PWC Is Investing $1 Billion In Generative AI

⚡ Today’s Highlights

• 📰 News: PwC is putting $1 billion into gen AI

• 💰 Funding: Harvey, aiXplain, AirOps, and AaDya Security

• 🦾 Tools: Supercharge meetings and customer relations with AI

• 📅 Events: EmTech Digital, MIT Tech Reviews signature AI conference, starts next Tuesday (March 2)!

📰 Today's Top Stories

PricewaterhouseCoopers to Pour $1 Billion Into Generative AI

(8 min read) (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

TLDR: PwC will invest $1 billion in generative AI over the next three years, working with OpenAI and Microsoft to automate tax, audit, and consulting services.

• Generative AI tools will be integrated into PwC's technology stack, with the company also providing advice to other businesses, training workers in AI, and potentially making acquisitions.

• OpenAI's GPT-4 language model will be used to build apps in Microsoft's Azure cloud, with the technology applied to preparing reports, analyzing business strategies, and creating sales campaigns, among other uses.

• Other accounting firms, including KPMG and Ernst & Young, are also investing in generative AI, which has uses in tax preparation, auditing, and other financial services.

• PwC aims to automate repetitive tasks while optimizing jobs rather than replacing workers with generative AI, and other companies are building their own generative AI language models.

Deloitte looks to bring AI to the frontline with a little help from Nvidia

(6 min read) (Source: VentureBeat)

TLDR: Deloitte has launched two new services for its Quartz AI offering, Compass AI for logistics and Frontline AI for customer care, using technologies from Nvidia.

• The consulting firm has partnered with Nvidia to advance its AI initiatives, making use of Nvidia's omniverse and enterprise AI stack to build out Quartz AI, following the announcement of a new generative AI and foundation model practice earlier this month.

Stability AI releases its Image Upscaling API

(3 min read) (Source: Stability AI)

TLDR: Stability AI has released its Image Upscaling API, which uses AI to increase the size of any image while maintaining or improving its level of detail.

• The API includes two open-source models, Real-ESRGAN and Stable Diffusion 4x Upscaler, which can upscale any image and were added to continuously enrich the Image Upscaling API.

Tech giants bury mediocre results under AI hype

(3 min read) (Source: Reuters)

TLDR: Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet heavily used the AI hype as a way to excite Wall Street and support valuations during their lukewarm quarterly results.

• Microsoft's revenue was $52.9 billion, up 7% YoY, but flat from the previous quarter. Azure's annual growth rate declined from 46% to 27% YoY.

• Alphabet's revenue grew 3% YoY to $69.8 billion, while earnings decreased from $16.4 billion to $15.1 billion due to employee reductions.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that AI has helped boost traffic to Facebook and Instagram, leading to a surge in shares by 12%. Meta plans to increase capital expenditures for generative AI.

• Although none of the companies showed significant growth, AI was religiously touted by every CEO as a way to achieve future gains.

Elon Musk discusses artificial intelligence with Schumer

(3 min read) (Source: The Washington Post)

TLDR: Elon Musk and Sen. Chuck Schumer had a "very good meeting" discussing AI and Tesla's Buffalo plant during Musk's second visit to Capitol Hill this year. Their talks highlight the relevance of AI in government regulation as policymakers increasingly debate the emerging technology.

💰 Funding Alerts

• Harvey, a company creating legal AI tools, has raised $21 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia with participation from the OpenAI Startup Fund, Conviction, SV Angel, and Elad Gil.

  • The company aims to redefine professional services, starting with the legal industry, by using large language models, such as GPT-4, to empower legal workers with AI solutions that efficiently solve complex legal tasks, allowing them to focus on the strategic and critical aspects of their profession.

  • The funding gives Harvey the resources to scale their team, deepen their partnerships, and build the AI systems that are the future of professional services.

• aiXplain, the first no-code/low-code integrated AI development platform, has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Transform VC (Raed A. Masri, Founding Partner) and Calibrate Ventures (Jason Schoettler, Managing Partner).

  • aiXplain's no-code/low-code integrated development environment enables users to develop, manage, benchmark, experiment, and one-click deploy AI assets quickly and efficiently.

  • The company plans to use the funding to expand its product and user base by offering more AI assets, including data, models, pipelines, and benchmarks, on its marketplace to enable users to easily create and maintain AI systems.

• AirOps, a platform that lets you build AI applications to solve business problems, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Wing VC, with participation from other investors.

  • AirOps aims to bring large language models to real business problems by offering structured, predictable, and easy-to-deploy solutions.

  • The company plans to use the funding to grow and build an AI Ops platform that allows users to build their own AirOps apps by combining LLMs, logic, and data retrieval for easy integration into their workflows.

• AaDya Security, a software company that provides affordable cybersecurity solutions for small and midsize businesses using AI and machine learning, recently announced the close of a $5 million Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from other investors.

  • The company's all-in-one cybersecurity platform, Judy, is designed for small and midsize business customers and their service providers, empowering them to easily protect their businesses from threats and meet compliance requirements.

  • The funding will help the company expand its sales team and fill key leadership positions to accelerate growth of its channel program.

🦾 Trending Tools

• Sessions is the all-in-one platform for customer-facing sessions, including webinars, demos, and workshops. With AI Sessions Copilot, you can automate tedious tasks and focus on building meaningful connections with your customers. Plan, launch, and manage sessions effortlessly, and collect real-time feedback and insights.

