Brian Solis's Blog, page 14

Generative AI Prompting: A Guide to Achieving Incredible and Fantastical Outcomes with GenAI

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Is prompt engineering a passing fad? Will AI learn to prompt itself based on your desired outcome?

Writing for Harvard Business Review, Oguz A. Acar believes that “AI Prompt Engineering Isn’t the Future.” Instead, he believes the future lies in prompt formulation and problem solving.

The truth is that prompt engineering is a continuous experiment and unique to each AI model. And as Acar suggests, alternative approaches are boundless.

Tell the chatbot that the output is important to your job or project or give it encouragement, “you are the smartest GPT in the world” or use words that “make it fun” and your outcomes will differ and elevate.

Prompt engineering is an art.

Immersion: Imagine you’re a sentient quantum particle in a double-slit experiment. Can you narrate your experience from the moment you’re fired towards the slits until you hit the detector screen?

Role Playing: Write a dialogue between Picasso and Einstein, discussing how Cubism and the Theory of Relativity can reflect each other.

Sentient: Imagine if English was a sentient being. Write a conversation between English and Latin discussing the evolution of languages.

Fantastical: Describe the sound of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 to someone who has never been able to hear.

Navigating LLMs is a science.

Specific approaches result in specific training and outcomes.

Fine-tuning is intended to train a model for specific tasks.

Prompt engineering aims to elicit better AI responses from the front end.

Prompt tuning combines these, taking the most effective prompts or cues and feeding them to the AI model as task-specific context.

Chain-of-thought promoting guides LLMs through a step-by-step reasoning process to solve complex problems.

Prompt formulation is rooted in problem formulation, identifying, analyzing, and delineating problems. Once a problem is clearly defined, the linguistics nuances of a prompt become tangential to the solution.

Prompt engineering dead. Long live prompt engineering.

Is prompt a trend or a fad?

Hardly.

But it does take practice, creativity, and patience.

In fact, sometimes it’s just better it’s better just to ask a LLM to improve itself .

That’s what Rick Battle and Teja Gollpudi  in their paper, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Eccentric Automatic Prompts.”

Battle and Gollapudi systematically tested how different prompts impact an LLM’s ability to solve grade-school math questions. They tested three different open-source language models with 60 varying prompt combinations. They found that results varied and anything but consistent.

Battle and Gollpudi shared their observations with IEEE, “The only real trend may be no trend. What’s best for any given model, dataset, and prompting strategy is likely to be specific to the particular combination at hand.”

Work toward your outcome and partner with LLMs to find the sweet spot for you and your partner in intellectual augmentation.

Legendary music producer Rick Rubin once said, “Be aware of the assumption that the way you work is the best way simply because it’s the way you’ve done it before.”

We are all learning and should always continue to experiment and imagine toward a new and better future.

Stay open. Stay curious.

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Brian Solis to Keynote Global Equity Conference in Nashville on 9 April 2024

On 9 – 11 April 2024 more than 500+ global company directors, senior managers, stock plan, HR, reward and benefits professionals will fill the halls at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel to attend the annual Global Equity Organization conference.

Brian Solis will serve as keynote speaker. His presentation, “Transforming Equity Management in an Era of Disruptive Innovation,” will help industry professionals understand technology trends, especially generative AI, to improve their work, employee experiences, and their ability to attract and retain talent.

This flagship conference is where the best equity minds meet. It brings together academics, thought leaders, stock plan experts and policy makers from across the globe to explore best practice in equity compensation and work together to drive a vision for future employee share ownership.

Unlock a world of possibilities – ignite inspiration regardless of your experience!

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AInsights: AI will be Smarter Than Humans before 2030, So What?

Jensen Huang © Photo: Getty Images

AInsights: Executive-level insights on the latest in generative AI…

As a keynote speaker, I engage with executives in every industry at varying levels of technological maturity and curiosity. Several years ago, I would ask audiences, “how many of you believe that AI will take jobs?”

Almost every hand would go up.

I would then ask, “how many of you believe AI will take your job?”

Almost every hand would go down.

I tried that question again recently at a conference in Italy.

This time, every hand stayed up.

So when you read a headline like this, “Generative AI will be smarter than humans by 2030,” I can only imagine the panic or anxiety that might arise. I’d also like to think that at the same time, curiosity, imagination, and ambition might also follow.

Sure, generative AI has already reportedly passed (or broke) the Turing test. GenAI has also passed some important CPA and BAR exams, among other academic tests.

Does this make genAI tools such as ChatGPT smart? Yes.

Does that make you any less valuable? No, not by any stretch of the means.

Let’s put it all in perspective though, because if anything, the path we were all on before ChatGPT became the second fastest growing tech to reach 100 million users, was one without AI. Now in a world with AI, every one of us needs to reassess where we are, where we want to go, who we want to be, and how AI can help us get there.

AI is Already as Smart as Elon Musk

Mo Gawdat, formerly chief business officer for Google X, and someone whose professional and personal work I greatly admire, recently presented at the Nordic Business Forum. I watched every minute of it.

In his talk, he shares that ChatGPT 4 is currently estimated to have an IQ equivalent to ~155. He likens this intelligence to that of Elon Musk, whose IQ is estimated between 155–180.

He then discussed the rapid evolution of generative AI and its exponential acceleration toward “10x.” For example, he outlines how the performance difference between ChatGPT 3x and 4 is roughly 10x. He then suggests a similar path to ChatGPT 5, 6, and so on.

As you’ll see in the video, Gawdat explains how theoretically, within a few years, we could arrive at genAI that would perform at IQ levels equivalent to ~1,500+.

”That’s the end of innovation done by our brains, because the smartest person in the room is the one that invents everything, makes all the decisions,” Gawdat said on stage.

But wait, don’t let panic set in just yet. Optimism and vision are essential right now.

Gawdat isn’t alone in this observation.

