The herd mentality of investors partly explains why the AI stampede has become one of the hottest trends in start-up investing since the “big data” slogan launched a thousand entrepreneurial dreams. The investment rounds are still small, reflecting the early stage of most of the start-ups. But the large number of companies raising money and the range of investors point to the extent of the interest. Besides some of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms — including Khosla Ventures and Greylock Partners — and tech luminaries such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, some of the most active backers of AI also include companies which see uses for the technology in their own industries, such as Goldman Sachs.

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