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 🔦

• ChatGPT 4o is the Voice Assistant We Always Wanted, with Two Exceptions

• 6 Things Announced at Google I/O, One That Mattered A Lot, and One Mystery

OpenAI Rundown 🤖

• Accolades for OpenAI's GPT-4o Are Rising

• OpenAI Shows Off New GPT-4o Generative AI Model and More ChatGPT Upgrades

• Hello GPT 4o

• Introducing GPT-4o and more tools to ChatGPT free users

• OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever Leaves Company

• ChatGPT 4o is the Voice Assistant We Always Wanted, with Two Exceptions

Google AI Rundown 🔍

• Google’s ‘Gemini Era:’ The Top Generative AI Google I/O 2024 Announcements

• Google Unveils Gemini ‘Gem’ Custom Generative AI Chatbots to Rival OpenAI’s GPT Store

• Introducing VideoFX, plus new features for ImageFX and MusicFX

• Gemini breaks new ground with a faster model, longer context, AI agents and more

• Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you

• 3 new ways to stay productive with Gemini for Google Workspace

• 6 Things Announced at Google I/O, One That Mattered A Lot, and One Mystery

• Announcing Trillium, the sixth generation of Google Cloud TPU

• Ask Photos: A new way to search your photos with Gemini

• 100 things we announced at I/O 2024

LLM Lounge 🍸

• Anthropic Taps Instagram Co-Founder for Chief Product Officer to Expand Enterprise Generative AI Services

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• AWS Launches Amazon Bedrock Studio for to Support No-Code Generative AI Projects

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• YouTube’s AI ‘Jump Ahead’ Tool Helps Users Skip to the Best Parts of Videos

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 🔦

• Employees Are Bringing Their Own AI to Work Regardless of Company Support

Navigating Generative AI 🗺

• Generative AI in Entertainment Framework and Landscape

• Meta's Secret Weapon in the Generative AI Wars May Be its Smart Glasses + Assistant

LLM Lounge 🍸

• Amazon Bedrock Studio Streamlines Generative AI App Development

• AWS Rolls Out Enterprise Generative AI Assistant Amazon Q

• Snowflake Jumps into Generative AI with a New LLM

• OpenAI Deal with Financial Times Another Sign That Data is the Key LLM Battlefront

• OpenAI and The Financial Times Trade Content License for Generative AI Features

• OpenAI Shares Secret Rules Behind ChatGPT Behavior

• Grok AI Starts Summarizing News for X Stories Feature

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• GitHub Copilot Workspace Moves Beyond Code Generation

• Stack Overflow Completes its Generative AI Reversal with an OpenAI Partnership

• Stack Overflow Fully Embraces Generative AI With OpenAI Partnership

• Anthropic Debuts Mobile App and Businesses Subscription Service for Generative AI Chatbot Claude

• Nvidia Augments ChatRTX Generative AI Chatbot With Google and OpenAI LLMs, Voice Control

• Meta Gives Advertisers a Generative AI Production Suite

• SoundHound Inks Deal With Perplexity to Bolster Voice Assistant With Generative AI Search Engine Model

• Yelp Debuts Generative AI Assistant to Link Customers and Businesses

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Mistral Poised to Raise New Funding at $6 Billion Valuation to Drive LLM Innovation

• Docusign Buys Generative AI Legal Services Startup Lexion for $165M

• Enterprise Generative AI Platform Lamini Raises $25M

• AI Cloud Startup CoreWeave Raises $1.1B as GPU Demand Surges

• FlexAI Raises $30M to Solve Generative AI Chip Shortage

• OpenAI Startup Fund Raises $15M

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• TikTok Starts Automatically Labeling AI-Produced Synthetic Media

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 🔦

• 8 Charts that Explain Enterprise Generative AI Adoption in 2024

LLMs on Parade 🎉

• Meta Llama 3 Launch Part 1 - 8B and 70B Models are Here, with 400B Model Coming

• Meta Llama 3 Launch Part 2 - New Model Security and Performance Benchmarks

• Meta Llama 3 Launch Part 3 - Meta AI Upgrade, Broader Distribution & Strategy

• Meta Unveils Llama 3 Generative AI Model, Claims It As ‘Most Capable’ Open LLM Around

• X.ai Announces Grok-1.5V Multimodal Foundation Model and a New Benchmark

• Mistral's 8x22B LLM Mixes Performance with Efficiency

• Microsoft's Phi AI Models Show it is Not Just an OpenAI Reseller

• New Apple Acquisition Reinforces On-Device Generative AI Focus

• AWS Widens Amazon Bedrock Platform With Custom Model Imports, Evaluation, Choices, and Content Filtering

