Welcome to The Week in Generative AI, a weekly column for marketers from Quad Insights that quickly sums up need-to-know developments surrounding this rapidly evolving technology.
CES 2024 recap
As expected, AI was everywhere at CES, the annual tech industry gathering held in Las Vegas this week. In his report from the conference, Ad Age’s Garrett Sloane covers various AI-driven CES highlights, including “video generators [that] could help transform TV commercials” and “a new AI-powered stock photo service for small businesses” released by Getty and Nvidia. The darling of the show, however, was the Rabbit R1, a $199 pocket-sized, AI-enabled device. Sloane writes that it “resembles an early iPod with a low-tech scroll wheel for navigation” and that it “connects to apps so the consumer can control rideshare services, food delivery, reserve a table, order tickets and more.”
Late Thursday, The Verge’s Emma Roth reported that Rabbit, a startup, had sold out its first and second run of the R1, and that a “third batch is now available with an expected delivery date between May and June of 2024.”
Related Coverage:
- “AI Is Everywhere at CES 2024. Here’s the Coolest Tech We’ve Seen So Far” (CNET)
- “Inside Amazon Alexa’s venture bets on the future of voice and AI” (Tech Brew)
- “Looking at CES 2024: Startups and A.I. Take Center Stage” (Inc.)
- “The Best, Coolest, and Weirdest Gadgets at CES 2024” (Gizmodo)
- “Walmart debuts generative AI search and AI replenishment features at CES” (TechCrunch)
- “What we announced at CES 2024” (Google Blog)
OpenAI courts users with app store and team accounts
On Wednesday, OpenAI unveiled two new offerings: the GPT Store and ChatGPT Team.
The GPT Store is a marketplace for bespoke ChatGPT-based chatbots. And ChatGPT Team is “a secure, collaborative workspace to get the most out of ChatGPT at work” that starts at $25/month per user.
This latest push into new product offerings complements the previously released ChatGPT Enterprise. “Both ChatGPT Team and the GPT Store are new revenue drivers for the company that have been in the works for a while,” CNBC’s Hayden Field writes.
Over at Bloomberg, Rachel Metz writes that the GPT Store will “eventually introduce ways for people to make money from their creations — much as they might through the app stores of Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google.”
Related coverage:
- “ChatGPT maker OpenAI braces for fight with New York Times and authors on ‘fair use’ of copyrighted works” (MarketWatch)
- “Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI could face EU merger probe” (CNBC)
- “OpenAI Says New York Times Lawsuit Against It Is ‘Without Merit’” (The New York Times)
- “OpenAI says it’s ‘impossible’ to create useful AI models without copyrighted material” (Ars Technica)
- “Pennsylvania buys enterprise ChatGPT licenses through unique pilot with OpenAI” (StateScoop)
SAG-AFTRA AI voice deal struck
SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) has partnered with Replica Studios, enabling actors to license their voices for video games. Announced at CES, the deal allows SAG-AFTRA members to collaborate with game studios via Replica.
Angela Yang and Chloe Melas from NBC News report that “the deal sets minimum terms and conditions and requires the company to obtain consent before it uses replicated voices, while also enabling performers to decline the continuous use of their voices in future projects.” Engadget’s Karissa Bell reports that union negotiators see this arrangement as an opportunity for voice actors to venture into digital voice replicas at time when “Hollywood is still grappling with the use of AI.”
Meanwhile, the partnership was met with mixed feelings by the larger voice-acting community. The BBC’s Tom Gerken writes that “prominent voice actors say they weren’t told about a landmark deal setting out how voices generated by artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in games.”
Related coverage:
Further reading
- “Taylor Swift deepfake ads—what brands need to know about generative AI risks after phony Le Creuset promo” (Ad Age)
- “AI Threatens to Crush News Organizations. Lawmakers Signal Change Is Ahead” (The Hollywood Reporter)
- “Here’s what Google Assistant with Bard will look like on Android” (Android Authority)
- “Microsoft Debates What to Do With A.I. Lab in China” (The New York Times)
- “Microsoft overtakes Apple as largest U.S. company on AI boost” (Axios)
- “New material found by AI could reduce lithium use in batteries” (BBC)
- “Nvidia’s newest chips are designed to run AI at home as competition from Intel, AMD looms” (CNBC)
- “The Flaw That Could Ruin Generative AI” (The Atlantic)
- “Which rights do AI and journalists have in common?” (NiemanLab)
Thank you for reading as we start a new year, with plenty of AI news to come.
If you’d like to catch up on prior installments of this column, start by heading to our first edition of 2024: “The Week in Generative AI: January 5, 2024
