AI Daily: Anthropic’s Claude gaining paid subscribers in record numbers

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.

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PAID SUBSCRIBERS: An analysis of billions of anonymized credit card transactions by consumer transaction analysis company Indagari indicates that Claude is seeing record growth in paid subscribers, with subscriptions more than doubling this year according to Anthropic, TechCrunch’s Julie Bort reports. The data suggests a surge in new and returning paid users between January and February, though it excludes enterprise customers and free-tier users, and does not reflect total user counts, the report notes.

FUNDING ROUND: ScaleOps announced it has raised $130M in Series C funding at a valuation exceeding $800M, “reinforcing its position as a category leader in Autonomous Cloud and AI Infrastructure Resource Management,” the company said. The round was led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from all existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $210M.

TOP PICK: Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak lowered the firm’s price target on Meta Platforms (META) to $775 from $825 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares, which were named as a new Top Pick by the analyst. Meta sentiment has troughed due to fears about generative AI and long-term positioning, as well as macro ad market and regulatory question marks more recently, argues the analyst, who says Meta will “grow faster for longer” and sees potential agentic catalysts, making the current depressed multiple a “strong buying opportunity.”

DATA CENTER: Google (GOOGL) plans to offer financial support, including offering construction loans for Nexus Data Centers, the operator behind a multibillion-dollar data center project in Texas that is leased to Anthropic, people familiar with the matter told Financial Times’ Michelle Chan, Stephen Morris and Martha Muir. Support from Google parent Alphabet should allow the project to raise the financing at a lower cost than financing that was being readied by a consortium of banks competing to provide financing, the report stated.

AI-POWERED CHARGING GUIDANCE: Google (GOOGL; GOOG) said it is bringing Maps’ AI-powered EV charging features to over 350 car models with Android Auto. Now, Maps will recommend when and where to charge based on EV model and battery level, reducing range anxiety and the need to juggle multiple apps. Users just need to add their EV info to Maps and set a destination in the car to see their expected battery usage. Then, add their current charge level to get recommended charging stops, estimated arrival battery level and an updated ETA based on charging time. “To deliver accurate battery predictions for hundreds of vehicles, we combine AI with advanced energy models that analyze car details – like weight and battery size – alongside Maps’ real-time information about traffic, road elevation and weather. This will allow us to bring intelligent trip-planning features to most U.S. EVs soon,” the company said. AI-powered battery predictions are rolling out now on hundreds of EV models in the U.S. across more than 15 brands, with more coming soon. Publicly traded companies in the space include Tesla (TSLA), Lucid (LCID), Nio (NIO), Rivian (RIVN), Xpeng (XPEV), Li Auto (LI), Zeekr (ZK), General Motors (GM), Ford (F), Stellantis (STLA) and Volkswagen (VWAGY).