Google’s New Focus on AI Includes $300M Anthropic Investment

Google is investing around $300 million in artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic.

The tech giant announced a partnership with Anthropic in a news release Friday (Feb. 3), with the companies saying the AI company chose Google as its preferred cloud provider.

While the release did not mention Google’s investment, a report by the Financial Times said Google confirmed its $300 million investment, which gives it a 10% stake in Anthropic.

The investment follows Microsoft’s $10 billion investment last month in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm known for ChatGPT, a chatbot that offers humanlike conversation capabilities that can, according to the company, “answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”

It also comes as Google says it is increasing its focus on AI, according to the company’s latest earnings report and comments during its earnings call last week.

In last week’s earnings call, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent Alphabet, said that the company will aim to “unlock the incredible opportunities AI enables,” adding that he felt the technology was journeying towards an “inflection point.”

“[AI] is a powerful enabler for businesses and organizations of all sizes,” Pichai said.

Meta, meanwhile, says its longer-term AI strategy is meant in part to have “more relevant content recommended by our AI systems,” as CEO Mark Zuckerberg put it, instead of creating a model where people “follow” accounts.

The company’s “monetization efficiency,” to use Zuckerberg’s words, has doubled for Facebook in the past six months as AI continues to make inroads in Meta’s crucial advertising business, with advertisers seeing a 20% increase in conversions year over year.

While investments like the ones made by Google and Microsoft have grabbed headlines, there are some valuable back-office applications for AI software solutions.

“Businesses of all sizes have a need for realizing back-office efficiency,” PYMNTS wrote last week. “The enormous hurdles faced by businesses over the past few years have only highlighted the benefits automated, AI-powered tools provide in helping organizations accelerate key operational wins across departments and initiatives.”

Many executives who spent last year upgrading their businesses expect to reap further data-driven benefits this year. Automated digital tools that leverage AI capabilities to examine and streamline large data sets will play a crucial role in helping companies realize those expectations and optimize internal workflows.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Alloy Chief Financial Officer Kiran Hebbar said he uses AI and machine learning solutions, as well as “170 different data partners,” to help promote better decisioning on a “transaction-by-transaction, company-by-company basis.”