Lumian Gen AI Newsletter Issue #31

⏱️ News Flash

The 2-Minute Scoop to Keep You in the Loop

1/ Amazon launches AI-powered shopping assistant Rufus

Amazon is launching a new AI assistant named Rufus, designed to enhance the shopping experience on its app by providing personalized guidance and information on products. Rufus utilizes Amazon's extensive product data, customer reviews, and web knowledge to answer specific product questions, offer purchase advice, and suggest gifts, supporting both voice and chat interactions. This innovative tool aims to make online shopping more interactive and intuitive, reflecting a broader trend of leveraging large language models for specialized use cases.

2/ The New York Times is building an AI team

The New York Times is developing an AI-focused team under the leadership of Zach Seward, former Quartz editor, aiming to integrate generative AI into its journalistic practices. Seward plans to recruit a diverse team skilled in machine learning, software engineering, and editorial work to craft guidelines for AI use in the newsroom, ensuring that human reporting remains paramount. Despite its contentious history with AI, including legal disputes with AI companies, the Times is embracing AI technology to enhance its newsroom's capabilities.

3/ Meta releases Code Llama 70B

Meta has unveiled Code Llama 70B, a cutting-edge code generation model surpassing its predecessors in size and performance, achieving a 67.8 score on the HumanEval benchmark, slightly higher than GPT-4's base score of 67. This advanced model is not only more efficient but also accessible to the public for both personal and commercial use. Users can now explore Code Llama 70B's capabilities on platforms like Huggingface, Perplexity, or even locally via Ollama, opening up new possibilities for developers and researchers alike.

🤖 The Future of Work Report 2023

Navigating the New Normal

The Future of Work Report 2023 by Microsoft reveals groundbreaking insights into how AI, including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot 365, is reshaping our work environments. 

Here’s the quick summary:

• Productivity Leap: ChatGPT users work 37% faster with higher quality output, despite a 20% accuracy trade-off. Simple UX tweaks could further refine these results.

• Enhanced Efficiency: Over 70% of Copilot 365 users report faster task completion and reduced effort on routine activities.

• Skill Improvement: AI significantly boosts performance, especially for newer or less-skilled workers, by up to 43%.

• Critical Thinking: Integrating AI with tools that provoke critical evaluation enhances creativity and innovation.

• AI in Creative Processes: AI aids in various creative stages, with 69% of Bing Chat used for professional tasks, indicating its broad applicability.

• Education and Research: AI like Codex improves learning outcomes in specific areas and promises to revolutionize social science research with new data analysis methods.

• Workforce Impact: Up to 80% of the US workforce could see at least 10% of their tasks affected by AI, highlighting the technology's widespread influence.

• Strategic Consideration: The report emphasizes the importance of choosing how AI integrates into work processes, focusing on innovation and augmentation over mere automation.

🤑 Fundraising

The (AI) Intelligent Investor

• Kore AI raises $150M for building conversational AI for enterprises

• Codeium raises $65M at a reported $500M valuation

• Coris AI raises $3.7M for SMB risk management

🤖 Nerd Out

Technical and Business Readings

• How AI works - An entirely non-technical explanation of LLMs

• @ mentions for GPTs in ChatGPT - Walkthrough by Dan Shipper

• Big Tech’s attempt at making its own AI chips (and reduce reliance on Nvidia)

😜 Sundae Love!

When AI Knows Your Taste

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Best,

Robin and Saswat