The AI Foundation raises $17 million to create digital AI-powered personas

The AI Foundation, which ambitiously hopes to develop "ethical," trainable AI agents to complete tasks, today closed a $17 million financing round. A spokesperson said the proceeds will be used to scale the company's platform that allows people to create personas mirroring their own. As the pandemic makes virtual meetups a regular occurrence, the concept of personal AI -- AI that's tailored around one's life or that replicates personalities -- is rising to the fore. Startups creating virtual beings, or artificial people powered by AI, have raised more than $320 million in venture capital to date. As my colleague Dean Takahashi points out, these beings are a kind of precursor for the Metaverse -- the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One.