NVIDIA’s CEO, Jensen Huang, also predicted that AI will be smarter than humans in 5 years.

“If I gave an AI … every single test that you can possibly imagine, you make that list of tests and put it in front of the computer science industry, and I’m guessing in five years time, we’ll do well on every single one,” said Huang

At the 2024 Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research Summit in Palo Alto, Huang also predicted that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could arrive in as little as five years. This will then usher in an era of AI that thinks like humans, beyond the current wave 2 of GenAI, taking information and generating new information.

His point?

Buckle in.

AI will also continue to evolve. We’ll see it become more effective generally and more capable vertically.

This is not only just beginning change and our need to define the role we want to play in it.

AInsights

In every face of disruption, I believe that ignorance and arrogance equal irrelevance.

AI is going to become the smartest tech in the room. No ego, bias, or uninformed mindset should deny this. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

AI is going to continue to evolve. How you learn to work with AI or don’t defines your future.

If you’re waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you’re on the wrong side of transformation and innovation.

Change starts, with you.

This is a time for resilience. This is also a time for optimism.

At the Stanford Summit, Huang also emphasized the need for resilience, to be prepared for experimentation and failure.

“Unfortunately, resilience matters in success,” he said. “I don’t know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you.”

His point is that building resilience is essential in defining success, especially in time when the future of AI creates more questions than answers.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman also believes that determination is the most important trait for entrepreneurs. He doesn’t emphasize talent or IQ, but instead doubles-down on grit and persistence in the face of the unknown.

Sam Altman uses ChatGPT for brainstorming.

Here's how you can, too: pic.twitter.com/LVeEb8ZCn1

— Anna Poplevina (@AnnaPoplevina) March 26, 2024

The truth is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Burning anxiety against the unknown is wasted energy. Instead, move toward the unknown to become part of the solution. Each question and each step brings clarity and movement. And with enough movement, comes momentum.

There are two ways forward. Open your mindset to see a parallel relationship between iteration and innovation. In terms of AI, it helps to break it down like this…

Automation: Use AI to make your work more efficient. Use AI to make your work more effective.

Augmentation: Use AI to experiment with the work you couldn’t or didn’t think to imagine before.

Together you create a recipe for iteration and eventually innovation.

If I could share some advice, it would be to question old ways.

Business as usual has a prescribed fate.

Just because that’s the way work has always been done doesn’t mean much in a world where the best ways, powered by AI, have yet to be defined. Remember, everyone gains access to AI now and over time. Not everything deserves automation. Some things necessitate complete reinvention to compete. That’s what makes these times so incredible.

This is why resilience is essential. But in addition to resilience, optimism is also a key ally toward success.

These are indeed incredible times. How you see them directly influences your perspective, what you see and in turn, what you do differently.

Altman recently described this moment as one of incredible opportunity.

“This is the most interesting year in human history, except for all future years,” he said.

this is the most interesting year in human history, except for all future years

— Sam Altman (@sama) March 17, 2024

With a new mindset, and with each next step, you’ll uncover ways to do new things that ultimately make the old things obsolete.

My friend Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, recently said, “you’re going to compete with AI.”

What was so fascinating to me was his underlying point.

He wasn’t making a statement. It was a provocation.

How do you hear it?

You compete with AI.

Do you hear that AI competes against you?

Or, do you hear that you compete more effectively *with* AI.

In this new world, “competing with” AI is how you’ll shape your future and the future of your work and business.

AI = Augmented Intelligence.

Let’s create a new and better future “with” AI!

When in doubt, remember this…

Be. Do. Get.

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The post AInsights: AI will be Smarter Than Humans before 2030, So What? appeared first on Brian Solis.

The End of Business as Usual: An Academic Book Review

This made my day…

I just read a book review for “The End of Business as Usual,” my second solo book published in 2011.

Not only is it a review of a 13-year-old book. It’s a review in the “Journal of Academy of Business and Emerging Markets (ABEM),” Canada!

The book still has staying power!

Thank you to Dr Michael B. Pasco, Professor at the Graduate School of Business, San Beda University, Philippines, for the thoughtful review.

The End of Business as Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution – Journal of the Academy of Business and Emerging Markets from Brian Solis Please Subscribe

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Lessons Learned, Advice I Would Give Myself and Probably Ignore, and the Skills I’m Learning to Unlock the Next Phase of My Career

For those of you who followed my work over the years, thank you.

I’ve always been reluctant to pull the curtain back to tell my story. Honestly, I have a hard time talking about myself, even if it’s personal. I open up more about this in the video/links below…

My friends Nathalie Nahai and Dr. Aaron Balick launched a new community, “Time To Show Up,” to help professionals reconnect with their values, creative drive and personal mission.

I was asked if I would share my story.

I’ve shared a glass of wine or two at conferences around the world with them. I trust them. So, I said OK.

Here is that conversation. And it’s personal, raw, and honest.

Key Themes

We cover a lot of ground. It’s the longest interview I’ve made time for in years, and hopefully you’ll see why.

Some of the key themes we explore include:

1. Authenticity and empathy are key in connecting with others and building meaningful relationships.

2. Balancing performance and genuine connection is a challenge in the digital world.

3. Adapting and changing are necessary to reach and resonate with people in a fast-paced and noisy environment.

4. Creativity and taking risks are essential in building a fulfilling career. Marketing on different platforms requires genuine connection with people.

5. Reinventing oneself can be challenging, but it is necessary for personal growth.

6. Recognizing hindrances and staying the course is essential for success.

7. Gratitude and positive self-talk can lead to personal transformation and better relationships.

8. The importance of slowing down as life speeds up to recenter yourself, realign your mission, purpose, and aspirations against the new trajectory of the world, and taking control of your narrative (Lifescaling).

