Sunlight-powered flight
Highlights
1. McKinsey published Technology Trends Outlook 2024, emphasizing the impact of generative AI, robotics, advanced computing, and climate technologies.
2. OpenAI launches GPT-4o Mini, a small model with textual intelligence and multimodal reasoning. Mistral and Hugging Face introduce their small models as well. More applications built on small models will appear.
3. Microsoft Designer that enables users to create and edit designs with AI-powered features is now widely available. Google Vids, an AI-powered video creation app, is being tested in Workspace Labs. Graphic design and video production are being democratized.
4. Salesforce announced Einstein Service Agent, an LLM-based agent designed to handle complex queries and resolve service issues. Such kind of autonomous customer-facing assistant may become a trend.
5. The CoulombFly, a micro aerial vehicle, achieves sustained flight powered solely by natural sunlight. It might open the door for larger sunlight-powered aerial vehicle.
Innovation Insights
1. McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2024 (McKinsey)
Substantial growth in enterprise adoption of frontier technologies, particularly generative AI and electrification/renewables, is projected for 2024. Generative AI has seen a significant increase in interest and investment, driving innovation across various sectors, while electrification and renewables maintain high investment and interest scores due to their critical roles in global decarbonization efforts. The McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook highlights that successful adoption of these technologies requires addressing data quality, business pain points, and talent acquisition.
2. Making generative AI work in the enterprise: New from MIT SMR (Ideas Made to Matter)
Organizations should emphasize reorganizing work structures around AI, using nudges to help users check AI outputs for accuracy, and learning from early adopters who focus on enabling innovation over strict governance. A study highlighted that nudges, such as highlighting potential errors in AI-generated text, help users spot mistakes without significantly impacting efficiency. Additionally, the Mayo Clinic’s approach to AI, focusing on enablement rather than governance, has facilitated significant advancements in AI integration in healthcare.
3. How to Integrate Cloud, Data, and AI Technologies — and Make Your Company More Adaptable (Harvard Business Review)
To build a strong, adaptable “digital core” integrating cloud, data, and AI technologies is crucial for future growth and flexibility in organizations. Research from Accenture on over 1,500 global companies shows that those with a reinvention-ready digital core achieved a 60% acceleration in revenue growth and a 40% increase in profitability. Companies must focus on value-led technology adoption, boost strategic investments in innovation by at least 6% annually, and balance technical debt with future investments.
4. Why we need safeguards against genetic discrimination (MIT Technology Review)
Genetic data is increasingly collected and shared, raising concerns about its security and potential misuse, such as genetic discrimination by insurers and employers. Some laws exist to protect individuals, but they vary widely and may need adaptation to address evolving technologies and their uses. People worried about genetic discrimination should understand their rights and data privacy, and consider the terms and conditions of genetic testing services.
5. Taking a Globally Orchestrated Approach to Digital Disruption (Bain)
Senior executives must navigate an increasingly complex landscape of interconnected disruptions like technological advances, market shifts, and environmental challenges, requiring a globally-coordinated approach to manage them effectively. Key emerging technologies in 2024, including generative AI, quantum computing, and climate tech, necessitate unique capabilities for successful adoption. Effective management of these technologies involves developmental and delivery agendas, ensuring alignment across the organization and leveraging broader ecosystem developments for competitive advantage.
AI Innovations
1. OpenAI
Prover-Verifier Games train strong language models to produce text that weak models and humans can easily verify, improving the legibility and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs (OpenAI).
OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini is a cost-efficient AI model that brings powerful and affordable intelligence to a wide range of applications, surpassing similar models in performance and expanding accessibility to advanced AI capabilities without the need for cloud resources (OpenAI).
OpenAI has introduced new compliance and administrative tools for ChatGPT Enterprise, including Compliance API integrations, SCIM for automated user management, and expanded GPT controls to enhance data security, support compliance programs, and streamline user access management (OpenAI).
