Slack has new AI Features in effort to become the Ultimate AI Work Hub

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: Slack introduces new AI features as it aims to become the central hub of AI apps for work + Hume AI releases a new foundational voice model

💰 Funding: ‘Godmother of AI’ raises $230M+ for her new AI startup, World Labs

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Slack introduces new AI-driven tools at Dreamforce 2024, as it looks to evolve into a hub for AI applications, integrating tools from Salesforce, Adobe, and Anthropic, positioning itself as a "work operating system" for businesses, not just a messaging platform.

2. Hume AI unveils EVI 2, a new voice-to-voice foundational model offering human-like conversations with sub-second response times and emotional intelligence. 

• EVI 2 can adjust speaking styles, tones, accents, and personalities, offering customization like gender modulation, pitch adjustment, and speaking rate changes without voice cloning risks.

• EVI 2 is trained to understand and respond to user preferences, adapting its personality and voice to optimize user satisfaction and well-being.

• EVI 2 is available in beta for developers and users via Hume's app and API, with the ability to create tailored voice interactions.

3. Microsoft launched "Copilot Pages", a collaborative AI workspace where users and AI can work together on shared projects, pulling data from files, the web, and internal sources.

4. Google DeepMind introduces ALOHA Unleashed and DemoStart, two new AI systems enabling robots to perform complex tasks requiring high levels of dexterous movement

• ALOHA Unleashed focuses on bi-arm manipulation, allowing robots to perform tasks like tying shoelaces, repairing robots, and hanging clothes with improved learning from fewer demonstrations.

• DemoStart uses reinforcement learning to train multi-fingered robotic hands in simulation, drastically reducing the number of demonstrations required to master tasks like tightening bolts and reorienting cubes.

5. Runway launched Gen-3's new "Video to Video" feature, allowing users to transform video footage with AI-generated styles using text prompts, accessible across all paid plans.

6. OpenAI's new o1 model family features a hidden step-by-step reasoning process, sparking curiosity among users attempting to expose its internal workings, but OpenAI is cracking down on those probing the model's "chain of thought" by issuing warnings and threatening account bans for using techniques like jailbreaking or prompt injections.

7. Notable AI pioneers and scientists from around the world (including Geoffrey Hinton, Stuart Russell, Andrew Yao, Yoshua Bengio and more)  are calling for international oversight to mitigate the potential catastrophic risks posed by fast-developing AI tech, by proposing the set up of AI safety authorities in individual countries to monitor and register AI systems, which would then collaborate on global regulations

8. Intel secured Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a major customer for its chip manufacturing, co-investing in custom semiconductors for AI computing under a multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework using Intel’s 18A process.

9. Google has launched FireSat, a satellite constellation designed to detect small wildfires (5x5 meters) globally within 20 min using custom infrared sensors and AI tech, with the intention to provide high-resolution, near real-time wildfire data, enabling firefighters to respond more quickly to emerging fires before they become destructive.

10. Oracle founder Larry Ellison suggested that AI surveillance networks with cameras and drones could ensure good behavior by monitoring citizens and law enforcement constantly, sparking privacy concerns.

💰 Top Funding News:

1. World Labs, led by ‘godmother of AI’ Fei Fei Li, is developing Large World Models (LWMs) to endow AI with spatial intelligence, allowing it to understand, generate, and interact with 3D environments. 

• This would advance current AI capabilities from 2D to full 3D, enabling applications in areas like virtual world creation and editing.

• They raised over $230M in total funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Radical Ventures, w/ Adobe Ventures, NVIDIA’s NVentures, Databricks Ventures, and notable investors like Marc Benioff, Ashton Kutcher, and Reid Hoffman.

2. Strider Technologies, which is developing a LLM to help cyber analysts quickly process and interpret vast amounts of threat intelligence from open-source data (OSINT), raised a $55M Series C, led by Pelion Venture Partners, w/ DataTribe, Cyfr Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and AXA Venture Partners.

3. 11xAI, which develops AI-driven digital employees, or "automated digital workers," that automate end-to-end workflows, raised a $24M Series A, led by Benchmark, w/ 20VC, Project A, Lux Capital, and SV Angel.

4. XP Health, which employs an AI-driven platform that uses facial recognition technology to recommend personalized tailored eyewear, raised a $33.2M Series B, led by QED Investors, w/ Canvas Ventures, American Family Ventures, HC9 Ventures, Valor Capital Group, and Manchester Story.

5. webAI, which provides a distributed AI platform that enables enterprises to run sophisticated AI models locally on their own devices, raised a Series A bringing total funding to $60M and a valuation of $700M. 

6. Supermaven, which developing an AI-powered text editor that assists developers by predicting code jumps and deletions, helping them navigate and edit large codebases efficiently, raised $12M in funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, w/ OpenAI co-founder John Schulman, Perplexity co-founder Denis Yarats, and Intercom founder Eoghan McCabe.

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