'Let 1,000 Flowers Bloom': A.I. Funding Frenzy Escalates

The funding race has heated up ever since ChatGPT, the chatbot made by OpenAI, went viral last year by showing the power of A.I. to generate its own tweets, emails, articles, answers and ideas. Even as investors expect last week's failure of Silicon Valley Bank, an institution that many tech start-ups relied on, to cast a pall over start-up funding, there is still a mismatch between the number of opportunities in artificial intelligence and the money available to fund them. With few experts in the field, and most of them working at a handful of big tech companies, only a few generative A.I. start-ups -- such as Stability AI and Jasper -- have broken out. Investors desperate for the next big thing are competing fiercely to invest in these companies, offering some A.I. entrepreneurs nine-figure valuations for little more than an idea and a résumé. "We're in that phase of the market where it's, like, let 1,000 flowers bloom," said Matt Turck, an investor who specializes in A.I. at the venture firm FirstMark.