Is OpenAI Winning the Chatbot Race?

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Is OpenAI Winning the Chatbot Race?

“Talking to a computer has never felt really natural for me; now it does,” wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a blogpost celebrating the release of the Microsoft-backed [MSFT] firm’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) model, GPT-4o, which is capable of realistic voice conversation and can interact across text and image. Elsewhere, AI start-up Anthropic, backed by Amazon [AMZN] and Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google, released its AI chatbot Claude across Europe on Tuesday.

Taiwan Takeout Takeover

Uber [UBER] is to spend $950m on Delivery Hero’s [DHER:DE] Foodpanda business in Taiwan, Bloomberg reported. Uber also agreed to buy $300m of newly issued Delivery Hero stock. Foodpanda and Uber Eats have been major rivals in Taiwan’s food delivery market for some years; Uber plans to combine the two under the Uber Eats brand, but emphasised this was contingent on regulatory approval.

Good But Not Great: Hon Hai Reports

Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry [2317:TW] missed profit estimates when it reported results Tuesday, although it projected notable growth in the present quarter. An important partner of both Apple [AAPL] and Nvidia [NVDA], the firm’s share price was pushed up 60% by the AI boom. Meanwhile, subsidiary Sharp [6753:T] is to divest its lossmaking camera model and semiconductor business, and convert its Sakai display plant into an AI data centre.

Positive Results from Wegovy Trial

In its longest study so far on the use of semaglutide for weight loss, Novo Nordisk [NVO] has found that Wegovy maintained an average of 10% weight loss after four years. The drugmaker presented the data on Tuesday at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice, Italy. Elsewhere, Jan van de Winkel, CEO of the Danish biotech Genmab, told the Financial Times that Western pharmaceutical companies need to gain exposure to “mind-bogglingly impressive innovation” in China.

Roaring Kitty Sparks Another Frenzy

The share price of video game retailer GameStop [GME] soared as much as 119% in early trading Monday and ended the session up 74%. This followed a single post by ‘Roaring Kitty’, the X account of Keith Gill, a day trader who was a prime mover in the meme-stock bubble at the start of the decade. Gill’s account had been inactive since June 2021 until Sunday, when it posted a meme of a man leaning forward in his chair; the meme had been viewed 24 million times as of Tuesday afternoon.