Cops are buying 'GeoSpy' AI

PLUS: Google unveils Lyria 3

Author

Barsee
19 Feb

Together with

Howdy, it’s Barsee again.

Happy Thursday, AI family, and welcome back to AI Valley.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

  • Google unveils Lyria 3

  • Cops are buying ‘GeoSpy’ AI

  • OpenAI said close to the 1st phase of $100B+ round

  • World Labs, Fei-Fei Li’s AI startup, raises $1B to build world models

  • Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

MONGODB

Courtesy: MongoDB

Accelerate your growth with MongoDB for Startups. Access dedicated MongoDB engineering expertise and technical consultation focused on optimized performance and preparation for rapid, high-scale growth. Build on the unified data platform, integrating document storage, Vector Search, and database scalability. Streamline the tech stack and minimize integration overhead. Jumpstart your development with MongoDB Atlas credits.

Join thousands of innovators shipping faster worldwide – startups in the program represent $200B+ in combined valuation.

Build. Scale. Succeed. Get started today.

*This is sponsored

THROUGH THE VALLEY

Google has launched Lyria 3 inside the Gemini app, letting users create 30-second music tracks from a text prompt, photo, or video. The model handles genre, tempo, vocals, lyrics, and cover art on its own, turning Gemini into a simple music studio. DeepMind has worked on Lyria since 2023, but this is the first wide consumer release. Each track includes a SynthID watermark, and users can check whether the audio was AI-made. YouTube creators can also use Lyria 3 through Dream Track for Shorts. Try it out today at gemini.google.com.

Police in Miami-Dade and Los Angeles have purchased GeoSpy, an AI tool that can estimate where a photo was taken by analyzing visual clues like buildings, terrain, and vegetation, according to internal emails obtained by 404 Media. Miami-Dade paid about $85,500 for global access and a custom local model, while LAPD’s Robbery and Homicide Bureau also acquired a license. Officials say the tool is still in testing and used only to generate leads, not evidence, due to possible errors. So far, GeoSpy has not led to arrests, and agencies say results must be verified through standard investigative methods.

OpenAI is close to finalizing the first phase of a massive funding round that could raise more than $100 billion. The deal could value the company at over $850 billion once completed, with a pre-money valuation of $730 billion. The initial funding is expected to come from major partners, including Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia, and Microsoft, with Amazon reportedly considering up to $50 billion, SoftBank up to $30 billion, and Nvidia around $20 billion. The funds would support OpenAI’s growing AI infrastructure, including expanded use of Amazon’s cloud and chips.

Fei-Fei Li’s startup World Labs raised $200 million from Autodesk as part of a broader $1 billion funding round backed by Nvidia, AMD, Fidelity, and others. Reports suggest the company may be targeting a much higher valuation than its earlier $1 billion mark. As part of the deal, Autodesk and World Labs will work together on AI that can generate and reason about 3D worlds, starting with media and entertainment use cases like games and digital scenes. World Labs’ Marble tool already lets users build editable 3D environments, and Autodesk sees the partnership as a way to bring more spatial intelligence into design software.

TRENDING TOOLS

  • Tavus > The first real-time model to render every pixel at runtime, generate and control emotional states, listen actively, and actually behave the way humans do in conversation

  • Sponge Wallet > The easiest way for agents to hold and spend money, and for businesses to sell directly to them

  • Interpreter > A desktop agent that can fill PDFs, edit your Excel and Word docs, and learn new skills

  • Contra Payments > The first payments platform that lets you sell to AI Agents

  • OpenAI Atlas > It can now auto-organize your 100+ open tabs automatically with a new "Auto Organize" feature

  • TexTab > Turn any AI task into a Keyboard Shortcut

  • Voicebox > It clones any voice from just a 3-second audio clip, running 100% locally on your machine

WHAT I'M CONSUMING

THE VALLEY GEMS

What’s trending on social today:

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Thank you for reading today’s edition. That’s all for today’s issue.

💡 Help me get better and suggest new ideas at [email protected] or @heyBarsee

👍️ New reader? Subscribe here

Thanks for being here.

REACH 100K+ READERS

Acquire new customers and drive revenue by partnering with us

Sponsor AI Valley and reach over 100,000+ entrepreneurs, founders, software engineers, investors, etc.

If you’re interested in sponsoring us, email [email protected] with the subject “AI Valley Ads”.

1