One more thing in AI

Date: 10 Sep, 2023

Dear reader,

Welcome to the latest edition of the “One More Thing in AI newsletter. Why “One more thing”?

This phrase was made memorable by that master presenter and visionary- Steve Jobs, and I decided to borrow it. He would use this phrase before unveiling some of the iconic product features released by Apple. There is so much happening in AI that curating that “One thing” to focus on is becoming very difficult for startup founders and business leaders alike. That is where this newsletter comes in.

I aim to sift out one essential AI-related news item under topics like Fintech, Insurtech, LLMs, VCs, and Startups, among other topics.

I will do all the heavy lifting so that you don’t have to: by reading scores of articles, listening to podcasts, and watching videos on the topic of AI that you don’t have time for. For Startup founders and Business Leaders like you who want to get smart about AI in less than 5 minutes. For sponsorship opportunities, see the bottom of the newsletter. I hope you enjoy this edition!

In this Edition

• 🤖 Large Language Models: Meet ChatGPT Enterprise

• 💰 Funding: Who's Backing Imbue's Billion-Dollar AI Dream Startup?

• 🎵 Generative Music: Meet Your Personal AI Composer

• 🌐 Big Tech: Google's AI Game Revealed

• 🔍 Future of Search: Google's Search-Generative Experience

• 🎙️ Ted Talk: Andrew Ng of Deeplearning.ai

• 🎧 Podcast: Interview with Mustafa Suleyman of Inflection AI

• 🐸 And your favorite section: AI Humor

Large Language Models

Meet ChatGPT Enterprise

🚀 The Big Picture: Imagine having a Swiss Army knife for your business but in the form of AI. OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Enterprise, and it's already making waves. Within just nine months of ChatGPT's initial launch, it's been adopted by over 80% of Fortune 500 companies. That's like having a new tech tool go viral but in the boardrooms!

🔒 What's the Buzz? Business leaders wanted a secure and straightforward way to deploy ChatGPT in their organizations. Think of it as wanting the power of a supercomputer but with the ease of a smartphone app. Early adopters include Block, Canva, Carlyle, Estée Lauder, PwC, and Zapier.

🛠️ Use Cases Galore: This isn't just a fancy chatbot. It's a multi-tool for your business. Companies are using it for more transparent communications (imagine cutting through the jargon in those lengthy reports), accelerating coding tasks (like having an extra developer on hand), answering complex business questions (your very own business oracle), and even assisting with creative work (a muse for your marketing team).

🎯 Why Should You Care?

• For Financial Services & Fintech: Think of ChatGPT as your risk-assessment ally or a compliance wizard. It can help you navigate the labyrinthine regulations and offer quick solutions.

• For Web3: ChatGPT could be your go-to for drafting smart contracts

• For VCs: Due diligence is vital, and ChatGPT can help sift through mountains of data to find that nugget of a startup worth investing in.

Funding

Who's Backing Imbue's Billion-Dollar AI Dream Startup?

🎉 Big News: Imagine a startup that's like a prodigy in the AI world, and it just hit the big leagues. Imbue, formerly known as Generally Intelligent, has secured a whopping $200 million in Series B funding, catapulting its valuation to $1 billion.

🤝 Who's Backing Them?: We're talking about big names here. Astera Institute, Nvidia, and Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt are among the investors. It's like the Avengers of tech have assembled to back this startup.

🧠 What's Their Jam?: Imbue is about "reasoning." Think of it as training a dog, not just to fetch the ball but to understand why it needs to bring it back. They're developing AI agents that can code and aim to make custom AI agents accessible to anyone. They focus on robust reasoning, dealing with real-world uncertainties and complexities.

📈 Nvidia's Winning Streak: Nvidia is not just an investor; it's also riding the AI wave like a pro-surfer. Its stock has soared 220% since the beginning of the year, breaking the $1 trillion market cap. They're also investing in other AI startups, making them a key player in the AI ecosystem. We need to discuss whether this valuation is justified at some, but that is for another newsletter.

🤖 Other Investments by Nvidia: Nvidia has been spreading its bets wisely. They recently invested in AI21 Labs, which offers text-based generative AI services. They've also backed Adept AI, Cohere, and Skydio, all making waves in the AI space. It's like Nvidia is collecting Infinity Stones in the AI universe.

