Victoria Fox's Blog, page 146

Author Nina George on AI: “Little chance of additional payments”

In the USA, the New York Times newspaper has sued the developers of the AI software ChatGPT for copyright infringement. Others also object to their texts being used for AI training. In Germany this includes the author Nina George. With more than two million books sold, she is currently one of the most successful German-speaking authors abroad.

ZEIT ONLINE : Ms. George, you write everything from children’s books to crime novels under your own name and several pseudonyms, and sometimes you write several books a year. Have you ever thought about having the plot for your next book generated by an artificial intelligence?

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Bon Preu and Benito will invest five million in women's start-ups

The project, named D-Ona, is channeled through the venture capital company Ona Capital, which has its headquarters in Manlleu (Barcelona) and is owned by the two family groups.

The distribution company Bon Preu and the lighting and urban furniture company Benito , two of the largest business groups in the Osona region (Barcelona), have joined forces to invest exclusively in entrepreneurship projects led

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Babel invoices 180 million after growing 30% in 2023

The Spanish technology consulting firm increases its workforce by 15% to 3,200 employees.

The Spanish technology consulting firm Babel has recorded a turnover of 180 million euros in 2023, which represents a year-on-year growth of 27%. The company led by Tony Olivo has earned more than 21 million EBITDA during the year. Babel has improved its EBITDA margin by just over half a percentage point, reaching more than 11.5%.

Babel, backed by Aurica Capital , maintains the roadmap outlined in its strategic business plan , which plans to achieve a turnover of 300 million euros in 2025, with 36 million EBITDA and a workforce of 5,000 employees.

Last year, the technology consulting firm added 400 professionals to its global workforce, reaching a figure of 3,200 employees spread across ten countries. Babel emphasizes that the turnover rate stood at 13%, “well below the market average.” This year, the Spanish consulting firm’s goal is to reach 4,000 employees.

Acquisitions

In recent years, Babel has embarked on an ambitious international expansion plan supported by inorganic growth. “Last year we accelerated our international expansion, specifically in strategic Latin American countries, which will allow us exponential growth in our business in the coming years,” explains Tony Olivo, CEO of Babel.

The company, which increased its international revenues by 68% year-on-year in 2023, has nearly a thousand professionals working in Latin America.

Last year, the Spanish consulting firm acquired, for an undisclosed amount, the Mexican technology company Ironbit , which has a solid presence in the country’s financial sector. The operation added 200 professionals to the group. In 2022, the company acquired the Costa Rican Grupo Babel.

The Spanish consulting firm does not consider the acquisitions chapter closed, and is eyeing opportunities in countries such as Portugal and Chile .

In the last two years, the company has focused its inorganic strategy on Latin America. Previously, Babel took a big leap in 2020 with the purchase of Software AG ‘s professional services unit in Spain. Likewise, in 2021 it strengthened its cybersecurity with the acquisition of the firm Ingenia, based in Malaga.

In addition to closing strategic purchase operations, Babel foresees organic growth in its turnover of more than 20% this year, up to 220 million euros. Likewise, it expects to improve its EBITDA margin on revenue, reaching 12%.

Exit of Aurica Capital

Aurica Capital, which took a 25% stake in the Spanish company in 2021, is preparing to leave the group, as recently published by EXPANSIÓN and confirmed by Babel.

The manager has selected Rothschild as the business bank in charge of bringing the company to the market. The group’s valuation is expected to exceed 200 million.

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Jeff Bezos bets on Perplexity AI to dethrone Google searches

The owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, surprised last week by appearing among the investors in the financing round launched by the startup Perplexity AI that promises to revolutionize internet searches.

The entry of the billionaire into this small company founded less than a year ago in San Francisco (California) with less than 40 employees confirms his interest in trying to break the supremacy of Google as the main place on the Internet where people go to search for information. .

At the moment, the exact amount that Bezos deposited in the collection, which totaled 73.6 million dollars (67 million euros), has not been disclosed. But Perplexity AI is already valued at around $520 million, according to the venture capital firm IVP that carried out the financing round.

In this latest example of investors hunting for startups specializing in artificial intelligence (AI), software companies NVIDIA and Databricks , as well as venture capital firms NEA and Bessemer Venture Partners, also participated.

Perplexity AI’s search engine allows users to get instant answers to questions with sources of information, quotes, graphics, and other articles related to what they are searching for.

For example, if you ask, “What is artificial intelligence?” on the web available for open and free use. The tool answers with a brief ten-line general description, several explanatory graphics and three related articles that, according to the results, it extracts from the IBM website, Techtarget, Builtin, Wkipedia and, surprise, Google’s own search engine.

