SciFest, Ireland’s largest and most inclusive STEM fair programme for second-level students has announced its return for the 18th consecutive year, with this year’s competition theme to focus on climate action. The competition attracts 10,000 student participants annually and organisers have kicked off the 2023 competition with a call for entrants to regional fairs around the country. Since launching in 2008, more than 90,000 students have participated in the competition.

At today’s launch of the SciFest 2023 programme it was announced that EirGrid is joining SciFest as a project partner, joining long-time partners Intel and Boston Scientific. EirGrid has been a gold sponsor at the school level for the past year. As part of the extended partnership, they will sponsor a new award, the ‘Climate and Delivering Cleaner Energy Future’ award at this year’s regional fairs and at the SciFest National Final.

Speaking at the launch of SciFest 2023 at Clogher Road Community College in Dublin, Sheila Porter, SciFest Founder and CEO said: “SciFest has now been running for 17 years and 2023 will mark our 18th year of the competition. The growth of SciFest is reflected in the establishment of our project partnership with EirGrid, who have already shown steadfast support to the competition over the past year at local level. I am delighted to announce climate action as the theme of this year’s competition. We greatly look forward to seeing students’ innovative solutions, from across a range of STEM fields, which we know will play an important role in helping us address many of the challenges facing society”.

Minister for Education, Norma Foley TD, said: “I am delighted to join the SciFest team to celebrate the launch of SciFest 2023. Initiatives such as SciFest cultivate a genuine curiosity for science and STEM from an early age. It is fantastic to see so many young people actively engaging with important issues like climate change and looking at practical, creative and innovative solutions for issues facing society today.”

Speaking about the expanded partnership, Doireann Barry, Head of Strategy and Sustainability with EirGrid, said: “Leading on sustainability and decarbonisation is central to our strategy. By extending this partnership with SciFest, we want to continue to provide a space for second level students to explore and develop their ideas for a cleaner energy future, as we work to transition to low carbon, renewable energy.”

In SciFest, second-level students showcase STEM projects at a series of one-day science fairs held locally in schools and regionally at venues in the Technological Universities, Dundalk Institute of Technology, DCU and St. Mary’s College, Derry. The winners from each regional STEM fair will go on to compete at the National Final in November 2023. The winner(s) of the SciFest National Final 2023 will be presented with a trophy and will represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles, California next year.

Last year’s overall National Final winners were Liam Waldron, Rachel Griffin and Luke O’Sullivan, sixth-year students from Killarney Community College, for their Group Theoretic Approach to Pythagoras’ Theorem. The team will go on to represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Dallas, Texas in May.

Students wishing to follow in Liam, Rachel and Luke’s footsteps can log on to the SciFest website and enter online. Completed entry forms for SciFest 2023 must be submitted by 10 March.

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(As an Employer or Employee, which brings the most benefits?)

I often hear people use the metaphor that the computer is like a brain.

Unfortunately, I am not qualified to know if this analogy is correct.

It seems to me that the computer has a long way to go before this happens, if it ever does!

However, I will use the analogy for the purpose of this article.

I’m looking forward to getting away from my screen today. The last few days have been very intense and prolonged.

Today I have designated as an “Artist Date”. A day to let my mind go “walk about” wherever it likes, while recovering like a computer in sleep mode. The computer, while sleeping, unjumbles everything and puts some order into its files.

An Artist Date examples:

The best thing for me to do is talk about some of the things I do to refresh and reinvigorate myself.

Golf for a couple of hours for nine holes, and I return refreshed, having put aside the issue that was bothering me; you will find a solution presents itself over a cup of coffee or a beer.

I attended a live music session last week. I went to see “Dervish” as part of the Templebar Tradfest, an outstanding performance. A whole city enlivened by our national music for a week brought to us by people who care for our cultural heritage. What a great event.

Here is a particular challenge:

Do something that does not require you to spend money.

A walk on Dun Laoghaire pier or Howth Head [just keeping the South siders and North siders happy], take the air in one of Coillte’s national forests and allow the trees to reduce your stress levels and improve your health

When you do something for a day and spend no money, it’s very satisfying.

A picnic from your kitchen while in the company of a friend you have not seen in a while is always great.

Pick someone who in the past has inspired you. (Thanks, Don)

A good night’s sleep:

Our brain is like a computer; it must be allowed to sleep. Helping us to come back refreshed and ready for the next day’s opportunities. Be sure to leave your device/ screens outside the bedroom.

“Live for today, archive the past, and plan for the future”

Take some time to have an Artist’s Date and do something that encourages your creativity in the next ten days.

