Kick.com spends f*** you money on streamer

Hey there,

It’s Thursday. Or Friday’s Friday…at least that’s how we celebrate Thursdays here at Yawn.

Let’s get the party started;

In our first issue we’ll cover:

• Accenture invests $3B into AI Innovation 🚀

• Kick.com spends f*** you money on streamer xQc 🤑

• Dropbox launches $50M venture arm for AI race 📦

• Grammy’s ban fully AI-gen songs - allows some AI 🏆

🚀 Accenture invests $3B into AI innovation

Considered the largest consulting firm in the world (738K employees/ 120 countries 👀), Accenture is clearly very bullish on AI.

They’ve announced a $3 billion investment over 3 years that will bolster their AI innovation capacity. This investment will be used to double their AI-skilled boots on the ground to 80,000 (well 160,000 if you count both feet) strong via hiring, acquisitions, and training.

What will they be building? This is what Accenture has shared:

• The AI Navigator for Enterprise: Generative AI-based platform that assists clients in defining business cases, making decisions, and navigating AI journeys responsibly.

• Accelerators for Data and AI-Readiness will be created across 19 industries, along with pre-built models utilizing generative AI.

• The Center for Advanced AI will prioritize maximizing the value of generative AI through extensive research and investments.

Something interesting to point out; Accenture is the largest Microsoft solution partner on the planet. The same Microsoft that dropped a $10 billion investment into OpenAI (ChatGPT’s dad) earlier this year. Accenture has been wheelin’ and dealin’ Microsoft product for decades.

Could Accenture be major player in the mass-adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT in large corporations around the globe?

🤑 Kick.com spending f*** you money

Popular Twitch streamer xQc signs $100 million deal with streaming platform Kick. Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel will pocket a jaw-dropping $50 million annually; aka the 12th largest sports contract in history. To put this into perspective, his earnings rival those of NBA legends like LeBron James ($45M/yr) and Steph Curry ($48M/yr).

Amazon-owned rival platform, Twitch, has been grappling with negative publicity and losing its top talents to other platforms; namely Kick in this case. In addition to xQc, influencers like Aiden Ross and Amaranth are also reaping the big rewards of jumping the Twitch ship.

Kick's strategy of lavishly compensating these content creators is proving successful at the moment. The question is; can they sustain this kind of ‘make it rain’ energy?

With the backings of Stake.com, a major gambling website, Kick.com may have the ability to keep it up. Time will surely unveil the fate of this audacious spending-spree.

📦 Dropbox launches $50M venture arm for AI race

The increase in venture capital investments in AI, particularly generative AI, has contributed to the growth of AI startups, with >$52 billion in funding across 3,300 deals in the past year alone.

It’s clear that Dropbox wasn’t content warming the bench in this kind of opportunistic season, so they decided to launch Dropbox Ventures; a $50 million venture fund focused on supporting startups in the AI space. In the words of a Dropbox VP, they are looking to invest in tools that “shape the future of work”.

In addition to this announcement, Dropbox also introduced AI-powered features to its cloud storage product, including Dropbox Dash, a universal search bar that can search across various platforms and learn from user interactions.

Another AI innovation to be released by the company is Dropbox AI. Powered by OpenAI's model, Dropbox AI will be able to extract information from files, generates summaries, and can answer questions based on the content found in a chatbot-esque fashion.

🏆 Grammy’s ban fully AI-gen songs - allow some AI

I know I know…who tf watches the Grammys right? Well, apparently enough people tune in every year to justify all that pomp and frill. Anyway…

In light of the rise of AI being used to generate songs in the likeness of superstars like The Weeknd, Drake and many others, The Recording Academy (responsible for the Grammy Awards) decided to introduce new eligibility requirements that allow for the use of AI in award-eligible music.

Fully AI-generated songs will not be eligible for awards. Artists can however incorporate AI as long as there is a significant human authorship component in the work.

What does ‘significant’ mean to them? The rules states that artists must contribute at least 20% of the work on an album to be considered for the Album of the Year category.

Honestly, that was a lot less than I would’ve expected.

The next Grammy Awards are set to take place February 4, 2024. How much easier will that 80% allowed to be AI-generated be even by then?

1-click Triple Platinums, here we come 💰

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Til the next one,
Roberto Nickson & Colby Shelton