Senior Research Engineer

Fireflies.ai, the AI meeting assistant used in 75% of Fortune 500 companies, has reached a $1B valuation following its first tender offer in a move that signals a new era for workplace productivity tools. The announcement coincides with the launch of its latest innovation, Talk to Fireflies, a voice-activated AI meeting assistant with real-time web search capabilities powered by Perplexity.For remote teams juggling constant meetings and tight decision cycles, instant access to reliable information can be a game-changer. Fireflies is betting on this unmet need. Rather than toggling between meeting apps and web browsers or postponing decisions due to missing data, users can now speak directly to Fireflies during meetings and get sourced answers on the spot-freeing up time, reducing friction, and boosting informed collaboration.Voice-led AI meetings meet the power of searchWith its new Talk to Fireflies feature, the San Francisco-based company enables participants to interact using voice or chat in over 60 languages across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. By integrating Perplexity’s web search technology, Fireflies gives users real-time access to online information, without ever leaving the meeting environment.“Talk to Fireflies lets people search the web in real-time and get answers about the current meeting. For example, a late joiner can ask, ‘Hey Fireflies, what key decisions have been made so far?’ or a team can find information by asking, ‘Hey Fireflies, what are the market growth projections for AI meeting agents?’” said Fireflies co-founder and CEO Krish Ramineni

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More. OpenAI announced Wednesday that its business user base has surged 50% since February, reaching 3 million paying enterprise customers as the artificial intelligence company unveiled an expansive suite of new workplace tools designed to compete directly with Microsoft’s enterprise AI offerings.The milestone, revealed alongside the launch of several new business-focused features, underscores OpenAI’s aggressive push into corporate markets where reliable, secure AI tools can command premium prices. The company introduced new “connectors” that integrate ChatGPT with popular business applications, a meeting transcription feature called Record Mode, and enhanced versions of its Deep Research and Codex coding tools.“ChatGPT is helping transform businesses by helping employees work with more productivity, efficiency, and more strategically,” an OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Over the last few months, we’ve continued evolving ChatGPT into an increasingly impactful platform for work with business products like connectors, record mode with ChatGPT, Codex, image generation, deep research, and more.”The rapid enterprise adoption comes as OpenAI faces intensifying competition from tech giants like Microsoft and Google, which offer deep workplace integrations through existing enterprise relationships. Yet the company appears to be winning customers by positioning itself as the premier destination for cutting-edge AI capabilities.“Customers often choose ChatGPT for direct access to SOTA (state-of-the-art) models and tools, combined with enterprise-grade security and commitments on never training on business data,” the spokesperson said, emphasizing OpenAI’s competitive advantage as an “AI-native” company focused solely on advancing artificial intelligence rather than integrating it into legacy systems.OpenAI’s new workplace connectors challenge Microsoft and Google’s enterprise AI dominanceThe newly announced connectors represent OpenAI’s most direct challenge yet to Microsoft’s workplace AI strategy