P.S. Let me know how you get on!

By Executive Coach Andrew Keogh of Aristo.ie

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Engineers Ireland’s latest employers’ survey, the first since the pandemic, has shown that a shortage of experienced engineers and the housing crisis are among the many barriers experienced by engineering employers undertaking recruitment for 2023.

Damien Owens, Director General, Engineers Ireland, said: “Our recent survey has shown that 72% of member-respondents are majorly concerned about the shortage of engineers with the correct skills. These engineering employers see this shortage as the main barrier to business growth. We are all aware of the recent job cuts in the tech sector – many of them in the engineering area. It is important to stress that there are other sectors which are in urgent need of engineers e.g., construction and consultancy, with almost 8,000 new jobs anticipated in these sectors in 2023.

“The engineering field is one of the most important in our society. Engineering touches the lives of everyone, providing creative solutions to societal needs from tangible works such as bridges and flood defences, to heart stents and prostheses as well as the invisible technology that is all around us. But there is a problem: there are not enough skilled engineers to meet demand. The skills shortage is nothing new. In fact, it has been an issue for years. To try and retain or seek talent, companies are upskilling, maintaining hybrid working, where possible and attracting talent from overseas.”

The professional body for engineers has also warned that the shortage of engineers could potentially undermine the Government’s Project Ireland 2040 goals and ambitions. Project Ireland 2040 is made up of the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan 2021-2030.

“In Project Ireland 2040, the Government has committed to actions on climate change and a ready supply of talented engineers will be fundamental to realising these goals. In 2023, the reality is that the number of students moving into third-level engineering and the technology sectors needs to be much larger to meet employers’ future needs for graduates.

“If we don’t address the skills shortage soon, it could have negative effects on our economy and society. We urgently need more young people choosing careers in engineering. I would therefore strongly encourage students making their CAO choices, and particularly young women, to consider a career in engineering and the fantastic and expanding opportunities that exist in the sector,” Mr Owens continued.

This call to action has come in advance of the CAO deadline of Wednesday, 1 February, which marks the application closing date for undergraduate courses.

Damien Owens also said that an engineering apprenticeship, with many offering an ‘earn and learn’ experience, is an exciting opportunity for Leaving Certificate students who have an interest in engineering as a career, adding that: “An engineering apprenticeship can also be a proven way for employers to develop talent for their company, as well as opening up new and rewarding careers, with learning grounded in practical experience.”

In addition to encouraging Leaving Certificate students to consider a career in engineering, Engineers Ireland is also calling on engineering firms, companies big and small, libraries, local authorities, schools, and third-level institutions nationwide to get involved in STEPS Engineers Week 2023. Taking place from 4-10 March 2023, STEPS Engineers Week provides primary and secondary school students with the opportunity to discover engineering through events and activities facilitated by their teachers, parents, and local community.

The week-long celebration of the engineering profession is coordinated by Engineers Ireland’s STEPS programme – a non-profit outreach programme that promotes interest and awareness in engineering to school students – and is funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and industry leaders Arup, the EPA, ESB, Intel and Transport Infrastructure Ireland ...

IBM and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center today announced a collaboration to use IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology to discover new insights in NASA’s massive trove of Earth and geospatial science data. The joint work will apply AI foundation model technology to NASA’s Earth-observing satellite data for the first time.

Foundation models are types of AI models that are trained on a broad set of unlabeled data, can be used for different tasks, and can apply information about one situation to another. These models have rapidly advanced the field of natural language processing (NLP) technology over the last five years, and IBM is pioneering applications of foundation models beyond language.

Earth observations that allow scientists to study and monitor our planet are being gathered at unprecedented rates and volume. New and innovative approaches are required to extract knowledge from these vast data resources. The goal of this work is to provide an easier way for researchers to analyze and draw insights from these large datasets. IBM’s foundation model technology has the potential to speed up the discovery and analysis of these data in order to quickly advance the scientific understanding of Earth and response to climate-related issues.

IBM and NASA plan to develop several new technologies to extract insights from Earth observations. One project will train an IBM geospatial intelligence foundation model on NASA’s Harmonized Landset-Sentinel-2 (HLS) dataset, a record of land cover and land use changes captured by Earth-orbiting satellites. By analyzing petabytes of satellite data to identify changes in the geographic footprint of phenomena such as natural disasters, cyclical crop yields, and wildlife habitats, this foundation model technology will help researchers provide critical analysis of our planet’s environmental systems.

Another output from this collaboration is expected to be an easily searchable corpus of Earth science literature. IBM has developed an NLP model trained on nearly 300,000 Earth science journal articles to organize the literature and make it easier to discover new knowledge. Containing one of the largest AI workloads trained on Red Hat’s OpenShift software to date, the fully trained model uses PrimeQA, IBM’s open-source multilingual question-answering system. Beyond providing a resource to researchers, the new language model for Earth science could be infused into NASA’s scientific data management and stewardship processes.

“The beauty of foundation models is they can potentially be used for many downstream applications,” said Rahul Ramachandran, senior research scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Building these foundation models cannot be tackled by small teams,” he added. “You need teams across different organizations to bring their different perspectives, resources, and skill sets.”

“Foundation models have proven successful in natural language processing, and it’s time to expand that to new domains and modalities important for business and society,” said Raghu Ganti, principal researcher at IBM. “Applying foundation models to geospatial, event-sequence, time-series, and other non-language factors within Earth science data could make enormously valuable insights and information suddenly available to a much wider group of researchers, businesses, and citizens. Ultimately, it could facilitate a larger number of people working on some of our most pressing climate issues.”

Other potential IBM-NASA joint projects in this agreement include constructing a foundation model for weather and climate prediction using MERRA2, a dataset of atmospheric observations. This collaboration is part of NASA’s Open Source Science Initiative, a commitment to building an inclusive, transparent, and collaborative open science community over the next decade.

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mobfree are about to Kickstart a handy new, compact wireless 3-in-1 charger which is aimed at people who have either an Apple Watch, Samsung Watch or Apple AirPods Pro 2. In the run-up to the launch on Kickstarter, mobfree sent us a pre-production device to test out.

As more and more of us are now using smartwatches and true wireless earphones have become the norm, keeping all these wireless charging devices topped up on the go usually means bringing multiple types of cables/adapters/docks with you to support each wireless charging standard.

To try and reduce some of that mess, mobfree have created a neat and compact device that can charge multiple devices on the go.

The mobfree 3-in-1 Wireless Charger plugs into any USB-C port for power. I’ve tried it on a number of different laptops, PCs and external battery banks and it has worked with them all without issue.

There are two magnetic charging pads with each being usable by flipping over the device. One side works with the Apple products and the other with the Samsung Watch. I’m sure this device can charge other devices that use the same wireless charging standards but for now, the headline products are the Apple Watch, Samsung Watch or Apple AirPods Pro 2.

I’ve carried the mobfree 3-in-1 Wireless Charger in my laptop bag for the last 2 weeks and used it to top my Apple Watch and AirPods while out of the office. It has charged both devices without issue and I have found it a lot handier than using the proprietary cable that comes with the Apple Watch. It’s neater and works well.

The device is launching today on Kickstarter for the super early bird price of $19 and is well worth checking out if you use any of the products it works with listed above.

To find out more about the mobfree 3-in-1 Wireless Charger or to pick one up, visit this Kickstarter page now.

(It is a combined launch with an All in One Docking Station but you can find details about the wireless charger about half way down the page).

The Journal, Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences, Highlights the Contributions of Women in Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences

The launch of a new article collection and webinar by the journal AILSCI recognises prominent female scientists in the field of AI. The journal, Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences (AILSCI), published by Elsevier, is set to release a special Themed Article Collection (TAC): Women in AI in the Life Sciences. Many female scientists have spearheaded ground-breaking research in this field, but despite their invaluable contributions, they often do not receive the visibility they deserve.

Women in Artificial Intelligence in Life Sciences

AILSCI is on a quest to help female scientists get recognised for their contributions and to enhance the visibility of their work in the field of AI in the life sciences. This TAC will showcase the contributions driven by young and late-stage investigators—stellar scientists in their own right—who solve biomedical-, healthcare-, or chemistry-based research problems using AI.

AI, encompassing various disciplines including, among others, machine learning (ML), natural language processing, and computer vision, has significantly impacted human life. Over the last decade, it has turned into the driving force behind many emerging technologies. Its applications are embedded in our daily lives as voice assistants, image recognition software, food delivery apps, navigation apps, and much more. Interestingly, AI applications also play a significant role in the highly complex and interdisciplinary field of life sciences.

The journal is aiming to invite women to showcase their research in the AI arena, even if they may feel less confident, due to limited opportunities. As increasingly more female scientists come to the forefront to share their accomplishments, they will indeed be a source of inspiration for new entrants in the field of AI.

