Need to Know News - May 1st, 2024
In this week's Need to Know News edition...Meta's AI is burning through advertisers ad spend...Marques Brownlee dunks on another AI virtual assistant...
And how OpenAI is about to take on Google Search with a potentially historic announcement. Plus, a whole lot more!
AI In Action
Meta’s ‘Set It and Forget It’ AI Ad Tools Are Misfiring and Blowing Through Cash
It was Valentine’s Day when Meta’s ad platform started going off the rails. RC Williams, the co-founder of the Philadelphia-based marketing agency 1-800-D2C, had set one of Meta’s automated ad tools to run campaigns for two separate clients.
But when he checked the platform that day, he found that Meta had blown through roughly 75 percent of the daily ad budgets for both clients in under a couple of hours. The Verge spoke to several marketers and businesses that advertise on Meta’s platforms who tell a similar story of Meta blowing through budgets and failing to deliver sales.
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Rabbit R1: Barely Reviewable
Marques Brownlee reviews the Rabbit R1, a new AI virtual assistant device. It features a lightweight design, built-in screen, swiveling camera, and a scroll wheel for navigation. The R1 responds more quickly than the similar Humane AI Pin but has drawbacks like poor battery life and missing features. It looks to differentiate itself with a $200 price and "large action model" for interacting with apps, but currently only supports four.
The device feels unfinished, with promised features still in development. Brownlee critiques the trend of releasing half-baked tech products that require updates. He remains excited about the future of AI assistants but advises buying based on current capabilities.
Full Review
AWS Releases Amazon Q: Enterprise-Tailored GenAI
Amazon has launched Amazon Q, its generative AI-powered assistant to enhance software development and streamline access to company data. The new offering allows users to generate code, debug, plan, and execute tasks efficiently, significantly boosting productivity. Amazon Q connects to enterprise data repositories to provide information on various business aspects, making it a robust tool for developers and business users
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Marin Software Launches AI-powered Anomaly Detector to Unlock Growth in Performance Marketing Campaigns
This new tool automatically identifies and summarizes unexpected results in performance marketing campaigns across Google, Meta, Amazon, and other pay-per-click ad platforms.
The analysis starts at the account level and zooms into the campaigns and ad groups. It summarizes the root cause of the outlier and potential ways to address or capitalize on the anomaly. Marin also highlights high-level data trends that may be overlooked during manual analysis. It’s all summarized in an easy-to-read narrative email that’s delivered to users' inboxes and can be shared across teams.
Digits Releases AI Bill Pay for Small Businesses
Calling it the world’s first bill pay product to fully understand invoice document structure, the company said in a news release that the software uses layout-aware language models to enable business owners manage their accounts payable workflows in a few clicks.
Business owners can drag and drop their bills onto the Digits platform or forward them via email. Digits’ AI then processes the invoices and extracts relevant vendor and payment information, including line-level details. Business owners can then click “Approve and Pay,” completing the process.
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At the Frontier of AI
OpenAI to Launch Google Search Alternative Soon
OpenAI is likely to announce a new search engine soon, revealed Jimmy Apples, stating that the company is looking to host an event this month, tentatively on May 9th. According to a report, OpenAI has been working on a web search product that will intensify its competition with Google. The search service is set to be partially powered by Bing.
In a recent podcast with Lex Fridman, OpenAI chief, Sam Altman said that, “The intersection of LLMs plus search, I don’t think anyone has cracked the code on yet. I would love to go do that. I think that would be cool.”
Estée Lauder Cos. Creates AI Innovation Lab with Microsoft
The pair have announced the creation of an AI Innovation Lab, offering enhanced marketing and product development capabilities. Backed by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, the project’s generative AI tools will support the more than 20 prestige beauty brands across the Estée Lauder Cos. portfolio.
“With Microsoft’s generative AI tools and extensive expertise, we are able to leverage ELC’s tremendous data to create more personalized consumer experiences and faster insights to action resulting in increased speed to market and stronger local relevancy,” Ms. Lauder said.
Financial Times Signs Licensing Deal with OpenAI
The FT writes in a press release that ChatGPT users will see summaries, quotes, and links to its articles. Any prompt that returns information from the FT will be attributed to the publication.
In return, OpenAI will work with the news organization to develop new AI products. The FT already uses OpenAI products, saying it is a customer of ChatGPT Enterprise. Last month, the FT released a generative AI search function on beta powered by Anthropic’s Claude large language model.
Apple to Reportedly Use AI For Ad-Free Browsing and Page Summaries on iPhone and Mac
According to a report from Apple Insider, Apple is working on two new AI features for Safari 18 in iOS 18 and macOS 15 to improve the web-browsing experience significantly on iPhone and Mac devices.
They're working on something called "Web Eraser", an AI-driven tool to help you remove specific portions of a web page, including advertisements and images. It's more likely to be integrated into the browser and less likely to be a browser extension, so when available, you should be able to block ads from the web browser without downloading a third-party web extension.
Apple Targets Google Staff to Build Artificial Intelligence Team
Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and has created a secretive European laboratory in Zurich, as the tech giant builds a team to battle rivals in developing new AI models and products.
According to a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn profiles as well as public job postings and research papers, the $2.7tn company has undertaken a hiring spree over recent years to expand its global AI and machine learning team.
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