A New Area of A.I. Booms, Even Amid the Tech Gloom

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.