PayPal Plans Ad Business; OpenAI Forms Safety and Security Committee; Google Invests in Indian E-commerce Giant

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 29th May 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: PayPal Plans Ad Business; OpenAI Forms Safety and Security Committee; Google Invests in Indian E-commerce Giant

PayPal has plans to boost its growth by starting an ad network. The ad business will be built around the data it generates by tracking users’ purchases as well as broader spending behaviours of those who use its services. The digital payments company is in a strong position, already having an abundance of data gathered on millions of its users. PayPal has hired the former lead of Uber’s advertising business, Mark Grether, to lead the company’s Ads division as senior vice president and general manager.

As OpenAI begins the training of a new model, the company has formed a Safety and Security Committee. In the company’s own words, the committee will be “responsible for making recommendations on critical safety and security decisions” for all of their projects. The committee will be led by CEO Sam Altman, alongside directors Bret Taylor, Adam D’Angelo, and Nicole Seligman. OpenAI explains that the committee will evaluate and further develop processes and safeguards over the next 90 days, after which they will share recommendations with the company Board. Once the Board has carried out a review, the updated recommendations will be shared with the public.

In APAC, Google is increasing its e-commerce investment. The tech giant will be investing $350m (£274.87m) in Flipkart, the Walmart owned Indian e-commerce startup. The investment forms part of a funding round of almost $1bn (£782.650m) which started in 2023. Walmart has led the financing, already having invested $600m (£469.57m) in the startup last year. Currently, the startup leads the e-commerce market in India.