1. Welcome ARK Invest Europe!
This week, we were delighted to welcome ARK Invest Europe to our brainstorm for the first time. In late September, ARK Invest LLC acquired Rize ETF Limited, a London-based thematic asset management and distribution company focused on global megatrends, including innovation that fosters sustainability.
Because UK and European regulators now are approving active equity ETFs and ~25% of our subscriber base was in Europe before this acquisition, ARK is looking forward to satisfying the demand for our US-based strategies in the form of UCITS ETFs, pending regulatory approval. We also are aiming to accelerate the distribution of Rize—now ARK Invest Europe—ETFs in Europe and throughout the rest of the world.
An important competitive advantage in the European market is that more than 50% of Rize’s systematic, self-indexed ETFs have satisfied the requirements for Article 9[1] under SFDR, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. The comparable percentage of all European funds designated Article 9 is ~3.7%.[2]
Most important is our shared culture and DNA: benchmark-agnostic with a focus on the power of disruptive innovation to change the world, for good!
2. Is Meta AI Creating A Regime Change In Mobile Computing?
During Meta Connect[3] last week, Meta demonstrated its Artificial Intelligence (AI) prowess with new products and features that will enhance the user experience across its family of apps and devices. New AI-related products[4] included an EMU[5] image generation tool, the Meta AI Studio for developer coding, 28 celebrity-backed AI chatbots, AI stickers, and Meta AI.
Particularly exciting, Ray-Ban smart glasses[6] will incorporate Meta AI, enabling the AI assistant to respond to questions about what the wearer is seeing and hearing. During brainstorm this week, we debated whether the integration of AI into smart glasses will create a compelling alternative to multi-touch phones and transform the way in which we navigate the digital world.
We also discussed whether AI assistants equipped with large language models will turn voice into the primary medium for digital experiences. Will Siri and Alexa finally deliver on their promises? If so, Meta will have created a compelling case for hands-free mobile computing.
3. ChatGPT Is Going Multimodal With Voice And Visual Inputs
Last week, OpenAI unveiled[7] new voice and image features for ChatGPT Plus, enabling enterprise users to pose questions with voice commands and receive responses from one of ChatGPT’s new human-sounding voices. If AI models and humans begin to converse naturally, models could evolve into educators, companions, storytellers—even therapists[8]—seamlessly.
Also important are ChatGPT’s new abilities to analyze visual inputs like user photos and screenshots, and then act upon them. Users on X, formerly Twitter, already are harnessing[9] abilities—one successfully prompting ChatGPT to generate the code for a web app based on nothing more than sketches of the UI design, and another to label and explain the diagram of a human cell found in a student’s textbook. In our view, these multimodal tools have the potential to expand the use of AI exponentially in our daily lives.
[1] The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is a European Union regulation aimed at promoting transparency and sustainability in the financial industry. It requires financial market participants (including product issuers) to disclose how they integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into their investment decisions and risk management processes. Article 6, Article 8, and Article 9 funds are self-assigned disclosure categorizations under SFDR that represent different levels of sustainability commitment. Article 6 funds do not have a specific sustainability objective, Article 8 funds promote environmental or social characteristics, and Article 9 funds have a clear sustainable investment objective (i.e., an environmental objective, social objective or a combination thereof, as defined by the relevant product issuer).
[2] Morningstar. 2023. “SFDR Article 8 and Article 9 Funds: Q2 2023 in Review.”
[3] Meta. 2023b. “Meta Connects. Expanding Reality, today And Tomorrow.”
[4] Ortiz, S. 2023. “Meta Just Entered The AI Chatbot Race—With Three Major Product Announcements.” ZDNet.
[5] Meta. 2023b. “Introducing New AI Experiences Across Our Family of Apps And Devices.”
[6] Pierce, D. 2023. “Meta’s Smart Glasses Can Take Calls, Play music, and Livestream From Your Face.” The Verge.
[7] OpenAI. 2023. “ChatGPT Can Now See, Hear, And Speak.”
[8] @lillianwing. 2023. “Just Had A Quite Emotional.” X.
[9] @Borriss. 2023. “Less Than 31 Hours since OpenAI Started.” X.