🌟 Takeaway: Imbue's entry into the unicorn club is not just a win for them; it's a sign of the maturing AI market. With heavyweights like Nvidia backing multiple ventures, the opportunities for AI startups are looking promising.

Generative Music

Meet Your Personal AI Composer

🎉 What's the Buzz?: You know how AI has been helping you to draft emails and summarize data? Well, now it's stepping into the music industry! Imagine having a mini-Mozart in your pocket, ready to compose a tune whenever needed.

🎹 Meet Songburst: Brett Bauman has launched Songburst, an app that's as easy to use as ordering a latte. Just type in a prompt like "Calming piano music for studying" or "Funky beats for a podcast intro," and voila! You've got yourself a music clip. It's like having a jukebox that plays exactly what you're in the mood for. I used this prompt and got a decent output: “An Uplifting pop anthem for an adventure movie.” Try it for yourself after downloading the app.

📱 User-Friendly Prompts: Stuck for ideas? No worries! The app offers prompts in various categories like video, lo-fi, podcast, gaming, and meditation. It's like a musical menu you can pick and choose from.

🎼 The Tech Behind It: Songburst is built on Vercel and uses Leap for music generation. Currently, the app has a 30-second limit for each generated clip, but Bauman plans to extend this and improve the quality over time.

💲Pricing: The app is free to try but offers a subscription at $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year. It's like a Netflix subscription but for personalized music!

🎤 Another Player, Akhil Tolani, has also jumped into the fray with CassetteAI. This app can generate up to three minutes of music samples and allows you to edit and mix tracks. It's like having a mini recording studio on your phone. It has a waiting list, so I have not tried it yet.

🤖 Big Tech Joins In: Google and Meta aren't sitting this one out. They've also released their text-to-music tools, MusicLM and MusicGen, respectively. It's like the tech giants are joining a talent show and bringing their A-game!

🎧 Why This Matters to You:

Fintech: Imagine using AI-generated music for customer engagement or as background scores in your financial literacy videos.

Web3 Startups: How about integrating AI-generated music into your NFTs or digital assets?

VCs: Keep an eye on these startups; they could be the next big thing in the AI and music industries.

🎶 The Final Note: AI is not just about crunching numbers or automating tasks; it's also about enhancing creativity. So, whether you're a podcaster, a marketer, or someone who loves music, these AI tools could be your next big hit.

At some point, we also need to discuss what happens to all those websites giving you access to stock music sounds and the impact of AI on indie music composers.

Big Tech 

Google's AI Game Revealed

🎉 The Big Reveal: Imagine Google as a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat, but instead of rabbits, it's a slew of AI tools and partnerships! At the Google Next conference in San Francisco, Google unveiled a range of AI technologies that seem to counter OpenAI and Microsoft directly.

🤖 Meet Gemini: Picture a heavyweight boxer entering the ring to challenge the reigning champ. That's Gemini for you, Google's new flagship AI model. It's being touted as a direct competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 Enterprise. With computing power claimed to be five times greater than GPT-4 and the ability to operate with an astonishing 16,384 chips simultaneously, it is going to be a strong challenger to GPT-4 Enterprise.

🛠️ More Than Just Gemini: Google also showcased a variety of AI-driven tools aimed at enterprise applications. For instance, "Duet AI in Workspace" is like your executive assistant, helping you draft emails, create documents, and generate custom visuals across Google apps. They've also introduced a new version of their text model called PaLM, a speed reader for processing extensive text documents like legal briefs.

💰 Price and Availability: Duet AI goodies are available to enterprise customers at a monthly price of $30 per user. It's like getting a Swiss Army knife of AI tools without breaking the bank, and this price matches Microsoft’s AI Copilot for Office 365 suite.

🎨 The Art of Subtlety: Ever wanted to watermark your digital art but didn't want it to be visible? Google's got you covered with "SynthID," a tool that can watermark AI-generated images in a way that's invisible to the human eye but resistant to tampering.

☁️ Cloud and Security: Google is also beefing up its cloud capabilities. They're adding 20 new AI models to their existing suite, and they've developed an AI-powered tool to simplify the complex task of database porting from Oracle to open-source versions. I'm not sure if Oracle is pleased with that news.

