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Chatbot Arena Spins Out Into a Company
Perplexity AI gets a phone integration
Algot Persson
April 17, 2025
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In Today’s Issue:
Chatbot Arena Spins Out Into a Company
Perplexity AI gets a phone integration
Read time: 3 minutes
Chatbot Arena Spins Out Into a Company
Chatbot Arena, a website originally developed as an academic research project at UC Berkeley, is transitioning into a full-fledged company. The platform, which lets users test and vote on AI models in head-to-head battles, will now operate under the name LMArena, officially incorporated as Arena Intelligence Inc.
The project was started in early 2023 by the Sky Computing Lab at UC Berkeley and has grown to attract over 1 million monthly visitors. It’s used by both commercial and open-source AI developers to benchmark their models, and has occasionally been the first place where companies — including OpenAI — deploy new models before public release.
The new company is being founded by Anastasios Angelopoulos, Wei-Lin Chiang, and Ion Stoica. All three were previously affiliated with UC Berkeley; Stoica is also known for co-founding Databricks and Anyscale. The team plans to keep the platform open and neutral.
An early version of a new LMArena website was released Thursday. A business model has not yet been finalized, though one option being considered is charging companies to test their models on the site. LMArena also plans to raise funding, though no details on investors or fundraising targets were shared.
ChatBot Arena
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Perplexity AI gets a phone integration
Perplexity
Perplexity AI will be integrated as a built-in assistant on Motorola’s upcoming Razr phone, which is expected to be announced on April 24. The device will feature Perplexity alongside Google’s Gemini, giving users access to both AI systems on the same device.
The collaboration is part of a broader push by Perplexity to expand into the mobile hardware space. The company is also working with T-Mobile's parent company (Deutsche Telekom) on a prototype “AI Phone,” where agents can perform real-world tasks like booking flights or checking in to hotels without relying on individual apps.
Additionally, Perplexity is in early talks with Samsung about potential integration into future Galaxy devices. These discussions are ongoing and not yet finalized.
Perplexity’s app is already available on iOS and Android and is currently one of the most downloaded AI tools in app stores.
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