The CoPilot Age

Welcome to the 17th edition of The Leading Edge! This week, we’re diving into how the big three—Apple, Google, and Microsoft—are navigating these uncharted waters.

The CoPilot Age

Microsoft is on a roll with Generative AI, firing on all cylinders and making waves with their latest announcements.

Just two weeks ago, they introduced CoPilot+ PCs and a slew of Phi models. As far as product introductions go, it was one of their best. If you have time, i would recommend you watch the entire demo on YouTube (warning: quite long).

Picture Satya Nadella, brimming with excitement, sharing these groundbreaking developments with the Wall Street Journal.

To begin with, Microsoft finally gets a good alternative to Mac M-series processors with new Snapdragon Elite series processors.

They took some time coming - but it is here at least.

Microsoft claims:

• 22 hours of just video playback and upto 15 hours of internet browsing - which is 20% more than MacBook Air 15".
• Much faster multi-threaded performance (these numbers are highly subjective, and it seems like M3 still has an edge when it comes to single core ad power usage) compared to the same Apple product.

But that’s just the foundation.

The real magic lies in Microsoft’s CoPilot runtime, running natively on these PCs with built-in neural processing units (NPUs).

What is this runtime? - It's a set of up to 40 different models from the Phi series - which was also announced the same week. These run natively in the new laptops, and provide the users some amazing abilities (and fast results at no extra cost)

For example, the humble Paint, which has been there since Windows 95 days is now a supercharged image editor with Generative AI (at no additional cost, mind you - these systems run locally)

But perhaps the most controversial (and impressive) is the Recall.

Recall takes ample screenshots of everything you do - and you can eventually browse through it and use the power of Generative AI (specifically, a vision model, these are screenshots) to ask questions and find answers.

Why controversial? Because it records everything. Of course, you have the choice to turn off the entire thing (or exclude apps or websites). All the recording is private to your computer and the models run locally.

I am super excited about the possibilities of Recall, but i would also be worried that a hacker could easily get access to all this data if they break into my PC, and that's a scary thought.

Uneasy Lies the Search Crown

Google, on the other hand, seems to be stumbling over its own feet.

Their Generative AI efforts, particularly the “AI Overviews,” have been riddled with embarrassing blunders.?

I guess i have been overly enthusiastic when i stated SEO is dead. ??

Here's some of the most amusing bloopers from the Google "AI Overview":

• Is Batman a Cop? Yes, he works for Detective Jim Gordon ??♂?
• Cheese note sticking to Pizza? Just add one-eight cup of non-toxic glue to give it more tackiness.

• Can i use gasoline to cook Spaghetti? Yes, sauté onions in gasoline and toss cooked spaghetti in gasoline sauce.

• How many bugs should i eat in a day? Average person eats 15-18 insects a night, you don't want to be average, do you? ??

This is unfortunate and Google’s AI has become a source of online mockery.

Despite these missteps, Google defends the quality of most AI Overviews, citing doctored examples and uncommon queries.

The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web. Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce.

Ok, that kinda makes sense. Honestly, many of the above are not logical questions people will ask Google. But the point remains that this is not the kind of quality we would expect from the King of Search.

What about Apple?

I been using a MacBook for the past 15 years, and i can't think of switching to an alternative OS (though i still use a windows desktop) yet.

Even if i want to, with the Apple watch, iPhone and the whole ecosystem, it's next to impossible for me to switch - it breaks too many things. All my notes for example is on Apple notes (good riddance, annoying Evernote!)

But for the first time, after seeing all these Microsoft announcements, i have genuinely thinking of windows having more compelling alternative.

But should we expect a company with nearly $3Tn in market cap to just taking it lying down? I hope not! (if we are bragging of market cap, keep in mind that Microsoft is still bigger).

Apple's WWDC 20204 starts on June 10th, a week from now. Many are expecting them to do bold finally, especially with the highly anticipated OpenAI partnership announcement.

At the very least, we hope Siri becomes decent.

Until next week...

We're still growing - this is the 17th edition! Your feedback stays as crucial as ever. Hit reply and let me know what you think! Want to see a specific topic covered next week? Don't be a stranger, share your ideas!

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See you next week!

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