🤝 New Partnerships: Google has secured new partnerships with companies like General Motors and Estee Lauder, directly challenging OpenAI's prior collaborations. They've also inked a multi-year agreement with the government of El Salvador, focusing on digitizing the nation's key sectors like healthcare.

🌟 The Takeaway: Google is not just updating its AI offerings; it's strategically moving to reclaim the spotlight in AI innovation. So, are you ready to leverage these new tools for your business? 🚀

Future of Search

Google's Search-Generative Experience

🎯 Introduction: Imagine your search engine evolving from a basic calculator to a scientific one. Google's new Search Generative Experience (SGE) aims to offer more nuanced and context-aware answers.

📊 Functional Changes: Consider SGE as a librarian who points you to the right book and summarizes the critical points. It provides AI-generated answers above the standard search results, backed by source citations. This adds an analytical layer to your search experience.

🛒 Commercial Scope: If you've ever used a barcode scanner to get instant product reviews, you'll appreciate SGE's role in vertical searches like Google Shopping. It can sift through many product listings in real-time as a robust tool for market analysis and comparison shopping.

🗨️ Contextual Understanding: Imagine conversing with someone who remembers everything you've said, making the dialogue more meaningful. SGE's conversational mode retains the context between different search queries, serving as an interactive research assistant for complex tasks.

🔒 Safety Measures: Just as a responsible pharmacist won't dispense certain medications without a prescription, Google has safety protocols for sensitive sectors like healthcare and finance. This minimizes the risk of misinformation. 

🔬 Technology: Consider SGE a detective who cross-references facts before concluding. It uses various Language Learning Models (LLMs), including MUM and PaLM2, trained to corroborate the information presented, thereby enhancing result reliability.

🌐 Conclusion: Google's Search Generative Experience is a significant step in search technology. Its diverse capabilities could influence various sectors, potentially altering how we interact with and utilize search engines. Digital marketers and Content marketers better get ready to handle the changes.

Homework for you: Currently, it's like an exclusive club, accessible only via Google Labs. Sign up for the waitlist: http://labs.google.com/search

Ted Talk Recommendation

Andrew Ng is one of the OGs of AI education and research and an underappreciated icon. I learned ML and AI in 2018 using his Stanford Online courses on Coursera. Watch his popular Ted Talk on AI. 

Read the blurb to decide why: “Expensive to build and often needing highly skilled engineers to maintain, artificial intelligence systems generally only pay off for large tech companies with vast amounts of data. But what if your local pizza shop could use AI to predict which flavor would sell best each day of the week? Andrew Ng shares a vision for democratizing access to AI, empowering any business to make decisions that will increase their profit and productivity. Learn how we could build a more prosperous society – all with just a few self-provided data points.”
Bonus Learning: Andrew Ng is the co-founder of Deeplearning.ai, and they have free courses on AI. These are technical and may need some understanding of programming. I did a few of them, and the ones on Prompting and Langchains are highly recommended. Plan an hour of learning this week- you will enjoy it!

Must Listen

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI, joins Prof. Scott Galloway to discuss his new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma.” Link to the Podcast.

As AI gets more intelligent, you can hear about what to expect in the coming years and decades. Mustafa explains why we need to prepare for the coming wave of technology and how Inflection AI wants to build the next version of a personal assistant.

You can skip 10 minutes or so to get to the interview directly. I subscribe to Prof. G’s podcast, but he can be an acquired taste for some.

Luckily, there are no f-bombs in this episode.

Humor

That is it for this edition of the newsletter. Subscribers of our email edition get our newsletter first, and it stays in your mailbox as a future reference. 

Until next time, keep learning, applying, and experimenting with AI!

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For deeper reading

• https://openai.com/blog/introducing-chatgpt-enterprise

• https://searchengineland.com/new-google-search-generative-ai-experience-413533

• Google Releases "Gemini" and Array of Other AI Tools - Unite.AI

• https://youtu.be/reUZRyXxUs4?feature=shared

• https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/21/developers-are-now-using-ai-for-text-to-music-apps/

• https://news.crunchbase.com/ai-robotics/new-ai-unicorn-imbue-astera-nvidia/

Disclosure: Some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small referral fee at no extra cost to you if you purchase from them. I test out the AI tools during my review process. Your support helps keep this newsletter running—thank you!

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