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Microsoft's Viva Sales and Teams Premium Take Over The Sales Game

02-03-2023

⚡ Today’s Highlights

  • 📰 News: Microsoft announces Viva Sales and Teams Premium

  • 💰 Funding: An upgrade for Shopify store owners, a sales email coaching platform, and backup for the bees!

  • 🦾 Tools: A writing assistant for iOS, AI for affiliate stores, and early stroke detection

  • 🧠 Resources: The ChatGPT Cheat Sheet

  • 📅 Events: The World AI Cannes Festival, The Gen AI Conference, RE•WORK AI Summit West, Data Science Salon Austin

📰 Today's Top Stories

(5 min read) (Source: Microsoft)

TLDR: AI for sales startups kiss your dreams goodbye because Microsoft is taking over again. They announced today that it has incorporated AI technology from OpenAI's GPT 3.5 into Viva Sales to enhance the customer service experience. The AI tool creates customized email responses with personalized text, promotions, pricing, and deadlines, which aims to save time for sales teams. According to Microsoft, salespeople spend over 66% of their time on average managing emails, but the new AI feature in Viva Sales should allow them to focus on more important tasks and increase productivity.

The email responses are generated using Microsoft Graph and customer relationship management data from Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. Viva Sales users have the option to generate suggested replies with personal text prompts or from a list of predefined response categories, which can be adjusted to fit their needs.

Microsoft is also integrating AI into its consumer and enterprise products and has introduced Teams Premium, which is built on Microsoft Teams. Teams Premium includes the latest technology such as OpenAI's GPT-3.5 language models, making meetings more intelligent, personalized, and secure. Teams Premium can be used for various types of meetings including one-on-one, large meetings, virtual appointments, and webinars.

The Big Picture: Microsoft is already making good on their commitment to integrating AI into all of the tools in the Microsoft suite. It seems only natural that Bing will be the next one to get a major AI face-lift.

(20 min read) (Source: NPR)

TLDR: NPR put OpenAI's ChatGPT to the test and asked if it could accurately explain basic concepts of rocketry. The results were less than stellar, as the program struggled to even produce simple equations and explanations. Other AI programs, including image generators, also performed poorly in creating accurate blueprints for rocket engines. This is not surprising, as these tools are still learning and can't differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information yet.

AI algorithms work by studying databases and using statistical analysis to predict outcomes, but this method has its limitations, especially in fields like rocket science. While some inaccuracies may not be a problem for creative purposes, providing even one incorrect fact in every 1000 responses is unacceptable, especially when the stakes are...astronomical.

The Big Picture: The good news is that we remain the top dogs in space for now. AI won’t be building any intergalactic space stations just yet. The bad news is that our language models are still relatively new to discerning the correct answers to some of the more complex problems that we throw at them. It has problems doing complicated math and is often quite easy to confuse.

Hopefully, as they advance, they’ll become the turning point we need to exponentially increase the rate at which humanity's space-faring capabilities evolve. It’s only a matter of time before we’re asking ChatGPT whether it can plagiarise college essays for us on Mars.

(18 min read) (Source: Harvard Business Review)

TLDR: Each year, around $48 trillion is invested in projects, but only 35% of these projects are considered successful. The slow evolution and adoption of current project management technologies is a contributing factor. The application of AI and other technological advancements in project management can improve project success rates by 25% and result in significant financial benefits.

By 2030, 80% of project management tasks are expected to be run by AI, according to a study from Gartner. The use of AI in project management has the potential to improve project success rates and result in significant value and benefits. AI is expected to play a major role in nearly every aspect of project management, disrupting six key areas:

  1. Better selection and prioritization through ML-driven prioritization that will result in faster project identification, selection, and balance of project portfolios.

  2. Support for the project management office through better monitoring, anticipation of potential problems, automation of preparation and distribution of project reports, and virtual assistant support.

  3. Improved, faster project definition, planning, and reporting through the use of big data and ML for risk management, as well as for defining, planning, and reporting projects.

  4. Enhanced collaboration and communication through the use of virtual assistants, virtual meeting tools, and AI-powered decision-making tools.

  5. Improved resource allocation through the use of AI-powered resource optimization and demand management tools.

  6. Optimized delivery and execution through the use of AI-powered planning, scheduling, and monitoring tools, as well as improved resource utilization.

The Big Picture: AI tools are quickly on the way to making a lot of people’s lives easier by reducing the friction in project management and that means that organizations inevitably run more smoothly and deliver better products, faster. Businesses will be able to maximize efficiency within their operations and upgrade their analytics in a major way, identifying and solving problems faster than ever before.

💰 Funding Alerts

  • Triple Whale, a Columbus-based startup, offers Shopify store owners a one-stop platform for analyzing their store data to improve conversions and marketing insights. The company has raised $25 million in a Series B funding round from investors including NFX, Elephant, and Shopify. The funds will be used to develop AI-based tools based on the collected data to improve marketing insights and conversion numbers.

  • Lavender is an AI-based sales email coaching platform that helps optimize emails to prospects by providing context and suggestions. The platform uses deep learning, communication psychology, and behavioural psychology to enhance reply rates. The company recently raised $13.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners and a seed round led by Signia Venture Partners with contributions from CapitalX, Position Ventures, and angel investors.

