🤔 Wiser! #134: Deepfake Downsides | Amazon AI | Etihad NFTs | Google Robots
Amazon's AI strategy, Etihad Airways use of NFTs to build customer engagement and Google's latest generation of AI powered robots.
Hello Wiser! readers,
What's in Wiser! this week
Amazon and their noticeable absence from the AI gold rush, or are they
Google gave us a glimpse into the future of AI robots that can help around the home.
Etihad Airway's journey into web3 and their NFT membership programme that sold out within days (there really is so much more going on than just AI!)
Chart of the Week looks at Uber finally reporting a profitable quarter after blowing over $31 billion to get here.
AI Tool of the Week is Hoppy Copy (awful name, great product), an AI productivity tool that saves you time and money.
The WiserPLUS! article for subscribers is a deep dive on deepfake.
Plus there are dozens of other headlines, links and useful insights.
ATB, Rick
P.s. Remember: Insight and Information Gives You Leverage!
Amazon’s AI Strategy Is Built On Bedrock
Like Apple, Amazon has been a noticeable absentee from the AI gold rush. Odd when you consider they gave us Alexa, one of the first mainstream products for talking to computers, just like ChatGPT is doing today. However, that silence does not mean inactivity.
Here’s The Thing: Amazon wants to be an AI enabler, operating across the entire AI landscape rather than be tied to a single product set. This makes sense given that AWS is the largest cloud service business in the world and can simply offer AI capabilities as a value add extension to existing customers. Amazon’s AI ambitions are built around a core product called Bedrock, which lets developers select from a range of AI models. Bloomberg has already built BloombergGPT using this approach from Amazon. To find out more, I wrote this.
Google's AI Robots Are Trained To Help Around The Home
Google has unveiled its latest artificial intelligence innovation that takes robotics into new territory. The AI system, Robotic Transformer 2 (RT-2), allows robots to use visual inputs and voice commands to work out for itself how to do tasks, even those they haven't been specifically trained to perform. RT-2 robots can understand that a coke can or discarded banana peel is "trash" and should be put in the bin.
Here’s The Thing: Advances in AI is enabling robots to perceive and understand their environment in ways that couldn't be achieved before. Computer vision techniques allows robots to recognise objects, detect obstacles, and interpret scenes. This environmental awareness is key for navigation and task completion and is leading the AI-enabled robots planning actions and making decisions. Where this is all leading is towards making robots autonomous. To learn more about the future of autonomous robots, I wrote this…
Etihad Airways Expands Its NFT Membership Program
Etihad Airways was one of the first airlines to use NFTs and smart tokens for its customer loyalty programme. Now it is expanding the programme ss it prepares to go all in on Web3 in September. For the latest collection of NFTs, which all sold out within days of release, holders get a 12-month Silver Tier Status, priority check-in, a 25% boost in earning Miles, lounge access, and membership to the Etihad: Virtual Club, amongst other benefits.
Here’s The Thing: Ignore all the talk about about NFT pictures. The utility of digital tokens is so much more than just asset ownership and collectibles. Etihad, and other airlines, are using NFTs to extend loyalty programmes beyond the limitations of traditional schemes, exploiting the emerging technology to build better customer engagement and brand value. To understand how the airline industry is embracing NFTs and web3 technologies, read this…
Chart Of The Week
🍾 Champagne corks were popping this week as Uber reached a long-awaited milestone.. reporting their first-ever operating profit of $326 million.
Here's The Thing: The poster child of the iPhone generation has burned through $31.5 billion in operating losses since it started reporting finances in 2014. Heaven only knows how much they spent/lost in the 5 years prior to that after starting out in 2009!
Anyone who has seen the dramatisation of the early days of Uber under Travis Kalanick will get a sense of the out-of-control, spend-whatever-it-takes, do-what-ever-it-takes culture that was fuelled by an endless stream of VC money. It worked as a strategy to establish Uber as a global brand with a global presence, without worrying about the consequences of their actions. But it was also a strategy that had no regard for a return. However, under the steady hand of Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO since 2017, Uber has focused on its two core lines of business, getting food and people from A to B.
Get more data driven insights like this from Chartr.
AI Tools Of The Week
Hoppy Copy
Would you like to be able to write high converting emails 10x faster? Hoppy Copy can help you do just that! With its AI-powered platform, you can quickly create powerful copy for a variety of email marketing campaigns, drips, newsletters, and more. So why not give it a try today?
AI Productivity
Copy.AI - Experience the full power of an AI content generator that delivers premium results in seconds.
Typefully - Write better Posts for LinkedIn and Twitter and grow your audience using AI.
The Sample - Use AI to find the newsletters you're going to love to read.
Canva - Create amazing content quickly with Canva's new AI powered features. No design skills needed.
What Else Is Going On In Tech
Microsoft reported that 11,000 customers are already using its generative AI service via its partnership with OpenAI.
Meanwhile, Microsoft have announced a deal with make-up brand Maybelline to use their augmented reality filter tech in Microsoft Teams.
The Washington Post reports how job hunters are tricking AI CV readers.
Staff inside Adobe are reportedly raising concerns that their own AI software will kill graphic designer jobs. Having seen the new features it’s easy to see the fears that Adobe are cannibalising its core business.
The number of Snapchat’s daily active users is up 14% on the year to 397 million. That’s roughly twice the size of pre-Musk TwitterX.
Netflix is holding off on making a native Vision Pro app. The streaming service plans to instead bring its iPad app to Apple’s mixed reality headset.
Roblox has arrived on Meta’s Quest VR headset. The metaverse gaming platform launched in beta on the Quest’s App Lab store.
Uber is developing an AI-powered chatbot to integrate Into the ride share App.
Pinterest says AI recommendations keep users on site. Pinterest’s monthly active users grew 8% to 465 million users and the company said those users were spending more time on the site, in part due to better post and ad recommendations powered by artificial intelligence.
OpenAI has filed a trademark application for GPT-5, giving some hints about features in the new generation of GPT.
AI summaries are being tested by Youtube.
China announced this week a ban on non-adult mobile use from 10 PM to 6 AM amongst fears of social media addiction.
In the midst of its huge rebrand, Twitter has been forced to remove a giant flashing ‘X’ logo from the roof of its San Francisco HQ after 24 complaints from neighbors.
Recommended Reading
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