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.
Apple is investing heavily in AI
Apple is back making AI news after a quiet summer since its WWDC announcements in June. As Wayne Ma reports in The Information, the company’s AI budget has ballooned to millions of dollars per day as it seeks to add conversational AI into its Siri and iPhone products. Over at Mashable, Cecily Mauran explains further that “the picture of Apple’s plans for generative AI is coming into focus.[DSN1] [AM2] ”
One example cited in Ma’s report centers around giving “Siri the ability to automate complex tasks, like turning a series of photos into a GIF.”
Related coverage:
• “Apple Risks Getting Overtaken by Bigger AI Players, Needham Says” (Bloomberg)
• “Apple is reportedly spending ‘millions of dollars a day’ training AI” (The Verge)
• “Apple reportedly has an LLM that’s better than ChatGPT” (MobileSyrup)
Create Canva-generated AI images in ChatGPT
Jose Antonio Lanz writes at Decrypt that OpenAI has released a Canva plugin for ChatGPT that “could improve the way users generate visuals by offering a streamlined and user-friendly approach to digital design.” For users on the paid version of the ChatGPT app, the plugin is available and ready for use, but Lanz cautions that the results require well-engineered prompts and a willingness to work with the “newness” of the feature.
Related coverage:
• “What OpenAI Really Wants” (Wired)
• “OpenAI releases new teacher guide for ChatGPT in classrooms” (Mashable)
• “OpenAI disputes authors’ claims that every ChatGPT response is a derivative work” (Ars Technica)
Slack to add AI enterprise tools this winter
Salesforce’s Slack app hopes to transform from a messaging platform to a productivity hub for enterprise workers. Writing in VentureBeat, Shubham Sharma says that new features “are set to be demonstrated at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference next week,” and that there will be AI additions such as a “new Lists capability for better management of assigned work, and an updated workflow builder that will allow even more users to build automations and get things done within the platform.”
The soon-to-be unveiled Slack AI will integrate generative AI into the messaging interface, offering features such as “Channel Recaps” and “Thread Summaries.” The idea is to improve productivity by enabling users to zero in on mission-critical messages.
Related news:
• “‘Slack AI’ will summarize your work chat starting this winter” (Engadget)
Further reading
• “Myrtle Beach undergoes bizarre AI rebrand on Reddit” (Ad Age)
• “Jason Allen’s AI art won the Colorado fair — but now the feds say it can’t get a copyright” (CPR News)
• “Zoom’s New ‘AI Companion’ Will Catch You Up When You’re Late to Meetings” (CNET)
• “Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot gets a paid plan for heavy users” (The Verge)
• “Google to require disclosure of AI use in political ads” (Politico)
• “Newsom signs executive order to study uses, risks of generative AI in California” (The Hill)
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next week.
If you’d like to catch up on prior installments of this column, start by heading to last week’s recap: “The Week in Generative AI: September 1, 2023”
