Accenture invests $3 billion in AI
⚡ Today’s Highlights
📰 News: Accenture invests $3 billion in AI
💰 Funding: Synthesia, Mistral AI, Striveworks, and Medivis
🦾 Tools: Automate workflows, summarize notes, and analyze data all in one doc with the power of AI
📅 Events: The Open Data Science Conference 2023 starts today!
📰 Today's Top Stories
Accenture Makes a $3 Billion Bet on A.I.
(5 min read) (Source: The New York Times)
TLDR: Accenture plans to invest $3 billion over three years in its data and AI practice, aiming to double its AI-focused staff to 80,000 through hiring, acquisitions, and training.
The company intends to leverage generative AI more in its client work and help customers across 19 industries increase their use of the technology.
Accenture's move reflects the growing trend among companies to enhance their offerings with generative AI, as technology leaders like Microsoft and Alphabet predict it will transform various job roles.
I-JEPA: The first AI model based on Yann LeCun’s vision for more human-like AI
(7 min read) (Source: Meta AI)
TLDR: Meta Platforms will provide researchers with access to its new "human-like" AI model, I-JEPA, which can accurately analyze and complete unfinished images using background knowledge about the world.
The model's unique approach incorporates human-like reasoning, advocated by Meta's top AI scientist Yann LeCun, to avoid common errors in AI-generated images.
Meta emphasizes open-sourcing AI research to spur innovation, identify safety gaps, and reduce costs, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighting the benefits of industry standardization.
In addition to research, Meta is integrating generative AI features into its consumer products, including ad tools for creating image backgrounds and an Instagram product that modifies user photos based on text prompts.
AMD Expands Leadership Data Center Portfolio and Shares Details on Next-Gen AMD Instinct Accelerator and Software Enablement for Gen AI
(5 min read) (Source: AMD)
TLDR: AMD announced its most-advanced AI GPU, the MI300X, which is set to challenge Nvidia's dominance in the AI chip market and could tap into the growing data center AI accelerator market.
The MI300X offers larger memory capacity than Nvidia's rival H100, making it suitable for running large language models used in generative AI applications.
AMD's Infinity Architecture combines multiple accelerators in one system, similar to systems developed by Nvidia and Google, while the company also introduced its own software stack called ROCm for AI chips. Lower GPU prices may contribute to reducing the high cost of serving generative AI applications.
Check out the full announcement on AMD’s YouTube channel:
OpenAI intros new generative text features while reducing pricing / Function calling and other API updates
(3 min read) (Source: OpenAI)
TLDR: OpenAI has released new versions of its text-generating models, GPT-3.5-turbo and GPT-4, with a focus on function calling, which allows developers to describe programming functions and have the models generate the code to execute those functions.
The new GPT-3.5-turbo offers a significantly expanded context window, improving the model's ability to retain information from previous conversations. It now has four times the context length of the original version.
OpenAI has also reduced the pricing for GPT-3.5-turbo by 25% and for text-embedding-ada-002 by 75%, making the models more affordable for developers. The price reduction is attributed to increased efficiency in OpenAI's systems.
Google forced to postpone Bard chatbot’s EU launch over privacy concerns
(3 min read) (Source: POLITICO)
TLDR: Google's launch of its AI chatbot Bard in the European Union has been delayed due to privacy concerns raised by the Irish Data Protection Commission, Google's main European data regulator under GDPR.
The commission stated that Google has not provided sufficient information regarding the privacy protection measures of its generative AI tool to justify its EU launch. Detailed briefings and supporting documentation are required before proceeding.
Google is advocating for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to take the lead in issuing technical guidance on AI risks, proposing a "hub-and-spoke model" where oversight of AI tools is divided across different agencies. Google believes this approach is better suited to address the diverse sectors and nuances impacted by AI.
The company's comments reflect its stance on AI regulation and its belief that the federal government should adopt a holistic approach, involving multiple sectors and agencies, rather than establishing a single dedicated regulator.
Google acknowledges the value of exploring the idea of licensing large AI models but emphasizes the need for a broader perspective in addressing AI-related challenges.
💰 Funding Alerts
1. Synthesia, the digital media platform for creating AI-generated videos, raised $90 million in funding, with the funding round led by Accel and strategic investment from Nvidia. Other investors include Kleiner Perkins, GV, FirstMark Capital, and MMC.
With the funds, Synthesia plans to advance its AI research and enhance its technology, particularly focusing on expanding the capabilities of its AI-generated avatars to perform a wider range of tasks.