Female investigators report that it is still common for women’s inputs to be neglected by team members during discussions. At times, their ideas are repeated by other colleagues, and hence, falsely considered as the other person’s contribution. As a result, women in AI, especially new entrants in the field, tend to suffer from impostor syndrome and may gradually begin to participate less in public events.

These issues are heightened by salary inequities for women in the field. Such challenges, attributable to an unconscious gender bias in the workplace, make the AI industry trickier to navigate for a woman.

In late 2022, AILSCI hosted a webinar to discuss and recognise women’s contributions to the practical applications and theoretical advances of artificial intelligence in the life sciences, and the challenges they face in the industry. During the webinar, one of the panellists, Dr. Raquel Rodríguez-Pérez, Principal Scientist at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, talked about how she uses ML and data science to predict particular properties of new compounds. It helps her immensely with decision-making, from prioritising compound modifications to narrowing down future experimental directions.

Similarly, Dr. Rebecca Swett, a Senior Scientist at Relay Therapeutics, talked about how she optimises synthesised compound libraries using ML. She makes use of an aggressive ML cycle, where AI is applied to multiple aspects of drug design to generate high-quality, accurate models for candidate drug compounds.

The webinar led to a candid and engaging discussion, in which multiple solutions were proposed on how organisations such as AILSCI can tackle an unconscious bias against women. The panellists stressed that inviting female investigators to submit their manuscripts could be a good start. Attendees also nominated female scientists for the AILSCI editorial board to invite to join future events planned for this special collection. Submissions to the Special Issue on Women in Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences are...

Guest article by Ian Scarffe, who is a serial entrepreneur, investor, key opinion leader and Blockchain consultant with business experience from around the world.

The rise of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency has led to a new trend in gaming called “Play2Earn,” which is revolutionizing the creator economy by allowing players to earn real money through their in-game activities.

The Rise of Play2Earn: How Gamers Are Earning Real Money in the Blockchain Economy

Play2Earn is a game design model that uses blockchain technology to create transparent, player-driven virtual economies within games, where players can earn cryptocurrency, NFTs, and other forms of real-world value. This concept is gaining traction among gamers and game developers as it generates new revenue streams and cultivates a sense of community among players. In this article, we will delve into the details of what Play2Earn is, how it works, and its benefits for both gamers and game developers.

Play2Earn has come to revolutionise the creator economy with a direct benefit for players.

Unlike regular games, where games are played for entertainment, There is no incentive to play. It was a one-way relationship that only favored the creators of the games.

But, with Web 3.0 and Blockchain technology, gamers receive rewards and have true ownership of assets acquired through their in-game activities, earning real money while still being entertained.

Accenture reported that the total value of the global gaming business now exceeds $300 billion, more than the combined markets for movies and music. With this and the rise of Play2Earn, game developers and enthusiasts are looking into new ways to make money.

Accenture’s report, “Gaming: the new superplatform,” found that gaming represents $200 billion in direct spend and influences over $100 billion in indirect revenue.

What exactly is Play2Earn?

Play2Earn is a relatively new concept. Play2Earn is a game design model that is reshaping the creator economy. It uses blockchain technology to build a new economy in which “game developers can create transparent, player-driven virtual economies within their games” and “players can earn cryptocurrency, NFTs, and other forms of real-world value through in-game activities, which can be converted to real money—fiat currency.”

Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that allows for secure, transparent, and tamper-proof transactions. The technology enables the creation of digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which can be used to purchase in-game items or exchanged for real-world cash.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital tokens that can be used to prove ownership of content like images or music. Blockchain-based games allow players to own virtual in-game items like clothing or land.

These virtual economies allow players to buy, sell, and trade virtual items and earn cryptocurrency through playing games. Because it generates new revenue streams while also cultivating a sense of community among players, the Play2Earn trend is gaining traction among gamers and game developers.

The role of blockchain technology in enabling Play2Earn:

Blockchain technology is the key enabling technology for Play2Earn. It allows for the creation of digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, that can be exchanged for in-game items or real-world money.

It ensures transparency and security of records of transactions and activities of gamers through its decentralized ledger.

Additionally, blockchain technology allows for secure, transparent, and tamper-proof transactions, which is essential for creating a fair and reliable economy within games.

How Does Play2Earn Work and its benefits for both gamers and game developers

Play2Earn offers several benefits for both gamers and game developers. Game players earn cryptocurrency or other real-world value through their in-game activities. They earn by playing games, completing tasks, fulfilling the obligations and rules of the games...

