AI

A Census for Computers

For the 24th time in history, the U.S. is trying to count every person in the country. You probably knew that, but did you know the Census Bureau has also counted businesses that use AI? 

In late 2018, the Census Bureau and National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics polled 850,000 U.S. businesses on “advanced technology” adoption and received 583,000 responses. Last month, a team of researchers published a paper dissecting the data (h/t Wired). 

It’s the first 10,000-foot view of AI adoption for all shapes and sizes of U.S. businesses. Typically, adoption reports come from consulting firms interviewing the C-suite of Fortune 500 companies. 

Unsurprising results first

The vast majority of businesses haven’t messed around with neural nets. Here’s the percentage breakdown of companies that reported adoption of a given tech (former = usage, latter = testing): 

• Touchscreens: 5.9% / 0.9%
• Machine learning: 2.8% / 0.7%
• Voice recognition: 2.5% / 0.7%
• Computer vision: 1.7 / 0.4%
• Robotics: 1.3 / 0.3% 
• Natural language processing: 1.2% / 0.4% 
• RFID: 1.1% / 0.3%
• Augmented reality: 0.8% / 0.4% 
• Automated vehicles: 0.8% / 0.2%

Size and age seem to be the main determinants of tech adoption, according to the researchers. Large companies can devote more resources to R&D and tech spend. And while it’s true that tech startups have higher adoption rates, it’s also true that few small, young businesses are tech startups.  

• For reference from a similar time period, PwC found that 20% of the executives it surveyed planned to implement AI at scale in 2019. 

Real adoption rates

I think they’re at least a few percentage points higher, for two reasons: 1) these numbers are a snapshot of the past, since the data is a few years old and 2) not every company responded. Those that did may have been confused about the survey's methodology.

Bottom line: U.S. businesses are still in the early innings. There’s a reason we say “emerging” technology.

VC

Fundraising During COVID-19, Ed. 9

Cobots: A couple weeks ago, Dexterity came out of stealth with $56.2 million in funding and a full-stack software system for collaborative robots. Cobots derive their nickname from being able to work safely alongside humans in industrial settings. 

Crowd-counting: Last week, Density announced $51 million in funding. The SF startup uses a combination of sensors and software to count the amount of people in an area (talk about good timing). If you pair this technology with biometrics, it could get controversial. 

Seafaring: Sea Machines, a self-steering ship navigation startup, raised $15 million in Series B funding. 

Augmented reality: Mira, an AR hardware manufacturer, recently raised $10 million. By focusing on AR for B2B applications, Mira has found success as competitors struggle to find product-market fit. 

• "Magic Leap has sucked a lot of funding out of the room, but our customers really need what we're building," Mira CEO Benjamin Taft told Protocol in June. 

And a seed round to close us out: In Mid-July, Enduvo raised $4 million. The Chicago startup is building a no-code AR and VR platform.

SPONSORED BY TERRANOVA SECURITY

Not Your Grandpa’s Phishin’ Tourney

Beautiful weather for a phishing tournament is coming up. 

And we’re not talkin’ grandpa in a canoe—unless your grandpa can execute complex cyberattacks from his canoe, in which case your grandpa is sort of a bad dude.

No, we mean Terranova Security’s second annual Gone Phishing Tournament. Your company needs to know where it stands when it comes to cybersecurity, and this is the free opportunity to figure that out.

Co-sponsored by Microsoft, Terranova’s tournament measures and compares your organization’s phishing click rates to your industry peers. Consider the tourney a trial of Terranova’s services—and as a thank you, you’ll receive a personalized copy of their annual Gone Phishing Report once the phish have stopped biting.

Sign up for free today.

M&A

V-Lookup Your Next TikTok Dance

Microsoft will likely be the next owner of TikTok’s U.S. operations, if there is one at all. The video app could join a product family that includes Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Azure, Xbox, Bing, LinkedIn, Skype, GitHub, HoloLens, and Minecraft. It’s a weird family. 

Consumer and social services haven’t been Microsoft’s star children, but TikTok could change that. Engagement is climbing on the app, which says it has 100 million U.S. users and expects to drive $500 million in U.S. revenue this year. 

Microsoft, which still needs the White House’s approval, dropped national security easter eggs in a corporate blog post yesterday, saying it will bring “world-class security” to TikTok. 

• The Pentagon trusted that security enough to award Microsoft with the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract. Tens of thousands of companies trust that security to keep their mail, documents, and IP safe. 
• Microsoft would also be acquiring TikTok’s service in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, along with the U.S. and UK, are members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. 

Zoom out: The world could soon have three TikToks: 1) ByteDance's Chinese version known as Douyin, 2) a Microsoft-owned TikTok in four English-speaking countries, and 3) a ByteDance-owned TikTok everywhere else.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: The global space economy reached nearly $433 billion last year, according to a Space Foundation report. That’s just shy of the home remodeling industry, a $450 billion market in the U.S. 

Quote: “Facebook has copied a lot of my work.”—Dom Hofmann, Vine cofounder and CEO of its successor, Byte. While we’re here...Byte’s Twitter popped off this weekend. 

Read: Vogue profiled Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s VP of local-language originals who’s helping lead the streaming service’s global expansion.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• President Trump gave Microsoft only 45 days to negotiate a TikTok deal, Reuters reports. 
• Google is paying $450 million for a 6.6% stake in home security company ADT. The companies will integrate ADT services and Nest products.
• Apple is asking for 50% rent cuts at its UK retail stores. 
• Facial recognition is making its way into sports stadiums. 
• Triller, a short-form video app, is suing TikTok and ByteDance for patent infringement.
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested the White House will take action against additional Chinese software companies this week.

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Monday: Deadline for White House working group’s recommendations on U.S.-listed Chinese companies; Take-Two Interactive earnings.

Tuesday: Earnings (Sony, Activision). 

Wednesday: Earnings (Square, Roku); Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event; Black Hat runs virtually through Thursday. 

Thursday:  Earnings (Uber, Cloudflare, Box, Dropbox, Nintendo); Def Con runs through the weekend.

Friday: SMIC (China’s biggest chipmaker) earnings. This weekend in 1991, astronauts sent the first email from space: “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,…send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,…we’ll be back!”

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For Hollywood transformation: Deloitte published a new report about the future of virtual production and content creation. "Hollywood may be reaching the limits of efficiency using the traditional production methodology," the authors write. 

For a time capsule: Last week’s House Antitrust subcommittee hearings surfaced decade-old emails among tech execs about corporate strategy, acquisitions, and competitors. Here’s an overview from CNBC and 2011 Apple emails about the Amazon Kindle app. I’ll drop more highlights in the coming weeks.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Udacity and Coursera see strong growth
• Tech trivia, bitcoin edition
• The NBA’s digital fans