2. Mistral AI, a 1 month-old French startup focusing on building and training LLMs and gen-AI solutions, raised $113 million in seed funding, with Lightspeed Venture Partners (Antoine Moyroud, Partner) leading the round. Other investors include Xavier Niel, JCDecaux Holding, Rodolphe Saadé, Motier Ventures, La Famiglia, Headline, Exor Ventures, Sofina, First Minute Capital, LocalGlobe, Bpifrance, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
With the funding, Mistral AI plans to assemble a world-class team and develop the best open source models for text-based generative AI. The company aims to address the challenge of making AI useful and is set to release its initial models in 2024.
3. Striveworks, a provider of machine learning operations (MLOps) for enterprise data science and analytics teams, raised $33 million in its first institutional fundraising round, with Centana Growth Partners (Ben Cukier, Partner) leading the round and participation from existing investors.
Striveworks plans to use the funds to expand its team by hiring more engineers, salespeople, and marketing professionals. This expansion will help drive growth and enhance capabilities to better serve their customers. Additionally, Striveworks aims to simplify the model lifecycle management process with their user-friendly, no-code platform called Chariot, making it more accessible and effective in fast-paced environments.
4. Medivis, a medical tech company, raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Thrive Capital (Kareem Zaki, General Partner), with participation from Initialized Capital and Mayo Clinic, among others.
Medivis focuses on establishing augmented reality as the new standard in surgical navigation.
Medivis plans to use the funds to scale engineering efforts, obtain regulatory clearances, and globally commercialize its augmented reality solutions across multiple specialties, including neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, interventional radiology, and reconstructive surgery. The company aims to provide clinicians with unprecedented visual guidance during surgical procedures, ultimately improving patient care and safety.
🦾 Trending Tools
Coda AI is a work assistant for the all-in-one doc for teams. Automate workflows, summarize notes, analyze data, and generate content. Collaborate seamlessly and unlock productivity with all the latest AI-powered features.
Bito AI, powered by ChatGPT and OpenAI, boosts developer productivity. With personalized AI assistance, Bito helps developers write code, explain syntax, generate tests, check security, improve performance, and more. Join a growing community of 100,000+ developers.
Clipdrop, the image editing tool from Stability AI releases Uncrop. A free alternative to Adobe Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature. Use AI to adjust and create new dimensions for any image.
Pensieve AI can help analyze any PDF document with ChatGPT. Simply upload any PDF file and ask questions to uncover valuable insights. Extract information from legal, financial, and training files effortlessly.
AI Spend is an intelligent monitoring tool helping users optimize OpenAI costs. With user-friendly dashboards, notifications, and analytics, track usage, cost trends, and model performance.
👀 More Reading:
AI used to create new and final Beatles song, says Paul McCartney (The Guardian)
The Awkward Partnership Leading the AI Boom (The Wall Street Journal)
Amazon is using generative A.I. to summarize product reviews (CNBC)
Samsung among companies starting to draft ChatGPT policies for workers (CNBC)
We are all AI’s free data workers (MIT Tech Review)
The whole world wants A.I. — and the market will deliver, Sam Altman says (CNBC)
🌎 Fresh Content
1. Two Minute Papers broke down and demoed some of Photoshop’s incredible new generative AI features including the generative fill feature that took over social media. (YouTube)
2. AI and machine learning tools are being used by Amazon Web Services to fight wildfires and could play a critical role in fighting the wildfires that have been filling Canada and the USA with smoke. (YouTube)
📅 Upcoming Events
The Open Data Science Conference 2023 (June 14-15, 2023 / Tobacco Dock, London, England + Virtual) helps you build job-ready skills and stay up-to-date with the latest advances in machine learning, NLP, LLMs, data analytics, responsible AI, and more with ODSC East’s expert-led, immersive, training sessions. With 300 hours of content, the conference features a wide range of sessions for data scientists at every level, from beginner to expert.
🧠 Prompts
Harness the expertise of ChatGPT to delve into behavioral economics and its role in optimizing customer conversions with these compelling prompts. This prompt will help you assess the current gaps in your business and understand the principles of behavioral economics that can be applied to subtly influence customer behavior towards making a purchase. Tailor the prompt to your business for an in-depth analysis and practical strategies to drive conversions.
Optimizing Conversion Through Behavioral Economics
Prompt: "Act as an expert in behavioral economics. I'm interested in identifying opportunities in my business to improve sales and customer conversions. Could you examine my business and suggest principles that can be applied to subtly steer customers towards making purchases or converting? Begin by confirming you're ready, and then please ask me for the information you need t start providing feedback."