When former Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher co-founded AI search engine startup You.com in 2020, ChatGPT had yet to spawn a viral sensation, and few people outside of tech circles were thinking about large language models (LLMs). Fast-forward a few years, and the small startup is now looking to go head-to-head with the AI-powered search ambitions of tech giants like Google and Microsoft.

Socher—who ranks third on Google Scholar’s list of top-cited natural language processing (NLP) researchers—said You.com is differentiating itself with a focus on accurate answers and a breadth of tools built on its LLM tech, from a writing aid to a research assistant.

• The company declined to reveal user numbers, but Socher claimed it has reached “millions” of people.

Tech Brew caught up with Socher about what it was like to be early to the LLM party, how to curb AI falsehoods, and what’s in store for the hype this year.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What was it like to have already been in this space and then see Google and Microsoft Bing getting involved in it?

On the one hand, it’s a little scary, of course, for a small startup. On the other hand, it kind of shows you that we’re innovating in the right way. And our goal is, to a large degree, to change search the way we know it. Because I come from a research background and invented word vectors, contextual vectors, prompt engineering, in an attempt to have a single model for all of NLP. This had been my goal from 2010 to 2018. And then we finally did it in 2018 and inspired a few other folks, including folks at OpenAI, who were citing us when they were still doing open research in AI, and we were very happy.

But we were sort of surprised that Google hadn’t changed in, like, 20 years, despite all of that progression in NLP. So we thought, clearly, it’d be better if you get a summary and an answer to your query and your question than a list of 10 blue links with a bunch of stuff around it. And so we set out to change that, and we iterated a bunch, and we’re excited to see that we’re on the right track.

Keep reading here.—PK

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Semiconductor technology was the most popular field for new tech inventions in 2023, according to new data analyzed by IP management platform Anaqua.

The firm crunched data related to nearly 350,000 patents the US Patent and Trademark Office granted last year, finding that virtual reality, 5G, and AI also led the way as topics for new tech developments.

Looking deeper into the development of AI applications, Anaqua found that most of the granted patents focused on “machine learning models, general neural network development, neural networks combination technology, neural networks for image and video recognition, and neural network training using backpropagation processes,” according to the firm.

IBM, Samsung Electronics, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon ranked among the top companies that received AI-related patents, the report said.

Keep reading here.—KG

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. Click here if you’d like a chance to be featured.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in tech?

As the president of AT&T Consumer, I oversee the part of the business you probably think of when you think of AT&T. This includes our consumer wireless offerings, like cell phones and plans, as well as home internet products, like fiber and fixed wireless. These are all very complex technologies (we use a lot of acronyms), but the core of what we do is creating connections. When I get to work, my goal is to connect customers at home and on the go.

What’s the most compelling tech project you’ve worked on, and why?

The best part about working in technology is that the most compelling thing you’re working on is the one you’re working on right now, because the next big thing is always around the corner. That said, when I look back, one of the most compelling projects I’ve worked on in my career was when I worked on Y2K. Believe it or not, I was one of the programmers that had to work New Year’s Eve 1999 so the world wouldn’t fall apart. That was hugely compelling at the time, but now we kind of laugh at it.

Fast-forward a few years, and I helped bring cable TV and DSL to life. Then wireless 5G to the market. And now using AI and machine learning to massively optimize our operations, better serve our customers, and meet them where they are. It’s a constant push forward, and the most compelling thing you’ll work on is probably what you’ll work on tomorrow. I’m excited to answer this question to myself a year from now and see what is the new and now.

Keep reading here.