Windows Down, GPTs Up 🔌🔥

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover OpenAI’s new faster, cheaper model, GPT-4o Mini. There’s not much difference in everyday chats (and you can still use GPT-4o for more complex stuff), but the big takeaway is that 4o Mini makes it A LOT cheaper for developers to build AI apps. It’s an underrated win for OpenAI and the new era of AI applications. We also have news on the big CrowdStrike outage, where a single update paralyzed millions of Windows devices globally. We also cover Anthropic’s mega fund for startups looking to use AI, Amazon winning on Prime Day, and how AI can help cancer detection. Our Stat looks at a user milestone for Notion. And What’s dAppening looks at Polymarket traders gripped by the Trump vs. Biden Harris battle for the White House.

Our Top Take 🎬

🆕🏗️ OpenAI – GPT-4o Mini Advances Cost-Efficiencies in AI Apps

OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o Mini, a slimmed-down version of the current GPT-4o model touted as being faster and more cost-effective than rivals’ ‘lite’ models (Gemini Flash, Claude Haiku, etc.). To be fair, most of us won’t notice the difference when having a conversation with ChatGPT running on 4o Mini, and you can always switch to the more powerful GPT-4o for the complex stuff – but the game-changing element is the substantial drop in costs for developers. Those wanting to build AI apps – particularly AI apps impacted by high volumes of activity – can save up to 60% in costs when using it compared to OpenAI’s previous models. OpenAI also threw the gauntlet down to other AI platforms, with evidence here showing it blows cheap rivals like Meta’s Llama out of the water too. OpenAI has consistently claimed its mission is to bring down the costs of “adding intelligence” to apps: this is a case of putting their ‘Mini’ where their mouth is😉. #MiniModel Read more here.

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

It’s Summer Fridays at 3Advance. That means a half day for our team, and a head start for vacations. Check out some of the adventures our team has been on so far this Summer.

🦾 GPT of the Week: J1 Resume Bot by Gavin McMahon

This week Paul met with Gavin McMahon, Treasurer and Tech Maestro at Digital Irish. Gavin created a GPT that helps Irish people with their J1 Visa applications. Both Darren and Paul started their American adventures on a J1 Visa, so this is right up our alley. Gavin also talks about the impact of Digital Irish, the upcoming Irish Startup Week in October in NYC and other shared initiatives like the Digital Irish Venture Fund that 3Adventures (our sister co.) is investing in. Check it out on YouTube, Spotify and the usual places.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 100M

📈📉 Notion – One of Our Favorite Tech Apps Hits a Big Milestone

Notion is the document management and resource tool that acts as the engine room for your favorite newsletter👋. We ❤️ it, our clients ❤️ it and we weren’t surprised to see it has hit a huge milestone of 100 million users. That’s up 100-fold from the 1 million users it reached during the Covid-19 pandemic. This was no overnight success, they persevered through many iterations but remained true to their original vision of augmenting human intellect and we fully endorse that software can and should be beautiful. #NotionMilestone Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

🌩️🔌 CrowdStrike – Global Business and Services Paralyzed by Faulty Update

“Do not deploy on a Friday.” is an old tech company adage that tells us that shit unintentionally happens with IT updates (and devs don’t want to spend the weekend troubleshooting to fix it), and boy, was that evidence late last week. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s straightforward update wreaked havoc on millions of Windows devices across the globe, impacting airlines, hospitals, and everything in between. It didn’t impact us cos we love our Macs (💓🍏), but it did highlight the fragility of global interconnectivity. Apologies streamed out of CrowdStrike HQ, sure, but we’d really like to see concrete plans in place to stop this happening again. #LightsOut Read more here.

🕸️ What’s d’Appening

🪙🗳️ Polymarket – Election Fever Grips the Crypto Gamblers

Polymarket is described as the world’s biggest prediction market, a place where crypto bros and sisters spend their hard-earned tokens ‘trading’ (let’s call a spade a spade – betting) the outcome of world events. Now, election fever has swept the platform, with around $300 million staked on the outcome of the 2024 battle for the White House, alongside huge surges in trading a potential Kamala Harris presidency after President Biden announced he wouldn’t be seeking a second term. As we approach November (104 days to go!), volumes are expected to go through the roof. #Election2024 Read more here.

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