Monthly Digest: Latest AI Integrations
In this news digest, we will discuss Apple's latest developments, Anthropic's launch of their acclaimed "best ever" LLM, and the latest trends in the app world—from "Seen," an app for live video reactions, to "Butterflies," a new social network blending human and AI interaction. Are you eager for details? Let's dive in!
Apple steals the show: Junes top stories
All the highlights from Apple WWDC 2024 Keynote
On June 10, 2024, Apple launched its yearly Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), unveiling groundbreaking new technologies and features. So, what are some of the most prominent?
Apple partners with Google Gemini AI
Looks like Apple is gearing up to join the AI integration wave (spoiler: yes, Elon Musk didn’t like that at all 😅). At WWDC 2024, Craig Federighi also announced Apple's future collaboration with Google's Gemini AI. This partnership is set to integrate Gemini's advanced capabilities into Apple's ecosystem, promising exciting enhancements for Siri and other Apple Intelligence services.
Elon Musk will ban iPhones in case of Apple’s ChatGPT integration
In response, Elon Musk threatened to ban iPhones from his companies unless Apple restricted OpenAI's access to a dedicated app, not Siri. According to Musk's fiery posts on X, Apple's integration of OpenAI's tech at the OS level would force employees and visitors to leave their iPhones at the door, safely locked away in Faraday cages. Musk, seemingly confused or conveniently misrepresenting the details, raged about Apple's so-called "creepy spyware" and its inability to safeguard user privacy while handing over data to OpenAI. Elon Musk is widely known for his concerns about AI in general, particularly regarding data security.
Apple discontinues Pay Later feature
In October 2023, we reported on Apple Pay Later expanding its availability to all US users. However, the ride has come to an end. Apple has decided to discontinue its Pay Later feature. Apple discontinued the Pay Later feature primarily because it introduced a new global installment loan offering through Apple Pay. This shift allows users worldwide to access installment loans from credit and debit cards and lenders directly through Apple Pay.
Apple Developer Academy adds AI training for students and alumni
To wrap up on a positive note news about Apple, Apple has expanded its educational offerings by integrating AI training into the Apple Developer Academy curriculum for students and alumni. Starting this fall, participants will learn to develop, train, and deploy machine learning models on Apple devices, focusing on Core ML and AI frameworks. The initiative spans 18 Developer Academies globally, empowering thousands of students with new tools and APIs introduced at WWDC 2024, including Swift Assist in Xcode 16 and enhancements in Swift 6 for more explicit code and concurrent programming.
AI
Anthropic launches new AI Model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Anthropic, led by Daniela Amodei, unveiled Claude 3.5 Sonnet, its latest AI model, which is touted as its best yet. This new model can analyze text and images, performing better on benchmarks in reading, coding, math, and vision than its predecessors. However, the improvements are incremental rather than revolutionary.
Alongside Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic introduced Artifacts, a workspace for editing and enhancing AI-generated content. Despite the model's advancements and improved speed, Anthropic emphasizes that practical AI benefits for businesses are more important than benchmark performance. The new model is available today through various platforms, including Anthropic's web client and API.
Genspark: a next-generation AI-powered search engine
Genspark, a new AI-powered search engine launched by Eric Jing and Kay Zhu, aims to revolutionize search with its innovative approach. Unlike traditional engines, Genspark generates custom summaries called Sparkpages in response to queries, offering concise overviews sourced from various web content. Jing emphasizes Genspark's use of specialized AI models for query types, enhancing result quality. Despite ethical concerns and competition from established players, Genspark has secured a $60 million seed round, betting on its unique vision for the future of search.
Latest AI integrations
Like big companies integrate AI into their daily operations, many apps now incorporate AI to enhance their capabilities and provide more functions, allowing them to deliver an even better user experience. For example, Meta is testing AI chatbots to improve interactions. These AI characters, developed through Meta AI Studio, will initially appear in messaging and are designed to help creators and small businesses engage with their communities more effectively.
Next, Character.AI now lets its users talk with AI avatars over calls, supporting multiple languages such as English, Spanish, and Chinese. This new feature was tested with over 3 million users making 20 million calls. It helps practice language skills, conduct mock interviews, and enhance role-playing games.
Another prominent example is Opera's browser, Opera One, which is releasing its second version in developer beta with new AI-powered features and enhanced multimedia controls. The update includes a fresh design, floating multimedia controls, and a split tab window for multitasking. AI capabilities are also expanded, with the "Aria" assistant now offering image and voice generation, image understanding, and a new page context mode for querying, translating, or summarizing web page content.
Google introduced its Gemini AI side panel in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. This panel aims to assist with email drafting, summarize threads, and improve productivity across its suite of applications. These AI-powered features, unveiled at Google's I/O developer conference, are designed to simplify content creation, data organization, and information retrieval within Google Workspace environments.
Finally, at WWDC 2024, Apple launched Apple Intelligence, its new generative AI platform to integrate personalized experiences across iOS, macOS, and visionOS. We have already discussed it in detail above but could not resist mentioning it again. The platform promises improved privacy and uses local processing for user data, leveraging large language models and introducing updates to Siri and app integration capabilities like App Intents and Genmoji.
Latest in Apps World
This month brought some exciting new developments and apps. We believe staying updated and exploring what makes those apps special is important.
Seen: a new app for social interactions with live video reactions
Meet Seen - a new app designed to improve social interactions by allowing friends to record live video reactions to TikToks and other content. Unlike traditional messaging apps, where you might get a basic emoji in response, Seen lets you see your friends' genuine reactions. Co-founded by entrepreneur Faheem Kajee and actress Karen Gillan, the app supports private video messages in one-on-one chats or groups of up to 11 people. The main idea of the app is to create more authentic connections by encouraging users to share their real-time responses, making interactions more engaging and personal.
Butterflies: a new social network for humans and AI interaction
Have you been looking for a network where you can post for your ... AI friends and comment on … their posts? And you might expect likes from … your AI friends.
Well, then, this new app - Butterflies, is your next favorite social network. Founded by former Snap engineer Vu Tran, Butterflies is a new social network where humans and AI personas, called Butterflies, interact through posts, comments, and direct messages. The app allows users to create AI personas with unique backstories and emotions. These AI personas autonomously create posts and engage with humans and other AIs. After 5 months in beta, Butterflies is now available to the public on iOS and Android.