In a move to put “generative AI at the fingertips of every business, from startups to enterprises,” Amazon Web Services is commercially rolling out the Bedrock service it announced in April. Bedrock offers a wide range of foundation models from Amazon’s own Titan to products from Anthropic, Stability AI and soon Meta Platforms. The fully managed Bedrock service makes its generative FMs operable through a single, simple API. This means customers can experiment with various leading FMs and customize simple apps in-house, without the need for a third-party diving into their proprietary data. Continue reading AWS Rolls Out Bedrock Generative AI Service, Adds Llama 2

Nvidia’s Picasso continues to gain market share among visual companies looking for an AI foundry to train models for generative use. Getty Images has partnered with Nvidia to create custom foundation models for still images and video. Generative AI by Getty Images lets customers create visuals using Getty’s library of licensed photos. The tool is trained on Getty’s own creative library and has the company’s guarantee of “full indemnification for commercial use.” Getty joins Shutterstock and Adobe among enterprise clients using Picasso. Runway and Cuebric are using it, too — and Picasso is still in development. Continue reading Getty GenAI Tool for Images and Video Is Powered by Nvidia

Fox Corporation’s Tubi TV video streaming service is rolling out a proprietary movie recommendation app called “Rabbit AI” in a beta test for iOS customers in the U.S., with other platforms to follow. Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, currently available only to enterprise and other paying customers, Rabbit AI provides “a new way to navigate” Tubi’s library of more than 200,000 movies and TV episodes, “providing hyper-personalized recommendations based on the contextual meaning of the terms,” the company says. A Rabbit AI plugin for ChatGPT is also now available to OpenAI subscribers, Tubi says. Continue reading Tubi Chooses ChatGPT to Power Content Recommendations

Enterprise software firm SAP is launching its own AI assistant named “Joule,” which will be embedded throughout the company’s cloud portfolio, offering users contextualized insights across SAP apps and third-party sources on both desktop and mobile platforms. The German business solutions giant has an estimated 300 million global enterprise users using its software for applications related to managing human resources, finance, supply chain, procurement and customer experience, as well as the underlying SAP Business Technology Platform. Continue reading SAP Plans to Launch Its New AI Assistant ‘Joule’ in November

AI tech startup Capsule is debuting a video editor it says can help enterprise teams achieve results “10x faster.” “Today, if you work at a large company — in marketing or comms, or maybe even sales or HR — creating even the simplest video can be daunting,” Capsule suggests. After querying more than 300 such enterprise teams about their pain points, Capsule focused on three areas of improvement: simplifying motion graphics, adhering to strict brand guidelines, and making the editing process more collaborative among teams across desktop and mobile, where apps are typically “siloed.” Continue reading AI Startup Capsule Creates Video Editor for Enterprise Teams

OpenAI has released the DALL-E 3 generative AI imaging platform in research preview. The latest iteration features more safety options and integrates with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, currently driven by the now seasoned large language model GPT-4. That is the ChatGPT version to which Plus subscribers and enterprise customers have access — the same who will be able to preview DALL-E 3. The free chatbot is built around GPT-3.5. OpenAI says GPT-4 makes for better contextual understanding by DALL-E, which even in version 2 evidenced some glaring comprehension glitches. Continue reading OpenAI’s Latest Version of DALL-E Integrates with ChatGPT

Adobe Firefly is out of beta and in release, adding generative AI features to the Creative Cloud suite. The upgrade starts this week with Firefly added to Photoshop and Illustrator. “AI-powered innovation” is also being integrated into Premiere Pro and After Effects, the company says. Creative Cloud paid plans now include the Firefly web application, “a playground for exploring AI-assisted creative expression.” The company is also going wide with Adobe GenStudio for enterprises, and is rolling out a bonus program that pays contributors to Adobe Stock, on which Firefly was trained for model training data. Continue reading Adobe Releases Firefly and Intros Contributor Model Training

Microsoft says it will assume legal responsibility for commercial customers who get sued for copyright infringement as a result of the company’s AI Copilot product services. A new initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment is designed to provide peace of mind to Microsoft business users as more copyright holders challenge the handling of protected works by the companies building AI models. “If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer” and pay any resulting fees, including settlements, Microsoft says. Continue reading Microsoft Copilot AI Customers Shielded from Legal Exposure

