Wonka Copilots EVERYWHERE ??????

Another week, another raft of AI announcements and not all of them good, though the one that wasn't good gave the most amount of joy to the internet, if not the people that attended.

What's in the edition:

• Copilots a plenty
• First AI Officer?
• Photograph of the year
• Meme machine
• The dark side to the Wonka Experience
• A fresh approach to education

Copilots a plenty

This week saw the launch of AI assistants for accounting software. Both Sage and Xero launched their visions for what is to come.

Though, there didn't seem to be much from QuickBooks at their Get Connected summit from what I have seen, though they do have a coming soon page for Intuit Assist. This might be in part due to their announcement back in November and a focus first on the US market. If you were there, let me know in the comments.

It's also almost 4 years to the day that QuickBooks announced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning powered innovations to help accounting professionals thrive . Plus they had a nifty video they gave a vision of the future, not too dissimilar from Xero's new video. Such is the current hype cycle for AI everything that we can quickly forget that AI existed pre ChatGPT.

Sage has their originally named Copilot and Xero has JAX (Just Ask Xero), clever/more original but now do I have to pronounce Xero with X or hope that it also understands being called JAZ. ??

The main difference between Sage, QuickBooks and Xero AI assistants, apart from the names is that Sage Copilot had a big flashy launch and has a waiting list. Whilst Xero has more of a "Hey, we are doing it too, checkout our website!", please don't leave us vibes.

Then there's how northerners will communicate with JAX. Aye JAX.

Which sent my brain on a trip to Xero sponsoring Ajax. I blame Jordan Henderson...

Jonathan Gaunt I'm clearly influenced by your posts here. ??

But did Xero have plans to launch JAX sooner or were they getting ahead, ready to launch as soon as Sage and/or QuickBooks made an announcement? ??

What we can know for sure though, expect Xerocon in June to be basically JAXcon.

Do we all need a First AI Officer?

The other issue is that we will soon need an AI pilot to manage all our AI copilots, but as we are led to believe that we are the pilots, what would we name these? First AI Officer?

We will need something to bring all these AI tools together in the same way voice assistants once did. A big problem right now is the walled gardens for each assistant.

If you're an Android user and a Microsoft fan, there is one option. You can make Microsoft Copilot (yes another Copilot) your default Android assistant now. Though there are limitations compared to Google Assistant , it might be a price worth paying.

Speaking of, Google's Gemini AI has got itself in all sorts of trouble this week. What a hot mess!

Photograph of the year!

This photo has followed me around the internet for a last few days and I agree that it is the photo of the year. Close the the submissions now.

Meme Machine

I posted about the Wonka Experience yesterday and how it wasn't an AI problem, but as Billie Mcloughlin ACCA pointed out. Enjoy the memes. Soupy Garbage Juice (yes, really) has done my favourite so far, leaning into the spelling issues (you've already seen examples above) see below. Share your favs in the comments.

But also, do check out Billie's FridAI for more information and links on Accounting AI tools and Wonka .

The dark side to the Wonka Experience

As I was writing this weeks Newsletter, the BBC dropped with their inside story of the WoNkA ExPeRiEnCe. It's a must read but also gives more information behind the 'brains' of the operation. WOW.

Meet, Billy Coull who looks lucky that Mike Winnet has hung up his contrepreneur exposing boots. (I miss those videos)

You can read the full article here , but I pulled out this section.

"Another venture Mr Coull is linked with is a now defunct website called Empowercity which shared knowledge that could "enable even average Joe start and grow a widely profitable business".

Mr Coull has not responded to a BBC request to tell his side of the story of the Wonka event, but a trawl of internet sources reveals he may be a very busy man.

Last summer an author with the same name self-published 17 novels that were listed on Amazon"

A fresh approach to education

Singapore preparing its residents for the AI era by embracing that its inevitable.

So they have started offering new training for Singaporeans aged 40+ to get help them to improve their employability. There's more to this of course, education changes over time. What people learn today is vastly different to what was learnt 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

By giving older people a formal opportunity to learn new skills, it gives them the opportunity to better learn what the next generation is also learning, bringing generations closer together.

Which is also good because...

"Don't encourage kids to code, says Nvidia CEO"

Yes, the thing that every kid needed to do to get a great job is now apparently not a good idea anymore.

That said, if a pilot just relies on his plane automation systems and forgets how to actually fly, what happens if everything goes wrong?

Whether you're a big AI believer or not, we do still need actual people that are able to do a lot of the things that AI will eventually take over... just in case or to keep in check.

Anyway, I'm starving and breakfast calls. So feel free to drop comments

Have a great weekend and until the next one!