🚀AI Sets New Traffic Records.
Plus: Navigating the Evolving Challenges of Music Distribution and Creation.
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Hi Team,
Last Friday of June already and just like that, we're halfway through 2024—a year of significant developments. The surge in AI traffic underscores a period of rapid growth and transformation. Meanwhile, the music industry faces pivotal changes due to AI, and chatbots have become increasingly popular. Let's dive into these trends and explore their impacts.
📰 News and Trends.
AI Sets New Traffic Records.
🧰 AI Tools (Research)
Navigating the Evolving Challenges of Music Distribution and Creation.
Tech Giants Expand AI Integration with Chatbots and Voice Interaction.
📰 AI News and Trends
TIME and OpenAI Announce Strategic Content Partnership giving the AI company access to over 100 years of extensive archives (Time)
ElevenLabs launched an iOS app that turns ‘any’ text into audio narration with AI (VentureBeat) and it has teamed up with Time to turn its content into audio.
OpenAI has trained a model based on GPT-4 that can catch GPT-4 mistakes and help humans spot mistakes (OpenAI)
Toys 'R' Us recently made waves by unveiling an AI-generated advertisement at the Cannes Lions Festival, created entirely using OpenAI's Sora platform (ToysRusIG)
Amazon Is A $2 Trillion Company For the First Time Ever as the recent AI-driven tech rally continues to mint new milestones (Forbes)
🌐 Other Tech news
Can cell phone batteries be more replaceable? Apple wonders? (TheInformation)
India is investigating Foxconn for allegedly refusing to hire married women at its Chennai factory, as they believe they will not be productive. This coincides with Apple's strategy to diversify away from China (Reuters)
NASA Contracts SpaceX to Dismantle and Deorbit the International Space Station by 2030 to Address Aging Infrastructure, Enhance Safety, and Pave the Way for New Technological Advancements and Commercial Opportunities in Space. The contract is worth $843 Million (Futurism)
Scientists have developed Prime editing and seekRNA, new genome editing tools that surpass CRISPR-Cas9 in precision and flexibility, reducing off-target effects and enabling accurate DNA modifications (Science)
Coinbase is suing the SEC and FDIC, using the Freedom of Information Act to demand the release of documents concerning past crypto investigations and regulatory actions (Axios)
AI Sets New Traffic Records.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is poised to set a new traffic record in June 2024 with 2.9 billion visits, marking a significant 15.6% increase from May's peak of 2.5 billion. This growth reflects a rebound from the previous year's summer slump, signaling sustained user interest driven by new features in the GPT-4o model and structural changes, such as the transition to its domain, chatgpt.com.
Comparatively, ChatGPT's traffic increase is about 96% year-over-year in the US, with daily mobile app users also rising. Meanwhile, Google’s AI service Gemini and the game-like CharacterAI have seen varied traffic trends, with Gemini experiencing nearly 150% year-over-year growth despite a recent drop, and CharacterAI gaining both web and app users. This continued growth in generative AI platforms highlights their expanding role and user engagement in the digital landscape.
Navigating the Evolving Challenges of Music Distribution and Creation.
Did you ever Napster? Chances are you knew someone who did if you didn't jump on it yourself. In the wake of Napster and similar music-sharing platforms, Steve Jobs stepped in with iTunes, seeing both a solution to piracy and a lucrative opportunity. The launch of iTunes was a game-changer for the music industry, providing a legal haven amidst the chaos of free music piracy. It offered a middle ground where labels could monetize their music, and fans could buy individual tracks without splurging on whole albums.
Fast forward to today, and the music industry faces a new dilemma with AI—this time without an iTunes-like intermediary to smooth things over between labels and AI firms. The stakes are higher than ever, not just involving the distribution of music but its very creation. We're currently seeing YouTube in talks with major labels to license tracks for AI music tools, hoping to push forward its "Dream Track" project. But as these negotiations unfold, the industry is also wrestling with the double-edged sword of AI—innovation on one side and issues of artist rights and royalties on the other.
The situation is made even thornier by recent lawsuits from major labels against AI music startups like Suno and Udio for copyright breaches. These legal battles may set critical precedents for AI's involvement in music production. The industry consensus is tilting towards a licensing model as the best way to marry AI capabilities with human creativity, ensuring artists get their due while fostering new forms of musical innovation. The outcomes of these negotiations and lawsuits will crucially define the future of AI in music.
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Research
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Tech Giants Expand AI Integration with Chatbots and Voice Interaction.
The success of Character AI among younger audiences has caught the attention of major companies like Meta. In response, Instagram, under Meta, is introducing "AI Studio," a pilot program in the US that allows creators to craft AI chatbot versions of themselves. This feature, which lets you essentially become an AI that engages with users around the clock, will debut in Instagram messaging. Users can chat with these AI versions of their favorite creators, clearly marked as AI and possibly tagged as "beta." The goal is to enhance user engagement through personalized, AI-driven conversations that reflect the creators' unique traits and expertise. This initiative aligns with Meta's broader ambition to more deeply integrate AI across its platforms, with potential future expansions to include small businesses.
Additionally, Character.AI is expanding its capabilities to include voice calls with AI in various languages, having already attracted three million users in its beta phase. Meanwhile, Butterflies, an app developed by a former Snap engineering director, enables users to create AI characters that can independently interact and post, engaging with both human users and other AI profiles.
The AI traffic records, and especially ChatGPT's impressive growth, are a reminder for me on a story line I just can't buy into.
That is this idea I've seen put forward by quite a few writers and publications (here and outside of here) that GenAI has been this sort of way overhyped, really not used much in the real world, new technology ... Until Apple came along with Apple Intelligence, which will allegedly save the day and take GenAI from zero to hero.
I think Apple are late to the game and this is not another iPhone moment, GenAI is doing just fine and more than just fine without them.