AI Summer Snackables

As many of us are attempting to enjoy a summer break, the wheels of progress continue to turn at a rapid pace. AI developments aren't slowing down and I get the feeling if we tune out TOO much this summer we'll get left in the dust.

Did you know that ChatGPT can now create PowerPoint files for you?! Yes - at lighting speed the platform can now format presentation outlines directly into a PowerPoint file. This has saved me even more time, as I now don't even need to copy and paste the AI machines output into a presentation deck.

Another AMAZING development that happened over the last few weeks was the launch of Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Author of the best-selling book on AI, 'Co-Intelligence', Ethan Mollick did an outstanding job demonstrating Sonnet's new capabilities in his latest newsletter, thanks Ethan! I unpack why I'm in love with Claude a bit later in this newsletter.

As these mind-blowing advances are changing up what marketers and communicators do on the daily, I'm seeing a need for AI training and upskilling that is FRESH, updated frequently, and targeted to specific roles and tasks.

Help Me Build a Course Just For You

Take AI Course Survey Here: https://maven.com/forms/aa1ab5

If you personally know me or have attended any of my workshops, events, or classes - you know that I have a deep passion for teaching. I strongly believe it is my super-power and I love nothing more than coming together as a community to share knowledge, support, and (most importantly!) have FUN!

In this spirit, I am building an AI for Visual Communications online course and I VERY MUCH NEED YOUR INPUT.

Please consider taking a few minutes to provide thoughtful input on your AI learning objectives and you will be among the first to access my new course. You can complete the survey here: https://maven.com/forms/aa1ab5.

Why You Need Claude AND ChatGPT

[Insert long, slow, sigh here]…So, I have been writing that ChatGPT is all you need for several months now but I'm afraid I must evolve my position on this issue.?? Claude 3.5 is worth every penny of the $20 buck per month investment.

I SO wish there was a 'one and done' tool out there but my experimentation with Claude 3.5 has made it my new go-to AI model for many important tasks. A new feature called 'Artifacts' allows the model to show you the code running in the background and adds to it's already robust set of capabilities.

Let me give you a few examples of how I have used Claude 3.5 this past week:

• Created a diagram from several paragraphs of text that I wrote for my recent MarTech article, Decoding generative AI: Top LLMs and the app ecosystems they support. I wanted a chart that visually helped to reinforce my explanation of 3rd party AI tools. The original article contains two AI produced diagrams that took me WAY too long to craft. Claude 3,5 created a much better chart in seconds (above)!

• Instantly created a table that compared the top AI models (above).
• Produced 10 creative visual concepts for an image to help portray a learning community along with the AI prompts to generate them (see tree image above, concept came from Claude, image created on MidJourney).

While I still use ChatGPT for many, many, many tasks - I have found Claude 3.5 to be a much better fit for complex charts, graphs, webpages, and anything requiring coding. The key take-away here is that LLM's differ dramatically and until the market is less splintered, we all need to be testing, trying, and talking about them all.

Join Our Virtual XR/AI Pub Crawl August 16th at noon PT!

I'm busy planning the August XR/AI Pub Crawl and excited to announce we'll be featuring fresh XR and experiential marketing talent. We'll be treated to several LIVE student presentations while exploring the accessible, 3D immersive talent showcase that features both undergraduate and graduate XR strategies.

Be sure to join us next month for the latest AI news, tips and trends along with LIVE presentations from my top students. I can't wait! RSVP and get Zoom link details here: https://bit.ly/xrpubcrawl.

Learn How to Create Quality Imagery Instantly

Watch the next tutorial video in my #AI Marketing Revolution Challenge series to learn best practices for quickly concepting and creating imagery for almost anything!

Hell, it's summer perhaps it's a great time to get caught up on the entire series where you'll learn how to be a ChatGPT power user.

??Support for Stepping Away??

Thank you for reading this newsletter and being part of a growing community of innovators and pioneers. As I work toward harmony and balance in all aspects of my life, I have been enjoying river-side lunches with my beautiful dog Betty. ?

We are taking July off from our monthly virtual event, the XR/AI Pub Crawl so as to support stepping away and recharging.

I encourage everyone to find quiet moments that bring you joy and I strongly support stepping away for self-care and reflection. Enjoy!