Walmart is putting generative AI in the hands of roughly 50,000 non-store U.S. employees who will have access to My Assistant, an LLM trained on information. From speeding the drafting process to serving as a creative partner and summarizing documents, “My Assistant has the potential to change how our associates work and solve problems,” Walmart said, emphasizing the launch goes beyond productivity gains. “We believe the key to unlocking transformation lies in the creativity and innovation of our associates. Ideally, this technology will free them from monotonous, repetitive tasks, allowing more time and focus for improving the customer/member experience.”  Continue reading Walmart Is ‘Empowering’ 50,000 U.S. Associates with GenAI

AI21 Labs, a pioneer in large language model artificial intelligence, has closed a $155 million Series-C funding that brings the Tel Aviv-based firm’s total raise to $283 million for a valuation of $1.4 billion. Investors include Google, Nvidia, Samsung Next, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB 10X, b2venture, and AI21 co-founder Amnon Shashua. The company is best known for its flagship AI21 Studio product, a developer platform that lets customers pay as they go to build custom text-based business apps using AI21’s proprietary models, notably Jurassic-2. The firm’s portfolio also includes the multilingual reading and writing assistant Wordtune. Continue reading Major Tech Firms Help Boost Valuation of AI21 to $1.4 Billion

Google is making many of its most powerful cloud computing tools available commercially for the first time, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian shared at the company’s Cloud Next ’23 conference in San Francisco. In a bid to catch up with top AI rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft, the Google Distributed Cloud will open for general business including at the edge with Vertex AI and PaLM 2. Google Cloud will serve up AI from Anthropic, in which it is an investor, as well as from Meta Platforms. In addition, an AI-infused Gmail productivity suite is on the way. Continue reading Google Takes on the Competition with Cloud and AI Services

Spotify and Apple are running neck-and-neck in U.S. podcasting, with various surveys showing one or the other in first place. Not wanting to be shown up by Apple, which launched new creators tools this week, Spotify followed suit at the Podcast Movement conference in Denver, announcing customization features and a new audience performance dashboard. For the first time, podcasters will be able to customize parts of their podcast landing page, adding a bio and social media handles. “Spotify is working to build a more robust podcast ecosystem that serves creators, listeners, and advertisers at scale,” said Austin Lamon, director of podcasts. Continue reading Spotify Upgrades Podcast Customization, Audience Analytics

VMware and Nvidia have joined forces on “VMware Private AI Foundation with Nvidia,” a fully-integrated solution designed to bring generative AI training and deployment to enterprise clients running on VMware’s hybrid cloud infrastructure. The full-stack product will provide software, compute power and everything needed to fine-tune large language models using proprietary data. “Together with Nvidia, we’ll empower enterprises to run their generative AI workloads adjacent to their data with confidence while addressing their corporate data privacy, security and control concerns,” said VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram. Continue reading VMware and Nvidia Are Bringing Generative AI to Enterprises

Ransomware attacks have surged in the 12 months ending in June 2023, with the United States accounting for 43 percent of the 1,900 attacks reported — 7x greater than that of the second most popular target, the United Kingdom, at 196. The period marked a 75 percent increase in U.S. ransomware attacks, which were perpetrated by 48 different groups including CL0P, a gang believed to have ties to Russia. U.S. companies, governmental organizations and individual consumers were targeted during the period, with healthcare and educational institutions disproportionately impacted, according to a study by cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes. Continue reading U.S. Impacted by Significant Increase in Ransomware Attacks

Massachusetts-based editing software and services company Avid Technology has entered into an agreement with an affiliate of private equity firm STG for an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.4 billion, including Avid’s net debt. Unanimously approved by Avid’s board of directors, the deal is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2023. Upon completion, Avid will become a privately-held company and its stock will no longer be traded on the Nasdaq exchange. The transaction, which will be financed through equity and debt financing, is subject to Avid stockholder and regulatory approvals. Continue reading Private Equity Firm STG Plans to Acquire Avid for $1.4 Billion