The Voicebot Podcast

OpenAI introduced GPT-4o as a new model and the foundation for ChatGPT. The company also offered more than a dozen videos and other use case examples, which enabled us to break down many of the nuances enabled by the new model. Is this the voice assistant everyone always wanted? A day later, Google debuted its latest updates for Gemini and offered a preview of Project Astra, the upgraded future of Gemini assistant, which they say will turn it into an agent for users. Google provided just a couple of videos and examples, but it also showed off a much broader set of impacts across its applications. These include search, Workspace, photos, and smart glasses (?). In all, Google had more than 100 announcement at I/O and most related to AI. Below are 20 articles and blog posts that provide added context on the biggest news across the generative AI landscape. There were a few stories we did not get to that were also of significant impact and we will likely work them into the next episode of GAIN. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week 

Key stories in this episode include shadow AI arriving via employees, Meta's secret generative AI strategy, and a new framework for entertainment applications powered by the technology. There are also six stories about big funding rounds and several products adding generative AI-powered features. Generative AI News Top Story of the Week

Over two recent weeks a landslide of stories mostly revolved around large language models (LLM). Llama 3 was the biggest news, but the debut of new models by Microsoft, Mistral, and X.ai also pointed to a downstream impact. We also have a couple of nine-figure funding rounds, a nine-figure acquisition, and a new unicorn valuation is confirmed. Read the news through the links below and watch my discussion with Eric Schwartz of Voicebot.ai, in which we break it all down via the YouTube video above. Generative AI News Top Story of the Week

For you today, we have updates around Google Cloud Next, the LLM announcement gauntlet continues, new funding rounds, and text-to-music apps. This week's news concludes with a discussion around the shortcomings of autoregressive large language models (LLM) and why the technology is unlikely to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). Read the news through the links below and watch my discussion with Eric Schwartz of Voicebot.ai, in which we break it all down via the YouTube video above. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

We begin this week with three thematic discussions. Generative AI myths reviews the recent Stargate rumors and why journalists are so easily co-opted into publishing stories that may have a seed of truth shrouded in impractical, nonsensical claims. We also discuss three news items highlighting how generative AI is transforming the search market and the coalition of companies that want to displace NVIDIA from its generative AI throne. That is followed by an onslaught of news from the past two weeks. We have an LLM rundown that includes announcements from Anthropic, X.ai, Databricks, and AI21 Labs, as well as a dedicated section on OpenAI announcements. Funding highlights include HeyGen and Hailo. There is also news from Adobe, Opera, Samsung, Open Interpreter, and Financial Times. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

We begin with an in-depth discussion of Microsoft's not-quite acquisition of Inflection AI and the billion-dollar startup's recent large language model (LLM), which appears to approach GPT-4-level performance. We carry on with the LLM roundup with a review of Grok-1's open-source debut, Apple's discussions with Google about using Gemini for the iPhone, GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 rumors, Perplexity's rumored unicorn status, Together AI's funding round and more. Of course, we also hit on NVIDIA's Blackwell announcement and the rise of GR00T. Figure 01 may have raised over $600 million for its humanoid robot startup, but NVIDIA's announcement was more impactful. Now that NVIDIA and Tesla both have active humanoid robot programs, you have two companies that know how to scale manufacturing in the segment. While I don't expect this industry to hit acceleration anytime soon, NVIDIA and Tesla will help push the innovation envelope faster and bring plans for mass production. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

Google dominated the generative AI news earlier in 2024. The unexpected introduction of Gemini 1.5 is covered in depth, and guest host Allen Firstenberg discusses his first-hand experience testing the model. We also cover the Gemma open-source models and Google's latest PR misstep related to its image generation. Also on tap are discussions around Mistral, NVIDIA, Adobe, Pindrop, and a few more. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

Vijay Balasubramaniyan is the CEO and co-founder of Pindrop. He first joined me on the podcast way back in 2019 for episode 86. I still recommend people listen to that episode. You will learn a lot about voice authentication. In 2021, Vijay returned for episode 193. We now have him three years later and the topic is new.   Deepfakes and voice clones are common topics of discussion now, but Pindrop has been working on this for more than seven years. As a leading voice authentication solution, the team was intent to understand how voice clones could be used to impersonate a trusted user. Fast forward to 2023 and 2024 and they have a commercial product called Pindrop Pulse for deepfake detection.   It is state of the art deepfake detection that is already being used by several large financial institutions. Results from customers deployed in 2023 show a 99% identification rate for voice clones created by the leading synthetic voice providers, 90% for zero-day voice clones from unknown providers, and both metrics come with a sub-1% false positive rate. These stats are essential as you will see lots of claims, but most are identifying a small subset of voice clone types or carry an impractically high false positive rate.  

