AI & Startups December 25 - January 7

Gen AI Product News

OpenAI 's GPT Store Launching Next Week

OpenAI announces the imminent launch of its GPT store, a platform for users to share, discover, and profit from custom GPT models.

• Details of the Launch: Initially slated for November, the launch was postponed due to internal challenges but is now set for the following week. The store will feature a revenue-sharing model, incentivizing creators based on community usage of their GPTs. A leaderboard will highlight top GPTs, and OpenAI will spotlight the most useful and delightful creations. Ensures privacy with non-shared chats and options for creators to keep GPTs private.
• Significance: This could be a pivotal "App Store moment" for GPTs, significantly enhancing discoverability and monetization of AI tools. It reflects a growing trend of democratizing AI development, making advanced tools more accessible to a broader range of creators.
• Potential Impact: Could spur a new wave of innovation in AI development, encouraging a diverse range of creators to develop and share their creations. Might establish a new standard for distributing and monetizing AI technologies, influencing future platforms and market dynamics. Promotes a community-driven approach to AI development, potentially leading to more specialized, innovative, and effective GPT models.

谷歌 launching premium Bard Advanced

Newly unearthed code and screenshots indicate Google's development of a "Bard Advanced" service, powered by the high-end Gemini Ultra AI model, with exclusive features for paid users.

• Details of the Offering: "Bard Advanced" will utilize the Gemini Ultra model, boasting multimodal capabilities and expected to compete with GPT-4.Access to the advanced tier will be through a paid Google One subscription, including a 3-month introductory trial. A tool named ‘Motoko’ is also in development, enabling users to create custom bots, akin to functionalities seen in the GPT Store. New features like prompt "power ups" for enhanced responses and a "Gallery" showcasing various use cases have been discovered.
• Significance: Represents a significant step in premium AI offerings, potentially setting new standards for top-tier, commercial AI services. Elevates Google's position in the competitive landscape of AI language models, offering a direct competitor to other advanced models.
• Potential Impact: If successful, Bard Advanced could shift the market dynamics, attracting users and developers seeking the most powerful AI tools. The success of Gemini Ultra and Bard Advanced relies heavily on surpassing the performance and utility of existing models and convincing potential users of its value, amidst high expectations and market scrutiny.

• Enhanced customization and advanced features might set a new trend in how individuals and businesses interact with AI, fostering more personalized and effective use cases.

微软 Windows ushers in AI PC era with Copilot key

Microsoft announces the introduction of a Copilot key to Windows keyboards, a significant update aimed at integrating AI seamlessly into daily computing.

• Details of the Update: The introduction of a new key, designed with the Windows logo, dedicated to activating the Copilot experience in Windows, offering direct access to Microsoft's AI assistant. This key is intended to make using AI simpler and more intuitive in everyday tasks, reflecting the increasing personalization and intelligence of technology. The rollout of this feature will begin with new Windows 11 devices starting in late February, prominently featuring in upcoming Microsoft Surface devices.
• Significance: This update marks the first major change to the keyboard layout in three decades, highlighting the growing importance of AI in everyday technology. The move is part of Microsoft's vision of 2024 as the "year of the AI PC," indicating a strategic focus on integrating AI into the core user experience.
• Potential Impact: The Copilot key is likely to enhance productivity and accessibility, making AI assistance more readily available and user-friendly. It signifies a broader trend towards AI-centric design in hardware and could inspire similar innovations across the tech industry. As AI becomes a more integral part of the operating system and hardware, it could redefine user interactions, expectations, and the functionality of personal computing devices.

三星电子 teases ‘Galaxy AI’

Samsung gears up for its upcoming Galaxy launch event, emphasizing "Galaxy AI" as a central theme and hinting at substantial AI integrations in its new smartphone line.

• Details of the Event: The event is positioned as heralding a "new era of mobile AI" specifically for the Galaxy S series, aiming to redefine standards for smart, AI-integrated mobile technology. Anticipations are set around advanced AI-driven features for translation, enhanced low-light photography, and sophisticated image editing, based on previous leaks and rumors. The new devices may include 'Gauss', an in-house AI model by Samsung, boasting capabilities in language understanding, coding assistance, and image processing.
• Significance: Samsung's strong focus on "Galaxy AI" for its upcoming devices signals a commitment to leading in the AI-enhanced smartphone market. The event and subsequent launch are poised to showcase Samsung's innovation in making AI a core, seamless part of the mobile experience.
• Potential Impact: Should the AI features be as groundbreaking as teased, it could shift consumer expectations and demand towards more AI-centric mobile devices. A successful launch might pressure competitors, like Apple, to accelerate or unveil more robust AI features, intensifying the race for AI supremacy in the smartphone industry. Samsung's move could stimulate a wider adoption and normalization of AI technology in everyday life, particularly in mobile communications and multimedia.