Google, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices have announced the ten businesses that secured a truly unique, money-can’t-buy prize as part of the You’re The Business campaign launched last year. ‘You’re the Business’ is a programme that aims to accelerate Irish SME growth through digitalisation.

The successful businesses from across the country and a variety of sectors will receive a customised suite of digital supports from Google, expert sector and industry-specific mentoring across a range of technical areas that will help the ten SMEs to further develop their business. The selected businesses will also receive a €1,000 Google ads package each.

From family businesses to new businesses, from service to retail, the ten innovative and inspiring SMEs using digital to grow their businesses are:

Babogue (Kildare) – Certified Child Sleep Consultant, Erica Hargaden’s Babogue offers a suite of online video based sleep courses to help parents to manage the rollercoaster that is child sleep.

Camerino Bakery (Dublin) – Caryna Camerino runs the award-winning cafe and bakery and recently developed an online catering and cake ordering service.

Cullen Nurseries (Carlow) – Cullen Nurseries is a family owned business in Carlow, supplying top-quality native trees and hedging. Their award-winning site helps them offer an efficient online service with nationwide delivery.

DR Dogcare (Clare) – Animal lover Deirdre Ryan offers group or one-to-one training for dogs and their owners as well as a dog grooming service which can be booked through the website.

Prints of Ireland (Dublin) – Entrepreneurs, Heather and Peter’s online shop commemorates Irish landmarks with quality prints, totes and greeting cards.

Ryan Thomas Jewelers (Tipperary) – A family business selling luxury and hand-crafted jewellery in Clonmel for the last 43 years which can now also be purchased through the store’s website.

The Crafty Fox (Louth) – An award-winning fabric, crafts, and haberdashery supplies in Drogheda, supplying a large collection of top-quality products, as well as industry-leading workshops and classes which are available to book online.

The Cookie Co-op (Kilkenny) – A family business founded by Brian Walsh in 2020. Shoppers can order hand-crafted artisan cookies, muffins and bars online for next day delivery.

Velvet Cloud (Mayo) – Velvet Cloud is a range of handmade natural sheep’s milk yogurt and cheese, made on Flanagan’s family farm, and can be bought directly from their website.

Wonky Woolins (Galway) – Chloe Gardiner sells her wonky knitted toys from her well-designed website.

Speaking at the announcement of the winners, Caryna Camerino of Camerino Bakery said: “We launched our online shop in January 2020 just prior to Covid-19. Overnight, the website which had originally been designed to be our virtual shop window became our only shop window. Digitising our business meant that we were prepared for what came next and now the sales we make online are equal to the sales we make through the tills. We even grew the business through Covid. With Google’s help, we are now looking to reach new customers via online marketing, newsletters, and email campaigns”.

Research conducted by Google, developed in partnership with Amárach for the launch of You’re The Business last year found that almost half of SMEs believe they could more than double their turnover (40%) and profitability (45%) with an investment in digital skills. But, the research also showed that more than one in every ten SMEs based in Ireland (11%) are not yet using digital technology in their business – almost half (45%) of SMEs do not have their own website.

Alice Mansergh, Director for Small Business at Google, said: “Ireland is home to more than 250,000 small businesses, providing employment and services right across the country. Small businesses are at the heart of towns and communities across Ireland. With over 90% of Irish consumers now active online, businesses of all shapes and s...

Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint has today announced results from its 2022 Digital Leaders in Ireland study. This latest study reveals how businesses in Ireland have made considerable progress on the digital maturity path, as the country moves to third place in the ranking when compared with the other 10 countries in the study.

BearingPoint’s 2022 Digital Leaders study assessed 679 companies (35 Irish, 644 European and UK and 50 from US) against criteria related to four dimensions of digitalization; digital product experience, e-commerce, e-CRM and digital marketing.

Countries and companies representing various industry sectors were scored on a scale ranging from ‘Failed’ (0) to ‘Outstanding’ (5). Ireland achieved an overall average score of 3.43 for their digital maturity, moving up the ranking to third place when compared to the other 10 countries in the study. The country comparison was scored by analyzing the top 30 companies in each country.

The BearingPoint 2022 digital leaders study found digital leadership in 2022 required a mastery of personalisation, customer centricity, innovation delivery and linking data and technology, while addressing real-world challenges. Digital-leading companies focus on 5 key actions:

Placing customers at the centre of value propositions; Generating a positive emotional response through all interactions with customers and networks; Delivering value with a suite of advanced technology that synchronizes activities and leverages data centricity; Innovating in all aspects of their ecosystem; Integrating ethics, sustainability, and a broad world view in day-to-day activities.