Joanna Czajka joined me to discuss how her team integrated OpenAI technology into the Opera browser to provide more value to users. She goes into the journey that started with rethinking the browsing experience and being midstream in that process when ChatGPT launched. That led to more rethinking of the experience and the introduction of several generative AI features.

We have 16 generative AI news stories from the first two weeks in February. The evolution of assistants topped the news with ChatGPT, Gemini (aka Google Bard), and Hugging Chat. We break that down in depth and how memory and how generative AI personal assistants are attempting to fill in the gaps where their predecessors fell short. There is more funding news, and a number of new products from Slack, AirBnB, and Otter. We talk about smart glasses, a new product in the category that is not from Apple, and the unglorious history of the category. And, we also do a breakdown of the new USPTO guidelines on AI-assistant patent applications. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

Here are fifteen generative AI news stories from the past week. Links to the articles are below, or you can watch the GAIN Rundown via YouTube above. Deepfakes and momentum by Microsoft topped the news this week, while positive moves by Google may have gone unnoticed. Plus, we have another deep dive into new retail-oriented solutions, new funding rounds, and more. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

We have sixteen generative AI news stories again for you this week on the Generative AI News Rundown (GAIN). Watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news. ChatGPT went to college this week as Arizona State University announced a partnership with OpenAI, while Washington State adopts new generative AI guidelines encouraging public school systems to “embrace AI.” Those two stories reflect a very different attitude from what the rise of generative AI faced in education circles in early 2023. Beyond that, we have a spotlight on Google relating to a new study showing a decline in search results quality and a thesis from Michael Spencer at AI Supremacy about the company's last moonshot attempt. Plus, the U.S. FTC is conducting an inquiry into generative AI competition, we have some new funding announcements, and a few product updates. Enjoy! Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

Sixteen generative AI news stories from the past weeks were on the agenda for this week's edition of GAIN. You can watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news. Meta, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, Anthropic, Amazon, Walmart, McKinsey, 1x, Will.i.am, and more all had news this week. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined me to discuss the stories behind the news in generative AI. Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week

We highlighted 19 generative AI news stories from early January in the latest episode of GAIN. Watch the video discussion above or read the news through the links below. CES is the featured segment at the top, with some hits and misses but mostly misses. We also have news from OpenAI with two ChatGPT announcements. That is followed by news from Google, Poe, and a number of funding rounds. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined Bret Kinsella to break down the news.  Generative AI News Featured CES Stories of the Week

Google once again made our featured story section with an independent benchmark performance analysis of the Gemini Pro LLM compared with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. We go into more depth about the benchmarks and how to interpret the results. Channel 1 says it's positioned to change the news media with its virtual human avatar-delivered stories and Accenture did a lot of generative AI revenue. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined me to break down the news this week and offer additional context behind the headlines. Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week

Google ranks as our featured story section with the launch of the Gemini LLM and the new AI Studio. Mistral and Microsoft were other big newsmakers with the introduction of small LLMs this past week. And there is a lot on the new product and funding front, the EU AI Act, an OpenAI and news media tie-up, and a lot more. Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week

To say November closed with a flurry of generative AI news is a severe understatement. OpenAI almost melted down pulled it back together, and then we had a birthday for a little product called ChatGPT. Nearly every OpenAI competitor attempted to seize on the company's turmoil and ramped up their visibility for sales, product announcements, or fundraising. Amazon released a slate of new announcements at the AWS re-invent conference. NVIDIA's quarterly revenue looks like a vertical line. And that's not all. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, and I break down the news once again this week and hopefully offer a little perspective on the story behind the story. Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week

Today, we have a special episode that was recorded in the midst of the OpenAI management saga where CEO Sam Altman was fired and then hired back. While the management issues have been updated, I thought you might like a window into how developers were thinking about this incident and how the harm in reputation and relationships won't soon be resolved.   Included in the panel are OpenAI developer ambassador Bram Adams, long-time OpenAI advocate and developer Bakz T. Future, GPT innovator Leslie Pound, and my Voicebot colleague Eric Schwartz.   We break down what was happening but really focus on the impact on developers. I think you will find the discussion insightful.

This week continues the theme of market shift. Satya Nadella correctly aligned with the generative AI zeitgeist in focusing on practical applications of the technology. Individuals and companies have moved past bewilderment and wonder and now want to begin implementing and adopting solutions that offer tangible value. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined me this week to break down the news onslaught from Microsoft, more maneuvring from OpenAI, and a few other announcements. Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week

GPTs enable users to create a custom ChatGPT experience for themselves and others. Developers gathered to discuss their early creations using OpenAI's latest innovation and wat they've learned.  

