| Here’s a look at today's AI briefing: - Apple to announce 'practical' AI tools for core apps at WWDC.
- Elon Musk's AI company valued at $24B after $6B funding round.
- Google manually removing incorrect 'AI Overviews' from search.
- Tech companies investing in autonomous AI agents.
- SoftBank plans to invest nearly $9B a year in AI.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Apple will focus on practical AI tools for users at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), with AI upgrades expected for core apps like Safari, Photos, and Notes, according to Bloomberg. The AI tools are reportedly coming to iOS 18 and macOS 15 later this year. AI features: - According to Bloomberg, Apple is developing AI software that generates custom emojis "on the fly" based on what a user is texting.
- Apple is also set to announce a "smart recap" feature that summarizes missed texts, notifications, web pages, articles, documents, and notes.
- Other planned AI features include voice memo transcription, photo retouching, and suggested replies to emails and messages.
- Apple plans to use AI to improve Safari web search and the speed and reliability of searches in Spotlight.
- The company may unveil a more natural- and better-sounding Siri voice powered by its large language models.
- It's also planning a more advanced version of Siri for the Apple Watch, tailored for "on-the-go tasks."
Zoom out: - Less computing-intensive AI features will run on the device, while more demanding tasks will be handled in the cloud, according to Bloomberg.
- At WWDC, Apple is also set to announce a rumored partnership with OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker will reportedly provide chatbot functionality in iOS 18.
- WWDC runs June 10-14.
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| 2 | | Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, secured $6B in funding, marking one of the biggest AI venture capital rounds. The startup, valued at $18B before the new funding, reached a post-money valuation of $24B. More: - Investors in the Series B round included Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabian Prince Al Waleed bin Talal.
- xAI said the funds would be used to launch its first products, develop advanced infrastructure, and speed up R&D for future technologies.
- The company has been pitching itself as a brand to "connect the digital and physical worlds" and integrate with Musk's other companies like X, Tesla, Neuralink, and SpaceX.
- Musk wrote there would be “more to announce in the coming weeks." He also called for tech workers to join xAI.
Zoom out: - Musk founded xAI last year “to understand the true nature of the universe."
- xAI also released Grok, its "witty and rebellious" chatbot, that can summarize news and conduct searches for paid users on X, Musk's social network.
- The startup also plans to build a supercomputer to power a more advanced version of Grok. The supercomputer, made up of Nvidia's H100 GPUs, would be four times larger than current clusters.
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| 3 | | Google continues to manually remove AI Overviews that offer misinformation for specific searches. The AI Overviews, launched in the U.S. this month, serve AI-generated summaries at the top of search results. Google hasn't removed the feature entirely but is disabling incorrect answers as they are posted by users online. More: - The AI search feature is facing criticism for delivering incorrect information to users.
- In recent examples, the tool stated that "doctors recommend smoking 2-3 cigarettes per day during pregnancy" and "staring at the sun for 5-15 minutes or up to 30 minutes if you have darker skin is generally safe and provides the most health benefits."
- According to The Verge, Google is removing the AI Overviews for certain searches after they generate the misinformation.
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| 4 | | The worldwide market for autonomous AI and agents was valued at $4.8B in 2023 and is expected to grow to $28.5B by 2028, as reported by Global Market Insights. The AI agents market is rapidly expanding, as evidenced by recent unveilings of autonomous AI agents by companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google. 
What happened: Tech firms are advancing beyond traditional chatbots by developing AI agents capable of performing digital actions autonomously, such as managing tasks, making decisions, and interacting with computer APIs. Zoom in: Last week, Microsoft showed off new AI-powered Copilots that act like virtual employees and automatically perform assigned tasks in the background. Microsoft is now testing the "AI agents," with plans for a public preview later this year. Meanwhile, Google DeepMind announced a prototype AI agent called "Project Astra," an early version of a universal assistant that answers real-time questions through video and audio in a conversational way. Astra can use a smartphone's camera and audio to analyze and "see" its surroundings, such as locating glasses left in a room. Additionally, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, its latest AI model with text, vision, and audio capabilities, OpenAI says GPT-4o is a step closer to “much more natural human-computer interaction," transforming ChatGPT into more of a digital assistant that can converse in real-time and analyze visual content like photos and documents. | | | |
| 5 | | SoftBank plans to invest nearly $9B a year in AI, shifting from its traditional venture capital investments. The Japanese company's AI investments and commitments surged to $8.9B within a year, more than doubling since CEO Masayoshi Son declared a "counteroffensive" last year amid the AI boom. More: - SoftBank's CFO, Yoshimitsu Goto, expressed the company's intent to boost investments in AI firms moving forward.
- "The reason we’ve been keeping our balance sheet at a very safe level is because we would like to be prepared,” Goto told FT.
- Last year, Son forecasted that artificial general intelligence (AGI) would be 10 times more powerful than humanity by 2030.
- The billionaire is restructuring SoftBank to capitalize on AI's potential for future growth, aiming to keep pace with what he sees as humanity's next frontier.
- However, the company faces tough competition from major tech players and venture capital firms investing heavily in AI partnerships with startups.
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| 6 | | AI Events and Conferences: - AI World Congress 2024: May 30-31, London, U.K.
- Data Cloud Summit 2024: June 3-6, San Francisco.
- AI and Big Data Expo North America: June 5-6, Santa Clara, California.
- SuperAI: June 5-6, Singapore.
- Apple WWDC: June 10-14, Cupertino, California and online.
- The AI Summit London: June 12-13, London, U.K.
- 2024 IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence: June 25-27, Singapore.
- Ai4 2024: Aug. 12-14, Las Vegas, Nevada.
- The AI Conference: Sept. 18-19, San Francisco.
- AI Summit Seoul: Dec. 10-11, Seoul, South Korea.
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| 7 | | QUICK HITS: *This is sponsored content. | | | |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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