Virgin Media achieved the highest rating as a digital leader in Ireland with an average score of 3.67, demonstrating their continued investment in digital experiences. They were followed by AXA (3.51) and Three (3.5) among the top three companies in the Irish study.

Five industry sectors were assessed in Ireland covering: Banking, Telco, Insurance, Energy and Media. The findings from the study in Ireland indicate that the majority of industries saw their scores increase this year. The Telco sector emerged as Ireland’s most digitally mature industry from the 2022 study scoring 3.5 overall. This was followed by the Insurance sector (3.10) and the Energy sector (3.10). Banking achieved an overall score of 3.00 having been rated the most digitally mature industry for the previous two years.

Within each of the five sectors that were assessed in Ireland, Revolut scored the highest in the banking sector with a score of 3.42. SSE Airtricity topped the ranking in the energy sector scoring 3.43. AXA came out on top in the Insurance sector with 3.51, while RTE ranked number one in the media sector with a score of 3.04. Virgin Media received the highest score in the Telco sector with the highest ranking of any Irish company with 3.67.

Significant year-on-year improvements can be seen across all four dimensions of digitalisation in Ireland. Digital Product Experience maintained its position as the strongest performing of the dimensions scoring the highest at 3.50. E-Commerce however scored the lowest in Ireland with a score of 2.56.

Commenting on the findings of the 2022 Digital Leaders in Ireland study, Gillian O’Sullivan, Country Leader for BearingPoint in Ireland said: “There’s no doubt that mastering digital is essential if organisations want to embrace business transformation, develop long-lasting client relationships and boost revenue. What makes a digital leader naturally changes over time, but our study has highlighted the key themes which are prevalent today; customer centricity, personalisation, data centricity, innovation and sustainability. These actions – in combination – are what contributes to organisational success.”

She added: “It is very encouraging to see Irish companies performing so well this year when compared to their counterparts in other countries. It is a real sign that Irish business leade...

Intercom, the leading customer service platform for internet businesses, has announced it has launched three new automation-first features built using OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 technology, the same model that powers ChatGPT. Over one hundred customers are already using and testing the features within the Intercom Inbox and its Articles product in a limited Beta, with wider availability to come this year.

“We believe the advances made in Large Language Models (LLM), spearheaded by OpenAI and that have manifested in ChatGPT, will be the most significant change the customer service industry has experienced in decades. It’s a massive step towards a world where customer service is automation-first, a future we’ve been working towards for a few years,” said Des Traynor, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Intercom.

The new features include:

Composer AI: Support agents can write shorthand customer responses in the Intercom Inbox and let the AI generate a complete suggested message with the new Expand and Rephrase capabilities. Agents can also automatically change the tone of the message to more casual and happy or more formal with just one click of the Make More Formal and Make More Friendly buttons. This not only lets agents send faster and better quality responses to customers, but also reduces the time they spend composing messages.

Conversation summarization: Support agents can view an AI-generated summary of a customer conversation within the Intercom Inbox, making handover between agents much quicker and easier. This new technology enables a level of automated summarization not possible before, enabling support agents to quickly pick up exactly where a previous agent left off—no need for a customer to repeat any information or for agents to spend time scrolling through a conversation.

Article generator AI: When writing help center content with Intercom’s Articles, authors can paste a summary of the content they want to explain and use the AI to generate a full article version, which they can edit or update as required. This lets teams create more help content at a faster pace for customers.

Intercom has long been at the forefront of building disruptive technology into its platform, starting with Resolution Bot, its hero AI-based product that debuted in 2018. With these new advancements in generative AI, Intercom will continue to experiment and shape the core technology to solve actual customer support team needs.

“We have been following all of the projects in this area over the years, but as we experimented with the most recent GPT release, we realised we have crossed a perceptual cliff here, and that a tectonic shift was beginning,” said Traynor.

“We quickly built and shipped many prototypes internally, ensuring we learned and iterated with each round of user feedback, and we’ve released our first wave of features based on GPT-3.5. We’re excited to get this into the hands of our customers, but we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible with this technology. We believe the capabilities won’t just be point solutions, but will create a technology that will sit across our entire customer service platform. We’re actively exploring what comes next.”

To learn more about the new features or sign up for the Beta waitlist, visit the website. Intercom will also host a webinar on Wednesday, March 1, at 9 a.m. PT about “How ChatGPT Will Shape The Future of Customer Service” with Bessemer Venture Partners. Click here to register for the event.

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