Google is reportedly set to end its business relationship with Scale AI following Meta’s substantial investment in the startup. Initially, Google planned to pay Scale $200 million this year, but the company has now shifted its strategy and is actively engaging with Scale AI’s competitors instead, according to recent reports.
Similarly, Microsoft is said to be reevaluating its own dealings with Scale, contemplating a drawdown of engagements. OpenAI had already made a comparable decision several months earlier; however, its CFO indicated that the company would maintain Scale as one among various data vendors.
Scale AI serves a diverse array of customers including self-driving vehicle enterprises and branches of the U.S. government, though its largest customer base comprises generative artificial intelligence companies that rely on Scale’s specialized workforce for data annotation tasks critical to training AI models.
Responding to inquiries about Google’s plans, a spokesperson for Scale declined to discuss the specifics of any individual partnerships. Nevertheless, the spokesperson reaffirmed the company’s overall stability, emphasizing Scale’s commitment to remaining an independent entity and continuing stringent safeguards to protect customer data.
News surrounding these major shifts in alliances follows Meta’s recent $14.3 billion acquisition of a 49% stake in Scale AI. As part of that agreement, Scale’s CEO Alexandr Wang departed to lead Meta’s ambitious new project aimed at developing what the company refers to as “superintelligence.”