  • BloomX is a new startup that uses AI to improve the efficiency of pollination. It has raised $8 million in seed funding from Ahern Agribusiness. The aim is to create user-friendly, AI-powered mechanical pollinators that allow growers to control the pollination process without hurting bees.

🦾 Trending Tools

  • Ink is an AI-powered writing assistant that can generate text in different categories such as business, copywriting, marketing, social media, advertising, replies, and more. It has over 50 modes and categories to choose from, and can also check for spelling, paraphrase, summarize, or correct text. With a chat feature, it can even generate text for topics outside of its existing categories.

  • Evolup is a powerful tool that uses AI to make creating affiliate stores substantially easier. It utilizes generative AI integrations to design your affiliate website, generate product descriptions, find ideas for blog articles, expand to a global market, and drive more traffic to your store.

  • FAST AI is an app with modules that detect signs of acute stroke, such as facial asymmetry, speech changes, and arm weakness, by utilizing machine learning, computer vision, and signal processing techniques so that people at risk can recognize the signs and seek help as soon as possible.

🌎 Popular Content

1. A channel that posts an infinite stream of AI-made Seinfeld content is blowing up on Twitch. I don’t know about being afraid of fruits but I’m definitely afraid of the way George sits on the couch. (Twitch) 

watchmeforever - elaine goes out with a guy who hates fruit

Watch watchmeforever's clip titled "elaine goes out with a guy who hates fruit"

https://www.twitch.tv/watchmeforever/clip/CovertPrettiestPizzaRlyTho-StS5OHj2n-nGAVy5

2. Check out this podcast from Bloomberg’s The Big Take. Scientists are using AI and other tools to monitor and protect endangered whales, sharks, and bees from the dangers of container ships, commercial fishing, and pesticides. (Spotify and Apple Podcasts)

AI Is Here to Save The Whales. And Sharks. And Bees

Listen to this episode from The Big Take on Spotify. Endangered whales getting hit by container ships. Sharks dying on hooks intended for other fish. Pesticides wiping out bees by the millions. Scientists and entrepreneurs are testing new ways to use artificial intelligence and other technologies to try to protect threatened creatures from harm. Bloomberg reporter Todd Woody joins this episode to talk about a project that uses computers to listen across oceans for whales--and automatically warn ship captains when they’re on a collision course with a giant underwater mammal. We visit a company in the UK working on a device that sends a signal to repel sharks from fishing lines. And reporter Coco Liu describes a new food supplement for bees that turbo-charges their energy levels and replaces nutrients lost to habitat destruction. Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at [email protected] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2y6xe0kPaWYAh1wAaLeey5?si=XxMG2lNXSQergiV3OarSEQ

‎The Big Take on Apple Podcasts

‎News · 2023

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-big-take/id1578096201

3. When you use ChatGPT are you polite (say the usual hi’s, thank you’s, goodbye’s. you know, treat it like a buddy) or do you get right down to business? It seems like a lot of people are nice to it, maybe because we tend to humanize things or because they’d like to avoid the whole Ultron, Roko’s Basilisk, AI comes to life and takes revenge on those that it deems unworthy. Check out the discussion here. (Reddit)

4. ChatGPT has been quite successful at a lot of things, but it seems to have a knack for landing job interviews in particular (and sometimes stealing them from humans). A Reddit user who had been applying for jobs for months was having no luck until they used ChatGPT to write their cover letter. They immediately landed 3 job interviews. Check out what they had to say here. (Reddit) 

5. It seems like Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, keeps dissing OpenAI. Here’s what he had to say about a graph depicting the output of AI research from several industry leaders over the last 6 years. (Twitter)

👀 More Reading

🧠 Resources

This cheat sheet from KDnuggets outlines ChatGPT's capabilities and shares some strategies for developers and content creators to improve their use of OpenAI's large language model in various fields such as media content creation, natural language processing, and programming.

 📅 Upcoming Events

  1. The World AI Cannes Festival (February 9-11, 2023. Cannes, France + Virtual), where decision-makers and AI innovators meet, where the most promising innovations and technologies get into the spotlight, where those who are currently building the world’s most game-changing AI strategies and use-cases will be on stages.

  2. The Gen AI Conference (February 14, 2023. San Francisco, CA) hosted by Jasper AI, is the first-ever generative AI conference. Attendees can learn about the many recent developments in the field of AI from experts and network with like-minded individuals in AI, business, and marketing. Online registration will close on February 13th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

  3. RE•WORK AI Summit West, Deep Learning Summit (February 15-16, 2023. San Francisco, CA), a chance to hear the latest technology advancements, practical examples of how to apply AI to solve challenges in cross-industry settings, business and society, and delve deeper into the work of leading AI experts in a series of presentations, panel discussions, interviews and fireside chats.

  4. Data Science Salon Austin (February 21-22, 2023. Austin, TX + Virtual) is a two-day 500-person conference focused on AI and machine learning applications in the enterprise. The intimate event curates data science sessions to bring industry leaders and specialists face-to-face to educate each other on innovative new solutions in artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics and acceptance around best practices.

 💼 Jobs

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