Your Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is here. This week represents a market shift. OpenAI Dev Day is the biggest news, but Grok from x.ai/Twitter/X, GitHub Copilot, a big cyber attack, and other stories depict a rapidly shifting market. We saw shifts earlier this year, but many seemed reactionary or random. Today, everything seems much more intentional and grounded. Featured Stories of the Week

OpenAI Dev Day offered the industry a lot of new announcements and useful features. GPTs offer a no-code ChatGPT customization option for users, the Assistant API provides new features for developers, and GPT-4 Turbo is more capable and less expensive to use for chat use cases than 3.5, and maybe GPT-4 itself. If you would like a 12-point rundown of the OpenAI Dev Day announcements, check out this summary from Sythedia.  Joining me this week are four developers that use the OpenAI APIs and have deep experience in everything from conversational AI bots to RAG-based vector databases. They offer some practical insights into the importance of various announcements and their likely market impact. The guests include: Joao Paulo Alqueres - CEO and co-founder of Iara Digital Michael Freenor - director of applied AI at WillowTree Michal Stanislawek - CEO and co-founder of Utter.one Tejas Totade - CTO at Ruder Finn This conversation was also broadcast live through LinkedIn and YouTube. You can watch a five minute super-cut of the Dev Day keynote followed by the developer panel here.  The recording was a special edition of the Generative AI News Rundown, also know as GAIN for short. Join us for a live stream discussion about the top generative AI news of the week on LinkedIn or YouTube on Thursdays at 11 am ET. 

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for November 3, 2023 is here. Just when we thought it might be a slow news week, it just pours in. Eighteen stories this week! Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week

Atul Deo, general manager for Amazon Bedrock, the generative AI service from AWS, recently shared the company's view on the industry, use cases, technology, and how Amazon is serving its customers.  Thoughout the hour-long interview, Deo talked about his experience with machine learning in customer contact center applications, transcription services, natural language processing, and generative AI. He expands on the compay's generative AI strategy as well as the technology architectures it supports. Prior to his role overseeing the Bedrock service, Deo worked on AWS products such as Connect, Transcribe, and CodeWhisperer. He also held roles in corporate development at Amazon and Yahoo! and began his career as a software developer. 

This week's Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown covers two weeks of news. Eric Schwartz of Voicebot.ai and I jammed in 16 different news stories and a few other tidbits in this double roundup. Featured stories this week include: OpenAI Economics - OpenAI is generating a lot of revenue from ChatGPT Plus subscriptions and API usage by software providers. However, the popularity of Azure OpenAI Service is siphoning off many of those API customers as they move into production on Azure, which means lower margins for the LLM kings. SEO in Crisis? - Generative AI search is about to reap substantial change in the SEO industry, and we consider the analysis of a Texas A&M marketing professor's warning that the current crop of SEO consultants may be facing extinction. Foundation Models and Transparency - Stanford researchers have a new 100-point generative AI model transparency checklist. We consider the good, the bad, and the ugly of this endeavor. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

This week's Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown focuses more on features and economics than foundation models. Featured stories this week include: Adobe and Canva show the marketers new tool sets - Adobe introduced a new list of features, upgraded Firefly models and a new text-to-vector-image model that will make manipulating AI generative images easier. Canva also extended its generative AI features as the too companies take different paths in rolling out generative AI. Generative AI Economics - Some apps with generative AI features charge for the capabilities while most do not. We walk through the market, what is being charged and, notably, who is not and why. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown wrapping up an active September had more big stories than any other week of the month. The tech giants were out in force once again with news from Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI. Featured stories this week include: Amazon Goes Long on Anthropic, and Bedrock Gets a Boost - Amazon's $4 billion investment in Anthropic is more evidence that, at one level, large language models (LLM) are just weapons for use in the cloud wars. It is designed to capture more cloud computing revenue for AI workloads and boost the reputation of Amazon's AI server chips. In addition, Amazon Bedrock, the foundation model garden, now has Meta's Llama 2. OpenAI's Giant Valuation Increase and ChatGPT Gets an Upgrade - The reported $80-$90 billion valuation that OpenAI is pitching has many levels of nuance. However, one element that doesn't require nuance perception is the new 2023 revenue forecast. It beat the original estimate by 5x. ChatGPT also received a big upgrade this week and saw the return of internet browsing. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown wrapping up an active September had more big stories than any other week of the month. The tech giants were out in force once again with news from Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI. Featured stories this week include: Amazon Goes Long on Anthropic, and Bedrock Gets a Boost - Amazon's $4 billion investment in Anthropic is more evidence that, at one level, large language models (LLM) are just weapons for use in the cloud wars. It is designed to capture more cloud computing revenue for AI workloads and boost the reputation of Amazon's AI server chips. In addition, Amazon Bedrock, the foundation model garden, now has Meta's Llama 2. OpenAI's Giant Valuation Increase and ChatGPT Gets an Upgrade - The reported $80-$90 billion valuation that OpenAI is pitching has many levels of nuance. However, one element that doesn't require nuance perception is the new 2023 revenue forecast. It beat the original estimate by 5x. ChatGPT also received a big upgrade this week and saw the return of internet browsing. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

We have another episode of the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown, which provides a live discussion of the week's top industry news. This week, the tech giants were out in force with news from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and OpenAI. Featured stories this week include: Alexa Gets an LLM - Amazon has had a large language model (LLM) for years, but never let it out of the lab until ChatGPT changed the market seemingly overnight. Amazon has fully embraced LLMs at this point and started to infuse it through AWS, and across its Alexa-enabled products and services. Eric and I discussed what was demonstrated this week, my hands-on experience with the capabilities, the limitations, and more inside details. Hour One Can Change What You Say in a Video - Hour One just launched a really interesting new feature that enables you to change what people say in a video. Add a new script or upload an audio file, and it will match the person's mouth and facial movements with the written text. This can be used for your own footage or stock video. Check out the demo here. Assistants on Parade - Google Bard got an upgrade this week with a connection to Google Workspace and other Google services. This may be truly useful and extend the value of Bard to a level of personalized benefit we have not yet seen in the market. Microsoft also announced Copilot will come to Windows 11 next week, and ChatGPT is expected to get access to DALL-E 3 text-to-image generation. This led to a more general discussion about digital assistants and the different models that are emerging. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for September 14, 2023 is here. We are seeing another acceleration in the news cycle. Featured stories this week include: NVIDIA and the Chip Industry Rises - New GPU performance gains for existing H100 chips, the expected improvements from the GH200, and a revenue rise for the global semiconductor industry. Jobs at Risk From Generative AI - A Forrester study calls out some professions that will be most impacted by generative AI automation and will either eliminate jobs or create the need for new skills. LLMs that Reason and Act - We discuss the Imbue funding round and why enabling LLMs that reason and agents that can act on our behalf requires total company focus to reach the objective. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Featured Stories of the Week

Patricia Scanlon is the founder and executive chair of Soapbox Labs, the company behind the industry's leading automated speech recognition (ASR) for children. Scanlon has a PhD in speech recognition, signal processing, and machine learning from the University College Dublin, and previously was an adjunct lecturer at Trinity College and on the research staff of Nokia Bell Labs. She founded Soapbox Labs after recognizing that all leading ASRs were trained on adult speech data and showed poor results for children, particularly young children.  Since founding Soapbox Labs in 2013, the company has helped leading software providers bring ASR to education, gaming, and other applications designed for children. We discuss many of the applications and how education has changed since COVID.  Scanlon is also Ireland's AI Ambassador and we discuss market education for consumers, business, and government, as well as the draft EU AI Act. She was previously a guest on the Voicebot podcast in episodes 129 and 206, from 2019 and 2012, respectively. 

We return this week with the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for September 8, 2023. Get ready for a lot of product announcements and some special segments on NVIDIA and how cloud providers are influencing the competitive landscape: NVIDIA Blowout revenue - GPU purchases are upstream of generative AI software sales. NVIDIA just announced a record quarter that was nearly double the previous quarter and quarterly record. It also forecasted a new revenue quarter for the next quarter. We put into context how this will flow down into cloud and software revenue. Cloud Wars and LLMs - What role do the cloud hyperscalers AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud play in the LLM competitive landscape? We look at the ecosystems and how cloud distribution could make or break an LLM's adoption. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Commentary this week is led by Voicebot.ai's head writer, Eric Schwartz, and Bret Kinsella from Synthedia and Voicebot.

Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 31, 2023. Google may have dominated the headlines this week, but it was hardly alone. Special segments this week include: ChatGPT Enterprise - What was announced, where is it headed, and what are the implications? BTW, you may be interested in the Yammer go-to-market strategy reference as point 7 in the main article. We also put ChatGPT Enterprise in perspective alongside Google's more ambitious play. Google Uses Cloud Next to Shift Generative AI Perception - We go through more than 15 different announcements and the implications for the market and debate the merit and importance of different moves. Generative AI winners and losers of the week. This week, Eric Schwartz, Voicebot.ai's head writer, and I were joined by Google Developer Expert (GDE) Allen Firstenberg to break down the Google Gen AI Palooza and other top generative AI stories. Also, if you'd like to hear more from Allen, check out his Two Voice Devs podcast/YouTube show. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Like Perplexity AI, we give you source links! Featured Stories of the Week

Oren Aharon is CEO and founder of Hour One, a leader in virtual human innovation, and a pioneer in generative AI. He joined Bret Kinsella to talk about how the technology behind virtual humans has evolved and the role generative AI is playing in the next set of features.  Hour One's new Reals Activate technology can transform any video into a scripted virtual human experience. It will align mouth movements and sounds to match a script to the video of a person. This means any video of you or anyone else can be transformed into a virtual human experience. Aharon debuted this technology for the first time publicly for the Voicebot Podcast audience.  If you would like to view the demos, a video of the full interview is available on Voicebot's YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/voicebotai.  Aharon also talks about the market for virtual humans and how the rising interest in generative AI has accelerated use case adoption. He earned a Phd in electrical engineering from Technion and formerly was a co-founder at Kadoor Electronics and Vectorious Medical Technologies.

