Paul Stenhouse: TikTok's parent company valued at $380 billion, Perplexity brings AI browser to Android and beyond, and WhatsApp gains the notes feature

TikTok's parent company is now one of the world's most successful 'startups'  

A recent funding round has valued Bytedance, the company behind TikTok, at $480 billion, which is only just behind OpenAI's $500 billion valuation. Even though the US company may be sold or transferred, Bloomberg reports there was fierce interest in the stock sale with seven companies bidding, driving the valuation from $360 billion.  

 

Perplexity is bringing its AI browser to Android and beyond 

The underdog AI company and the first to make an AI enabled browser is expanding to take on Google directly. The Android app is now available, the iOS version is days away from launch, and it's also available for Mac and Windows making it much more widely available than the ChatGPT browser. Perplexity's goal is to be your go to search engine, trying to break Google's 20 year dominance.   

 

WhatsApp is getting the Instagram Notes feature  

You'll now be able to set a 'status' message that can either be seen publicly or just by your contacts. Just like Instagram Notes, the message only stays up for a day by default, but you can set it for longer or shorter if you want. It's another step to seemingly align all the Meta-owned messaging services – Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
So you know how Google has absolutely dominated search engines
for the best part of twenty years. There's this new
company called Perplexity that knows it's a bit of an underdog,
but it's using AI to give users a bit of
a different experience and it's hoping to take down Google's
dominance on the web. Our Textbert Paul Stenhouse is here

(00:34):
with the details this morning. Hey Paul, Hey, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, because Google's one. Because if you want to know anything,
and you want to do anything on the Internet, what
do you do. You either open up your Chrome browser,
which Google owns, which has something like ninety percent of
the market share, which is just.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
As phenomenal madness, I mean it is.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And if you're using your Safari or whatever else you're using,
you probably go to Google dot com because it's always
been the best. It's just where everybody starts. Yeah, yeah,
and that's what Perposity wants to try to change, right.
They came into this AI game a little bit differently.
They really tried to go first into this browser kind
of this browser first mentality of well, if we can
be the starting point. Then that's where we're going to win.

(01:18):
And I will say, you know, the open AIS, the
company behind chat GPT, they've started to get into their
browser sort of game now as well because they're seeing
the same thing and they want to be that utility
you go to. But Perplexity has really done it really quickly.
And they've just launched their Android app, so it's sort
of a browser for Android, which is available and then

(01:40):
days away will be the iOS app already available on Mac,
already available on Windows. So they've really got all of
the kind of big bases covered, right, and they've done
it really quite quickly. They're a little bit different from
the other ais as well, and that they were one
of the early ones to really use real time searching

(02:01):
in their AI results. So just to give a little
bit of context for that, right, you know, the AI
companies go out and they teach it things and they've
usually got what they call a knowledge cutoff, and so
what Perplexity did was they combined the knowledge base with
real time search results and then brought it all together.
And they've been a little bit controversial because they're a

(02:21):
little bit maybe let's say Lucy goosey with some of
the rules around copyright and respecting you know, websites terms
of service and things like that. But they have got
a pretty good funny that they've got a pretty good
service when it comes to things that are happening with
news and sports and really timely information. So maybe if
you've got an Andrew phone, check it out.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Okay, do you know what. I've just gone a quick
crack while you've been talking to us. So I've gone
to Google and I said, who is Paul Stenhouse? And
Google said, it's not going to know. A member of
the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. He was a scholar, linguist,
expert on Samaritan studies, writer, story in an editor of
the longest lasting journal in Australia's history. Which I had
no idea about Paul, but then I went to get

(03:03):
some of his emails sometimes exactly that's.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Very interesting, Priestley.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, I went to Perplexity and asked the same thing,
and it gave me options. So it said, Paul Steinhouse
can refer to two notable individuals. One is the knowledge
of Paul. Yes, one is the afore mentioned Paul. The
other is a contemporary polst Inhouse. You're not, You're contemporary, Paul.
How about that? A contemporary Paul Steinhouse, a New Zealand
born media and technology professional based in New York. There

(03:29):
you go, a tech commentator, media host making frequent appearances
to discuss technology trends. There you go, Paul, do you
project Jane?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Look at that Perplexity knows WhatsApp.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
We have sold Perplexity this morning. Hey, I think increasingly
many of us are using WhatsApp, probably as our primary
messaging service now, but some changes are coming to the
WhatsApp service.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, and look owned by Meta. Right. So we've got Facebook,
we've got Instagram, we've got WhatsApp, and what are you
some kind of seeing is all of these services are
now starting to combine. And so WhatsApp is just launching
a feature from Instagram called notes. And so if you're
on your WhatsApp, you'll be able to set sort of
like a status message that appears by your stories circles.

(04:14):
And so the idea is that you set a status
and it lasts generally for twenty four hours. You can
kind of change some of the timing, but you know,
you can be like, hey, I'm Jack, I'm in Melbourne
or I'm looking for this thing or whatever it is.
It's just interesting that I guess Meta is really trying
to bring all these things together. And I did notice
recently I use Messenger Facebook Messenger on Mac and they're

(04:36):
going to be winding that down over the next couple
of months. And I wouldn't be surprised if that means
they're kind of going to standardize. I guess we'll try
to push everything in one direction. But also, you say,
in New Zealand's, especially Latin America, Asia, WhatsApp, especially Europe,
WhatsApp is the default. Everyone uses WhatsApp. In the States
not so much. The iPhone has such a stranglehold that

(04:59):
my Message is kind of a dominant player. And I
think by bringing some of the Instagram features over WhatsApp
is probably part of their play as well, to get
WhatsApp feeling maybe a little more familiar to the Instagram
folks of the US.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah right, okay, watch the space. Thanks Paul Paul Steenhouse
not to be confused with the missionary author and religious
historian Paul Steenhouse, of course.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks' b from nine Am, saturday or follow
the podcast On iHeartRadio