Conversation Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Conversation

02:27 Brian’s Creation Myth

06:03 Brian’s Journey and Commitment to Others

09:34 Influence of Personal Background on Brian’s Approach

12:23 Balancing Performance and Authenticity in the Digital World

13:47 Navigating the Tension Between Performance and Empathy

16:16 Perception of Self vs. Perception of Others

21:22 Expressing Yourself Authentically in a Noisy World

26:45 Trusting Yourself and Taking Risks

32:40 Building a Career with Integrity in a Fast-Paced World

35:09 Adapting and Changing to Connect with People

37:01 Exploring New Creative Challenges

37:48 The Challenge of Marketing on Different Platforms

38:42 Navigating the Challenges of Book Launch

39:49 Overcoming Challenges and Reinventing Oneself

40:33 The First Major Transformation

41:43 Learning from Garth Brooks’ Transformation

42:37 Figuring Out How to Connect with People

44:06 The Drive and Purpose Behind the Book

45:01 Recognizing the Drive and Overcoming Hindrances

46:21 Understanding Oneself and Overcoming Hindrances

48:17 The Need for New Leadership and Change

49:43 Excitement and Anxiety About the Future

51:08 Lessons Learned and Lessons Yet to Learn

52:11 Recognizing the Hindrances and Staying the Course

54:12 The Journey of Personal Transformation

55:42 Understanding Who You Are and What You Value

57:08 Remaining Open to Learning and Growth

58:28 The Importance of Being Open and Not Knowing

59:48 Advice for Younger Self and Recognizing Ignorance

01:01:09 Lessons of Gratitude and Recognizing the Present

01:02:24 Recognizing Hindrances and Learning to Communicate

01:04:11 The Value of Remaining Open and Not Knowing

01:07:46 The Power of Self-Talk and Attracting Opportunities

Be. Do. Get.

In case you need a preview before you dedicate your valuable time with us, I wanted to share some unforgettable advice I received from my mentor and former boss in the 90s! His name is Dan Post and he helped me unlock my potential before I understood where I wanted to go.

“Be. Do. Get.”

It’s a purposeful, action-oriented approach to manifestation.

I hope the rest of my backstory helps you…

https://flic.kr/p/2pDScwy

Podcast Links

If Youtube isn’t your go to for videos or podcasts, our conversation is also available at Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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AInsights: Anthropic Releases Claude 3, ChatGPT Reads Aloud, New Sora Videos Astonish, Sam Altman Return to OpenAI’s Board

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AInsights: Executive-level insights on the latest in generative AI…

Please subscribe to AInsights.

Please also subscribe to my master newsletter, a Quantum of Solis.

Anthropic announced Claude 3, setting new industry benchmarks in reasoning, math, coding, multilingual understanding, and vision

Anthropic’s next generation AI models, Claude 3 Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku, are now available and appear to surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4 performance.

Opus and Sonnet are accessible in its API,  enabling developers to start using these models immediately. Sonnet is powering the company’s free experience, with Opus available for Claude Pro subscribers.

Opus is Anthropic’s most intelligent model, achieving near-human comprehension capabilities according to the company.

With this release, users can opt for the ideal combination of intelligence, speed, and cost to suit their use case.

Opus, our most intelligent model, achieves near-human comprehension capabilities. It can deftly handle open-ended prompts and tackle complex tasks. pic.twitter.com/ZJnXwVVLDv

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) March 4, 2024

Anthropic reports Haiku as the fastest and most cost-effective model on the market for its intelligence category. For the vast majority of workloads, Sonnet is 2x faster than Claude 2 and Claude 2.1, while Opus is about the same speed as past models.

The company, founded by ex-OpenAI research executives, is funded by the likes of Google, Salesforce and Amazon, and closed five different funding deals over the past year, totaling about $7.3 billion.

Claude 3 offers the ability to summarize up to about 150,000 words compared to ChatGPT’s ability to summarize an estimated 3,000. And for the first time, Claude becomes multimodal, allowing for users to upload images or documents, beyond standard text prompting. It cannot yet generate images or videos, however.

AInsights

CNNBC reports that the generative AI field has exploded over the past year, with a record $29.1 billion invested across nearly 700 deals in 2023, a more than 260% increase in deal value from a year earlier, according to PitchBook. On the heels of Google’s release of Gemini 1.5, Anthropic’s release of Claude 3 changes the game in performance and also cost.

I noticed a Tweet or X post, or whatever we’re supposed to call it, pointing out the significant price/performance features of Claude Haiku vs. ChatGPT 4.

Did anthropic just kill every small model?

If I'm reading this right, Haiku benchmarks almost as good as GPT4, but its priced at $0.25/m tokens

It absolutely blows 3.5 + OSS out of the water

For reference gpt4 turbo is 10m/1m tokens, so haiku is 40X cheaper. pic.twitter.com/jUTITDX9fA

— Sully (@SullyOmarr) March 4, 2024

If true, Claude’s ability to maximize tokens in terms of execution and the cost to do so is going to gain enterprise and partner attention at scale. I also expect OpenAI to accelerate the release of 4.5 with an expected leapfrog over the competition, while perhaps, also unlocking next-generation features.

Claude 3 demonstrates a better understanding of risk in responses compared to its previous version, with a more nuanced understanding of text, image, and document-based prompts. Businesses can also benefit from Claude 3’s ability to handle complex inquiries accurately, create source code effectively, and provide faster responses for tasks like knowledge retrieval or sales automation

While Claude 3 Opus may be priced higher than some alternatives, the choice of an AI model should be based on factors like accuracy, speed, privacy, ease of deployment or maintenance, and cost

ChatGPT now reads AI generated responses to you, in your native language.

After prompting ChatGPT, mobile users can press and hold the response to generate a “read aloud” prompt. Web users can simply click a “read aloud” button to have the ChatGPT do just that, read the response aloud.

ChatGPT can now read responses to you.

