Welcome to The Week in Generative AI, a weekly roundup for marketers from Quad Insights that sums up the latest news surrounding this rapidly evolving technology.
Did ChatGPT just lose its mind?
In a word: no. Or, maybe, yes — but temporarily. ChatGPT ran into some bug problems on Tuesday, leading it to issue responses to queries that were “flowery to the point of unintelligibility,” Mashable’s Mike Pearl reports. Highlights cited by Pearl include ChatGPT’s responses when asked about what sort of bug it was experiencing; the bot said it was exhibiting “jumbled inception,” “higher perplexity stoked in modules,” “malfunctioned determiner thrust” and more. (“Temporary insanity” didn’t make the list, which feels like a glaring omission.) Less than 24 hours after the start of the incident, ChatGPT returned to functioning normally, with OpenAI releasing a statement explaining the cause of the problem.
The takeaway: Generative AI tools — which are already known for experiencing so-called “hallucinations” — are clearly just going to keep us guessing, which is more than slightly unnerving.
Coach launches AI-inspired ‘Find Your Courage’ campaign
Luxury fashion brand Coach just launched “Find Your Courage,” an AI-inspired campaign starring a virtual influencer called imma, Marketing Dive’s Chris Kelly reports. Pairing imma with human brand ambassadors such as Lil Nas X and Camila Mendes, the campaign aims to “underline the changing of idea of being ‘real,’ whether speaking toward personal authenticity or the vagaries of the physical-virtual divide,” Kelly notes. In five campaign videos, imma will visit each human brand ambassador’s virtual world to discover their unique “superpower.”
The takeaway: Meshing celebrity brand ambassadors with AI technology, Coach is, well, keeping it real by addressing how iffy the concept of “real” is these days.
Reddit signs exclusive AI content licensing deal with Google
Timed to its Thursday IPO filing, Reddit announced the signing of an exclusive content-sharing deal with Google, Bloomberg’s Priya Anand reports. The deal will allow Google to access Reddit data for the training of its AI products, Anand notes.
Bloomberg’s Amy Or (who on Feb. 16 had reported on the then-rumored partnership as being with “an unnamed large AI company” before the formal Feb. 22 Google reveal) says that the deal “could be a model for future contracts of a similar nature.”
The takeaway: In today’s brave new LLM world, access to massive language datasets is crucial, and Reddit joins a rapidly growing list of content companies entering licensing deals with big tech.
Adobe launches AI assistant capable of searching and summarizing PDFs
Adobe just launched an AI assistant in its Reader and Acrobat applications that can search and summarize PDFs, CNBC’s Alex Koller reports. Currently in beta, the company plans to release a subscription plan for the tool soon, Koller notes, adding that unlike similar AI tools from competitors, Adobe’s assistant is a built-in feature that will not require users to upload documents. The tool aims to help users digest information in an interactive way. “Just imagine you’ve opened a 100-page document. You want to understand the summary, you want to have a conversation with it, you want to ask questions,” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in an interview with CNBC.
The takeaway: Entering the AI-powered document summarization arena, Adobe hopes to stand out with integrated functionality.
Insider Intelligence | eMarketer explores how generative AI is changing the marketing tech landscape
In an article titled “Guide to marketing technology (martech): Top stacks, spending, and trends,” Insider Intelligence | eMarketer’s Caroline Shalabi explores the current marketing tech landscape, including generative AI’s impact. Shalabi cites an August 2023 Insider Intelligence forecast that U.S. marketing tech spending would increase 12.7% in 2024 and another 15.6% in 2025, with generative AI helping to drive that acceleration. “Not only does AI in martech have the potential to streamline mundane, repetitive tasks for marketers, it also holds promise in assisting with more complicated and imaginative projects as marketers become more proficient and the systems advance,” Shalabi writes. Read the full story here.
The takeaway: Conversations about marketing technology now pretty much automatically include generative AI applications and initiatives — and martech professionals are having to become AI experts.
Further reading
AI tools & advancements:
- “Google is giving away some of the AI that powers chatbots” (The New York Times)
- “Stable Diffusion 3 is a new AI image generator that won’t mess up text in pictures, its makers claim” (Engadget)
- “Google Chrome’s new AI can finish your sentences for you” (The Verge)
- “Samsung to bring Galaxy AI to more devices” (GadgetMatch)
- “New model identifies drugs that shouldn’t be taken together” (MIT News)
AI in the market:
- “Nvidia Hits $2 Trillion Valuation on Insatiable AI Chip Demand” (The Wall Street Journal)
- “China’s Moonshot AI zooms to $2.5B valuation, raising $1B for an LLM focused on long context” (TechCrunch)
AI trends:
