Irish duo's Solidroad start-up lands $6.5m in funding as its AI takes over contact centre staff training
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Alphabet boosted by AI, cloud demand as spending needs skyrocket
Alphabet said demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products boosted quarterly sales, and now requires an extreme increase in capital spending – heightening pressure on the company to justify the cost of keeping up in the AI race. Google's parent company said 2025 capital expenditures will be $85 billion (€72 billion), or $10 billion greater than an earlier forecast. Although Alphabet beat expectations for second-quarter revenue and profit, its stock initially sank in after-hours trading, then rebounded after chief executive Sundar Pichai explained that the investments are necessary in order to keep up with customer needs. 'Our AI infrastructure investments are crucial to meeting the growth in demand from cloud customers,' he said on a call Wednesday following the report. As Microsoft, start-up OpenAI, Meta Platforms and others continue to pour money into AI, Alphabet has little choice but to follow suit, analysts said. The race is particularly urgent for Google: competitors are building chatbots that may eventually appeal to consumers more than its flagship search product. 'Google's hand is forced by OpenAI to spend tremendously on AI's infrastructure and applications,' said Nikhil Lai, an analyst at Forrester. The recent quarter was strong almost across the board for Alphabet. Sales, excluding partner payouts, climbed to $81.7 billion, Alphabet said in a statement, topping analysts' projections of $79.6 billion on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Alphabet is counting on its core search advertising juggernaut and growing cloud computing business to support its spiralling spending on AI. Employees are under pressure to bring AI products to market faster, from new modes of search to tools for cloud customers. 'We are seeing significant demand for our comprehensive AI product portfolio,' Pichai said. Chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi said capital expenditures will rise yet again next year, without providing details. The strain of the AI race could be spotted elsewhere in the company's results. Ashkenazi attributed the company's 16% jump in spending on research and development to increases in pay packages for key employees. Meta has been making unprecedented compensation offers as it seeks to woo researchers for its superintelligence lab, driving up the price for key employees across the industry. Earlier this month, Google struck a deal to pay about $2.4 billion for top talent and licensing rights from artificial intelligence coding start-up Windsurf. Yet money isn't the only consideration for researchers when deciding where to work, Pichai said. Top talent in the field want 'to really be at the frontier driving progress,' in addition to craving access to computing power and talented peers, Pichai said. 'It's a combination of all of that and using it to drive impact. And I think we are pretty competitive on all those fronts.' Google's cloud-computing unit reported quarterly revenue of $13.6 billion and operating income of $2.83 billion, topping analysts' projections. Google remains in third place in this market, after Microsoft and Amazon, but the company's prowess in AI has helped it score client wins. The unit is widely viewed as Alphabet's strongest source of growth as the main search business matures. The centrepiece of the cloud offensive is Gemini, the AI model that Google is rapidly weaving across its vast product portfolio, and pushing to enterprise clients. Many AI experts were impressed by the release of a new version of the Gemini model earlier this year, but it still trails OpenAI's ChatGPT in adoption by most estimates. As Google faces mounting competition, it's also facing penalties for being dominant. Google's primary businesses are under threat of a break-up after US federal judges ruled that the company is maintaining illegal monopolies in search and some ad technology. Next month, Judge Amit Mehta is expected to deliver an order on the measures Google must take to restore competition in online search, though Google has said it plans to appeal the ruling. YouTube, Google's video site, posted $9.8 billion in second-quarter ad revenue, exceeding analysts' estimates of $9.56 billion. The unit, which draws most of its revenue from advertising, was expected to perform well thanks to its lead in livingroom streaming and heavy investments in podcasts. Alphabet's Other Bets, a collection of futuristic businesses that includes the self-driving car effort Waymo, generated $373 million in revenue, missing estimates for $429.1 million. Ashkenazi said Alphabet will continue devoting more resources to Waymo. Alphabet has been aggressively expanding the operations of Waymo, which may soon face increased competition as Tesla ramps up its robotaxi business. Earlier this month, Waymo more than doubled its service area in Austin, Tesla's home base, and said it would start collecting data in New York City in pursuit of a permit for testing. 'The team is testing across more than 10 cities this year, including New York and Philadelphia,' Pichai said. 'We hope to serve riders in all 10 in the future.' Google isn't alone in feeling pressure to show success from AI investment. Shortly after Pichai's Waymo comments, on the Tesla earnings call, chief executive Elon Musk started slamming Google's AI prowess. He said Tesla was 'actually much better than Google.' Investors might disagree; Tesla's shares fell. – Bloomberg
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
PayPal to create 100 jobs with AI fraud centre
