Google Enters the AI Chat 🥊

Hey there, AI explorers!

Welcome to another edition of AI Authority, delivering all of the top groundbreaking AI news shaping our world into a bite-sized newsletter every Friday.

Highlights from this week include:  

• 🥊 Google Enters the Chat with new AI Release

• 🍟 Fast Food Giants Incorporate AI into Drive-Thrus

• 📚 Anthropic Leveling Up Claude

• ⬇️ + More!

Let’s dive in 👇

A rundown of some of the top headlines in the AI space this week:

🥊 Google Punches Back With Big AI Updates

While OpenAI and ChatGPT have dominated the headlines of late, many wondered when Google would make its looming presence truly felt in the AI race.

After an eye-opening day of presentations at the company’s I/O 2023 developer’s conference on Wednesday — it would appear that the giant is awake and ready to fight for AI tech supremacy.

In addition to introducing GPT-4 rival PaLM2, Google is also opening up its chatbot Bard to the masses.

And the company unveiled a suite of new AI-enabled features, enhancing apps and services already used by millions of users.

• In Google Workspace, the new Duet AI will streamline workflows by offering time-saving shortcuts in apps like Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet. “Sidekick” can also read, summarize and answer questions based on documents across various apps.

• Google Photos is introducing Magic Editor, an AI tool for editing photos without professional software.

• Google Search and Image Search will both receive AI enhancements for better results via “AI Snapshot”, with plans to reinvent traditional search.

• Gmail's "Help Me Write" feature will use AI to draft emails based on a few keywords, streamlining the writing process.

• A Google Maps preview showed new ‘Immersive View’ for 3D flyover-style navigation, incorporating traffic, air quality, and weather data.

The market seemed to like the developments — with shares of $GOOGL up roughly 9% following the presentation, rising to its highest levels since August and adding over $130B to Alphabet’s market value.

Read more about Google’s announcements in our thread summarizing the tech giant’s busy day:

🍟 AI Takes the Wheel at Wendy's Drive-Thru

Fast food giant Wendy's is the latest chain to embrace AI, announcing plans to use a Google-developed chatbot for the company’s drive-thru service. The chatbot, designed to mimic human interaction, will answer frequently asked questions and streamline the ordering process.

Launching in Columbus, Ohio, in June, Wendy's joins the ranks of McDonald's, Carl’s Jr., Panera, Popeyes, and others — as automation and AI technology continue to transform the fast-food industry.

While some early trials have faced accuracy challenges, companies remain committed to improving the drive-thru experience with cutting-edge tech.

📶 Anthropic Levels Up Claude

Speaking of Google… Anthropic (backed by Google) announced a major boost in capabilities for its AI assistant Claude.

The Chatbot now boasts a massive 100K token context window, allowing it to analyze and digest hundreds of pages (or around 6 hours of audio) in just seconds!

This incredible upgrade means more efficient and accurate assistance in various tasks like summarizing dense documents, analyzing annual reports, and even answering technical questions from developer documentation.

Previous token limitations (Claude’s capacity was originally 9K, and ChatGPT-4 is 32K) had resulted in AI 'forgetting’ content or context in lengthy prompts and conversations. More memory can help keep the assistant on track, as well as take on huge swaths of data.

The Anthropic team even loaded in the entire ‘Great Gatsby’ novel and changed a single line — with the AI identifying the modified detail in just 22 seconds 🤯 

A compilation of the latest AI-powered platforms to add to your toolbox:

• Boomy — Create, edit, and distribute generative music using AI (link)

• Hubble AI — Build AI-powered apps and tools with no code (link)

• StockIMG — An AI image generator for brands (link)

• Airtable AI — Transform every workflow with generative AI (link)

• Writesonic — An AI writing assistant for creating SEO-optimized and plagiarism-free content for blogs, ads, emails and websites (link)

Our favorite tweets, threads, AI generations and more from the past week:

A compilation of all the times Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned AI during I/O 2023 (reportedly 137, though we didn’t personally count):

@verge

Pretty sure Google is focusing on AI at this year’s I/O. #google #googleio #ai #tech #technews #techtok

Get into a rap battle with ChatGPT at your own risk… Mic. Dropped:

Wes Anderson taking his directing talents to Middle-Earth:

🦸 With Guardians of the Galaxy 3 topping the box office charts, it seems people had superheroes on the mind. Some of our favorite AI-generated finds on the timeline:

“My 600-lb Super Life”… Would watch:

Superheroes need to carry their golf clubs in something too:

Guardians of the Galaxy, 1979 style:

Our contribution to the superhero discourse — Snoop Dogg’s Superman soaring high (see what we did there?):