AI is changing how consumers find information and how businesses interact with their customers. It’s essential to understand where the industry is going, and implications for how CR might better serve consumers in the future.

Last month, I offered a dispatch on how AI is changing search and e-commerce. This month’s roundup of industry updates on generative AI covers the workplace, mobile, cars, health and more. I’ll continue to share the stories that we’re reading and talking about inside CR as we plot our own AI strategy — let’s dive in. 

Nuts & Bolts

AI Agents rise up to carry out an array of tasks for their humans. This new generation of bots is able to accomplish tasks without much human interaction – figuring out how to do things like booking a flight or even playing cupid – without oversight. Initial agents now help out with vacation planning, restaurant reservations, investing, and finding love but expect to see more and more agents acting with ever greater efficiency and accuracy with each passing day.

Listen closely, as OpenAI releases a ChatGPT hyper realistic voice to some users. This Advanced Voice Mode is powered by its GPT-4o model that is multimodal and can convert your voice to text, process your prompt and then convert the response back into voice, which provides lower latency than previous OpenAI voice solutions.

AI powered Alexa, a paid subscription product is expected to launch in October after a delay. The new service will feature AI-generated news summaries based on a user’s preferences in addition to new conversational shopping tools that help with product details and notify consumers of deals and sales. Other promised features include help with recipes and meal planning and a chatbot aimed at children.

Power hungry AI apps have the potential to become more efficient and reduce the predicted energy crunch and pollution that growing AI adoption is bringing. Nvidia, who designs around 80% of the world’s AI chips, states its next generation chips could be more than 25x more energy efficient than current chips while also offering 30x more computing power.

People of all colors can now be successfully depicted by Google Gemini in a new release. An earlier version of the tool was unable to reliably create images of white people but this deficiency has now been addressed.

Workplace 

Klarna says AI will kill jobs. The Buy Now Pay Later Firm, Klarna has already cut 1,200 jobs in the last year and want to cut another 1,800 jobs by deploying AI in marketing and customer service. In response to concerns about jobs, Boss Sebastian Semiatkowski proposes that these cuts would allow Karna to pay remaining workers more, but that the government news to think about AI’s impact on jobs and society.

Mobile

Google Gemini Live AI impressed WSJ Senior Personal Technology Columnist, Joanna Stern, so much that she almost forgot she was talking to a Bot. In a demonstration she shows how Google’s generative-AI voice assistant will work when it comes to those with an Android Phone, the Gemini App and a $20 per month subscription. Plans for iOS are in the works. The features shown here and ones in Google’s pipeline have the potential to change how we interact with our phones and information overall.

Cars 

GPU Muscle Cars are soon to be a thing. Intel has announced that they are releasing a discrete graphics processing unit (dGPU) that will bring more computing horsepower to hungry automotive AI applications. Intel says these chips will help power deeply personalized AI applications for drivers, while also powering enhanced productivity, gaming and entertainment capabilities.

Source: Intel

Health

Stick out your tongue for a highly accurate AI scanner that can diagnose illnesses. Traditional Chinese medicine often looked at the tongue’s color, shape and thickness for clues about a person’s health. Now an AI scanner is acting as a proof of concept of how an AI medical assistant could help Dr.’s provide more accurate diagnostics.

Until next time! We hope you’ll continue to follow us here for the latest AI marketplace news roundups, and get in touch if you want to explore these updates and build solutions together.