Need to Know News - April 3rd, 2024
In this week's Need to Know News edition...an AI-powered toothbrush debuts with a commercial featuring digital avatars of famous influencers...
Perplexity AI plans to begin selling ads..."meet the new boss same as the old boss?"
And OpenAI hints at its Voice Engine technology that clones voices in 15 seconds. But the company's holding back the public release due to potential misuse and safety concerns. Plus, a whole lot more!
AI In Action
The Masters to Use AI for Spanish Language Audio and Real-Time Data Analysis
The Masters and IBM are expanding their use of AI at this year’s tournament, using the technology to create spoken word Spanish language commentary for every shot and serving up data-driven insights.
IBM uses multiple foundation models, including the text-to-speech function to train AI algorithms in the language of golf and the Masters – where tradition is almost as important as the sport itself. These algorithms automate the addition of spoken commentary, complete with varied sentence structure and vocabulary, avoiding redundant sentences and repetition to make the clips informative and engaging.
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Oclean Launches AI-Powered Toothbrush with Commercial Featuring Digital Avatars
The Oclean X Ultra is a smart sonic toothbrush, featuring visible brushing with AI voice guidance. To launch the new toothbrush, Oclean assembled a squad of 10 influencers for a cutting-edge commercial.
In a pioneering move, none of the featured influencers physically appeared during the shoot. Instead, their digital avatars were meticulously crafted using advanced 3D scanning and AI technology, spearheaded by Humanverse, a leading expert in virtual human creation.
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How the Ad Industry Is Making AI Images Look Less Like AI
Lego landed in hot water recently for using AI to generate some off-putting images of Ninjago characters, featuring trademark AI quirks like smoothed-out faces and weird imperfections like extra fingers. The toy company swiftly removed the AI-made pictures after backlash.
While generative AI offers exciting creative opportunities, a major challenge is the artificial "AI aesthetic" that consumers are already rejecting. Ad agencies are getting creative, partnering with human AI artists, manually adding imperfections, and writing nuanced prompts to steer the AI output. Though the unnatural rendering issues may improve over time, brands currently have to put in extra work to make AI imagery palatable and avoid that uncanny valley effect.
AI’s Quiet Creep Into Music Highlighted by ‘SpongeBob’ Voices And A Secretive Artist Called Glorb
At first, the YouTube videos look like scenes from Nickelodeon’s popular “SpongeBob SquarePants” cartoon. But unlike in the show, the characters in the videos aren’t singing jolly songs about life in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Instead, they’re rapping about drugs and guns.
The mastermind behind the raps is an artist named Glorb. As AI tools continue to evolve rapidly, it has become easier for artists like Glorb to make music using generative AI — and become successful in their own right.
At the Frontier of AI
Perplexity Plans to Sell Ads
Perplexity, the generative AI search engine vying to compete with Google, has an innovative plan for integrating ads. Instead of just displaying sponsored links, Perplexity will allow brands to influence the follow-up suggested questions that make up 40% of queries on the platform.
When users ask Perplexity's AI chatbot a question, it will sometimes recommend related follow-up questions - and some of those could be sponsored by brands to steer users toward specific products and services.
Amazon Spends $2.75 Billion On AI Startup Anthropic
Amazon is making its largest outside investment in its three-decade history as it looks to gain an edge in the artificial intelligence race.
The tech giant said it will spend another $2.75 billion backing Anthropic, the makers of chatbot, Claude. Amazon will maintain a minority stake in the company and won’t have an Anthropic board seat, the company said. The deal was struck at the AI startup’s last valuation, which was $18.4 billion, according to a source.
AI Advertising Start-up Raises $115 Million
The Brandtech Group, an innovative advertising start-up, has recently achieved a remarkable milestone. They're being valued at a staggering $4 billion following a successful fundraising round. This valuation underscores the company's ambitious vision to transform the traditional advertising landscape. And they'll do it through AI to make marketing campaigns not only more efficient but also more effective.
Founded by the visionary former Havas CEO David Jones, The Brandtech Group has successfully secured $115 million from a mix of new and existing investors.
Taco Bell, Pizza Hut Going 'AI-First' with Fast-Food Innovations
Yum! Brands is going all-in on "AI-powered" fast food across KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. With digital sales now making up nearly half their revenue, the company sees AI as key for everything from taking orders to operations like setting oven temps and scheduling staff.
They have a manager app called SuperApp, already testing generative AI so employees can get AI-generated instructions and answers. A big motivation is the new $20/hour minimum wage in California - as labor costs rise, chains like Yum are turning to AI and automation to reduce overhead.
OpenAI Holds Back Public Release of Tech that Can Clone Someone’s Voice in 15 Seconds Due to Safety Concerns
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is getting into the voice assistant business and showing off new technology that can clone a person’s voice, but says it won’t yet release it publicly due to safety concerns.
The artificial intelligence company unveiled its new Voice Engine technology last Friday, just over a week after filing a trademark application for the name. The company claims that it can recreate a person’s voice with just a 15-second recording of that person talking.
How the Stargate Project Could Change AI
Microsoft and OpenAI's reported $100 billion "Stargate" project aims to build an AI supercomputer by 2028, potentially pioneering human-like language models that grasp nuance and emotion.
The unprecedented computing power could revolutionize industries through hyper-personalization and automating complex tasks. But it may also worsen AI chip shortages, driving up prices and access barriers. In the near-term, Stargate will likely spur new AI products from Microsoft. Longer-term, they may need to raise prices as demand outpaces supply.
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