Like any new technology, many people are excited about the promise of artificial intelligence.

But there are also many who are frightened…

Geoffrey Hinton, one of the “Godfathers of Artificial Intelligence,” announced back in May that he quit his position at Google after 10 years so he can “freely speak out about the risks of AI.”

And speak freely he did during his “exit interview” with The New York Times.

In the article published on Monday, May 1, Hinton says he had helped create a monster and is no longer as comfortable pushing boundaries on AI development without regulations in place.

“It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using [AI] for bad things,” he says.

That same day, executives at IBM Corp. (IBM) said they expect to freeze hiring for jobs that they believe AI could do. In an interview with Bloomberg, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna estimates that up to 7,800 jobs could be affected by the freeze.

Then in the evening that same day (it was a busy Monday!), during his company’s earnings call, Chegg, Inc. (CHGG) CEO Dan Rosensweig said:

In the first part of the year, we saw no noticeable impact from ChatGPT on our new account growth and we were meeting expectations on new sign-ups. However, since March we saw a significant spike in student interest in ChatGPT. We now believe it’s having an impact on our new customer growth rate.

The online education company’s shares tumbled a massive 48% the next day.

And that was just one 24-hour-or-so stretch.

With AI, we’ll see more wild news like that out next week… and the week after that… and every week after that.

That’s why, on Thursday, July 27, at 7 p.m. Eastern, I’m sitting down with my fellow InvestorPlace analysts – Eric Fry and Luke Lango – for the AI Impact Event to discuss the AI assault on jobs and businesses, among many other topics.

The fact is… the AI Revolution is just getting started – and early movers stand to profit if they act on the right opportunities.

There is a lot to unpack –so you’ll want to be sure to be there on time. Reserve your spot for our event now by clicking here.

Most businesses – and investors – will lose big time.

But a few will emerge wealthier than ever.

That’s because AI can be a powerful tool for businesses that figure out how to use it correctly.

As investors, we have the opportunity to be on the winning side.

In today’s Market 360, I’ll share one of the companies that will likely be one of the AI winners. Plus, I’ll share the sector I expect to come out of the AI race on top.

One of the Market’s Newest Unicorns

When folks think of unicorns, they typically imagine a mythical horse with a single horn on its forehead. But in the world of investing, “unicorn” is something completely different.

To Wall Street, a unicorn is a privately held startup company with a valuation of $1 billion or more. It’s called a “unicorn” because this status is a rare feat. In order to become a unicorn, a company must have an innovative idea, a clear vision for growth, and a solid business idea. Companies like Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), and Airbnb Inc. (ABNB) are all former unicorns.

Currently, according to the private company analysts at CB Insights, there are about 1,200 unicorn companies worldwide. But what I find particularly interesting is that, of these companies, about 100 of them are in the AI space – including one founded by two ex-Google employees.

A couple years ago, two Google engineers, Daniel De Freitas and Noam Shazeer, led a team to build the technology called Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA. Unlike most other language models – machine learning software that can predict the most likely next word in a sentence or answer to a question based on a user’s input – this technology was trained on dialogue allowing the bot to have conversations.

However, Google felt this technology could damage the company brand with its knack for misinformation and toxic language. So, in late 2021, De Freitas and Shazeer left Google to turn their vision into a reality.

Thus, Character.AI. was born.

Now, this technology is a little different from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which uses a question-and-answer model, as it is an open-ended conversation model. Instead, Character.AI allows folks to chat with the reasonable likeness of almost anyone, dead or alive, real or imagined. It is important to note that, sometimes, the chatbot answers incorrectly.

In fact, when you first go to the website, you are greeted with the following message:

The very first point made when you get to their website is that everything Character.AI says is made up. The bot is just what its name suggests: a character for entertainment.

Like OpenAI and Google, De Freitas and Shazeer do have plans to train their system with larger amounts of digital data to sharpen the skills of their AI conversationalist. But this could take months and millions of dollars.

Now, in regard to being a unicorn, Character.AI. achieved that status in late March after raising $150 million in a recent funding round, putting the company at a $1 billion valuation. What’s interesting is that this came just two weeks after the Silicon Valley Bank crash, which upended the world of venture-capital-funded startups.

When asked what impacts the Silicon Valley Bank crash had on Character.AI, Shazeer said the crash had “no impact on fundraising” and that “all our cash is safe.” And with their latest fundraising announcement, it’s clear VC investors are continuing to show interest in the AI industry.

Sector Benefiting From the AI Interest

When it comes to AI, it’s not just AI companies that are on the receiving end of investor interest. There’s a whole other sector that’s benefiting from a connection to AI: semiconductors.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), which tracks semiconductor stocks, is up over 30% this year as I write this. Compare that to last year’s 34.7% decline.

And the semiconductor sector continues to benefit immensely from the big AI push this year in large part because the amount of data processed and stored by AI applications.

And chip stocks are only part of the story…

As you’ll hear when you watch Eric, Luke, and me at 7 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, July 27, the AI Revolution is just gearing up… and there are many profit opportunities to grab hold of.

During the AI Impact Event, we’re going to spill the beans on everything AI.

We go live Thursday, July 27, at 7 p.m. Eastern.

Make sure you reserve your seat for our event by going here.

Sincerely,

Louis Navellier