Meta is preparing to launch AI chatbots with distinct personalities across Instagram and Facebook as soon as next month. Powered by its LLaMA models, the characters reportedly range from a Lincoln impersonator to a chill surfer offering travel advice. Why it matters: The interactive characters aim to fend off TikTok, prove Meta's generative AI chops, and capture rich user interest data for ad targeting.
OpenAI just expanded ChatGPT for Android to all countries and territories where ChatGPT is officially available. The mobile app now matches web availability across dozens of regions. Users accessing the service outside supported areas still risk account suspension.
Google is overhauling its Assistant to integrate generative AI similar to Bard and ChatGPT, according to an internal email sent Monday. The revamp kicks off on mobile devices alongside an internal reorganization and dozens of layoffs. Why it matters: The classic voice assistant era is ending as Big Tech races to replace scripted bots with actual LLMs.
OpenAI just launched its official ChatGPT app on Android via the Google Play Store, months after its iOS debut. The rollout started in the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil before expanding to the UK, Canada, Japan, and beyond. With web traffic dipping in June, a dedicated Android app gives OpenAI a much-needed shot at re-engaging mobile users.
Microsoft is now testing Bing Chat on Google Chrome and Apple Safari for select users, finally breaking out of its own Edge walled garden. Early access comes with tight guardrails: Chrome testers report caps of 5 turns per conversation and 2,000 characters per prompt, far lower than the 30 turns and 3,000 characters allowed in Edge.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has stepped back into the trenches, working three to four days a week at the Mountain View office on the upcoming Gemini model. Google is building the multimodal AI to counter OpenAI's ChatGPT4, aiming for a rollout by the end of the year. CEO Sundar Pichai is reportedly enthusiastic about his hands-on return.
GitHub just rolled out the Copilot Chat beta to all Copilot for Business users on Visual Studio and VS Code. Instead of treating AI as a separate window, it understands your active code context and IDE error messages. Basically, it lets developers debug and generate boilerplate via natural language prompts without ever leaving their editor.
Google just pitched an internal AI tool codenamed Genesis to major publishers, including The New York Times and News Corp. The software takes in data to generate news copy, designed to help journalists brainstorm headlines and adjust writing styles. Why it matters: Media executives are already uneasy, worried that automated news writing disregards the rigorous effort required for fact-checking.
OpenAI just rolled out custom instructions for ChatGPT, putting an end to pasting the same context into every fresh chat. You can now define your role, preferences, or tone once, and the model applies them to all future conversations. It is available in beta for Plus users today, with a wider rollout coming soon.
Superhuman just detailed how it developed Superhuman AI in under three months, ditching traditional roadmaps for high-intensity executive involvement. The team prioritized on-demand drafting over preemptive automation to control costs, which helped drive four consecutive weeks of record growth.
Apple is quietly testing a ChatGPT-like internal chatbot that employees call "Apple GPT." Powered by its home-grown "Ajax" large language model framework, the tool is currently limited to internal prototyping and summarization, though Bloomberg reports the company is eyeing a major AI announcement next year.
Microsoft just announced that Microsoft 365 Copilot will cost $30 per user, per month for commercial customers. Alongside the pricing, the company launched Bing Chat Enterprise in preview with commercial data protection that guarantees chat data won't leak or train AI models, and rolled out visual search to Bing Chat. Why it matters: At $30 a month on top of existing plans, Microsoft is betting that generative AI can command premium enterprise software prices.
Researchers from Stanford and UC Berkeley evaluated March and June versions of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, finding massive performance drift across diverse tasks. While GPT-4's prime-number accuracy plummeted and code formatting errors rose, GPT-3.5 actually improved on some tests. The findings highlight the unpredictable risks of relying on opaque, continuously updated LLM APIs.
will.i.am just launched FYI (Focus Your Idea), an all-in-one productivity app designed specifically for creative teams. The platform bundles end-to-end encrypted messaging, asset storage, and generative AI co-pilots into a single hub, including an IBM watsonx integration to draft NDAs. It aims to spare artists the friction of juggling WhatsApp, cloud drives, and ChatGPT.
OpenAI just inked a major partnership with the Associated Press to license the news organization's extensive text archives for AI model training. In return, the AP gets access to OpenAI's tech and expertise, though it made clear it won't be using generative AI to write actual news. The move gives OpenAI a legal, high-quality stream of data amid mounting copyright scrutiny.
Google just dropped its biggest Bard update yet, expanding the AI chatbot across Europe and Brazil with support for over 40 languages, including Chinese and Spanish. Users can now upload images alongside prompts using Google Lens, listen to spoken responses, adjust reply styles, and export code directly to Replit.
Google just launched NotebookLM, an experimental tool from Google Labs that grounds language models in your personal documents. By pairing directly with selected Google Docs, it summarizes content, answers questions with inline citations, and helps brainstorm ideas while curbing hallucinations. It is currently rolling out to a waitlist for U.S. users.
Shopify just revealed Sidekick, a conversational AI chatbot built directly into the merchant dashboard sidebar. The assistant taps into your store's live data to explain sales trends, answer setup questions, and even tweak website themes via chat. Shopify says the feature is coming soon to sellers.
Anthropic just released Claude 2, featuring a 100K token context window that can digest hundreds of pages in a single prompt. The new model doubles safety performance while significantly improving coding and math benchmark scores. It is now live for users in the US and UK through a public web beta at claude.ai, with API pricing unchanged from Claude 1.3.
Beehiiv just launched beehiiv AI, baking generative AI features straight into its newsletter editor. Users get an AI writing assistant, text polishers, built-in image generation, and multi-language translation. The catch: it is only available to subscribers on Scale and Enterprise plans.