Information tracking is powered by a variety of large language models (LLMs) that can summarize and generate information , from Microsoft-owned OpenAI, which has been integrating AI into the Bing search engine for a year without managing to compete with Google. Until the LlaMA open source model launched by Meta in February 2023.

The application is still in an early phase. The bet of Bezos and the rest of the investors is based on its potential. The website and mobile app had 45 million visits in December, up from 2.2 million when the service became available in December 2022, according to data from Similarweb.

Despite its rapid growth, the company is still not profitable and generates single-digit annual revenues, so it still has a long way to go to meet Google’s 90% market share.

Its creators are optimistic. “Google is going to be seen as something that is legacy and old. Perplexity will be the next generation and the future,” Aravind Srinivas, CEO of the company, told the Reuters agency a few weeks ago. Srinivas says the search engine’s advantage is in its ability to fine-tune a variety of high-performance artificial intelligence models rather than locking itself into just one.

The company plans to use the latest financing obtained to expand its workforce from 38 people to around 60 by the end of the year to give a boost to development . In March 2023, it already raised $25.6 million for its launch, which managed to receive more than 500 million queries with hardly any investment in advertising.

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Banks and insurers find opportunities in generative AI

The financial sector is exploring the potential of generative artificial intelligence, with use cases ranging from task automation to a more personalized customer offering than ever before.

After a 2023 marked by the emergence of ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools, more and more companies are exploring the opportunities and challenges that this technological revolution opens up. The financial sector is one of the most advanced, as generative AI has already demonstrated its potential to streamline and automate repetitive tasks, personalize customer service, and strengthen employee capabilities. These possibilities were discussed at the meeting The new challenges of generative artificial intelligence in the financial sector , organized by EXPANSIÓN with the sponsorship of Inetum and Microsoft .

For Francisco Calzado, CIO of the Banco Santander Corporate Center , entities must incorporate this technology in their future scenarios and its effects can be synthesized in three main areas. The first is “closely linked to improving productivity, business efficiency and content generation.” On the other hand, Calzado added that it will have an impact on “the redefinition of functions and roles in the sector because customers will expect a broader relationship ecosystem,” as well as a transformation of production models.

Perspectives

How long will it take for these changes to materialize? “We have been using AI in banking for more than 20 years for topics such as customer churn models, but generative AI is going to redefine every task and affect all areas. This could happen in about 20 months,” considered Antonio Piqueras, director of process transformation and new technologies at Bankinter . The entity is focusing on use cases such as internal virtual assistants, although it also sees potential in areas such as personalization.

In the case of the insurance sector, “generative AI is going to transform the relationship with the client and will help us manage change internally. It will have a great impact on the sector,” commented José Carlos Prieto, manager of operational transformation at St. Lucia . The company has also begun to explore this technology internally. Prieto noted that “we are working on the use case of an assistant for our agencies, which is our main internal client.”

In this sense, “it is a disruptive technology that will greatly influence both the client and the entire value chain, improving claims management processes and even support functions,” said Carolina de Oro, CIO. from AXA Insurance . However, each company must identify which use cases can be truly useful for the business. Ultimately, “generative AI can help us more effectively identify where to focus to raise quality.”

Based on all the data that organizations have been collecting in recent years about their clients, “this technology will allow us to exploit that information immediately, knowing their needs and offering them personalized services,” stressed Teresa Capella, CIO of Banca March , who detects a great journey when it comes to identifying online which product or service best suits each client. In parallel, Capella indicated that “it will also improve decision-making and change the way we relate.”

Although this deployment must be approached in a coordinated and orderly manner, “generative AI represents a great opportunity to offer a more human service and be a bank that is closer to the customer: natural language and conversational interfaces bring us closer,” said Cristo González Álvarez, director of innovation and customer experience at Unicaja Banco. Therefore, explore tools such as virtual assistants and biometric systems that allow you to work with your voice. “The concept of conversational banking is our aspiration,” he highlighted.

Malú Delicado, CIO of Mapfre in Iberia , explained that “we are exploring multiple use cases, analyzing their return and looking for a clear business case for the organization; it is important that we make responsible and prudent use.” The head of Mapfre agreed that, in this first phase, she gives priority to applications aimed at the internal client: “Sometimes, generative AI has hallucinations and we cannot afford that to happen to the external client. “.

