Smooth Operator 🕵🏻🤖

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we preview the launch of OpenAI “Operator,” its AI agent tool that will be able to perform tasks on your devices without human supervision. We also look at the Gemini app for iOS, adding intelligence to iPhone while we wait for Apple to get its house in order. We have stories on Mark Zuckerberg recording a song with T-Pain (why, Mark?), some big updates from French AI company Mistral, Coca-Cola’s controversial AI ad, and a whole lot more.

🎬 Our Top Take

🕵🏻 🤖 OpenAI – Autonomous AI “Operator” Agent Will Launch in January

2025 could be a pivotal year for OpenAI and the momentum of the AI sector in general. The company remains the leader in the field, but it is smarting from huge financial losses, questions over diminishing returns from new models, the underwhelming impact of the GPT Store, and all the C-suite drama. Could “Operator” be the rabbit in the hat? Launching in January, Operator is the codename for OpenAI’s autonomous AI agent, a tool that can perform tasks, such as booking a flight, without human oversight. The roll-out is expected to be slow (devs will get to play with it first), but the demonstration that AI can be more than just a question-and-answer service is important. Autonomous AI agents already exist for enterprise to simplify and manage workflows (we use them here at 3Advance), but OpenAI’s goal is clearly to have them engrained in consumer life within a few years. Google, as you might expect, also has plans to release its own consumer-focused AI agents soon. #SmoothOperator Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Gemini iOS App

Last week’s release of Google’s Gemini app for iPhone came with something of a flex, with the tech media falling over themselves to say that it means iPhone users can access AI features while they wait for the full roll out of Apple Intelligence. It’s true, though, and you should note that, unlike Apple Intelligence, you can access Gemini on any fairly modern iPhone. The big kahuna, however, is that iPhone users can access Gemini Live, Google’s conversational AI assistant. That’s basically Google’s version of an AI-powered Siri. Gemini iOS app is free, but you will need a subscription to access some of the advanced features. Get it here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 124B Parameters

📈📉 Mistral – European AI Heavyweight Releases Host of New Products

Mistral has upgraded its “Le Chat” (how French) AI bot, adding a ton of new features like image generation, web search, an interactive canvas, and more. It puts it on a serious footing to challenge ChatGPT (it’s also free). The news comes as Mistral also releases Pixtral Large, its new 124 billion parameter model. That, too, puts it on an even keel with models like Claude 3, Llama 3, and the GPT4 series. #LeChatRivals Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

There’s hardly a day that goes by that we don’t discover a new use case for Generative-AI. We’re running experiments and trying new tech. Obviously, this is where Darren, our CTO, shines. Darren has started a series on LinkedIn where he shares the latest advances in AI and, every now and again, demos this capability. Just today, he showcased a local multi-modal LLM example for processing healthcare receipts. (If you remember, a few years ago, we developed HSA Coach, so this was always something we wanted to do.) Local LLMs allow applications to be built securely and privately without relying on external APIs like OpenAIs. Darren’s experiments demonstrate the power of fine-tuning and prompt engineering for domain-specific tasks and offer a glimpse into the future of safe, efficient AI development. Check it out below, and make sure to connect with Darren on LinkedIn. Then, whenever you’re ready to talk AI with us, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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