2. Microsoft
Microsoft Designer enables users to create and edit designs effortlessly using AI-powered features integrated across Microsoft products like Word, PowerPoint, and Photos, enhancing creativity and productivity with tools like custom stickers, greeting cards, image frames, and more (Microsoft).
Microsoft has unveiled “SpreadsheetLLM,” an AI model designed to enhance enterprise productivity by understanding and working with spreadsheets, enabling large language models to efficiently analyze and generate insights from complex spreadsheet data (VentureBeat).
3. Google
YouTube Music is rolling out the “Sound Search” feature on Android and iOS, allowing users to find songs by playing, singing, or humming (9to5 Google).
Google Vids, an AI-powered video creation app integrated with Google Workspace, offers high-quality templates, a royalty-free stock content library, and a recording studio to streamline video production for work (Google).
4. Groq
The newly released Llama-3-Groq-Tool-Use models, including the 70B and 8B variants, set new benchmarks in open-source AI for tool use with high accuracy on the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard, and are now available on GroqCloud™ and Hugging Face for advanced tool use applications (Groq).
5. Anthropic
The new Claude Android app delivers the capabilities of Claude, including Claude 3.5 Sonnet, to Android users (Anthropic).
6. Salesforce
Salesforce has announced Einstein Service Agent, its first fully autonomous AI agent designed to enhance chatbot experiences by resolving service issues efficiently and accurately through intelligent, conversational interfaces, while seamlessly integrating with Salesforce’s trusted customer and business data (Salesforce).
7. Pinterest
Pinterest introduced Canvas, a generative AI model designed to enhance existing images, at the VB Transform conference (VentureBeat).
8. Prediction for Alzheimer’s Disease
Scientists developed and validated a robust and interpretable predictive prognostic model (PPM) using routinely collected, non-invasive, low-cost patient data, which accurately predicts whether early-stage dementia patients will progress to Alzheimer’s Disease (The Lancet).
9. AI for government
C3 AI has launched C3 Generative AI for Government Programs in partnership with Google Cloud, aiming to enhance public access to and navigation of government services by providing accurate, intuitive information and reducing service delays and workload for support centers (C3 AI).
10. Small models
Mistral released 1) Mathstral model, a specific 7B model designed for math reasoning and scientific discovery; 2) Codestral Mamba, a language model specialized in code generation; and 3) NeMo, their new best small model (12B) with 128k context length (Mistral).
Hugging Face’s SmolLM models (135M, 360M, and 1.7B) offer advanced AI capabilities on personal devices, ensuring performance, privacy, and accessibility without relying on cloud computing (VentureBeat).
11. AI video
Haiper has launched Haiper 1.5, a new AI video generation model that allows users to create 8-second clips from text, image, and video prompts (VentureBeat).
Other Innovations
1. Sunlight-powered flight
The CoulombFly, an ultralight micro aerial vehicle weighing 4.21 g, achieves sustained flight powered solely by natural sunlight using an efficient electrostatic-driven propulsion system and a low-consumption kilovolt power system (Nature).
2. Fire detection
Urban Sky will deploy high-altitude balloons over Colorado to monitor wildfires by using sensors that detect ground heat and identify new fire outbreaks, offering a cost-effective and safe alternative to satellites and aircraft (MIT Technology Review).
3. Affordable genetic medicines
The FDA has approved 19 genetic therapies, including the first CRISPR genome editing therapy for sickle cell disease, CASGEVY, but these therapies are extremely expensive, costing over $4 million per patient; a multi-disciplinary task force recommends a new pricing structure, business model, and regulatory support to significantly reduce costs and improve patient access (Nature).
4. Wearable
Ultrahuman has launched a smart ring, the Ultrahuman Ring AIR, capable of detecting irregular heart rhythms such as atrial fibrillation (AFib), enabling proactive health monitoring and potentially saving lives (Interesting Engineering).