Along the same lines, “we do not see a short-term impact on customer-facing solutions because adoption is very fast but is not homogeneous, so the initial approach is to empower our employees,” agreed Leandro Hermida, CIO of Ibercaja . Although he valued the transformative capacity of generative AI, Hermida pointed out that “its development will require deadlines and face risks such as traceability, explainability and biases.”

Despite everything, “organizations that do it safely, prudently and responsibly will take a leap in quality in their relationship with the customer,” said David González Gallardo, head of Microsoft’s insurance unit . Regarding the pace of adoption, the head of Microsoft warned that “countries like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are months ahead of us: there the sector already has real productive cases underway.” Likewise, positions such as chief AI officer are beginning to appear in organizations.

From a theoretical level, “we see three main axes of impact of generative AI: its impact on employees, its ability to transform processes and the changes it can generate at the organizational level,” summarized Sergio Torres, IT Manager at Inetum . The world is waiting for it, as Torres concluded: “Innovation budgets on a global scale have changed in the last year to allocate important amounts to generative AI.”

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Google lays off hundreds of employees in its engineering, hardware and Google Assistant areas

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has decided to lay off hundreds of employees in several of its departments, such as central engineering, Google Assistant and the Pixel, Nest and Fitbit hardware team as part of a cost reduction plan, as announced this Thursday by various media.

These departures would follow the 12,000 already executed by Google in January, which affected about 6% of its full-time workforce. Likewise, the technology company also later made cuts in its news and recruiting division.

Google’s intention is to prioritize areas such as artificial intelligence (AI). To this end, it has launched the Bard chatbot or the Gemini AI model to compete with its rivals from Microsoft and Amazon.

“To better position ourselves for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, several of our teams made changes to be more efficient and work better, as well as to align their resources with their highest product priorities,” said a spokesperson for the American network ‘CNBC’, which has acknowledged that the “organizational chart changes” include the elimination of some positions.

For its part, the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA) has called the round of layoffs “unnecessary” and has stated on the social network X, formerly Twitter, that “they will not stop fighting until their jobs are secured.”

Regarding the listing on the New York Nasdaq, Alphabet shares fell 0.78% shortly after noon local time, and were trading at around $141.17 (€128.90) each.

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CES 2024: Cell phones get buttons again and people get a turbo

Hardly any place stands for crazy inventions as much as the Consumer Electronics Show CES: More than 4,000 exhibitors are currently showing off their devices and services in the huge exhibition halls in Las Vegas. These include large corporations such as Samsung, Siemens and Sony, but also more than 1,000 start-ups. ZEIT ONLINE is there and tested seven gadgets that are particularly noteworthy. It is not clear whether all of them will come onto the market: CES is also the place for so-called vaporware , for big promises that soon fizzle out.

Overview: Clicks: the iPhone keyboard Moonwalkers: the turbo shoes
Skyted: the telephone mask
The LG AI Agent and Ballie: the robots for the smart home Willcook: the microwave bag Rabbit R1: the device that could replace the smartphone Parkie: the never-park-again robot Clicks: the iPhone keyboard Back to the future: keys on the cell phone

It’s 2024, and push-button phones are apparently cool again. Wild times. Clicks is an iPhone case with a keyboard on the bottom and may be the gadget that generated the most social media buzz in the run-up to CES . Be it because of rampant BlackBerry nostalgia, the bright color or because a physical keyboard can be really useful for people who have problems with touchscreen keyboards due to visual impairment.

When tested at the trade fair, a normal-sized iPhone with the case felt less huge than expected. However, you can only use the buttons with two hands. Nice gimmicks also include a backlight and keyboard shortcuts. During the short test, however, the keys were rather stiff and not as clicky as they would have been nice. It will soon be possible to find out whether this was only due to the measuring device: Clicky will be released on February 1st for 139 US dollars (around 125 euros) and will also be shipped internationally. An Android version will come later.

Moonwalkers: the turbo shoes With the Moonwalkers you walk like you’re on a treadmill.

In the future, we’ll all be a little bit cyborgs, at least according to some of the CES exhibitors. A good example of this is the Moonwalkers from Shift Robotics. They look like roller skates with Starlight Express flair, but they’re more of a turbocharger for your own gait. You get in with street shoes, walk normally, and controlled by artificial intelligence – as befits the CES 2024 – the wheels ensure a threefold increase in walking speed without the risk of tipping over: the boots adapt adaptively to your own gait at.