• OpenAI Enhances Assistants API with Advanced File Management and Cost Control Features

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Microsoft Shows Off Generative AI Model That Makes Deepfake Videos From Still Photos

• Adobe Photoshop Adds New Firefly Image 3 Model With ‘Photographic’ Quality and Image Fine-Tuning Tools

• Adobe Rolls Out Acrobat Acrobat AI Assistant to Explain Documents to Users

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Cognition Labs Claims $2B Valuation After 6 Months and $175M Investment in Generative AI Coding Assistant Devin

• Generative AI Coding Startup Augment Splashes Out of Stealth With $252M

• Generative AI Customer Service Startup Parloa Raises $66M

• Nvidia Spends $700M to Buy Run.ai and Bolster AI Management and Infrastructure

• Perplexity Enterprise Debuts Alongside New Funding Round and $1B Valuation

• Apple Buys French AI Startup Datakalab

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Amazon Music Introduces ‘Maestro’ Generative AI Playlist Builder

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 🔦

• 5 Key Generative AI Announcements from Google Cloud Next

• Generative AI Stars at Google Cloud Next: Here’s The Most Notable News This Year

• Google Showcases New Generative AI Coding Assistants to Take on GitHub Copilot

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Mistral Has a New 176B Parameter LLM and a Number of New Customers

• Mistral AI Floats New Mixtral 8x22B Generative AI Model as Free 281GB Download

• OpenAI Enhances GPT-4 Turbo Model for API and ChatGPT, Including Visual Input

• Cohere Releases Enterprise LLM Command R+ Signs Up With Microsoft Azure to Host

• Tonic.ai Places CustomGPT.ai RAG Above OpenAI

• Poe Rolls Out ‘Price Per Message’ Generative AI Chatbot Monetization

• Stability AI Releases Augmented Text-to-Music Engine Stable Audio 2 With Upload and Style Transfer Features

• Humane Starts Shipping $700 Generative AI Pin

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Elon Musk's X.ai in Talks to Raise $3B at a Valuation Matching Anthropic

• Generative AI Music Startup Udio Come Out of Stealth With $10M and Song-Writing App

• Read AI Raises $21M to Apply Generative AI Meeting Summaries to Email and Slack Messages

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• 4 Shortcomings of Large Language Models - Yan LeCun, Research, and AGI

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 🔦

• Sam Altman is Not Raising $7T, Microsoft is Unlikely to Build a $100B Supercomputer, and the Spectre of Dark GPUs

• Search In Transition - Ads for Perplexity, No Login for ChatGPT, Google Subscriptions

• Perplexity Will Embed Ads in Generative AI Search Engine: Report

• ChatGPT No Longer Requires Log-In as OpenAI Tries to Broaden Generative AI Chatbot User Base

• NVIDIA's High Margins Eyed by a Coalition of Competitors and Customers

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Open Interpreter, Do Engines, and Using LLMs to Enable Actions

• Grok-1.5 Closes Gap with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, Aces Long Context Window Retrieval

• X.AI Showcases Grok-1.5 Generative AI Model Ahead of X Chatbot Upgrade

• AI21 Labs Debuts an Open-Source Model With High Token Throughput

• AI21 Debuts Hybrid Structure Generative AI Model Jamba

• Databricks Claims a Performance Lead with a New Open LLM

• Opera Browser Experiments With On-Device LLM Support

• Adobe Rolls Out Firefly Services and Custom Generative AI Models for Content Creation

• Character AI’s Generative AI Chatbots Learn to Speak Aloud

• BixbyGPT? Samsung Looks to Generative AI for Voice Assistant

OpenAI Updates

• OpenAI Hints at Alexa and Siri Rival With New ‘Voice Engine’ Trademark Filing

• OpenAI Enhances Generative AI Model Fine-Tuning and Custom Model Services

• OpenAI Gears Up for Mid-Year Launch of GPT-5: Report

• ChatGPT Adds Editing Tools to DALL-E Synthetic Images

• Artists Take Sora for a Test Drive While OpenAI Courts Hollywood for Text-to-Video

Generative AI Funding Fountain and Money Gusher 💰⛲️

• Amazon Completes $4B Anthropic Investment, Links Up with Accenture

• HeyGen is About to Close $60M on a $500M Post Valuation

• Generative AI Video Startup HeyGen Closing in on $60M Funding Round

• Chipmaker Hailo Raises $120M and Unveils New On-Device Generative AI Accelerator

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Financial Times Launches Generative AI Chatbot for Subscribers Powered by Anthropic’s Claude 3 LLM

