Search Usurper 🔎🌎

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the launch of ChatGPT Search. Talked about for over a year as the potential Google Killer, we think it has potential but is not quite there yet. We also take a look at AI’s role in the elections: did it make an impact this year? We have news on Big Tech earnings, the hugely interesting GitHub Spark app builder, Threads MAUs, and much more!

Our Top Take 🎬

🔎👑 OpenAI – ChatGPT Search Arrives to Muted Response

Is this the first major product OpenAI launched without much fanfare? Perhaps the announcement got drowned out by all the election noise, but ChatGPT Search is here. As you might expect, it copies much of the formula used by Perplexity AI, so it’s understandable that the tech media isn’t trumpeting anything revolutionary. Our own testing confirms that. It’s fine and does exactly what we expected. You can install it as a browser extension, then just use it as you would Google or Bing. Answers are backed with links and citations and presented on the ChatGPT interface with additional summaries. But here’s the kicker: it feels kind of closed off, useful for finding specific answers, but it does not have the broader discoverability options of traditional search engines. Importantly for functionality, it takes an extra couple of seconds to complete the search. We agree mostly with the consensus in the tech media. This does not feel like the Google Killer just yet: it needs to evolve before it supplants the king. #SearchGPT Read more here.

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

With the presidential election seemingly hovering over all we do right now, today we’re taking the opportunity to switch focus to our mental wellness… and PUPPIES!!! Yes, you heard that right. Finally, finally, we can talk all about the cutest damn app we’ve ever worked on! LifePlus Pets was officially announced in Germany last week, with a global release in January. It combines personal health and wellness with dog training and doggie-related exercise, creating a healthier you, one tail wag at a time. Imagine lowering stress, staying active, and feeling happier - all while bonding with your furry best friend. We’ve been poring over videos of the world’s cutest puppies every day of development, and we can’t wait till this app is released in the wild. “Better dog. Better me.” Woof woof!!! Here’s a sneak peek.

📲 App of the Week: NotebookLM

Designed to help students, professionals, and knowledge-seekers get more out of their notes, NotebookLM is Google’s new AI-powered research assistant. It promises to summarize, generate questions, and brainstorm ideas alongside you—perfect for organizing insights or prepping for a big project… But what’s really going viral with NotebookLM is the automatic podcast generator. If you haven’t heard one of these already, pop-on over to LinkedIn and check out Paul’s screencast as he guinea pigs the 3Advance website.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 25%

📈📉 Google – Over a Quarter of Code Now Generated by AI

Google’s earnings (see below) pleased everyone this week, especially stockholders, but buried in its report was a little nugget that showed that 25% of its code is now generated by AI. It’s hugely significant, as we are talking about millions of lines of code per year. It’ll be interesting to see how this figure evolves in the coming years. #AICode Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

🗳️🤖 Election 2024 – AI’s Impact on the US Presidential Race

Hey, it’s election day, as if you didn’t know. But how did AI shape things? Thankfully, it seems that the predicted storm of AI fakery and misinformation didn’t arrive, at least not to the extent that many expected. OpenAI set out its stall early on, choosing to work with legacy media to ensure its products inform, not mislead. Perplexity AI launched its own election hub (quite the flex in our view), helping voters learn about votes past and present while providing real-time updates with its election tracker. Another AI app, My Ballot, was launched to help undecided or underinformed voters make their decisions. But overall, we agree with TIME’s assertion that – for good or for ill – AI’s impact on the elections was rather underwhelming. See you in 2028, then.

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