The Moonwalkers By default, the rollers lock – so you can climb stairs, for example – and the booster is activated with a quick turn of the foot. It works impressively well, it feels a little like walking on a treadmill at the airport. However, Shift Robotics is thinking less about harried managers on the way to a connecting flight and more about companies that want to relieve the burden on their warehouse employees. Or exploit them even more, that may be in the eye of the beholder. According to Shift Robotics, Ikea is already trying this out. There is no price yet, but the predecessor costs 1,400 US dollars (around 1,275 euros).

Skyted: the telephone mask The Skyted mask usually comes without a screen – but if you want to write “Do not disturb” over your mouth, you will also be happy.

Another return from last year is the French start-up Skyted. However, what still looked absurdly large in 2023 is now not much larger than an FFP2 mask (you remember). The idea is simple: Skyted blocks all noises that escape from the mask and a built-in microphone passes them on – so you can make phone calls in almost silence. This will probably be possible with a cable ($249) or Bluetooth connection ($299) from December 2024. Skyted is currently still collecting money for this through crowdfunding.

During the test in the admittedly noisy exhibition hall, nothing could actually be heard from the outside. This is made possible by an absorption material from the aviation industry. Skyted also has an interesting business case for them: In the future, the start-up would like to cooperate with airlines that could, for example, only open their aircraft WiFi for voice over IP calls that are made with a Skyted mask. A lot would be gained for humanity if Skyted managed to mute blaring telephone users in the ICE rest compartment. Whether they see a need for it, however, is another question.

The LG AI Agent and Ballie: the robots for the smart home They’re both cute. But it is not yet certain whether they will ever be sold.

No CES without robots, that’s an unwritten rule. In addition to the dog-like robots from Boston Dynamics, which deliver (accompanied) between the exhibition halls, two South Korean companies primarily attracted attention with robots this year: on the one hand, Samsung with the cute-looking and cutely named Ballie – a football with wheels – and on the other hand, LG with the also very cute, but very basic named LG AI Agent, which looks like a small dog with headphones.

Both robots can be imagined as Alexa on wheels. They should be able to switch smart devices on and off, control them using voice commands and also check whether their flesh-and-blood pets are doing well. Ballie also has a projector that can project films or recipe videos onto the wall. Both robots were shown at CES, but only behind barriers. At a choreographed demo, Ballie suggested exercise to an actor, provided information about air quality and called the local florist. It is unclear whether, when and at what price the mini household helpers will appear.

Willcook: the microwave bag In addition to the purpose of the cooking function, one can certainly also discuss the aesthetics of the Willcook bag.

Have you ever wondered how you can maximize every last bit of free time in your life? Then Willcook could be something for you: a bag that gets so warm inside that it can not only keep food warm, but even cook it. This makes it possible to save on sandwich butter and meal prep and instead cook lunch directly in the subway on the way to work. “The microwave becomes portable” is how the start-up advertises its product, which it currently only sells in Japan. But it is already planning an additional microwave backpack.

With an internal temperature of 80 degrees Celsius specified by the manufacturer, Willcook tends to use low-temperature cooking, but that has been in place for a few years anyway (if you have a different opinion, throw in the first sous vide stick), for example for beef fillet or leg of lamb. At the fair, the bag felt really warm inside – but due to the lack of a beef, let alone its fillet, we couldn’t try cooking it.

Rabbit R1: the device that could replace the smartphone Teenage Engineering is responsible for the design of the Rabbit R1. And that’s good.

No device presented at CES probably gave as many people a “I want it!” feeling as Rabbit’s R1. Within 24 hours of the presentation, the start-up sold 10,000 devices. It’s not easy to understand what the R1 actually is: Imagine a device half the size of a smartphone that doesn’t run any apps, but where you enter every command by voice. The device interprets what is said using artificial intelligence and executes it exactly as you want. Feedback is available either via a display or via voice output. Basically an AI walkie-talkie. “ It’s that simple ,” says Rabbit founder Jesse Lyu.

The special thing about the R1 (besides its cool design by Teenage Engineering) is that it is not just an Alexa-Siri assistant with AI: the R1 can be connected to various services via a web portal called the rabbit hole (as in other things). connect. In the company presentation, Lyu showed how he orders pizza with the R1 after connecting R1 once to the delivery service DoorDash. The R1 can also operate music services such as Spotify, plan and book trips, or use the built-in camera to answer questions about the surroundings and give recipe tips for the contents of the refrigerator. The $199 device would do what current AI agents fail to do – a big promise that will be proven starting at Easter when the R1 ships.

Parkie: the never-park-again robot These autonomous panels go under every car – and lift it up.

