ai-models
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The Pause That Gave Smallest.ai Its Opening
A stalled reply can give away a voice bot before it says a word. Smallest.ai built its business around shortening that pause - then discovered that the real test was what happened after the caller answered back.
Microsoft AI Bought a Startup’s Brain. Now It Has to Build Its Own.
Microsoft spent about $650 million to import a ready-made AI team, then gave it Copilot, Bing and an enormous distribution machine. Two years later, the wager is no longer about catching ChatGPT - it is about whether Microsoft can turn borrowed momentum into models, products and trust of its own.
PredictHQ
PredictHQ is a demand intelligence company that aggregates, verifies and enriches data on real-world events - concerts, sports, conferences, public holidays, severe weather, school breaks and more - into a single API-first source of truth. Companies plug this verified context into their forecasting models, AI systems and operational workflows to explain and predict demand shifts they would otherwise miss. Founded in Auckland in 2015 and now headquartered in San Francisco, PredictHQ counts Uber, Domino's, Expedia Group, Instacart, Walgreens and IHG among its customers, and says its data can explain more than 60% of demand variability.