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Models Droppin’ 🤙🤖
What’s Appening: New AI Models, Android 15, Copilot Agents, Fitbit Gemini
Newsletter
October 22, 2024
MO’ MODELS. MO’ PROBLEMS… FOR OPENAI.
👀 TLDR
In this week’s What’s Appening, we look at the new AI models making waves. Chip-maker Nvidia customized Llama 3.1 with some impressive results, whereas IBM is making a big push for enterprise AI with Granite. We also have news on the release of Android 15, a birthday greeting for Apple Pay, Stripe making a big crypto acquisition, Amazon going nuclear, and more!
🎬 Our Top Take
🤙🤖Nvidia – New AI Model Beats GPT-4 and Claude 3.5
Nvidia is famously raking in the cash by providing the chips for the AI revolution, so it’ll come as a surprise to some that they are also in the software side of things. It quietly unveiled Llama-3.1-Nemotron-70B-Instruct (name rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?), which was demonstrated to outperform rival models from OpenAI and Anthropic in some metrics. Now, many of you will spot “Llama” and recognize that’s Meta’s AI, and you’d be right: Nvidia took Meta’s Llama 3.1, which is open source, and applied different training techniques, including a lot of human feedback, to come up with this new model. It feeds into what we reported on with OpenAI o1 a few weeks back. Namely, that new approaches to training AI might yield better results than simply building “bigger” models. Nvidia’s not the only big name dropping AI models this week: IBM has released Granite 3.0, another open-source model (built for business), and in just the last few hours, Elon Musk announced that xAI is now live too! With an ever growing list of alternatives, it’s no wonder OpenAI is taking on so much debt to stay ahead. AGI or bust? #SuperModels Read more here.
🗣️ Poll: Has AI Been Introduced in Your Place of Work? |
📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance
We're excited to be here at DC Startup & Tech Week, diving into the dynamic energy of the DMV's booming startup and innovation ecosystem. This week is an incredible opportunity to connect with visionary founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators, all coming together to share insights, build relationships, and celebrate the future of innovation.
Cameca and Kate are running around DCSTW with a selfie frame asking for elevator pitches. If you see them, do your 30-second elevator pitch and let us know why your startup is going to change the world. Check it out here.
📲 App of the Week: Science News
This is another app from the 3Advance war chest! Science News Magazine comes with over 100 years of history behind it, covering everything from astronomy to zoology with quality reporting and expert insight. This isn’t a new app, but with the new design and user experience, Science News finally has the mobile ‘home’ it deserves. Our goal was to double the average rating in the app store, and if you check it out, you can see why that’s been successful. 💪 You can download it for free on iOS here and on Android here.
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🧐 Stat of the Week: 187 Employees
📈📉 Microsoft – Copilot Agents Could Revolutionize Enterprise Scaling
Microsoft is releasing a bunch of autonomous AI agents for Copilot over the coming months, which it says will revolutionize businesses’ ability to scale. With the announcement, Microsoft pushed a bunch of interesting stats, including Honeywell’s assertion that using AI agents equates to adding 187 full-time employees. Microsoft is really pushing this (the agents use OpenAI’s o1/Strawberry), calling them “the new apps for an AI-powered world.” Worth keeping an eye on. #AgentAI Read more here.
🗞️ Other Stories
🥳 HB, Apple Pay! It’s been 10 years of growth and evolution for Apple Pay, but we have even bigger Apple payment news: You can now use Apple CarPlay to order Chick-fil-A. Details here. ☢️ Amazon Goes Nuclear. After Microsoft & Google fired up the proverbial reactor, Amazon has now dropped $500 million into nuclear power projects to power data centers. Story here. 📈 Bluesky Hits the Heights. Changes on X, including permission for AI training on users’ posts, are said to have led to half a million sign-ups in a day for rival app Bluesky. Story here. | 🆕 Android 15 Drops. Google released its latest mobile software, but while there are plenty of new features, we also note that to get the real benefit you’ll need a Pixel. Find more here. ⌚️ AI On Your Wrist. It makes sense that Fitbit would incorporate AI features. It’s launched Fitbit Labs, allowing select users to test Google Gemini-powered AI features. More on that here. 🌁 Stripe Building Bridges. Stripe has purchased Bridge, a software company that allows banks and other trad-fi entities to accept stablecoins. At $1.1B, it’s the biggest-ever deal for a crypto company. More here. |
✍️ Quote of the Week:
Simplicity in design isn’t about removing complexity; it’s about masking the complexities beneath a simple, usable interface. We believe in making apps that feel simple to use. In other words (and acronyms), keep it simple stupid, or KISS! 😘
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