Today in AI

In partnership with

• News roundup

• Today’s big story

• Research spotlight

• This week on the podcast

News roundup

The top stories in AI today.

NEW LAUNCHES

The latest features, products & partnerships in AI

• ‘Overlay’ is a new AI-powered search engine designed to keep customers on your site

• Microsoft Outlook adds AI-powered dynamic themes

• Stability AI’s new text-to-image models transform creative workflows

• Bagel publishes findings on Inference Time vs. Training Time Compute (sponsored)

• The iOS 18.2 beta is live — here’s what’s inside (and what’s coming next)

• ChatGPT just got another cool new feature to use with ‘Advanced Voice’

HARDWARE

Computers, phones, chips, robots & AI powered devices

• AI startup secures $400M to develop ‘physical AI’

• This UAE startup aims to transform industrial vehicles into self-driving fleets

• Why the iMac may be Apple’s best computer yet

• Dell XPS 13 ultrabook blends AI power with sleek design

• MIPS unveils RISC-V processor for self-driving cars

AI MODELS

Deployment, research, training & infrastructure

• Mistral unveils new Batch API for efficient AI processing

• AI outpaces quantum computing in real-world applications

• Microsoft seeks patent to fix AI hallucinations

• The trend toward smaller, more efficient AI models, through a Richard Feynman lens

• AI image tools need as few as 200 samples to replicate any artist’s style

HEALTHCARE

Research, case studies, policy & tools

• Manchester researchers use AI to simulate cancer patient trials

• AI in primary care: Experiment evaluates ChatGPT’s readiness for patient visits

• How pro-social AI is advancing Alzheimer’s prevention

• Stanford study investigates how good AI truly is at medical diagnostics

• US government agencies convene in first ever AI bioscience event to foster global cooperation

What’s happening in AI right now

Microsoft, Google, ByteDance and Stability AI ramp up AI content generation tools

The largest technology companies are aggressively expanding their AI content creation capabilities, with major product launches announced simultaneously this week. The flurry of releases signals an intensifying battle to dominate the emerging market for AI augmented content generation tools.

The wave of new releases

Google introduced Vids, an AI video creation tool integrated into Workspace that helps users rapidly generate storyboards, add voiceovers, and produce complete videos with minimal manual effort. ByteDance unveiled X-Portrait 2, a system that transforms still photos into realistic videos by leveraging its vast TikTok content database for training. Microsoft added AI features to Paint and Notepad in Windows 11, while Stability AI launched three new text-to-image models on Amazon Bedrock with enhanced capabilities for complex scenes and multi-subject prompts.

The real competition: data and distribution

The race highlights how competitive advantage in AI increasingly depends on two critical moats: proprietary data and distribution channels. ByteDance's access to TikTok's massive video repository gives it unique training data for developing realistic facial animations. Google can seamlessly distribute Vids to millions of Workspace users, while Microsoft has direct access to Windows users through its operating system.

This aligns with venture capitalist Jerry Chen's analysis of "new moats" in the AI era - companies must build defensible positions through data network effects and distribution advantages.

Impact on creative industries

These tools could dramatically reshape creative workflows. A video that once required days of production might now take hours. An advertising campaign that needed multiple designers could potentially be handled by one person with AI assistance. The 2024 State of B2B Advertising report indicates marketing teams are already shifting toward AI-powered content creation and programmatic advertising.

Looking ahead

The simultaneous release of these tools suggests we're entering a new phase of competition in AI - one focused less on raw capabilities and more on specific applications that deliver immediate value. This trend will likely accelerate as companies race to establish dominant positions in various content creation niches.

We publish daily research, playbooks, and deep industry data breakdowns. Learn More Here

The Bagel team just published new research on two complementary methods for advancing AI reasoning: training-time and inference-time techniques.

Training-Time Enhancements involve refining model structures. Methods like Parameters Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) optimize learning efficiency by targeting specific neural pathways within fixed frameworks, while approaches like WizardMath’s 3-step reasoning improve structured reasoning.

Inference-Time Enhancements focus on on-the-fly thinking, using Chain of Thought prompting to activate logical processing without extra training. Techniques like Self-Consistency for validation and Program of Thought for coding tasks enable precise, stepwise reasoning.

The findings suggest combining both approaches: training-time builds foundational reasoning, while inference-time optimizes its application. Bagel Network supports this advancement through open-source infrastructure, empowering a community-driven AI evolution though monetizable open source AI.

About Bagel: Bagel is an AI & cryptography research lab, building the world's first monetization layer for open-source AI.

This week on the podcast

Can’t get enough of our newsletter? Check out our podcast Future-Proof.

In this episode, the hosts Anthony Batt and Shane Robinson with guest Joe Veroneau from Conveyor discuss outsmarting paperwork. Conveyor is a company that helps automate security reviews and document sharing between companies. They use AI technology, specifically language models, to automate the process of filling out security questionnaires. This saves customers a significant amount of time and improves the quality of their responses.