Need to Know News - December 4th, 2024
In this week's Need to Know News edition:
🤖 AI breaks onto the online shopping scene with major Black Friday impact...
🤖 Chatbots just beat humans in one of the most human domains...
🤖 100% of companies in this industry say AI is boosting their revenue...
Plus, a whole lot more!
AI In Action
Amazon Launches Nova: A Powerful New Family of AI Models to Transform Business
Amazon just fired a major shot in the AI wars. Their new Nova family of AI models can handle text, images, and video - and they're doing it for 75% less than competitors.
The lineup includes five powerhouse models, from the speedy Nova Micro to the creative Nova Canvas and Reel. But the star attraction, Nova Premier, launches in early 2025 for tackling complex reasoning tasks.
"We have about 1,000 AI applications in motion," says Rohit Prasad, Amazon's AI chief. These new tools are already showing impressive results. Advertisers using Nova's creative tools are promoting five times more products and doubling their image usage.
It works in 200 languages, plugs easily into existing systems, and lets businesses customize it with their own data. Plus, Amazon built in safety guardrails from the start.
Fifth of Consumers Used AI Chatbots to Uncover Black Friday Deals
Black Friday just hit a massive milestone, with shoppers spending $74.4 billion worldwide. But here's the surprising twist - AI chatbots helped drive those record-breaking numbers.
A new Adobe survey reveals that 20% of U.S. shoppers used AI tools to hunt down deals. Even more shocking? Traffic from chatbots to retail sites exploded by 1,800% compared to last year.
The traditional Black Friday formula still worked - deep discounts (up to 27.8% on toys) drew crowds. Mobile shopping also flexed its muscles, accounting for 55% of all online purchases and racking up $5.9 billion in sales.
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Meta's AI Ad Tools Are Crushing It: New Data Shows Massive Performance Gains
Meta's bet on AI advertising is paying off big time. Their new "Andromeda" system is transforming how ads reach users, and the numbers are turning heads.
What happens when advertisers switch on Meta's AI-powered Advantage+ creative features? They see a 22% jump in return on ad spend. Meta's AI studies how millions of users interact with ads across Facebook and Instagram. Then, uses those insights to match ads with the right people.
Over a million advertisers are already using Meta's AI tools, creating more than 15 million ads monthly. Those using AI image generation are seeing 7% more conversions. Plus, Meta's upgraded ad matching system (Andromeda) is delivering 8% better ad quality in key segments.
Car Dealerships Using AI See Massive Revenue Spike - 100% Report Growth
A Fullpath report found every single dealership they surveyed using AI saw their revenue grow last year. And over half reported jumps of more than 20%.
The secret? AI supercharges everything from email marketing (achieving 50.7% open rates versus the usual 15%) to 24/7 customer support through smart chatbots. Most dealers are doubling down. 81% plan to increase their AI budgets in 2025.
"AI adoption is not only unavoidable but will soon be a determining factor in driving future business success," the report states. Even cautious dealers are seeing wins.
AI Chatbots Beat Humans at Reading Social Situations
A study published in Scientific Reports just revealed something shocking. AI chatbots are better than humans at judging tricky social situations.
Here's what they did: Each AI bot took a 12-scenario test ten times. The test showed tricky social situations with four possible responses. Both humans and AI had to pick the best and worst actions for each scenario. A panel of 109 experts rated the correct answers.
Three AI stars emerged: Claude led the pack, followed by Microsoft Copilot and you.com's assistant. When the bots missed the top choice, they usually picked the second-best option - just like humans do.
Amazon and PMG Reveal How AI is Supercharging Ad Performance
AI is transforming how ads work online - and two major players just shared their winning formula. At Amazon's big conference, marketing firm PMG revealed how they're using Amazon's ad platform to get better results, faster.
"It's like having Iron Man's suit," says Sam Bloom, PMG's partnership head. Their success comes from four key parts: knowing customers deeply, connecting data points, using AI for targeting, and constantly improving campaigns.
PMG's tech leaders aren't worried about AI replacing jobs. Instead, they see AI handling the boring stuff so marketers can focus on creative work. Just as refrigerators changed how we store food, AI is changing how we run ads - making them smarter and more effective.
At the Frontier of AI
Runway AI's New Tool Turns Your Creative Maps Into Videos
Runway AI just dropped a mind-bending new tool, Think of it like a creative treasure map. You place images as stops along your journey, and the AI turns them into flowing video content.
The magic happens in what they call "latent space. This is where you map out their ideas visually before creating the final video. It's perfect for creative minds who don't think in straight lines. You can branch out, experiment with different paths, and transform images into various styles using simple text commands.
"It's like choosing your own adventure," says Runway, aiming to make video creation more accessible and intuitive. The company plans to roll out access to this new tool in the coming months.
OpenAI Eyes Ad Revenue While Sending Mixed Signals About Timeline
OpenAI might start showing ads - but they're being careful about when and how. The AI giant's money chief, Sarah Friar, revealed they're exploring advertising options. This comes after the company hit a massive $150 billion value in October.
They're already making moves. OpenAI has been quietly hiring ad experts from Google and Meta. Plus, they've got serious advertising talent at the top. Their product leader, Kevin Weil, helped create successful ad programs at Instagram and X.
But after the interview, Friar changed her tune. She said they're focusing on their current business model and have "no active plans" for ads. This flip-flop comes as smaller rival Perplexity has already started testing ads in their AI search engine.
Google's AI Video Generator Rolls Out in Private Preview - Here's Who Can Access
Google has unveiled their powerful new AI video tool. Veo can transform simple text descriptions or photos into smooth, realistic videos - making it a direct competitor to OpenAI's (unreleased) Sora. The tool creates high-quality footage at either 24 or 30 frames per second, solving common motion problems that plague other AI video tools.
Along with Veo, Google released Imagen 3, their most advanced image generator. Marketing teams can now use both tools to create social media content, blog assets, and even film clips. But there's limited access - only Google Cloud customers can try it through the Vertex AI platform.
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