AI Daily: Google testing AI-powered coding tool called Opal

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:

AI-POWERED CODING TOOL: Alphabet’s (GOOGL, GOOG) Google is testing an AI-powered coding tool called Opal, available to users in the U.S. through Google Labs. The company said the tool will allow users to build, edit, and share mini-AI apps using natural language.

ROBOTAXIS: Google’s (GOOGL(GOOGL) Waymo is operating over 250,000 paid rides per week across five U.S. cities while Tesla (TSLA) recently launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin and Amazon’s (AMZN) Zoox is expected to go live in Las Vegas later this year, Rafe Uddin and Tim Bradshaw of The Financial Times report. While the U.S. is moving ahead into the autonomous space, scaling these services beyond a few cities remains challenging. Companies need to prove their robotaxis are safe as well as securing tens of billions of dollars in capital investment. Additionally, margins in ride-hailing market are typically thin.

Pony AI (PONY) has started around-the-clock Robotaxi operation in the Chinese megacities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. This move marks a step forward in the company’s China development, expanding its Robotaxi operation window from 15 hours a day to full 24/7 availability. In the meantime, Pony has also extended its Robotaxi testing window in the Chinese capital city of Beijing to 24 hours daily. The initiative builds on Pony AI’s extensive operational foundation, with over 50M kilometers of global autonomous testing. These efforts cover a wide range of traffic and lighting conditions – from midday congestion to late-night driving – providing validation of system performance under real-world scenarios. The company’s proprietary autonomous driving system – its “virtual driver” – has logged more than 500,000 hours of driverless operation. According to internal metrics, the system has achieved a safety record up to ten times safer than that of human drivers. This continuous validation has sharpened the system’s ability to respond to complex road environments and changing weather conditions.

ONE-OF-A-KIND: Piper Sandler initiated coverage of Palantir (PLTR) with an Overweight rating and $170 price target. The shares are richly valued but the company offers “one-of-a-kind” growth and margin potential, the firm tells investors in a research note. Piper believes Palantir can grow into a $24B revenue run-rate by 2032 due to market share gains in two one trillion dollar total addressable markets – government and U.S. commercial. The firm tells investors to be patient and buy the shares on weakness. It sees Palantir as a winner in the artificial intelligence revolution.