreal interactions with characters from anime, TV shows, and historical figures. Despite a relatively small user base, the company has been working hard to cut costs and explore new business models. With this acquisition, the co-founder and CEO of Character.AI, Noam Shazeer, and President Daniel De Freitas, will return to Google and lead a portion of the researchers into Google’s DeepMind research team.
A Google spokesperson stated that the company is particularly pleased to welcome back distinguished researcher in the field of machine learning, Noam Shazeer, and will continue to provide financing through convertible notes. Character.AI was founded in November 2021 by Shazeer and De Freitas after they left Google, partly due to dissatisfaction with Google’s bureaucracy. With this acquisition, Google will gain access to Character.AI’s model licenses and will integrate some of its employees into its Gemini AI project.
It is noteworthy that with the rapid development of AI technology, large companies with abundant resources are gaining a dominant position in the competition in the AI sector. Google’s acquisition of Character.AI not only strengthens its strength in the AI field but also further promotes the development and application of AI technology. This move has also drawn the attention of anti-monopoly regulatory agencies, who are investigating the deal between Microsoft and Inflection to determine whether it should be considered a merger that requires government reporting.
With Google’s acquisition of Character.AI, the competitive landscape in the AI sector may see new changes, and the employees and investors of Character.AI will face new development opportunities.
【来源】https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yxj2-3SqFmb1CZ-vDD3yqQ
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