FTI Consulting News Bytes – 21 February 2025

FTI Consulting News Bytes

This week, we kick off with a major technological breakthrough from Microsoft, which unveiled a new state of matter that is not solid, liquid or gas and could pave the way for powerful quantum computers. We then move onto the latest news in AI – Musk has released an updated version of his chatbot Grok-3, which he (unsurprisingly) claims is more advanced than ChatGPT and DeepSeek. A leading AI investor claims European enterprise is lagging in its adoption of AI while dating apps are adopting AI to clamp down on bad behaviour from users. Finally, a superfan subscription is rumoured to be on its way from Spotify, offering music lovers early access to concert tickets and a DJ feature. Stay tuned!

This week’s news

Microsoft makes quantum breakthrough

This week, Microsoft announced a major breakthrough in quantum computing as it unveiled a new chip, Majorana 1, powered by the first topoconductor. The topoconductor, which can create a new state of matter that is not solid, liquid or gas, opens up the possibility of designing quantum systems that fit into a single chip, smaller than the palm of a hand. Microsoft believes the new chip has the potential to be as revolutionary as the semiconductor was for computing, reports the Financial Times. Professor Paul Stevenson of Surrey University said the research published by Microsoft was a “significant step”, but admitted there were tough challenges ahead. “Until the next steps have been achieved, it is too soon to be anything more than cautiously optimistic,” he said.

Musk debuts AI chatbot to rival OpenAI

xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, debuted an updated version of its Grok-3 model in a bid to challenge OpenAI. In a livestream, Grok-3 beat OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Alphabet’s Google Gemini, DeepSeek’s V3 model and Anthropic’s Claude across maths, science and coding benchmarks. Musk claimed that Grok-3 has “more than 10 times” the compute power of its previous versions and has already completed pre-training, Bloomberg wrote. This news comes hot on the heels of OpenAI’s rejection of a $97.4 billion bid from a consortium led by Musk. The unsolicited approach was Musk’s latest attempt to block the startup he co-founded with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — but later left — from becoming a for-profit firm, as it looks to secure more capital and stay ahead in the AI race.

Dating apps enlist AI to improve behaviour

Match Group, owner of Tinder and Hinge, is using AI to help curb bad behaviour on its dating platforms, reports the Financial Times. AI detects potentially abusive or overly sexual messages and produces a prompt asking users if they’re sure they want to send the message. 20% of users reconsider their messages after the prompt. The move comes as dating apps like Tinder face a dip in users amid “dating app fatigue” among Gen Z. In response, Match is rolling out fresh features to make dating safer and more respectful. Yoel Roth, Match’s safety chief and former Twitter head, is also tackling the rise of romance scams, but warns that human scammers, not AI bots, remain the real threat.

European enterprise lags in embracing AI 

In an interview with Sifted this week, Andreessen Horowitz’s general partner Anjney Midha, who sits on the boards of European AI startups Mistral and Black Forest Labs, highlights a significant challenge for Europe’s AI sector: large enterprises’ slow adoption of AI. Despite the noise from some political figures last week, regulatory issues are not his primary concern. Instead, Midha points to the inaction of European CEOs and executives in embracing AI-driven productivity enhancements. While US companies have aggressively partnered with AI startups, European enterprises lag behind, which Midha attributes to cultural inertia. He said: “If you’re running some of Europe’s largest enterprises, it can be comfortable to keep doing things the way you always have, right? Until it’s too late.”

Spotify to launch ‘superfan’ subscription

People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg the Company is hoping to roll out its “Music Pro” tier at some point this year, offering music lovers higher-quality audio, early access to concert tickets and increased functionality such as a DJ feature. The feature will cost as much as $6 extra a month, which could bring subscriptions up to $18. Timelines for the launch are not set in stone yet, as the streaming giant has yet to secure rights from all major music companies. Spotify’s new ticketing feature aims to capitalise on the rise of “superfans,” noted the Financial Times, with the company hoping this will entice artists’ dedicated fan bases to subscribe to the new tier. 

Top Tweets of the Week

• Freya Patty, Senior Reporter, Sifted: Scoop: An ex-Mistral employee is raising $80m for his new company, sources tell Sifted. “Genesis Robotics is the big round happening in Paris at the moment,” says one investor.
• Jeff Bezos, Executive Chairman, Amazon: Who’d you pick as the next Bond?
• Brent Hoberman, former CEO of Lastminute.com: Hard to keep up with the pace of AI progress and the second/third order impacts. Who is best on those? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, recently said that he expects the ChatGPT maker to build AI software that beats all human developers at competitive programming by the end of this year

Number of the week

$30bn The valuation that Shein is rumoured to have been cut to having previously been valued at as much as $100bn, according to Bloomberg.