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Daily Digest: Google aims for Apple and OpenAI

PLUS: OpenAI leads agains, Grok 2 shocks everyone.

August 14, 2024

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Hello folks, what’s more fun than writing tutorials? Seeing them come alive.

Bethany went from Ben’s Bites tutorials to creating a 100-page ebook which has now evolved into a course for fractional careers. Let’s gooo!

ps: check out the section below picks—we have 5 new tutorials and 1 course for using AI at work.

Here’s what we have today;

PICKS

  1. Google demos Gemini Live—a real-time voice assistant, at the Pixel 9 launch event. And it might even beat OpenAI in shipping it to the users 🤞. There was more about Gemini on Android in the event, and it looks better than whatever the new Siri was supposed to be. 🍿Our Summary (also below)

  2. xAI just dropped the mic with Grok-2, their latest AI model. This one isn’t just about Musk’s gimmicks of anti-woke or slur-filled roasts. You can count it in the top 5 models for now. Also, Grok on Twitter has a nicer UI and image generation features now.🍿Our Summary (also below)

  3. OpenAI has reclaimed the LMSYS throne with a new version of GPT-4o. This version powers ChatGPT right now and is also available via API. In adjacent news, They have also released a new eval for real-world coding tasks: SWE-Bench Verified.

  4. AssemblyAI is leading the speech-to-text market with:

    • The highest accuracy rates — 95%

    • The lowest WER — 4.8%

    • 30% less hallucinations than other providers

    Our API offers the most capabilities on the market including speech-to-text, speech understanding, and full access to Claude 3 models for precise call insights, summarizations, and more. Get $50 Credit to Start Building (sponsor)

BB CONTENT - new content from us

New course:

New tutorials:

Also, the recording for yesterday’s session by Chris Brownridge is up on the website: Build an AI sales assistant (with GSheets and Slack)

TOP TOOLS

  • Omni Engineer - An AI coding framework built for control and effectiveness.

  • Twitter-95 - Twitter as it might have been in 1995, courtesy of LLMs.

  • Profound - SEO is old. Reach millions of new customers through AI Search Optimization.

  • Bolna - Build and ship enterprise-grade voice AI in minutes.

  • Shaped - Search and recommendations for marketplaces and content companies.

  • Trellis - AI-powered workflows for unstructured data.

NEWS

Unclassifieds - short, sponsored links

QUICK BITES

xAI just dropped the mic with Grok-2, their latest AI model. This one isn’t just about Musk’s gimmicks of anti-woke or slur-filled roasts. It’s got some serious punch (GPT-4 class) in it. Grok on Twitter has also got some UI updates and image generation features.

What's going on here?

xAI released Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini, new AI models available on X and soon via API.

What does this mean?

Grok-2 joins the weight class of GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 sonnet and Gemini 1.5 Pro. It’s quite not as good as them, but xAI says that this is a beta release. It’s reflected in its ranking (#4) on LMSYS leaderboard as well. I expect them to make similar incremental updates and go for that #1 position for at least a few days when they do a general release.

Grok on X (available to Premium and Premium+ users) get first dibs on Grok-2 mini right now. Grok-2 is coming soon. Both of the models are going to be available to developers as enterprise APIs too.

Along with these models, the interface for Grok on X is revamped. They're also experimenting with image generation using the new Flux models from Black Forest Labs. Looks like the partnership with Midjourney hasn’t quite worked out (yet).

Why should I care?

In the baby tests I have been able to do: The model (even the mini) is powerful but integration with Twitter is still very weak. It gets random tweets as sources and then tries to combine them into a coherent answer. So the claim of “use Grok with real-time info on X” is a bit sus (just like its test name on LMSYS: sus-column-r 😜)

If you used to switch tabs to go to ChatGPT when using Twitter (for whatever reason) Grok is a good replacement now. Just don’t expect anything extra because it’s within the X platform—the integrations have much to catch up.

QUICK BITES

Google's betting big on AI in Android. The tech giant just dropped a slew of Gemini-powered features for Android and Pixel devices, aiming to make your phone smarter than ever.

What's going on here?

Google announced new AI features powered by their Gemini model, coming to Android phones and Pixel devices.

What does this mean?

Pixel devices get Gemini Nano on-device for faster, more private AI experiences. It’ll power stuff like Call Notes (AI-generated call summaries), Pixel Screenshots (searchable screenshot library), and Pixel Studio (on-device image generation).

Google Assistant takes a backseat to Gemini. A revamped AI assistant that can understand context and intent better, tackle complex tasks, and access personal info (with permission) to offer tailored help.

Google showed off this new assistant with live demos which were “not perfect.” One with Sabrina Carpenter’s concert ticket worked on the third try. The highlight though was Gemini Live - A real-time voice assistant and Google promises no dumb waitlists for this one.

Why should I care?

If you're an Android user, your phone's about to get a whole lot smarter. These AI features promise to make everyday tasks easier, boost creativity, and even improve your photos and videos.

Apple touted that its cloud is secure for AI. All across the event, Google’s narrative was to push they are secure too and better than Apple’s implementation of AI (which it sneakily named Apple Intelligence). Well, let’s see which narrative users buy more.

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