📆 Weekly AI Roundup: Google's AI Assistant

🧵 In today's edition:

• 🗞️ Your Weekly Round-Up

• 🎤 Building With AI Podcast

• 🤑 AI Fundraising News

• 🛠️ AI Tools to Check Out

• 🐦 Tweet Post of the Day

🗞️ Your Weekly Round-Up

1️⃣ Google’s AI Assistant

Google announced Assistant with Bard, a new tool that uses generative AI to provide personalized assistance to users. It can help:

• Plan a trip.

• Find details in an email inbox.

• Create a grocery list.

• Generate captions and hashtags for social media posts.

• Pretty much anything you can think of!

Users can interact with the tool through text, voice, or images, and it will integrate with existing Google apps such as Gmail and Docs.

Read more: The Verge

2️⃣ Canva launches a suite of AI tools

Canva is launching Magic Studio—an innovative suite of AI-driven design tools.

The goal? To democratize design and make it accessible to all, regardless of expertise.

Some key features include:

• Magic Switch: Allows users to instantly transform designs for different formats and translate the wording into over 100 languages.

• Magic Media: Allows users to create engaging videos effortlessly with text-to-video capabilities.

• Magic Grab: Allows users to isolate and edit subjects in an image.

• Magic Expand: Canva’s version of Adobe Generate Fill.

• Canva Shield: A new set of safety, privacy, and security controls for the platform.

And designers, listen up! Canva has set aside $200 million to pay users who consent to have their designs used to train its AI models 👀

Read more: The Verge

3️⃣ Meta's Sticker AI stumbles

Meta's latest AI experiment, Emu, is generating controversy as its sticker generation tool stumbles on content control.

The algorithm, used across Meta’s platforms, allows users to input a phrase or word and generate a few sticker choices for use in conversations.

But here’s the issue: While some inappropriate phrases are blocked, synonyms of those exact phrases get a pass.

With 'billions of stickers' sent monthly on Meta platforms, Emu's content control is under scrutiny. Meta's AI journey might need some fine-tuning to ensure responsible and safe AI-powered experiences for all.

Read more: Gizmodo

4️⃣ Spotify’s AI-generated playlists

Spotify might be developing AI-powered playlists, according to references discovered in the app's code by tech veteran-turned-investor Chris Messina.

Messina's findings indicate that these AI playlists might be prompt-driven and involve collaboration, as code references suggest users can invite others to create AI playlists together.

While not all internal experiments make it to the public, this hints at Spotify's AI-driven future in music personalization and its commitment to delivering innovative experiences to users.

Read more: Techcrunch

5️⃣ LinkedIn goes big on new AI tools

LinkedIn unveiled AI updates across job hunting, marketing, and sales products.

These include:

• AI Recruiting: Uses AI for better job candidate searches.

• AI Learning Coach: An AI chatbot that offers career advice and suggests courses.

• AI-Powered Marketing: Their product, ‘Accelerate,’ allows users to manage their AI-powered campaign easily.

• AI Sales Assistant: An AI search function to supercharge B2B sales and meaningfully engage leads.

While LinkedIn has used AI internally for recommendations and insights in the past, it is now allowing users to easily apply AI by launching new and innovative user features.

Read more: Techcrunch

6️⃣ Adobe’s new AI photo editing tool

Adobe is set to announce a powerful new AI photo editing tool called Project Stardust at the Adobe Max event.

The ‘object-aware editing engine’ can automatically identify individual objects in photographs, allowing them to be moved and changed with ease.

Here is a sneak preview of its functionality:

• Stardust includes a contextual taskbar that suggests edits, like removing distracting people in the background with one click.

• It uses Adobe's Firefly to fill spaces with AI-generated objects when prompted.

While details remain slim ahead of Adobe Max, the tool represents a major step towards more accessible and easy photo editing enabled by AI.

Read more: The Verge

7️⃣ Artifact lets users generate AI images for their posts

Artifact, the latest in the line of X competitors, added a new feature that allows users to create AI-generated images to accompany posts.

Leveraging a Stable Diffusion model, this feature allows users to specify a subject, medium, and style, resulting in a seamlessly generated image.

With generative AI imagery, Artifact creators have another tool to attract users to their content and build their audience.

Read more: Techcrunch

8️⃣ Fitbit is getting an AI chatbot

Fitbit is releasing its new generative AI feature as part of its Fitbit Labs program.

The app will:

• Use AI to interpret trends in your fitness capabilities, offering invaluable insights into your overall performance.

• Provide tailored feedback on various activities, such as a tracked run, and delve into the intricacies of your workout.

The feature will launch next year and be trialed by trusted testers before its official release.

Read more: The Verge

9️⃣ Walmart ventures into the world of AI

Walmart is taking customer experience to the next level with new AI tools to assist customers in all aspects of their shopping experience, from search and discovery to purchase.

These include:

• Shopping Assistant: A chatbot that answers questions, suggests personalized products, and provides in-depth product info.

• Generative AI Search: A search function that can understand context and generate a collection of items relevant to one query, saving customers time.

• Interior Design Assistant: Allows shoppers to use AR technology to suggest items for customers to decorate their rooms.

Read more: Techcrunch

🔟 Slovakia’s election deepfakes

During Slovakia's recent elections, an audio recording allegedly revealing a plot to manipulate the election surfaced on Facebook just two days before the vote.

The recording appeared to have been manipulated using AI and was difficult to debunk, with fact-checking organization Demagog, a partner of Meta, finding it challenging to determine whether the audio was real or AI-generated.

What does this mean for the upcoming US Election?

• Voters will have to be extra diligent when consuming content online.

• Fact-checking organizations must develop effective tools and strategies to combat the spread of AI-manipulated content.

Read more: Wired

🎙️ Introducing Building With AI

We’re stoked to announce the launch of our new podcast, Building With AI 🎉

This podcast will give you insights from business leaders on how to build & scale world-class AI products.

Our pilot episodes, featuring Dan Siroker (CEO, Rewind AI) and Champ Bennet (CEO, Capsule), will go live this Sunday, October 9th!

Subscribe here so you don’t miss it!

🤑 AI Fundraising News

• AlphaSense raises raised $150M in Series E funding to help customers extract relevant information from public and private financial documents.

• Kafene raises $30.8M in Series B funding to help underserved consumers purchase goods such as furniture, appliances, electronics, and tires through transparent lease-to-own agreements.

• Unitary AI raises $15M in Series A funding to advanced video content moderation.

• Stampli raises $61M in Series D funding to build an AI-powered accounts payable automation company.

• LANGaware raises $2M in Seed round to predict and monitor cognitive and mental health conditions and aids health systems using AI.

• Gradient raises $10M to let companies deploy and fine-tune multiple LLMs.

🛠️ AI Tools to Check Out

• Glimpse: An AI browser extension that understands any site you visit. Read faster, write better & surf smarter. Check them out!

• Humata AI: an AI platform that summarizes and answers questions about documents, especially scientific studies, using AI technology. Check them out!

🐦 Tweet Post of the Day

ICYMI: Our team at Autoblocks posted a new blog explaining how fine-tuning AI models can help business leaders create AI products that better serve their users.

Check it out here!