PayPal is to create 100 high-tech jobs in Ireland as the payments company establishes a new artificial intelligence (AI) fraud and data science centre here. The payments company is hiring across AI engineering, data science, software development, risk modelling and cybersecurity. PayPal, which already employs about 1,500 people here, said the new jobs would be located at the company's headquarters in Dublin and would support key areas such as loss prevention and enhancing customer experiences. Ciara O'Brien has the details. The EU and US are closing in on a trade deal that would impose 15 per cent tariffs on European imports, similar to the agreement Donald Trump struck with Japan this week. Brussels could agree to the so-called reciprocal levies to avoid the US president's threat to raise them to 30 per cent from August 1st, three people familiar said. 'The Jap agreement made clear the terms of the shakedown,' said one EU diplomat. 'Most member states are holding their noses and could take this deal.' Rye River Brewing , the Kildare-based craft brewer, has reported a more than €521,000 after-tax loss for 2024 as commercial and one-off project costs ate into rising gross profits at the Celbridge-headquartered company. The brewer moved into contract brewing this year with a deal to produce the popular Galway Hooker brand of beers. Ian Curran reports. READ MORE After months of back and forth and lots of shadow boxing, the European Union and the United States are said to be closing in on a trade deal that would impose a 15 per cent tariff on European imports , notes Cantillon and, while not what was wished for, it should give Irish and European businesses some certainty on the issue, albeit at a cost to them, and an end to the swirl or rumour and uncertainty that has existed since Trump returned to power. How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come? Listen | 35:59 It is the end of an era, writes Ciara O'Brien in her column. Everyone has a horror story about Microsoft's error screen appearing at the worst possibly moment, taking hours of work with it. I don't remember the first time I saw Microsoft's blue screen of death on my computer. But I do remember the worst time. Cantillon, in digesting the quashing by the UK Supreme Court of the conviction of former UBS and Citigroup dealer Tom Hayes for his role in the so-called Libor scandal, wonders at what point does a bad business decision become a law-breaking one? EU leaders are increasingly waking up to the bloc's dependence on US tech companies for the infrastructure that powers everything from healthcare systems to national defence. Those operations are both deep and wide. Amazon , Microsoft and Google control more than two-thirds of the European cloud computing market. Google and Apple prevail in the mobile phone operating systems in the EU, while Google dominates the global search market. Can the EU break that dependency? Barbara Moens reports. 'Every year, thousands of children enter school with undetected literacy needs. Under today's system, it can take up to five years for a child to receive a diagnosis of dyslexia. By then, they have already struggled, disengaged, and fallen behind,' says Joe Fernandez, founder of Early Intervention Tools , which has created a screening method that picks up signs of early literacy problems in four- to six-year-olds. Olive Keogh met him. What matters most to you in a phone? Is it camera? Battery life? Or is it pure thinness that gets your attention? Samsung has long satisfied demand for high-powered premium smartphones with the Galaxy series, building in better cameras, more power, improving battery life. Now it is trying to tempt the holdouts with the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge , a thinner, lighter phone. The only problem is that is has made some sacrifices to get there, says Ciara O'Brien as she runs the rule over it. If you'd like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money , the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
PayPal to add 100 high-tech jobs in Dublin with AI fraud and data science centre
PayPal is to create 100 high-tech jobs in Ireland as the payments company establishes a new artificial intelligence (AI) fraud and data science centre here. The payments company is hiring across AI engineering, data science, software development, risk modelling and cybersecurity. PayPal, which already employs about 1,500 people here, said the new jobs would be located at the company's headquarters in Dublin and would support key areas such as loss prevention and enhancing customer experiences. 'As we shape the next generation of digital payments, the talent and innovation coming from Ireland will play a critical role,' said Aaron J Webster, global chief risk officer at PayPal. READ MORE 'This expansion reflects both our confidence in the local ecosystem and our ambition to build an AI-driven, data-powered future that embeds trust and safety in every transaction. We are proud to deepen our commitment to Ireland and to invest in highly skilled roles that will help shape the future of PayPal globally.' The expansion is being supported by IDA Ireland. Minister for Employment Peter Burke said the move was a strong vote of confidence in the State as a location for high-value tech investment. How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come? Listen | 35:59 PayPal said the expansion was a 'new chapter' for the Irish operation, which was originally set up as a customer service hub. It is now being developed as a centre for innovation and the Irish team is expected to play a key role in the global network, working closely with the company's other innovation hubs. However, last year, the company laid off almost 300 staff over two separate rounds of job cuts as the global operation slimmed down amid fierce competition in the payments markets. At the time, the company said it would continue to hire for strategic roles. Those job losses followed cutbacks in 2023, when the firm said it would reduce its global workforce by 7 per cent, including a number of jobs in Dublin and Co Louth, with its office in Dundalk also closed as part of the cost-cutting plan. The new roles will erase some of those losses, although it still leaves it below pre-2023 levels.
