The Week in Generative AI: September 20, 2024 edition

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.

At its annual Dreamforce conference this week, Salesforce announced a new $500 million investment dedicated to AI companies through its venture capital arm Salesforce Ventures, bringing its AI investment to $1 billion total, TechCrunch’s Julie Bort reports. The move extends a growing AI emphasis for the company, which in May deployed Matthew McConaughey to bring the “AI Wild West” to life in its continuing “Ask More of AI” campaign. 

See also: “Salesforce CEO describes new AI product’s real-life use case in healthcare” (CNBC) 

More AI financial news: 

• “Intel shares jump on chip deal with Amazon” (CNN Business) 
• “BlackRock and Microsoft plan $30bn fund to invest in AI infrastructure” (Financial Times) 

In a piece titled “Is That AI? Or Does It Just Suck?” New York Magazine “Intelligencer” tech columnist John Herrman explores the growing disconnect between the tech community’s (and the investment world’s) view of AI and that of the average layperson. Of course, generative AI’s potential is extraordinary, and as such, tech industry evangelists have focused on “forward-looking narratives and hype” — i.e., the possibilities rather than the current realities. Meanwhile, Herrman argues that many of us commonfolk are now inundated with content from the current generation of gen AI tools whose outputs are seen as “a little bit unbelievable, a little bit generic, or more generally off or bad.” Elsewhere in the piece, he sums it up this way: “Exciting, fast-changing tools with enormous theoretical potential are being used, in the real world, right now, to produce near-infinite quantities of bad-to-not-very-good stuff.” Read the full column here. 

Previously:

• “Brands should avoid the AI product label, study says,” from the Aug. 23 edition of this column. 
• “eMarketer forecast: U.S. AI users to top 100 million this year” from the Aug. 2 edition of this column. 

More AI trends: 

• ICYMI: “Multimodal Intelligence the Future of GenAI, Per Gartner” (Consumer Goods Technology) 

The share of multinational brand owners who say they have concerns about how creative and media agencies use generative AI on their behalf, according to research from the World Federation of Advertisers, per MediaPost. 

Lionsgate just announced a partnership with AI startup Runway to create and train a new AI model that’s customized to Lionsgate’s film and TV content, The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin reports. With the move, Lionsgate becomes the first to move past the wait-and-see approach that major studios have generally adopted in regard to leveraging AI at scale in TV and film, Weprin notes. Per the announcement, the model is meant to help Lionsgate talent “augment their work” and will generate “cinematic video that can be further iterated using Runway’s suite of controllable tools.” 

See also: “California governor signs laws to protect actors against unauthorized use of AI” (The Associated Press) 

Previously:

• “Google DeepMind unveils video-to-audio AI tech,” from the June 21 edition of this column.
• “OpenAI teases new text-to-video AI model called Sora,” from the Feb. 16 edition of this column. 

More AI launches & strategy: 

• ICYMI: “Walmart Is Most AI-Ready FMCG Retailer — By Far: IHL” (Consumer Goods Technology

More AI tools & advancements: 

• “Amazon Releases AI Video Generator For Ads” (MediaPost) 
• “Snap Launches New Augmented Reality Glasses” (The Information) 
• “Mistral launches a free tier for developers to test its AI models” (TechCrunch) 

More AI safety & regulation: 

• “OpenAI is launching an ‘independent’ safety board that can stop its model releases” (The Verge) 
• “California governor signs laws to crack down on election deepfakes created by AI” (The Associated Press) 

Google Search just announced plans to launch an updated “about this image” feature in the coming months that will tell users if an image was created or edited with AI tools, The Verge’s Tom Warren reports. The byproduct of its support for the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), Google’s system will meet C2PA technical standards, Warren notes, calling its integration into search results “a first big test for the initiative.” 

Previously: “LinkedIn now labeling AI-generated content,” from the May 24 edition of this column.