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back for August 24, 2023. Special segments this week include: What does the market data say about generative AI adoption? We look at 10 charts that explain a lot about what is happening, why it is happening, and where we are headed. Meta challenges OpenAI with an open-source automated speech recognition and translation system. Game on! Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Eric Schwartz, Voicebot.ai's head writer, and Bret Kinsella gathered again this week to break down the top generative AI stories and a few other useful pieces of information. Generative AI News Links to the stories we covered this week are included below. Like Perplexity AI, we give you source links! Top Stories of the Week - Market Data

Sarah Rojewski, Telefonica's manager of AI and automation in Germany, and Patrick Esslinger, co-founder of VUI Agency joined Bret Kinsella to talk about the evolution of conversational AI in the contact center and the introduction of generative AI. Rojewski even goes into detail about the latest generative AI project and how the company is looking at the technology. That is supplemented by a conversation about user experience and how AI technologies require new thinking and are accompanied by different customer expectations.  Prior to her role leading AI inititiaves, Sarah Rojewski spent three years working on Telefonica's Aura voice assistant. Patrick Esslinger co-founded VUI Agency in 2017 and specializes in voice user interface design for enterprise applications. 

It's time for the Generative AI News (GAIN) Rundown for August 17, 2023. Special segments this week include: Using GPT-4 to moderate LLM inputs The groups pressuring CEOs to adopt generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Voicebot.ai's head writer, Eric Schwartz, joined Bret Kinsella this week to break down all of the top industry stories. Generative AI News Links related to the stories are included below if you want to go deeper into any topics. Top Stories of the Week OpenAI wants you to use GPT-4 to moderate your GPT-4 based applications Two charts reveal why so many enterprises are rushing to adopt generative AI Generative AI Funding Fountain The $100M Anthropic deal with SK Telecom provides insight into where LLMs are headed Voiceflow added $15M in new funding on the back of rapid user growth and generative AI DynamoFL raises $15.1M to scale privacy-focused generative AI for enterprises OpenAI acquires digital studio Global Illumination Generative AI Product Garden IBM Embeds Meta's Llama 2 LLM in New Watsonx generative AI platform Amazon deploys generative AI for summarizing product reviews Google rolls out new generative AI search features U.S. DoD forms generative AI task force Roblox is deploying its own generative AI models and infrastructure at lower cost Detecting Deepfakes - Pindrop demos its anti-fraud voice clone detection More About GAIN   GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 11, 2023 is here. Special segments this week include: GPTBot and OpenAI's plans to politely crawl the web, along with how most websites will react or should react Amazon's generative AI strategy and how that will carve out unique positioning compared to OpenAI, Google, and others The significance of Alexa's top exec shifting to generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week. My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz and I were joined this week by Vixen Labs CEO James Poulter to go deep on our first four stories. Thanks James!

Eric Schwartz, the head writer at Voicebot.ai, joined Bret Kinsella to break down the top Generative AI News (GAIN) of the week. Generative AI News - Featured Stories this Week OpenAI rumors spread for GPT-5 and the open-source G3PO. Is this the response to Meta's Llama 2? Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are both expected to add generative AI capabilities in 2023. Could this finally lead to the blending of doing and knowing assistants? Generative AI Funding Fountain Inworld raised another $50M+ to bring total funding to around $120 million and now claims to have a $500 million valuation. Generative AI Product Garden Meta releases the open-source text-to-sound generator AudioCraft. Apple removes over 100 iOS apps from the Chinese App Store in advance of the new generative AI rules taking effect. Google Deepmind debuts a new generative AI communication language for instructing robots. And it works! Stack Overflow announced tentative steps into generative AI land with OverflowAI. News mobile app Artifact introduces celebrity voice clones you can have read the news to you. Winners and Losers We concluded with our generative AI winners and losers of the week. More About GAIN GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen. Or, just listen here. You decide!

Eric Schwartz, the head writer at Voicebot.ai, was joined by GAIN producer and Synthedia researcher Andrew Herndon. Generative AI News - Featured Stories of the Week OpenAI introduces Custom Instructions to add personalization to ChatGPT. OpenAI removed its Text Classifier that was supposed to identify whether content was AI-written because it didn't work. Of course, Turnitin and others still say they can spot AI-written text, but provides no evidence to back up the claims. Synthedia was the first to break this story BTW. The ChatGPT App for Android racked up over 1 million downloads in 24 hours, more than a week faster than the iOS app reached that milestone. Synthedia also was the first to break this story

Project Voice gathered again in Chattanooga, Tennessee in April 2023. I had the opportunity to interview several innovative companies while on site.  2:16 - LilyPad AI, Genady Knizhnik - Conversational AI for English language learning 11:09 - Conversation Design Institute, Hans Van Dam - Conversation design evolution 23:11 - Speechly, Collin Borns - Speech recognition tools to combat voice chat toxicity 31:00 - ConverseNow, Ben Brown - Conversational AI for restaurants 42:51 - Calen, Irakli Beselidze - Enterprise contact center automation 53:42 - Dexer, Bruce Rasa - Voice AI for hands-free inspection and recording  

Here is the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for July 20, 2023. Special segments this week include: Meta launches Llama 2, making it open source and free for commercial use. We talk about the implications for the LLM market. Did GPT-4's performance really degrade, as has been reported? We look at the research paper results, evaluate the methodology and consider a rebuttal. We also cover the generative AI winners and losers of the week. My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz joined me this week, and we went in-depth on the top news. Generative AI News Links related to the stories are included below if you want to go deeper into any topics. Top Stories of the Week Meta Just Became a Big Player in the LLM World, Making Llama 2 Free and Open Source New Research Says GPT-4 is Getting Worse. But is it True? Generative AI Funding Fountain Cognaize Raises $18M to Build a Better LLM for the Finance Sector Preply Closes Out Series C at $120M and Doubles Down on AI SAP Announces Investments in Aleph Alpha, Anthropic, and Cohere Generative AI Product Garden "Apple GPT" is Built on the Secret Large Language Model Ajax Microsoft Unveils Bing Chat Enterprise AI21 Labs Combats Generative AI Hallucinations With New Contextual Answers API Wix Text-to-Website Showcases How Copilots Streamline Complex Tasks and Can Shape Expectations Jasper AI Laying Off Staff 9 Months After $125M Raise Brands in Generative AI Lands Associated Press Licenses its News Archive to OpenAI and will Begin Using LLMs Deepfake Scam Video Features British Consumer Champion Martin Lewis and Elon Musk More About GAIN   GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back and was recorded on July 13, 2023. Special segments this week include: Anthropic's ChatGPT competitor Claude 2 landed, and it has some intriguing features. The discussion also includes a quick demo. Is ChatGPT's website traffic drop a reason for concern? We break down the numbers and also touch on a brand new FTC action against OpenAI. We also give you a new list of generative AI winners and losers of the week. My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz joins me today to go deep on the news. If you prefer to watch the show, you can always see the latest GAIN recording here.  Generative AI News   Links related to the stories are included below if you want to go deeper into any topics. Top Stories of the Week Anthropic's ChatGPT Alternative Claude 2 Has an Awesome New Feature and is Now Available to Everyone ChatGPT Web Traffic Drops. Is Generative AI's Hype Cycle Ready to Plunge? OpenAI Makes the GPT-4, DALL-E, Whisper, and ChatGPT Model APIs Generally Available FTC Investigating ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for Possible Consumer Harm Generative AI Funding Fountain Voices.ai Raises $6M for Real-time AI Voice Filter Resemble AI Raises $8M and Launches Deepfake Voice Detector Generative AI Prompt Engineering Startup Vellum.ai Raises $5M UK Startup Prolific Raises $32M to Expand 120K-Person Network of Generative AI Model Testers KPMG Plans $2B Investment in AI and Cloud Services AI Seen Fueling Microsoft to $3T Value in Morgan Stanley Model Generative AI Product Garden Shutterstock Follows Adobe and Offers Legal Protection from Generative AI Copyright Claims Unity Unveils Generative AI Marketplace for Video Game Developers X.ai to Formally Launch Business on Friday Brands in Generative AI Lands Mayo Clinic Begins Testing Google Med-PaLM 2 Generative AI Model Gizmodo the Latest Media Publisher to Notch a Generative AI Fail Virgin Cruises Adopts Deepfake Jennifer Lopez as Spokesmodel More About GAIN   GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen. Please share this post with a friend, and don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks!