J.P. 摩根 releases DocLLM for business records

JPMorgan's AI research team announces DocLLM, a cutting-edge AI model extension designed to revolutionize the understanding of complex business documents by integrating textual content with layout analysis.

• Details of the Innovation: DocLLM enhances AI's comprehension of documents by incorporating bounding box data on text segments, effectively understanding both the content and structure of complex layouts. It utilizes text infilling during training to adeptly navigate and interpret real-world, often messy document layouts. In comparative studies, DocLLM has shown to outperform leading models, including GPT-4, by over 15% in some form analysis challenges, demonstrating exceptional prowess in understanding and processing various document types.
• Significance: The introduction of DocLLM signifies a substantial advancement in AI's ability to process and understand business documents, a traditionally challenging area for AI due to the complexity and variability of document layouts and structures. It represents a significant leap forward for industries reliant on heavy documentation, offering the potential to streamline and automate document analysis and interpretation tasks.
• Potential Impact: DocLLM could dramatically improve efficiency and accuracy in sectors like finance, healthcare, and government, where understanding and processing documents are crucial. By automating the comprehension of forms, records, and other critical documents, DocLLM has the potential to revolutionize business processes, reducing the reliance on slow, manual methods and paving the way for more advanced, AI-driven solutions.

Intel Corporation spins out a new enterprise-focused GenAI software company

Intel announces the launch of Articul8 AI, a spinout dedicated to pioneering in the AI-powered enterprise software market, with substantial backing from DigitalBridge, a Florida-based asset manager and investor.

• Details of the Spinout:Articul8 AI emerges from a successful collaboration between Intel and Boston Consulting Group, featuring a generative AI system optimized for Intel hardware but adaptable to others. The platform is designed to meet rigorous enterprise needs, focusing on speed, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness, with options for cloud, on-premises, or hybrid deployment. Initially serving BCG exclusively, Intel has expanded the platform's reach to various industries demanding high security and specialized knowledge. The team leading Articul8 comprises former Intel talents, with Arun Subramaniyan at the helm as CEO, and Intel maintaining a stake in the venture.
• Why This Matters:Intel's strategic move with Articul8 AI is a clear signal of its ambition to become a more dominant player in the generative AI market, challenging competitors like Nvidia and AMD. The initiative is part of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger's broader vision to revitalize the company through new software products and services, alongside advancing chip manufacturing capabilities. By focusing on generative AI for enterprise applications, Articul8 aims to offer a robust and secure solution for complex business operations, aligning with the increasing demand for tailored AI services across industries.
• Potential Impact:If successful, Articul8 could substantially elevate Intel's position in the enterprise AI software market, driving new business and fostering innovation in AI applications. The spinout represents a strategic approach to harnessing and commercializing generative AI, potentially setting new benchmarks for performance and utility in enterprise contexts. This venture is indicative of the larger trend of technology giants diversifying and specializing their offerings to capitalize on the burgeoning AI market, signaling a shift towards more AI-centric business models and strategies.

Vira.AI : Revolutionizing Content Translation with AI

Vitra.ai emerges as a groundbreaking solution to the language barrier in digital content, translating a wide array of media formats into over 75 languages.

