Ben's Bites

OpenAI launched 4 key upgrades for developers at their SF chapter of Dev Day The biggest update is a new Realtime API that allows developers to create voice interactions like Advanced Voice mode Others include prompt caching, fine-tuning on images and model distillation OpenAI has also officially announced raising $6.6B at a $157B valuation (biggest venture round ever!!)

a couple AI news you may have missed: 1/ Zapier announced new AI features to automate your work at ZapConnect ‘24 2/ California’s governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1047 - The controversial AI safety bill More info ⤵️

NotebookLM, A side project from Google is becoming everyone’s favourite AI app It recently launched a feature to create audio podcasts from the text content you add to it These podcasts are gripping, with realistic voices and banter—not just more of the text-to-speech bore Besides “Audio Overviews”, NotebookLM also gives a great UX to “chat with your documents” Tutorials to use it at work are coming

Meta AI gets more useful—with voice, images and more. Zuckerberg announced a ton of impressive upgrades to Meta’s AI products and models at Meta Connect—including four new Llama models, AI features for creators, and voice and image capabilities in Meta AI. What does this mean? First off, you can now use voice to chat with AI at Meta on Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram DMs, and it'll respond out loud. We get the option to choose from different voices, including celebrities like Awkwafina, John Cena, and Kristen Bell. Plus, Meta AI can understand photos we share in chats. These features are powered by two new Llama 3.2 models that are multimodal (i.e., they can understand images). Alongside these, there are two lightweight text-only Llamas that can run locally on small devices like mobiles. To quickly list other upgrades: - Auto-dubbed Reels: Reels can now be auto-dubbed with lip-sync between English and Spanish, breaking language barriers for content creators. - AI Creator Avatars: Creators can use Meta's free AI Studio to generate realistic video avatars of themselves to interact with fans. - AI-Generated Chat Themes: You can now create personalized chat themes using AI in Messenger and Instagram DMs. - Expanded AI Tools for Businesses: Businesses can build AI assistants to chat with customers, offer support, and facilitate sales directly within WhatsApp and Messenger. - Meta AI-Generated Content in Feeds: You might start seeing AI-generated images personalized for you in your Facebook and Instagram feeds. Why should you care? Zuckerberg shared that Meta now has over 500 million monthly active users engaging with Meta AI. He's literally making frontier-level models free to use in Meta’s products and shaping the vision of how AI integrates into daily life—especially with their work on the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. And let's not forget the new Orion AR glasses prototype from Meta, which is bonkers. It's a full-fledged AR headset that brings us closer to the future of true augmented reality. Zuckerberg has been working on this for almost a decade, and while it's not yet a consumer product, the technology is advancing rapidly. We'd say OpenAI and Google need to watch out in the consumer race for AI.

👀 ICYMI: New stuff we’ve launched

Top new tools from this week

OpenAI released their much anticipated Advanced Voice mode for ChatGPT It has a new look and 5 new voices But what’s OpenAI without some content for an HBO show: A day after the release, CTO Mira Murati and two other top execs are leaving the company To top it off, OpenAI’s switch to a for-profit company is probably nearby, with Sam Altman getting 7% equity

Google just dropped some serious upgrades to their Gemini AI models. Think better, faster, cheaper - the whole shebang. But since the branding is the same—Gemini 1.5, there’s less enthusiasm about the updates. What does this mean? There are two new production-grade models: Gemini-1.5-Pro-002 and Gemini-1.5-Flash-002. - These models are zippy: 2x faster output, and 3x lower latency. - Higher rate limits for both: 2x higher for Flash, 3x for Pro. Build more, wait less. - They're smarter too: 7% bump in general tasks, a whopping 20% jump in math skills. Also, Gemini 1.5 Pro's price got slashed by over 50% for both input and output tokens. From the benchmarks analysis, this new Pro model is better than GPT-4o and also tries to pick a fight with the new o1-preview. Oh, and there's a new experimental Flash model too that devs love (Google said so). Why should I care? Google is starting to ship really impressive models. They are yet to make it to Gemini the app (Gemini Advanced), but if you're building with AI, this is huge. Better performance, lower costs, and higher limits mean you can do way more with these models. You can try all of the new models free of cost in Google AI Studio and see if they perform better for your use case or not.

Apple's rolling out its Apple Intelligence features with the iPhone 16 lineup, promising a smarter, more capable smartphone experience. What's going on here? Apple will start the rollout of Apple Intelligence next month. What does this mean? AI-based Writing Tools are baked in everywhere. They’ll help you refine text across apps with rewriting and summarizing. All your emails and notifications will automatically summarise the most helpful information. The Photos app gains AI-powered movie creation and a "Clean Up" tool for removing distractions. In the coming months, you will also be able to search across your photos and videos in natural language. Siri gets a makeover with a glowing light design and improved language understanding. It also integrates deeper with Google and ChatGPT. A new visual intelligence feature allows you to use your camera to search info on your surroundings. Why should you care? If you've got an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, you're about to get a big AI upgrade. Think smarter photo editing, more useful Siri, and AI-powered productivity tools right in your pocket. Plus, with Apple's privacy-first approach, you get cutting-edge AI without compromising your data. It's Apple's answer to the AI arms race, and it's coming to your iPhone soon. More info: https://lnkd.in/d5gdwDrH

OpenAI says 1M people use ChatGPT business now OpenAI is also considering more ChatGPT plans at higher price points (ranging from $200 to $2k) Employers: get your employees a team subscription, because they are already using AI, with self-paid accounts https://lnkd.in/dNuJdNQM