Anyone who has ever looked for a parking space in a German city center knows the situation: There is actually a parking space there – but a gentleman (it is always a gentleman) has interpreted the position of the parking space boundary quite freely in his Mercedes B-Class. So he’s in the middle of it. And now it would take the talent of a heart surgeon to park your car without any paint damage. So the half-blocked parking lot remains empty.

Parkie from the South Korean company HL Mando is intended to eliminate this problem and any parking stress in general. It is a moving platform that is just under a centimeter high. Two of them are supposed to drive autonomously under a car, lift it and then park it perfectly and worry-free. This should even work with ground-hugging sports cars and heavy SUVs. For the same number of cars, significantly less parking space would be needed in the city – sounds almost too good to be true. The system will be tested south of Seoul starting in April.

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Further

Hardly any place stands for crazy inventions as much as the Consumer Electronics Show CES: More than 4,000 exhibitors are currently showing off their devices and services in the huge exhibition halls in Las Vegas. These include large corporations such as Samsung, Siemens and Sony, but also more than 1,000 start-ups. ZEIT ONLINE is there and tested seven gadgets that are particularly noteworthy. It is not clear whether all of them will come onto the market: CES is also the place for so-called vaporware , for big promises that soon fizzle out.

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The enigma Alierta

Cesar Alierta had a unique career within an unrepeatable generation of businessmen who lived through the Transition and led a spectacular development in the Spanish economic panorama, transforming a very limited business fabric into a group of multinationals that were world leaders in the main economic sectors.

In this process César Alierta played a key role: coming from Banco Urquijo , which was always his reference, he was a successful banker and President of Tabacalera and later in the Competitiveness Council , he had a social leadership role in very difficult times. But Alierta’s great vital and professional project was Telefónica , which he transformed into a world-class company and which this year will celebrate its centenary.

Here I would like to reflect, above all, a personal vision of someone who had the experience and privilege of working intensely with César Alierta for eight years and traveling frequently with him.

Meeting César Alierta meant facing an enigma: Alierta was not the person you expected as president of the then first Spanish multinational: shy, not fond of public appearances, an impulsive smoker and unlimited coffee drinker, allergic to certain social life and messy speaker in several languages. He did not respond even remotely to the conventional profile of a captain of Industry: accompanying him every year to the Davos Summit or the G20/B20 meetings was quite an experience.

César Alierta, former president of Telefónica CRISTINA DE ROJAS, dies

When you met Alierta the question was immediate: what has made this man with such a peculiar personality become the first businessman in Spain and one of the most important in the world?

The close relationship with him soon gave you the answer: what characterized César Alierta was his extraordinary intelligence, his ability to anticipate and analyze the situations he faced.

Alierta was always two steps ahead of those around him and his collaborators soon learned that when Alierta made a decision that we did not understand, which was not uncommon, he had his reasons and time always proved him right.

Along with his extraordinary intelligence, Alierta’s other great characteristic was his bonhomie; he was a good person even if he sometimes tried to hide it.

He demonstrated it in the long illness of his wife Ana. Friend of his friends, with the loyalty and affection that he always maintained with those of us who had worked with him. He demonstrated it with his commitment to Aragón and Zaragoza and always remembered that his father had been the Mayor. of the city and with almost never profitable bets on the emblematic projects of their land.

Intelligence and common sense that he also demonstrated in the way he managed his departure from Telefónica and his succession to the Presidency.

Bonhomie and intelligence also explain his close relationship with very notable people who distinguished him with their affection, such as Chancellor Merkel or Pope Francis, who always knew how to see that behind the character Alierta there was a good and intelligent man.

*Carlos López Blanco , State Attorney (excl.) was General Director of Public Affairs of Telefónica.

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The new Encomenda fund debuts with seven investments

Carlos Blanco chairs the venture capital manager Encomenda Capital Partners. David Ramirez / Araba Press Araba

Investor Carlos Blanco launches his new management company and launches a vehicle that will invest between 40 million and 50 million euros in technological start-ups in the initial stages.

Encomenda Capital Partners , the venture capital manager led by Carlos Blanco and Mercè Tell , begins 2024 with the launch of the Encomenda II fund, which will have a target size of between 40 million and 50 million euros and which has already completed

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The career of César Alierta, in images

By:Expansion

Updated: 01-10-2024 2:01 p.m.

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From his beginnings as an exchange and stock broker, he founded the securities company Beta Capital and later presided over Tabacalera, Altadis and Telefónica . César Alierta , who died today at the age of 78, has been one of the most prominent businessmen in Spain during the last three decades.

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