Global and national brands have been upended by changes brought on in omnichannel marketing as customers access search engines and social media sites that provide highly localized results. "Brands must ensure consistent localized marketing efforts while still appealing to the unique local audience, and marketers must find ways to consolidate workflows while optimizing local channels," Afif Khoury, founder and CEO of Soci, told VentureBeat. To bolster this, the digital marketing software provider announced today that it has raised $120 million in its latest financing round. The funds will serve to advance use of AI and machine learning (ML), including ChatGPT natural language models along with Soci's marketing platform for multi-location brands. Khoury said the Soci platform aims to streamline localized marketing efforts across digital channels while adhering to brand guidelines, optimizing local search and integrating data.

It's basically a natural language processor that can interpret simple queries and give surprisingly comprehensive answers, and it's powered, of course, by AI. A recent estimate by the International Data Corp. (IDC) says that spending on AI technology grew 20% in 2021, reaching $383 billion, and it was expected to reach $450 billion in 2022. Companies are investing heavily in AI for several reasons. AI can boost labor productivity, improve operating efficiency, speed up innovation, and make more useful products for customers. Companies that can achieve these benefits will be in the best position to stay ahead of competitors, and therefore deliver returns to investors. This is why every company will likely be using AI in some form in the future.

Companies from Meta to Home Depot are flooding earnings calls with commentary about their artificial intelligence efforts. Ever since OpenAI's ChatGPT lit up the internet in November, companies can't stop talking about artificial intelligence. Take this earnings season so far: References to AI and related terms during calls with investors are already up 77% from a year earlier. AI-hungry investors have propelled Nvidia Corp., which makes the chips needed for complex AI computing tasks, into the best-performing stock among mega-caps this year. Relatively obscure firms with AI in their names have also skyrocketed.

Tesla's first-ever "Investor Day," hosted by CEO Elon Musk and his leadership team at the carmaker's Gigafactory in Texas on Wednesday, didn't quite end up being the sweeping, transformative moment that Tesla fans and funders had anticipated. Not for lack of promise--the event was chock-full of ambition, like a new "Master Plan" to have Tesla lead the clean-energy transition by expanding its green-tech manufacturing into products like heat pumps and batteries for energy storage. Also teased: a Gigafactory buildout in Mexico, an improved Supercharger, and two potential new vehicle models. But it was apparently a letdown: Musk demurred when asked for hard details on new Tesla products, and the company's stock--still the primary driver of the CEO's wealth--fell by about 7 percent following the event. To judge by the internet's reception, the most notable moment happened not during the core presentation, but during a Q&A at the very end, when an audience asked Musk about the artificially intelligent elephant in the room: "I'm curious for your thoughts on how generative A.I. and these rapid breakthroughs in A.I. in the last months could help you make cars less hard to make." Musk's closing response made for the most sober, halting portion of the entire four-hour event.

Nearly four hours into Tesla's marathon Investor Day, someone in the audience tried again to bring Elon Musk, the Tesla (and Twitter and SpaceX) CEO back to the present day. From a stage at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk had announced an ambitious "Master Plan 3" to save the world. For $10 trillion in manufacturing investment, Musk said, the world could move wholesale to a renewable electricity grid, powering electric cars, planes, and ships. "Earth can and will move to a sustainable energy economy, and will do so in your lifetime," Musk proclaimed. More details will be revealed in a forthcoming white paper, he said.

Tesla's production capacities are in store for a significant growth spurt, CEO Elon Musk told the crowd assembled at the company's Austin, Texas Gigafactory for Investor Day 2023 -- and AI will apparently be the magic bullet that gets them there. It's all part of what Musk is calling Master Plan part 3. This is indeed Musk's third such Master Plan, the first two coming in 2006 and 2016, respectively. These have served as a roadmap for the company's growth and development over the past 17 years as Tesla has grown from neophyte startup to the world's leading EV automaker. "There is a clear path to a sustainable energy Earth by 2050 and it does not require destroying natural habitats," Musk said during the keynote address.

Elon Musk will aim to quiet any doubts about Tesla's standing in the electric car race on Wednesday when the serial entrepreneur convenes an investor day. Invoking his trademark flare, Musk promised to reveal "Master Plan 3" at the gathering, entailing "the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth," he said on Twitter in early February. The event, which will be held at Tesla's factory in Texas, will be webcast at 2100 GMT on Wednesday. "Since he is making promises for all citizens of the earth, and not only investors, there better be something pretty big," said Jessica Caldwell, an auto industry expert at Edmunds.com. Caldwell would like to see more clues on how Tesla plans to boost production.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 23, 2023 — NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 29, 2023, of $6.05 billion, down

Nvidia stock rose over 8% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company reported slightly higher revenue and net income than Wall Street expected, despite a year-over-year decrease in both categories. Here's how the chipmaker did versus Refinitiv consensus expectations for the quarter ending January: Nvidia reported $0.57 in GAAP net income per share. Nvidia forecast $6.5 billion in sales in its first quarter, higher than the $6.33 billion expected by Wall Street. Although both revenue and earnings were down from last year's $1.32 per share and $7.64 billion in sales, Nvidia has increasingly been seen by investors as one of the chip stocks best positioned to endure an economic slowdown that hurts PC and semiconductor sales. Nvidia's data center business, which includes chips for AI, continued to grow, suggested that it could continue to benefit heavily from artificial intelligence software like ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing's AI chatbot.

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