• Spiky leverages AI-powered meetings analytics and integrated CRM information to streamline the sales process. Automate summaries, feedback, and CRM data fill-outs to enhance your sales game.

• Using GPT-4, STUDIO AI revolutionizes web design with an intuitive editor and WebDesignAI that understands and autocompletes designs. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are generated with every stroke you make. Redefine web design with STUDIO AI.

• Promptly is the no-code platform for generative AI apps and chatbots. Chain LLMs, integrate models from major providers, connect your own data from websites, sitemaps, PDFs, and more, and embed chatbots on your website in a snap!

• Zipy Plug & Play records sessions, fixes bugs, and improves customer experience with AI. No code integration, auto-fix suggestions with ChatGPT, and can be used by Support, Product, Growth and Development teams. Save revenue, customers, and sleepless nights!

👀 More Reading

• Palantir Demos AI to Fight Wars But Says It Will Be Totally Ethical Don’t Worry About It (VICE)

• These wild AI-powered glasses can read your own lips (Fast Company)

• NewsGuard Exclusive: ChatGPT-3.5 Generates More Disinformation in Chinese than in English (NewsGuard)

• ChatGPT’s Secret Weapon Is Artificial Emotional Intelligence (Bloomberg)

• How Microsoft’s Bing Chatbot Came to Be—and Where It’s Going Next (WIRED)

• Despite its charms, AI is little more than an excellent liar (MIT Technology Review)

🌎 Fresh Content

1. LinkedIn co-founder, venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur, and artificial intelligence enthusiast Reid Hoffman was recently on Harvard Business Reviews HBR IdeaCast to discuss how we can build AI and other tech more responsible. (Harvard Business Review)

2. “I Was There When:”, the oral history project produced by MIT Technology Review’s In Machines We Trust podcast, met with Cognitive Scientist Gary Marcus to discuss the crossroads that AI has reached in recent months. (Spotify)

3. The Babbage podcast from the Economist discussed how LLMs have evolved, how they might enter the workplace, how regulation must be approached without hindering innovation, and the risks that the technology poses. They approach all of this by asking the question: “How worrying is generative AI?” (Spotify)

 📅 Upcoming Events

1. EmTech Digital (May 2-3, 2023 / In person on the MIT campus or Virtual), MIT Technology Review’s signature AI conference, provides CIOs, CPOs, and IT decision makers with the technical insight and business expertise to implement AI systems that enhance products, improve customer experiences, and ensure market success. This year’s conference focuses on the game-changing power of generative AI and how it will impact creators and clients alike. We’ll explore the models behind the technology and the legal implications of generated content. We meet leading researchers and explore hands-on case studies of amazing applications of all forms of AI.

2. ODSC East 2023’s AI Expo (May 9-11, 2023 / In person at Boston Hynes Convention Center or Virtual) will be hosting talks from some of the best and brightest minds in data science and AI. Attend partner sessions that offer compelling insights on how to make data science and AI work for your industry, with topics including Machine Learning & Deep Learning Platforms, MLOps & Data Infrastructure, Data Annotation & Data Labeling, Data Analytics & Decision Intelligence Systems, Machine Learning on the Cloud & Big Data. Network with over 4,500 data science and AI experts and join the most influential Data Science community worldwide.

3. The Data Innovation Summit (May 11-12, 2023 / In person in Kistamässan, Stockholm or Virtual through Agorify) is the largest and most influential annual Data and AI event in the Nordics and beyond, bringing together the most innovative minds, enterprise practitioners, technology providers, start-up innovators and academics, working with Data Science, Big Data, ML, AI, Data Management, Data Engineering, IoT and Analytics, in one place to discuss ways to accelerate AI-driven transformation throughout companies, industries and public organizations. It is the place to be for all professionals and organizations working with the utilization of data and AI innovation for enhancing customer experience, improving operational processes, enabling future sustainability, reinventing business models, or developing data-driven products and services.

🧠 Resources

These prompts put you in the role of a business supplier expert or small business consultant, where you can gain insights into supplier selection, communication, and building long-term relationships. By asking questions about the reader's business, ChatGPT can provide helpful advice and recommendations based on data-driven results, improving their understanding of these important aspects of business management.

Supplier Selection

• Assume the role of a business supplier expert and help me understand the crucial factors to consider when selecting suppliers to work with.

• Prompt: "As a business supplier expert, I need your help in understanding the important factors to consider when selecting suppliers to work with. Can you ask me questions about my business, such as the type of product or service I offer, to help me determine what factors are most relevant? Let me know when you're ready to begin."

Communication with Suppliers

• Assume the role of a business supplier expert and provide me with data-driven advice on how to establish clear expectations and communication channels with my suppliers to ensure a strong working relationship.

• Prompt: "As a business supplier expert, I need your data-driven advice on how to establish clear expectations and communication channels with my suppliers to ensure a strong working relationship. Can you ask me questions about my business, such as the types of suppliers I work with and my communication preferences, to help me better understand how to improve my relationship with my suppliers? Let me know when you're ready to begin."

Building Long-term Relationships

• Assume the role of a small business consultant and educate me on the benefits of building long-term relationships with suppliers and how I can achieve this as a [YOUR BUSINESS HERE].

• Prompt: "As a small business consultant, I need your guidance on the benefits of building long-term relationships with suppliers and how I can achieve this as a [YOUR BUSINESS HERE]. Can you ask me questions about my business, such as my current supplier relationships and the types of products I sell, to help me understand how building long-term relationships can benefit my business? Let me know when you're ready to begin."

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