📈 How are companies using AI?

➜ From 6 Months to 6 Hours: Merck cut chemical identification time from 6 months to 6 hours using an AI R&D Assistant, showcasing a groundbreaking efficiency boost in their research process.

Netguru

➜ AI Enhanced Skincare is Here: Perfect Corp. and Face Haus partnered up to deliver AI Skin Analysis to all Face Haus facial bar locations. What does that mean? 180-degree full face mapping with AR and AI for the most effective facial for a customer’s skin type with a comprehensive assessment. Product recommendations too. For now, we’re talking LA and Texas, but that’s soon bound to change.

RetailDive

➜ Toys R Us Studios Jump on GenAI: The retail toy brand Toys R Us premiered a short promo film at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival in France this week that was created almost entirely by using OpenAI’s new text-to-video tool, Sora. The clip, showing the founding story of the brand, was put together in just a couple of weeks in collaboration with Native Foreign. For a firstie, it’s pretty damn neat.

ToysRus

➜ Nubank Acquires Hyperplane to Drive AI-First Strategy: Brazilian Nubank has acquired Hyperplane in a bid to enhance its AI-first strategy. By leveraging Hyperplane's data intelligence platform, Nubank aims to improve its customer service and personalisation capabilities, and introduce new AI-powered products.

Finextra

➜ Virgin Money Expands Use of AI-Powered Assistant: Virgin Money is expanding the usage of Redi, its AI-powered virtual assistant, to support more customers. According to Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the bank's CEO, Redi has already engaged in over one million conversations since its launch in March 2023. It utilizes AI technology to provide financial advice to customers.

Finextra

➜ If S&P 500 Was NBA, AI Would Be The MVP: During the first half of 2024, the S&P 500 index gained 15%. Notably, Nvidia stocks alone—fueled by AI chips—were responsible for more than a third of that gain.

MorningBrew

💡 What are the nerds up to?

➜ Massive Security Flaw in Rabbit R1: As if faulty battery and subpar performance weren’t enough, the R1 AI gadget faces another challenge. A group of developers and researchers found API keys hardcoded in Rabbit’s code. As The Verge puts it, “that is Bad with a capital B.”
The Verge

➜ Too Long; Didn't Watch: Someone built a Chrome extension that uses AI to summarize YouTube videos into bullet points. The reason? Frustration from skipping through videos or watching them at an accelerated speed. A sign of the times, clearly. I’m wondering what’s next – Netflix shows? 

Chrome Web Store

➜ First Step Towards RoboGrocery: A group of MIT researchers has built the first prototype of a robotic system that can pack groceries. The device combines computer vision with a soft robotic gripper. The system analyzes which items are delicate and should be packed last. If you’ve ever packed grapes or tomatoes at the bottom, you’ll appreciate the thinking here. 

YouTube

➜ GenAI Is Vastly Overestimated? Speaking of MIT, its robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks suggests it’s flawed to try and assign human capabilities to AI. Yet, people are so overly optimistic with AI capabilities and are so hyped on GenAI, they even want to use it for applications that don’t make sense.

TechCrunch

➜ Stopping AI from Hallucinating: Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere, reveals how they're tackling AI hallucinations and improving reasoning abilities. And why his company doesn't use any output from GPT-4 for training their models. A rare look into the internal workings of one of the most interesting AI companies.
Machine Learning Street Talk

➜ Figma Finally Reacts to AI-Powered Design: The most popular prototyping platform has added its first AI native features. Examples include an AI designer that lets users create mobile and web UI through text prompts and visual search with the ability to use screenshots, images, and frames to find existing designs.

TechRadar

➜ Mary Meeker Is Back With Report on AI: Meeker's annual "Internet Trends" reports were among Silicon Valley's most cited documents. After four years of silence, Meeker’s back, this time with a report on the relationship between AI and U.S. higher education. Key claim: Tech and universities need to treat each other as partners. Give them these GPUs, GAFA!

Axios

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