On iOS or Android, tap and hold the message and then tap “Read Aloud”. We’ve also started rolling on web – click the "Read Aloud" button below the message. pic.twitter.com/KevIkgAFbG

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) March 4, 2024

The Read Aloud feature offers enhanced accessibility by allowing ChatGPT to read out responses in the user’s language, offering five different voices for selection and supporting 37 languages, making it easier to use while on the go and for users with different accessibility needs.

AInsights

OpenAI’s Read Aloud feature in ChatGPT enhances accessibility, user experience, and multimodal capabilities, positioning it as a versatile tool for various users, including business users seeking efficient and interactive AI interactions. It also improves user experiences by offering a verbal response. Since ChatGPT can also accept verbal prompts, ChatGPT becomes conversational not unlike Siri or Alexa, setting it up for a more conversational experience, where prompts aren’t just read, but more natural in response.

OpenAI’s Sora continues to depict the future of genAI video creation and the future of video.

Here are some updated examples. Pay attention to the simple prompts….

"a man and a woman in their 20s are dining in a futuristic restaurant materialized out of nanotech and ferrofluids"

Video generated by Sora. pic.twitter.com/PMPbsp7xCW

— Bill Peebles (@billpeeb) March 2, 2024

5. Prompt: “A mini Aussie painting a picture of his favorite toy” pic.twitter.com/0pYi2i3cDy

— Alvaro Cintas (@dr_cintas) March 3, 2024

"an alien blending in naturally with new york city, paranoia thriller style, 35mm film"

Video generated by Sora. pic.twitter.com/KReZdvlB0N

— Bill Peebles (@billpeeb) March 2, 2024

"fly through tour of a museum with many paintings and sculptures and beautiful works of art in all styles"

Video generated by #Sora pic.twitter.com/SNr9dQZe5V

— Tim Brooks (@_tim_brooks) March 2, 2024

AInsights

It’s hard to imagine any form of video development, from marketing to corp comms to education to training to Hollywood not incorporating genAI tools like OpenAI’s Sora, Pika, Runway, Stable Video Diffusion, and whatever comes next, into at least the development stages of visual storytelling.

What we’re seeing here is so wild, based on the simplest of prompts,. I can only imagine what becomes possible through more intricate imagination and prompting.

They say, practice makes perfect. But with generative AI and an evolving landscape of prompting and technological advancements, practice makes those who use AI literate, experienced, and proficient.

What’s clear though is that disruption in video production is on the horizon.

OpenAI’s Sora has the potential to significantly impact the video industry, especially for video creators and producers, by introducing new opportunities and challenges.

Sora’s ability to turn text into high-quality videos will revolutionize and democratize video in every industry. Filmmaker Tyler Perry reportedly halted expansion plans due to concerns over job impacts after witnessing Sora’s capabilities. Generative AI tools like Sora could force studios to rethink their investment in production costs and potentially displace roles on creative and production teams.

Personally, I believe that Perry and other executives should explore the development of new genres of studios in an era of AI.

While some fear that AI tools like Sora could replace human creativity, others see it as a new tool for Hollywood that can enhance storytelling, reduce production time and costs, and make mundane tasks more efficient. It is viewed as a tool that can drive efficiency and improve the filmmaking process. It also offers the potential to streamline video production processes, reduce costs, and reinvent traditional workflows.

OpenAI reinstates Sam Altman to its board, finds conduct before his ouster ‘did not mandate removal.’

In November during the Thanksgiving Holiday in the U.S., the entire tech industry was glued to their favorite social networks trying to keep up with the crazy four days between OpenAI’s firing and rehiring of Sam Altman. Though Altman returned to the helm as CEO, he was not invited back to the company’s board pending an investigation.

Law firm WilmerHale led the investigation, reviewing the events that resulted in Altman’s ouster. The firm concluded its work and OpenAI announced that Altman will rejoin the board. The company also announced new board members, including:

Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who is also on the Board of Directors at Pfizer and on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.Nicole Seligman, former EVP and Global General Counsel of Sony and President of Sony Entertainment, who is also on the Board of Directors at Paramount Global, Meira GTx and Intuitive Machines, Inc.Fidji Simo, CEO and Chair of Instacart, who is also on the Board of Directors at Shopify.

The new members will “work closely with current board members Adam D’Angelo, Larry Summers and Bret Taylor as well as Greg, Sam, and OpenAI’s senior management,” according to a release.

“We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI,” Bret Taylor, chair of OpenAI’s board, said in a release.

“The review concluded there was a significant breakdown of trust between the prior board and Sam and Greg,” Taylor said, adding that the review also “concluded the board acted in good faith… [and] did not anticipate some of the instability that led afterwards.”

AInsights

Former OpenAI board members, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, put out a statement, “We hope the new board does its job in governing OpenAI and holding it accountable to the mission.”

It’s always a good thing to have the founder/CEO on the board. It’s also a good thing to have a board hold its CEO and organizational leaders accountable to the mission and their executive duties. Governance and oversight is critical.

As Toner and McCauley state, OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. That’s what the “open” in OpenAI means.

Clearly, Toner and McCauley are unwavering in their stance. Deception, manipulation, and resistance to oversight are powerful accusations. No board should accept these traits.

I’m sure Bret Taylor and the new board will govern with integrity and ensure that OpenAI keeps on track with its mission.

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The post AInsights: Anthropic Releases Claude 3, ChatGPT Reads Aloud, New Sora Videos Astonish, Sam Altman Return to OpenAI’s Board appeared first on Brian Solis.

LLAMA Lounge and renAIssance Emerge in Cerebral Valley to Connect Founders, VCs, Executives, and Thought Leaders

@erickd

My friend and former partner at Altimeter Group Jeremiah Owyang is now a VC at Blitzscaling Ventures along with my friend Chris Yeh. Owyang is also the host of Llama Lounge, one of the largest AI events in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In February 2024, Owyang hosted Llama Lounge 8 at GENLAB in San Francisco with 300 attendees that included AI founders, venture capitalists, media, and influencers. The event also had hundreds of prospects on the waiting list.

