The past several months have been turbulent for Microsoft. In December, its $69 billion deal to acquire the video game maker Activision was challenged by regulators in the United States, and last week it began laying off about 10,000 workers. On Monday, Microsoft announced a major new investment in OpenAI, the start-up behind ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence breakthroughs, and signaled plans to include A.I. in an array of Microsoft products. The biggest slowdown came from Microsoft's personal computing business, where sales fell 19 percent and operating income fell 47 percent. The business boomed during the first part of the pandemic.

Like many big tech companies, Microsoft is preparing for the worst after announcing plans to lay off 10,000 employees in the upcoming third quarter. It turns out that the company's second quarter was a mixed bag: It earned $52.7 billion in revenue, which was up 2 percent from last year, but a slight miss from the $52.9 billion analysts expected. Profits also fell by 12 percent to $16.4 billion, a trend that may continue throughout the year. Despite the faltering PC market, Microsoft has been riding high on cloud revenues for years, and that seems to be continuing. Microsoft's belt tightening didn't stop the company from potentially investing $10 billion more in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, yet another sign that AI is going to play a major role in its future projects. The company plans to add ChatGPT to its Azure OpenAI service soon, and it's reportedly planning to integrated that technology in Bing.

Innovation and the Pandemic Propelled Performance The 2022 TMT Value Creators Report February 28, 2022 By Simon Bamberger, Hady Farag, Derek Kennedy, Franck Luisada, Michaela Novakov, Vaishali Rastogi, and Neal Zuckerman The outsized role that technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) companies play in modern life has made the sector a leader in creating shareholder value. From 2016 to 2021, TMT companies collectively outperformed those in many other industries in total shareholder return (TSR), according to BCG's 2022 Value Creators Report. Among our findings: The lion's share of TMT value creation came from tech players, which from 2016 to 2021 had a median annual TSR performance of 30%, more than double the median overall return of 13% for the 33 industries we studied. Of the 232 TMT companies in our sample, 70% posted a higher TSR during the period that included the peak of the pandemic, the 21 months from March 2020 to November 2021, than during the prior 21 months. Continuing on the same growth trajectory may be a challenge given recent investor anxieties about inflation, monetary policy, and moderating earnings growth.

ChatGPT is currently one of the leading topics of discussion on the internet. The artificial intelligence application is being utilized to answer questions, write reports, and also formulate software codes. Now, according to a report by Semafor, Microsoft Corp is discussing the possibility of acquiring OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT. The tech-industry giant is ready to pay upwards of $10 billion for the acquisition. JUST IN: Microsoft $MSFT in talks to acquire a 49% stake worth $10 billion in ChatGPT owner OpenAI.

The percentage of companies adopting A.I. has been plateauing between 50% and 60% over the past few years. Meanwhile, some leaders have shared their frustration over not yet seeing the level of returns from A.I. investments that they expected. They simply haven't been able to get it to scale. Are some companies forgoing the pursuit of A.I.? Significant returns are being realized by leading companies. There is a contingent that is seeing substantial revenue boosts and 20% or more of their earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) come from A.I. as they apply the technology to improve decisions, speed processes, and automate mundane, repetitive tasks, freeing workers to explore innovations that can vault an organization into entirely new business arenas.

More than 450 start-ups are now working on generative A.I., by one venture capital firm's count. Five weeks ago, OpenAI, a San Francisco artificial intelligence lab, released ChatGPT, a chatbot that answers questions in clear, concise prose. The A.I.-powered tool immediately caused a sensation, with more than a million people using it to create everything from poetry to high school term papers to rewrites of Queen songs. Now OpenAI is in the midst of a new gold rush. The lab is in talks to complete a deal that would value it at around $29 billion, more than twice its valuation in 2021, two people with knowledge of the discussions said.

Wejo Group Limited a global leader in Smart Mobility for Good cloud and software analytics for connected, electric and autonomous mobility, announced that it has entered into a definitive business combination agreement to combine with TKB Critical Technologies 1. The proposed business combination is subject to a number of closing conditions and the parties anticipate that the transaction will close in the second quarter of 2023. Upon closing of the business combination, the combined company will retain Wejo's ticker symbol and will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC. Through a combination of an anticipated PIPE raise and funds from TKB's trust, Wejo believes that this transaction can raise up to $100 million to fund its growth initiatives and position the company to execute on its strategic goals, and potentially reach cash flow breakeven which is expected by mid-2025. Wejo will continue to work on additional short-term funding initiatives to provide bridge capital until the transaction closes.

Jan 10 (Reuters) - BioNTech SE has agreed to acquire British artificial intelligence (AI) startup InstaDeep for up to 562 million pounds ($682 million) to speed up its biotech research and manufacturing capabilities. Under the German vaccine maker's largest takeover deal to date, BioNTech is to pay 362 million pounds upfront, in a mix of cash and an unspecified number of BioNTech shares, and up to 200 million pounds contingent on InstaDeep's future performance. "Our goal with the acquisition is to integrate AI seamlessly in all aspects of our work - from target discovery, lead discovery to manufacturing and delivery of our products," BioNTech co-founder and Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said at the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference on Tuesday. Sahin also cited BioNTech's partnership last week with the U.K. government for development of personalized cancer therapies and how AI would help in that. The transaction adds to a slew of deals as the industry meets in San Francisco for the conference this week.

OpenAI Inc., the startup behind the Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbot tool ChatGPT, is the subject of a tender offer from investors that could see its valuation soar to as much as USD 29 billion. In a deal that would see them buy shares from current OpenAI shareholders like its employees, the venture capitalist firms Founders Fund and Thrive Capital are reportedly in talks to invest in the hot startup. This is according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. If the deal goes through, OpenAI's previous valuation of USD 14 billion, established following its most recent tender offer in 2021, would more than double. With the release of its popular chatbot tool ChatGPT in the latter part of last year, OpenAI recently captured the public's attention.

OpenAI, the research lab behind the viral ChatGPT chatbot, is in talks to sell existing shares in a tender offer that would value the company at around $29 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, making it one of the most valuable U.S. startups on paper despite generating little revenue. Venture-capital firms Thrive Capital and Founders Fund are in talks to buy shares, the people said. The tender could total at least $300 million in OpenAI share sales, they said. The deal is structured as a tender offer, with the investors buying shares from existing shareholders such as employees, the people said.