• Details of the Venture:Founded in 2020 by Akash Nidhi P S and Satvik Jagannath, Vitra.ai is designed to help content creators, from large corporations to individual influencers, reach a global audience.The platform boasts a remarkable speed and cost advantage, being 100X faster and 80% cheaper than manual translation methods. It supports a wide range of languages and is utilized across various industries, including edtech, media, fintech, and health tech.
• How It Works: VitraAI offers user-friendly products: translate. video, translate.website, and translate.photo for translating videos, websites, and images.Its no-code, drag-and-drop interface simplifies the translation process, significantly reducing the time required to translate lengthy content.The technology goes beyond word-to-word translation, employing a context-aware engine to deliver more natural and relatable translations.
• Technological Edge:The platform includes advanced features such as auto-suggestion, auto-correction, and semantic correction. Its proprietary voice cloning engine allows for cross-language voice cloning, maintaining the original voice's essence in translated content.
• Competitive Landscape and Growth:While facing competition from various translation agencies and startups, Vitra.ai stands out as the only platform capable of translating all rich content media formats into a vast array of languages. After initial bootstrapping, the company has seen significant growth, with substantial funding and a large number of organic sign-ups, particularly among influencers.
• Looking Ahead:Vitra.ai is determined to become the go-to platform for translating rich content media, aiming to break language barriers and make the web universally accessible. The startup's vision is to democratize content consumption, enabling users worldwide to enjoy media in their preferred language, thereby fostering a more inclusive digital ecosystem.

Gen AI VC

Search startup Perplexity AI raises $73M valued at $520M in funding from Bezos, Nvidia

Robin AI Raises $26 million as Legal Sector Embraces AI

Nabla raises another $24 million for its AI assistant for doctors that automatically writes clinical notes

AI Jobs & Salaries

Skyrocketing Salaries in AI/ML Research

A recent report unveils the substantial salaries earned by top AI/ML researchers, with elite positions offering total compensation nearing $1 million annually.

• Key Points from the Report:OpenAI emerges as the highest-paying employer in the field, with a total annual compensation package averaging $865k, including salary, bonus, and equity.Following OpenAI, companies like Anthropic, Inflection, Tesla, Amazon, Google Brain (now merged with DeepMind), TikTok, and FAIR also rank high on the compensation scale.The reported figures don't even encompass the full picture, with signing bonuses and other cash incentives potentially adding up to $700k over four years.
• Relevance to the Industry:The escalating compensation packages reflect the intensifying competition in the AI industry, especially in the race to develop leading large language models (LLMs).With companies like OpenAI reportedly offering up to $10M packages to poach talent from competitors like Google, it's an unprecedentedly lucrative time to be at the forefront of AI research.The trend underscores the high value placed on top AI talent as companies strive to innovate and lead in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Google to cut 30,000 jobs amid AI focus

Reports indicate Google is considering significant layoffs, potentially reducing its workforce by up to 30,000 employees, as it seeks to incorporate AI more deeply into its operations.

• Details of the Restructuring:The tech giant recently announced a reorganization of its ad sales department, hinting at broader changes within the company. These speculated layoffs would add to the already 12,000 job cuts made earlier this year, part of a strategy to adapt and redirect resources towards emerging sectors, as stated by CEO Sundar Pichai. The adoption of AI is primarily aimed at revamping the ad sales and customer service departments, with automation expected to significantly reduce the need for traditional human roles.
• Why This Matters:Google's internal push to integrate AI reflects a larger trend of technology companies reevaluating and restructuring their workforce to align with the evolving digital landscape. The potential layoffs are a stark reminder of the disruptive impact of AI on employment and the work environment, signaling a possibly widespread shift in job structures and requirements across industries. As AI continues to advance, its incorporation into business operations is expected to accelerate, marking 2024 as a pivotal year for AI-induced organizational changes, with significant implications for the workforce.

Sam Altman poaches Apple designer for AI startup

Apple's legendary designer, Jony Ive, teams up with the iPhone's outgoing design VP, Tang Tan, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to kickstart a secretive AI consumer hardware startup.

• Details of the Collaboration:Tang Tan, VP of iPhone design, is set to depart Apple in February to collaborate with Ive's creative collective, LoveFrom, on this innovative project. The startup, while still in its infancy, is focused on developing sophisticated AI products tailored for home use. Love From has successfully attracted over 20 ex-Apple talents and ended a three-year consulting agreement with Apple in the previous year. The initiative follows after Altman's departure from OpenAI's board, amidst controversies over his involvement in external fundraising activities, including this very project.
• Why This Matters: The assembly of prominent figures from the realms of design and AI hints at the potential for groundbreaking consumer AI hardware. The move indicates a significant "brain drain" from Apple, suggesting a shift in the industry's talent landscape and the emergence of potentially formidable competitors. This collaboration, spearheaded by influential industry veterans, is poised to set new standards and expectations for consumer-oriented AI technology, reshaping the market dynamics and consumer experiences.