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Week of September 8

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1. Online meetings and messaging get smarter.
Zoom announced AI Companion (CNET, Zoom). Zoom’s new “AI Companion” briefs late attendees, provides post-meeting summaries and feedback on users’ performance, all at no additional cost to existing subscribers.

Slack is introducing a built-in AI tool, Slack AI, which will provide features like automated channel recaps and thread summaries to enhance message organization and user engagement, with testing scheduled for the upcoming winter (The Verge).

2. A new language model is coming.
Apple is heavily investing in artificial intelligence (The Verge). Apple is heavily investing in AI, dedicating millions daily, including a chatbot for AppleCare and task automation for Siri. Their advanced language model, internally named Ajax GPT, reportedly surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 in capabilities.

3. A new AI-powered financial assistant
Intuit Assist was unveiled (VentureBeat). Intuit has introduced “Intuit Assist,” an advanced AI assistant for its products, capable of understanding natural language, providing insights, and performing tasks like generating invoices and optimizing marketing campaigns.
 
4. OpenAI calls for developers.
OpenAI will have its first developer conference in San Francisco on November 6, 2023 (OpenAI). 
 
5. 3D virtual world creation gets simpler.
Hiber added generative AI to its 3D world creation tools. Building 3D worlds becomes much easier (VentureBeat, IdeaEarly).
 
6. Lithium-ion batteries may have a new competitor.
Eos Energy, a company specializing in alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, has secured a loan of nearly $400 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to foster the development of zinc-halide batteries for cheaper renewable energy storage (MIT Tech Review). 
 
7. Tax violations might become harder for the wealthy.
IRS will use AI to track tax violations (Axios). The IRS is focusing on cases that concern individuals earning over $1 million with tax debts above $250,000.
 
8. AI is supporting biotech and medtech.
An AI expert, Inceptive’s Jakob Uszkoreit, raised $100mn for biotech start-up to develop new types of vaccines and drugs (FT). The company has AI-backed capability to design unique molecules made of mRNA. Digital pathology company Paige is collaborating with Microsoft to develop what it asserts will be the “most extensive” artificial intelligence model, trained on a large collection of cancer biopsy images (Fierce Biotech). Another company, Glass Health,  develops an AI system making suggestions for medical diagnoses (TechCrunch). AstraZeneca signs an agreement with Verge to enable AI-powered drug discovery (Biospace).
 
9. Ammonia production could become green.
An Israeli startup named Nitrofix has developed a low-power, electrochemical process that utilizes water and a selective catalyst to produce ammonia without CO2 emissions, offering a sustainable alternative to the traditional, carbon-intensive methods of ammonia production (Springwise).
 
10. Engineered bacteria can produce electricity using wastewater.
EPFL researchers have engineered E. coli bacteria to generate electricity from wastewater from breweries, a development that could revolutionize waste management and energy production. The optimized process triples the electrical current generation compared to previous methods, showcasing potential in microbial fuel cells and other applications (Joule).
 
11. New AI startups take on event planning, logistics, education, and digital cloning.
Three interesting AI startups are backed by Y Combinators  (TechCrunch, TechCrunch). Anna Sun and Amy Yan launched “Nowadays,” an AI tool for corporate event planning in a potential $510.9 billion market, while FleetWorks, by ex-Uber’s Paul Singer and Airbnb’s Quang Tran, offers AI-driven solutions for freight brokers to optimize communications. Flint is a chatbot solution for educational institutions. Flint allows administrators to manage access through invitations, monitor utilization patterns, and acquire records of student communications.
 
A startup enables the making of an AI clone (VentureBeat). Delphi has launched a service allowing users to create AI clones of themselves or others, living or dead. Users can upload communication samples, such as emails or videos, and Delphi will craft an AI chatbot that emulates the person’s personality and mannerisms.
 
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