The event featured was themed around AI agents and featured 10 startups, including:

–Agent Lunar: Digital workers built for small businesses
–AgentOps: Agent benchmarking, testing, compliance
– Claros: AI personal shopper Agents
– Commit: AI talent agents for software developers
– Evabot: Your AI research assistant in sales
– Floode: Personalized AI EA for daily comms
– Infinityy: Sales Agent for property leasing
– Instalily: Autonomous AI Agents; human level productivity
– Lutra: Coding Agents integrated with your apps
– MultiOn: Your personal AI agent

Get a tour of Llama Lounge with @jowyang pic.twitter.com/ZpLVRBGuVV

— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) March 1, 2024

Robert Scoble aka Scobleizer demonstrates how Apple’s Vision Pro also serves as an epic life cam!

A New AI Networking Event Arises

Following Llama Lounge, my event partner and longtime BFF Vanessa Camones and I hosted a new networking event to connect VCs, founders, press, thought leaders, and executives. We call it renAIssance, and it served as the official after party to Llama Lounge.

The first ever renAIssance event was hosted at the Four Seasons on Market Street. It’s a place with deep roots in my early Web 2.0 and startup days. It seemed like the perfect venue for our inaugural event.

renAIssance will continue to serve as the after party for Llama Lounge and will also tour Los Angeles, New York, Austin, among other important cities and alongside key conferences. Please reach out to me if you’re interested in hosting/sponsoring an upcoming event!

Shiv Singh, CMO and co-host of AI Trailblazers, and Zoom’s Ross Mayfield

Brian Solis and Shiv Singh

Ozlem Pesky Bishop and Jeremiah Owyang

Writer and Editorial Curator Ken Yeung, Vanessa Camones, Brian Solis

Vanessa Camones, Brian Solis, Robert Scoble (Scobleizer)

GenLab’s Brady Forrest, Brian Solis

Ken Yeung, Brian Solis, Ben Metcalfe, ServiceNow Ventures’ Shuchi Rana

Charlene Li, Brian Solis

Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang. GenLab’s Daniel Riedel and Brady Forrest

We look forward to seeing you at the next renAIssance!

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Please subscribe to my master newsletter, a Quantum of Solis.

The post LLAMA Lounge and renAIssance Emerge in Cerebral Valley to Connect Founders, VCs, Executives, and Thought Leaders appeared first on Brian Solis.

LLAMA Lounge and renAIssance Emerge in Cerebral Valley to Connect Founders, VCs, Executives, and Thought Leaders.

@erickd

My friend and former partner at Altimeter Group Jeremiah Owyang is now a VC at Blitzscaling Ventures along with my friend Chris Yeh. Owyang is also the host of Llama Lounge, one of the largest AI events in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In February 2024, Owyang hosted Llama Lounge 8 at GENLAB in San Francisco with 300 attendees that included AI founders, venture capitalists, media, and influencers. The event also had hundreds of prospects on the waiting list.

The event featured was themed around AI agents and featured 10 startups, including:

–Agent Lunar: Digital workers built for small businesses
–AgentOps: Agent benchmarking, testing, compliance
– Claros: AI personal shopper Agents
– Commit: AI talent agents for software developers
– Evabot: Your AI research assistant in sales
– Floode: Personalized AI EA for daily comms
– Infinityy: Sales Agent for property leasing
– Instalily: Autonomous AI Agents; human level productivity
– Lutra: Coding Agents integrated with your apps
– MultiOn: Your personal AI agent

Get a tour of Llama Lounge with @jowyang pic.twitter.com/ZpLVRBGuVV

— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) March 1, 2024

Robert Scoble aka Scobleizer demonstrates how Apple’s Vision Pro also serves as an epic life cam!

A New AI Networking Event Arises

Following Llama Lounge, my event partner and longtime BFF Vanessa Camones and I hosted a new networking event to connect VCs, founders, press, thought leaders, and executives. We call it renAIssance, and it served as the official after party to Llama Lounge.

The first ever renAIssance event was hosted at the Four Seasons on Market Street. It’s a place with deep roots in my early Web 2.0 and startup days. It seemed like the perfect venue for our inaugural event.

renAIssance will continue to serve as the after party for Llama Lounge and will also tour Los Angeles, New York, Austin, among other important cities and alongside key conferences. Please reach out to me if you’re interested in hosting/sponsoring an upcoming event!

Shiv Singh, CMO and co-host of AI Trailblazers, and Zoom’s Ross Mayfield

Brian Solis and Shiv Singh

Ozlem Pesky Bishop and Jeremiah Owyang

Writer and Editorial Curator Ken Yeung, Vanessa Camones, Brian Solis

Vanessa Camones, Brian Solis, Robert Scoble (Scobleizer)

GenLab’s Brady Forrest, Brian Solis

Ken Yeung, Brian Solis, Ben Metcalfe, ServiceNow Ventures’ Shuchi Rana

Charlene Li, Brian Solis

Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang. GenLab’s Daniel Riedel and Brady Forrest

We look forward to seeing you at the next renAIssance!

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The post LLAMA Lounge and renAIssance Emerge in Cerebral Valley to Connect Founders, VCs, Executives, and Thought Leaders. appeared first on Brian Solis.

AInsights: AI-Powered Enterprise Use Cases in HR, Customer Service, Payments, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Pharmaceuticals

Created by DALL-E

AInsights: Executive-level insights on the latest in generative AI….

In my work at ServiceNow, we constantly host executives in our global innovation centers. AI is the number one topic everyone wants to explore. And in those meetings, I’m often asked to share use cases that go beyond innovative workflows to demonstrate how organizations are using AI to reimagine operational and business models entirely.