How are ChatGPT and the rise of large language models impacting conversation designs and designers? Today, in Part 2 of our series on conversation design, we have four more experts weighing in on how the profession is changing and what designers should consider and do about it. Joining me today in a series of one-on-one interviews are: Maaike Coppens is vice president of product at OpenDialog AI, where she started as head of UX and conversation design in 2020. She was a product designer at XAPPMedia, labworks.io, and Smartly Ai. She was also a UX consultant at Applause. Maaike was my guest on episode 284 of the Voicebot Podcast in 2022. Rebecca Evanhoe is the co-author of the popular book Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice published by Rosenfeld Media. She is a visiting assistant professor at the Pratt Institute in New York, where she teaches a graduate course in conversational UX design, was a conversation design consultant for AWS, a voice user interface designer at Mobiquity, and a writing instructor at the University of Florida. She and her co-author Diana Diebel were my guests on episode 220 in 2021. Kane Simms - is the founder of VUX World and a co-organizer of the Unparsed conference. VUX World is a strategic consultancy focused on conversational user experiences and is also the name of a popular podcast on practical conversational AI topics. Kane has a long history of work in technology transformation and as a writer before moving into conversation design. He was my guest in episode 178 in 2020.  Hans Van Dam - is the CEO of the Conversation Design Institute and a co-founder and board member of the conversation design consultancy CDI Services. He is also a research fellow at RMIT University. Hans joined me on the podcast for episode 192 in 2021. Also, the Unparsed Conference on conversation design is coming up later in July 2023 in London. If you use the code VOICEBOT, you get two tickets for the price of one. That applies to the in-person and online conference tickets. Definitely try to join online if you can't make it to London. It is a great speaker lineup. You can sign-up at https://bit.ly/unparsed2023. 

Host notes - My apologies about the audio quality. We recorded on the road, and the mic setup didn't work as planned. The YouTube video audio is a little bit stronger if you want to watch this week. Also, the conversation and guest commentary is very good, so I wanted to put it out there anyway. In particular, I think you will like the discussion around LLMs and Theory of Mind, generative AI in education, and the potential erosion of generative AI startup valuations.   The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown this week was recorded on July 6, 2023. Some special segments include: Mythical generative AI capabilities. From the theory of mind to general AI to emergent abilities, generative AI claims keep getting proven wrong. The generative AI funding fountain continues to be strong, but we discuss whether some companies are struggling to grow into their high valuations. We also give you a new list of generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News Links related to the top stories are included below for anyone that wants to dig deeper into a topic. Top Story of the Week Did ChatGPT Really Develop a Theory of Mind? Do Large Language Models Have Emergent Abilities? Generative AI Funding Fountain Inflection AI Raises $1.3 Billion Runway Lands $141 Million in New Funding Typeface Raises $100 Million for Branded Synthetic Media Platform Generative AI Content Startup Scriptic Raises $5.7 Million Generative AI Productivity Startup Dust Raises $5.5 Million Generative AI in the World German News Publisher CEO Confirms Generative AI will Replace Jobs 24 Top UK Universities Draft New AI Principles - Commit to Generative AI Education More About GAIN GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

How are ChatGPT and the rise of large language models impacting conversation designs and designers? Today, in Part 1 of our series on conversation design, we have four experts in the field weighing in on how the profession is changing and what designers should be thinking about. Joining me today in a series of one-on-one interviews are: Maaike Groenewege is an independent conversation designer and the creator of Convocat. She is currently the conversation design lead, prompt engineer, and NLU trainer at a U.S.-base stealth-stage startup. Groenewege has worked for 25 years as a designer, linguist, and technical writer. Tom Hewitson is the founder and CEO of Labworks.io, a webby-award winning conversation design studio and one of the leading voice-first game studios. Hewitson is a former journalist, content strategist at Facebook, and digital editor for Lonely Planet. He is also a lecturer at City University London and the organizer of the Unparsed Conference on conversation design. Peter Isaacs is the senior conversation design advocate at Voiceflow. He was previously a conversation designer at WooliesX, a division of Woolworths Group in Australia. Karen Kaushansky has been a conversation designer for 27 years. She is currently a Staff Conversation Designer at Google, and led the design for Google Watch. Also, the Unparsed Conference on conversation design is coming up later in July 2023 in London. If you use the code VOICEBOT, you get two tickets for the price of one. That applies to be the in-person and online conference tickets. Definitely try to join online if you can't make it to London. It is a great speaker lineup. You can sign-up at https://bit.ly/unparsed2023. 