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 🔦

• How OpenAI's Former Board Inadvertently Created a New Competitor Inside its Patron

• Inflection Reveals a New Model Rivaling GPT-4, Pi Daily Users, and Different Assistant Strategy

• X.ai's Grok-1 Model is Officially Open-Source and Larger Than Expected

• Anthropic Says it Just Dethroned GPT-4 from Atop the Frontier Generative AI Model Rankings

• GPT-4.5 Turbo Details Leak Through Search Engines Ahead of Rumored OpenAI Announcement

• OpenAI Gears Up for Mid-Year Launch of GPT-5: Report

• How Apple's Discussions with Google and OpenAI Could Impact Generative AI

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Nvidia Unveils Powerful Generative AI Blackwell Chip and Platform

• Character AI’s Generative AI Chatbots Learn to Speak Aloud

• Midjourney Upgrades Synthetic Image Engine With Consistent Character Generation

• Pika Augments Generative AI Video Platform With Synthetic Sound Effects

• Google Infuses Fitbit with New Personal Health Generative AI Model Based on Gemini

• France Fines Google for $272 Million Over Generative AI Training Practices

• ChatGPT Can ‘Read Aloud’ Responses in 5 Voices and 37 Languages

• OpenAI's Sora Text-to-Video Demonstrations are Insanely Good

Generative AI Funding Fountain and Money Gusher 💰⛲️

• Why Perplexity is Already a Unicorn

• Together AI Raises $106M to Expand Open Source Generative AI Platform

• ChatGPT Speaks Through Figure 01 Robot Following $675M Funding

• Apple Acquires DarwinAI Ahead of 2024 Generative AI Plans

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• OpenAI Adds News Partnerships in French and Spanish Through Le Monde and Prisa

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 🔦

• Google Goes Big on Context with Gemini 1.5 and Dips Into Open-Source with Gemma

• Google Unveils Gemini 1.5 Pro LLM With Staggering 1M-Token Context Window

• Google Unveils Open-Sources Gemma Generative AI Models as Lightweight Gemini Alternative

• Trust is the Hidden Force Shaping the Generative AI Market and Google Keeps Squandering It

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Mistral Introduces Two New High-Performance LLMs, and Neither Are Open-Source

• Pindrop Launches Real-Time Audio Deepfake Detection Tool Pindrop Pulse

• Adobe Brings Generative AI Assistant to Help Extract Information from 3 Trillion PDFs

• Microsoft Introduces a New Red Teaming Toolkit for Generative AI Security and Safety Testing

• Stability AI Upgrades Synthetic Media Engine to Stable Diffusion 3

Generative AI Funding Fountain and Money Gusher 💰⛲️

• NVIDIA is Officially the Giant of Generative AI

• Abridge Raises $150M for Automating Medical Documentation and Plans to Create Generative AI Foundation Models

• Generative AI Image Editing Startup Photoroom Raises $43M

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman over contract breach

• The Surprising Tactics of Deepfakes Targeting Contact Centers Today

• Klarna Says the Quiet Part Out Loud - Generative AI Can Replace a Lot of Contact Center Staff

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 🔦

• OpenAI is Testing a Memory Feature with ChatGPT

• OpenAI Gives ChatGPT a Customizable Memory

• Bard Becomes Gemini, Ultra is Here, and Other Ways Google is Mirroring OpenAI's Strategy

• Google Bard (and Duet and Assistant Mobile App) No More – Gemini Now The Star of Generative AI Show

• Google Warns Gemini Users Automatically Saves Conversations

• Hugging Face Introduces Assistants (GPTs) for HuggingChat

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Frame Smart Glasses from Brilliant Labs Are a Vehicle for an Always-There AI Assistant

• Slack New Generative AI Features Help Navigate Endless Message Flood

• Otter Invites Generative AI to Your Conference Room With New ‘Meeting GenAI’ Chatbot and Tools

• Airbnb CEO Hints at Generative AI Plans Around Acquisition of Adam Cheyer-Founded Startup GamePlanner.AI

• Bumble Adds Generative AI Scam and Catfish Detective to Dating App

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Generative AI Video Platform Colossyan Raises $22M

• Jua AI Raises $16M for Climate and Weather Generative AI Model

• Clinical Generative AI Startup Ambience Healthcare Raises $70M

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Deepfake of Jailed Pakistani Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan Declares Victory in Election

• No! An AI Cannot Be a Patent Inventor. However, USPTO Adds an Important Caveat

More About GAIN

GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube, LinkedIn, and X on Thursdays or Fridays. You can re-watch each week’s discussion on Voicebot’s YouTube channel.