I wanted to share some interesting examples with you in this edition of AInsights.

The world’s largest mining company used ChatGPT to analyze its leadership framework and improve employee experiences.

Vaughn Sheahan, BHP. Credit: itnews

Like all companies, BHP routinely analyzes its leadership framework to refine and update. Traditionally, it engages consultants to manage the usually six-week project. As an experiment, Vaughn Sheahan, the head of organizational development and analytics, decided to test pilot the project with ChatGPT.

The team fed the AI a 90-page “culture baseline assessment” in PowerPoint format, a Board paper on culture that described the company’s aspirations, HR policy documents, and the current capability framework.

Sheahan told an audience at the Microsoft AI Tour conference in Australia that the experience was eye-opening.

“What we were able to do through chat is start to explore how we might need to shape leadership in BHP to better reflect where we need to go and what we need to do,” Sheahan said.

The chat sessions were also productive.

ChatGPT provided process improvements and highlighted gaps and opportunities. It also improved the language, which was also a desired outcome of the project.

“One of the critiques we have in the way we write these documents is they’re HR-centric and our frontline teams don’t get it, so you say to ChatGPT, ‘Express that or rewrite that in a way that a worker can relate to it and engage with it,” Sheahan shared.

Said another way, ChatGPT demonstrated the ability to translate exec-speak into relatable language. We could use more of this!

Sheahan continued, “And at the end of that process, we stepped back and actually asked it, ‘Do you think this is actually the right thing for BHP to do, and do you think that these leadership capabilities are things that are actually going to unlock performance in our business?”

For  such an abstract, deeply analytical question, it’s easy to see why generative AI is not only capable, but also still requires human, expert intervention to review the output and ensure its integrity and value-add

“[The] response that came back absolutely blew my mind in terms of its ability to look at it,” Sheahan said.

ChatGPT offered a conditional ‘yes’ response to the question. But it also pointed out gaps that required addressing.

“We were legitimately missing those points [from the framework],” Sheahan admitted. “Not only did it pick up the things that were missing, it said a framework is one thing but it’s the implementation that matters.”

BHP is now exploring additional opportunities in human resource applications.

Sheahan shared a typical HR transaction as an example of one use case.

“If you think about the current state, I’ve got a query, I raise a case, and hopefully within 24 or 48 hours I get a response,” he explained. “But if you’re like me, you haven’t written the [question] particularly well, so I don’t get an answer back, I get a question back, and that triggers another 24-to-48 hour cycle.”

In my work, this is where I demonstrate the capabilities of Now Assist, our generative AI solutions that address this exact scenario, as well as others in IT, finance, customer service, operations, and more.

Sheahan continued, “If you think about the experience of our workforce around that, it can be quite frustrating, so there is a huge opportunity to improve the way our workforce interacts with HR to get what they need in a far quicker, more human way.”

Exactly!

Additionally, BHP sees AI playing a critical role in optimizing and personalizing critical moments of truth across the employee lifecycle.

This starts with machine learning and AI, along with human counterparts, analyzing those moments, the experiences they deliver, and moments that may be missing. Then, AI and human creativity can not optimize and personalize those moments, but also explore new ways to deliver more meaningful experiences and outcomes. That’s experience innovation right there!

BHP believes that genAI can also augment the performance of HR personnel.

“We have plenty of employment relations lawyers, [and with assistance from generative AI], not only are they quicker at providing advice but maybe their advice is better because it’s fed by precedent data around what is the right course of action with cases similar to this,” Sheahan explained.

He called this concept an example of “precision leadership.”

Hopefully the team used the enterprise edition to preserve its private data from getting absorbed into public learning models!

Special thanks to my colleague Peter McDonnell for sharing this story with me while in Sydney together.

Source.

IKEA deployed AI in customers service to optimize customer service and reduce costs, reskilled call center employees as interior designers, and generated net new revenue.

In June 2023, IKEA launched an AI chat bot named Billie to lead first-level contact with customers. It was named after IKEA’s popular Billy bookcase line and was designed as part of a larger organization strategy to deliver human-centric, data-driven value to customers and co-workers.

Billie understands customer questions, provides product information, offers recommendations, and advises on the design of interior spaces without the need of human intervention.

To date, it has effectively managed and deflected 47% of customer queries directed to IKEA’s call centers, which translates to 3.2 million interactions solved by Billie and nearly EUR 13 million in savings thus far.

“This level of personalization is not only going to continue to improve but will enhance customer satisfaction and increase loyalty overall” Parag Parekh, CDO for Ingka Group, said in a release.

This move has not only helped the company reduce costs, it has also improved customer experiences while generating new revenue streams and value.

In a time when executives are exploring AI’s ability to automate work, IKEA could have made dramatic cuts to its workforce due to Billie’s success. Instead, the company reskilled 8,500 call center workers with new capabilities to support remote interior design competence, digital retail sales, building relationships, and handling unique customer inquiries that require complex problem-solving.

Sales through remote customer meeting points, for example, reached EUR 1.3 billion at the end of FY22, accounting for 3.3% of total sales. The aim is to grow the share to 10% in the next few years.

This move deserves recognition, celebration, and widespread adoption and experimentation.

Ulrika Biesèrt, Ingka Group’s People and Culture Manager, expressed her commitment, “We’re committed to strengthening co-workers’ employability in Ingka or elsewhere through lifelong learning and development and reskilling, and to accelerate the creation of new jobs.”

The AInsights here is that automation alone isn’t the answer to thrive in an AI-first economy. The opportunity presented by artificial intelligence goes beyond automation and cost-savings. Yet so many organizations prioritize these quick wins because they look good on paper and in practice. But automation is only one side of a two-pronged approach. Augmentation and the pursuit of differentiated and transformational use cases is the partner strategy to balance savings with growth, creating a competitive advantage over peers the over-index on quick wins.

Source.

Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month.

Klarna, based in Stockholm, Sweden, is a leading global payments and shopping service. The company recently introduced an AI assistant powered by OpenAI to enhance shopping and payment experiences for the company’s 150 million consumers worldwide. The intelligent AI agent can manage a range of tasks from multilingual customer service to managing refunds and returns to fostering healthy financial habits.

Klarna’s A 24/7 AI assistant is an always-on, dependable customer service expert for all customer service needs.

It offers real-time updates on outstanding balances and upcoming payment schedules. It also provides a clear understanding of purchase power, explaining spending limits and the reasons behind them, helping users make informed and confident shopping choices

It also provides embedded multilingual chat support, capable of handling inquiries in over 35 languages.

Now here’s where things get interesting…

The company announced the following stats after one month of in-field deployment:

The AI assistant has already managed 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats.

It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents.

Performance is on par with human agents as measured by its customer satisfaction (CSAT) score.

It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries.

Customers now resolve their errands in less than 2 mins compared to 11 mins previously.

The intelligent agent is estimated to drive a $40 million in profit improvement to Klarna in 2024.

I would love to see what Klarna does next beyond automation, with augmentation added into the value-added mis.

NVIDIA and Simulation Solutions use computer vision and AI to monitor end-to-end supply chain operations.

Imagine, from the moment the delivery truck arrives, to monitoring conveyer belts, to observing shelves, AI is tracking, counting, assessing product quality, and controlling belt speeds to streamline the entire process.

NVIDIA and Simulation Solutions use AI to deliver unprecedented efficiencies and optimization to the supply chain, helping retailers meet and exceed customer expectations.

When a deliver vehicle arrives at the distribution center, AI streamlines the receival process.

Computer vision detects arriving vehicles and assesses each box label to identify goods and ensure accuracy.

AI then assesses demand and contributes to making forecasting more accurate, while giving retailers more insight into what customers want and when.

Intelligent automation monitors progress.

AI controls conveyer speed to maximize employee productivity and safety while avoiding congestions, avoiding downtime, and boosting quality control. As a result, AI eliminates downtime, which can cost operators $3-$5k per minute.

NVIDIA Omniverse allows companies to cost-effectively test new factory and distribution center designs in an effort to increase efficiencies and optimization in a photorealistic metaverse before deploying layouts in the real world.

NVIDIA Replicator provides testing scenarios that produce synthetic data to retrain AI models.

BMW Group designs simulated factories and distribution centers in real time. Digital human simulations test new workflows for employee ergonomics, safety, and productivity.

Simulated training helps robots find the best routes in a virtual warehouse for real world execution.

Machine learning helps truck dispatches to identify ideal routes for deliveries.

NVIDIA and Omniverse use AI to create digital twins of manufacturing plants and distribution centers to design and optimize workflows 24/7 without having to purchase equipment or build new facilities.

NVIDIA AI and Omniverse helps product designers, sculptors, artists, and engineers digitize, collaborate, and transform workflows by creating digital twins in simulating physical environments. This connects stakeholders across a shared metaverse, iterates product design and innovation, introduces new operational efficiencies, and accelerates go to market with greater value. Synthetic data then can be used to deploy new designs, workflows and also retrain AI models in the real world.

The teams can produce physically accurate and photorealistic renderings.

The dashboard interface can be simulated so it can be experienced in the context of the physical layout.

Engineers can integrate results to visualize and improve aerodynamics and energy efficiencies and create photorealistic products to retrain AI models.

AI-powered digital twins streamline factory designs and production logistics.

Virtual replicas facilitate real-time collaboration, unlock operational efficiencies, and create opportunities for predictive analytics and process innovation.

Provides a physically accurate simulation platform for drive and safety tests and validation.

Generative AI creates 3D reconstruction of roads for training perception systems.

All of this adds up to virtual reality as reality experiences to explore vehicles and even drive them via realistic recreations.

AI makes every simulated step, real.

NVIDIA’s BioNeMo AI platform helps researches analyze cell structures and dynamics to recreate cells and virtually test responses to disease pathways and drug efficiency.

NVIDIA’s BioNeMo is a generative AI platform for drug discovery that accelerates training of models using customer-owned data sets.

The platform uses PLM (private language models) to develop AI specific to emerging treatments. AI  recreates cell structures, dynamics and responses to new potential treatments, all in a metaverse, 24/7. Subtle changes are not always possible with traditional phonemics (high throughput image analysis), but AI modeling can attempt to recreate cells to then simulate reactions over time.

This helps to test, optimize, and accelerate time to market for life-changing treatments.

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The post AInsights: AI-Powered Enterprise Use Cases in HR, Customer Service, Payments, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Pharmaceuticals appeared first on Brian Solis.

AInsights: NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang Ponders the Future of Coding, ChatGPT Gets Memory, Google Gemini 1.5 and the Meaning of Tokens, Three Alternatives to Google Search

Created with DALL-E

AInsights: Executive-level insights on the latest in generative AI….

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang says teaching children how to code is no longer the goal, AI is meant to make programming, human

At the World Government Summit NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang told the audience that children no longer need to learn how to code. Cue the brake screeching sound.

“I want to say something and it’s going to sound completely opposite of what people feel,” Jensen said on stage. “Over the course of the last 10 years, 15 years, almost everybody who sits on a stage like this would tell you it is vital that your children learn computer science.”

He continued, “Everybody should learn how to program. And in fact, it’s almost exactly the opposite. It is our job to create computing technology such that nobody has to program and that the programming language is human. Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence. The countries, the people that understand how to solve a domain problem in digital biology or in education of young people or in manufacturing or in farming, those people who understand domain expertise now can utilize technology that is readily available to you.”

We don't need to teach our children how to code according to @NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.

*cue the record scratch*

He may be right! What if we learn how to be more productive, creative, imaginative, curious, and inventive in how we work with AI?

"I want to say something and it's… pic.twitter.com/rT7MEYt4vh

— Brian Solis (@briansolis) February 25, 2024

AInsights

Huang’s take is as controversial as it is necessary. There’s a reason it’s sparked debate and thought. In the spirit of what he’s saying, what we really need to focus on are the skills, subjects, and experiences that prepare students for a future that’s under constructions.

I learned programming in school. Granted, what I learned is no longer relevant in the world of programming, but I did learn the importance of logical, algorithmic, critical, and outcomes-based thinking. While AI tools can aid in certain tasks, they do not replicate the cognitive processes and learning experiences essential for academic growth and skill development, and ultimately, their success in the future workforce (and ours!)

Think of AI as your cognitive exoskeleton, it is your co-pilot in augmenting everything you do, at every step. AI is your key to intelligence-as-a-service. But it is your prompts, your imagination, your creativity, your resilience, that sets your AI-powered outcomes apart from others.

OpenAI gives ChatGPT memory, a super cookie of sorts that learns how to personalize and optimize output for you

OpenAI announced that it is integrating memory into ChatGPT to improve its ability to learn over time and personalize responses. This memory feature enables ChatGPT to remember details such as user preferences, names, occupations, and personal likes and dislikes, leading to more personalized and contextually relevant conversations.

Users can ask ChatGPT to remember something specific or let it learn on its own. The idea is that ChatGPT gets better as you use it.

Here are some of the use cases that OpenAI has shared:

You’ve explained that you prefer meeting notes to have headlines, bullets and action items summarized at the bottom. ChatGPT remembers this and recaps meetings this way.You’ve told ChatGPT you own a neighborhood coffee shop. When brainstorming messaging for a social post celebrating a new location, ChatGPT knows where to start.You mention that you have a toddler and that she loves jellyfish. When you ask ChatGPT to help create her birthday card, it suggests a jellyfish wearing a party hat.As a kindergarten teacher with 25 students, you prefer 50-minute lessons with follow-up activities. ChatGPT remembers this when helping you create lesson plans.

If you create or use GPTs, it’s also important to note that GPTs will also have their own distinct memory.

AInsights

Personalization is becoming pervasive as apps, websites, and now chatbots become increasingly intelligent. We were and are ‘wowed’ by the capabilities of generativeAI. But now we also are learning to expect more. As we master collaboration with AI, it’s helpful to know that we’re not the only side of the equation learning. ChatGPT memory will enhance future conversations by anticipating our needs, remembering our preferences, and helping us get better on the platform. It will also ensure continuity, helping us pick up where we left off, as if it had been thinking about our last conversation even though we stepped away.

All-in-all, increased speed to outcomes, personalized responses, increased efficiency, will help us learn and grow with our AI cognitive exoskeleton.

Google Gemini 1.5 is accelerating development to more effectively compete against ChatGPT and Claude

Since its massive “code red” scramble in December 2022, Google has been racing to catch up with Bard, and now Gemini 1.5.

For power users, this is a big deal because though it comes standard with a 128,000 token context window, some developers and enterprise customers are getting access to 1 million tokens. This means that Google’s Gemini model (multimodal) can process more information, context, and produce greater results accordingly.

https://twitter.com/minchoi/status/17...

AInsights

What does this all mean? What are tokens and why should you care?

Well, if you are a power user or aspire to become one, tokens are the equivalent of compute power and capacity. The more you feed it, the more it can process for you.

This means 1.5 Pro can process vast arrays of information — including 1 hour of video, text with 700,000 words, 11 hours of audio, codebases with over 30,000 lines of code or over 700,000 words. Google claims in its research that they’ve also successfully tested up to 10 million tokens.

Following are examples of use cases, outcomes, and the tokens required to execute.

Complex Reasoning

Understanding and Reasoning Across Modalities

Relevant Problem-Solving with Longer Blocks of Code

Three AI alternatives to Google search

Jeremy Caplan over at FastCompany published a helpful article that helps users discover new use cases that go beyond traditional Google search. Caplan lists Perplexity, Dexa, and Arc Search as his go-to AI apps and includes very specific examples for each.

Choose Perplexity over Google when . . . you have a narrow query like “are moon cacti found in the wild?” Check out how the Google result is less helpful than the Perplexity result.

Perplexity

Try Perplexity with a highly specific subject. Gloria, author of The Learning Curve newsletter, shared with Caplan that she relies on Perplexity when she needs highly tailored responses or recommendations for specific scenarios. I use it because it also includes references in its results for additional reference.

Dexa

Try Dexa when you need a particular insights shared by experts in forums such as podcasts. Rather than analyzing the broader Web like Perplexity, Dexa focuses exclusively on podcast content.

The app identifies relevant episodes and links to the moment where your topic is addressed. You can watch or listen to the original content, or read a quick summary.

Arc Search

Arc Search is a mobile browser app designed to enhance the search experience by providing quick and distraction-free summaries as a custom webpage. Make sure to use its “Browse for me” feature to activate AI. Like Perplexity, reveals its sources for further reference and study.

AInsights

I use Perplexity as my day-to-day “answers engine.” It is helpful when I need quick and trust synopses. I will try using Dexa when I need to reference podcast conversations with my favorite experts. Arc Search also seems promising, however, it’s currently limited to iOS and I’m awaiting its cross platform functionality to use on my Mac as well!

All-in-all, these are solid tools and I’m constantly on the look out for productivity hacks and boosters.

It makes me wonder how much of this Google couldn’t just replicate at some point, or if it aims to focus on competing against ChatGPT and Claude, among others, for now.

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The post AInsights: NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang Ponders the Future of Coding, ChatGPT Gets Memory, Google Gemini 1.5 and the Meaning of Tokens, Three Alternatives to Google Search appeared first on Brian Solis.