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown this week was recorded on June 29, 2023. Some special segments include: Generative AI search metrics compare wait time and word production per answer for Bing Chat, Perplexity, and Google SGE. The venture capital and acquisition funding fountain flowed again with a giant acquisition, financing rounds for CalypsoAI, Loora, and investment by Amazon and the UK's NHS. We also give you a new list of generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News     Links related to the top stories are included below for anyone that wants to dig deeper into a topic. Top Story of the Week This One Factor Could Kill Bing Chat Generative AI to Reach $1 Trillion in Annual Revenue 47% of Technology Leaders Say AI is Top Budget Priority Generative AI Funding Fountain Databricks Acquires MosaicML for $1.3 Billion CalypsoAI Raises $23 Million for AI Moderator and Security Solution Generative AI Education Startup Loora Raises $9.25 Million Generative AI Voice Startup Slang.ai Raises $20 Million Amazon Invests $100 Million in Generative AI Innovation Center UK Promised $27 Million to NHS for Generative AI Generative AI Product Garden Oracle Introduces Generative AI for HR Productivity Adobe will Cover Legal Bills if You Are Sued for Copyright When Using Firefly Inflection AI Rolls Out In-House LLM for Enterprise Users Josh.ai Infuses Generative AI into Smart Home Voice Assistant Big Brands in Generative AI Land AI Generates Images and Controversy for Marvel Wimbledon Uses IBM for Generative AI Tennis Commentary More About GAIN GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

Voicemod is a pioneer in audio expression. The company is best known for its real-time voice changer technologies that are popular in the gamer communities, where users can sound like a cartoon character, a movie actor, another gender, or anything you can imagine. The product's capabilities and popularity extends to other use cases as well, including use for recorded speech, sound bed generation, and more.  Jaime Bosch is CEO and co-founder of Voicemod, founded in 2014. Voicemod raised $14 million in February 2023 and is currently riding a new wave of interest brought on by the rise in generative AI. However, the company's user base growth began well before ChatGPT. Pre-pandemic, the company had 5 million users. Post-pandemic, that number was 25 million. Today Voicemod has 40 million users.  Bosch walks through the evolution of the product, including the shift from DSP to AI technology and today's hybrid solution. In addition, he shares details about the two moments of product market fit and how AI is enabling a new era of audio self-expression. 

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back and was recorded on June 22, 2023. Some special segments this week include: The New EU AI Act and how large language models (LLM) face a big risk of non-compliance and steep fines. A new analysis breaks it down for 10 LLMs. The venture capital money fountain flowed with big funding rounds for Mistral, Synthesia, and ElevenLabs. Eric and I also bring you generative AI winners and losers of the week. Generative AI News   Links related to the top stories are included below for anyone that wants to dig deeper into a topic. Top Story of the Week 5 Big Takeaways from the EU AI Act How Ready are Leading LLMs for the Draft EU AI Act (report) Generative AI Money Fountain French Generative AI Startup Mistral Raises $113M Generative AI Speech Startup ElevenLabs Raises $19M Synthesia Raises $90 for Generative AI Avatar Generative AI Product Garden Observe AI Dubuts Contact Center LLM NLX Debuts Generative AI Conversation Builder for Contact Centers Vimeo to Introduce Generative AI Tools for Video Production Meta Reveals Generative AI Synthetic Speech Tool Voicebox Big Brands in Generative AI Land USA Today Publisher Gannett Taps Cohere for Generative AI Driven News Summaries Mercedes Adds ChatGPT to In-car Voice Assistant More About GAIN GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen. Please share this post with a friend, and don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks!

Omar Tawakol is CEO and co-founder Rembrand, a company using generative AI to automate product placement in online videos. Earlier this year, he announced an $8 million seed funding round and this month added several more strategic investors. Rembrand represents a return to Tawakol's roots in advertising technology and his graduate work in AI. He saw there was an underutilized opportunity for product placement at scale that could be delivered cost-effectively for online influencers. AI is enabling the company to significantly expand the market. Tawakol was my guest for Episode 61, in 2018. At the time, he was CEO of Voicera, which later rebranded to Voicea and then was acquired by Cisco 2019. Voicea was an early leader in the automated meeting transcription space and pioneered novel architectures that led to rapid increases in performance. Earlier in his career, Tawakol was CEO of Blue Kai, the leading DMP for enterprise marketers. The company was acquired by Oracle in 2016 and he then served as SVP of Oracle Data Cloud. He was formerly a board director at PlaceIQ and is a board member for Liveramp.

We have another Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for you today. It was recorded on June 16, 2023. Some special segments this week include: OpenAI's function calling, expanded context window, and price cuts Generative AI search, brands, latency, and features that matter Eric, special guest Michal Stanislawek, and I also go through the generative AI winners and losers of the week. That has been a fun addition to the show. Generative AI News (GAIN) Links related to the top stories in today's show are included below in case you are looking for additional details.  OpenAI Cuts Prices and Announced the Most Significant Feature Expansion This Year Google Rolls Out Access to LLMs, Text-to-Image, Generative Code, and More Google's Virtual Try-On Fuses Fashion with Generative AI Generative AI Search Already Shows that SEO is Changing - New Report Microsoft Bing AI Chat Gets Multimodal on Windows with Voice and Image Search Salesforce Ups Generative AI Fund to $500 Million, Launches AI Cloud More About GAIN GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn at 12:00 noon ET on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen. Please share this post with a friend, and don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks!