AI News Roundup: Perplexity Shopping, Microsoft Ignite 2024, AI “Manhattan Project,” Suno v4 and More

The past week has seen some major AI developments that are shaking up the tech world. From new AI-powered shopping experiences to massive government initiatives, here’s a breakdown of the biggest AI news you need to know about:

Perplexity Launches AI-Powered Shopping Feature

Perplexity, the AI search engine, has unveiled an innovative new shopping feature called Buy with Pro. This allows Perplexity’s paid users in the US to research products and make purchases directly through the platform.

Here’s how it works:

• When you ask Perplexity a shopping-related question, you get natural language responses as usual.
• You may also see product cards showing relevant items available to buy, along with product details.
• Perplexity says these recommendations are unbiased and tailored by AI, not sponsored content.
• If you see a product you like, you can use one-click checkout to buy it right in Perplexity (if you’ve saved your payment info).
• Currently, all Buy with Pro orders come with free shipping courtesy of Perplexity.

This new feature positions Perplexity as a serious player in the AI-assisted shopping space, going head-to-head with giants like Amazon and Google.

Microsoft Positions Copilot as the “UI for AI” at Ignite 2024

At its Ignite 2024 event, Microsoft doubled down on its AI strategy by positioning Copilot as the default interface for AI interactions. CEO Satya Nadella described Copilot as the “UI for AI” and announced several major updates:

• Copilot Actions: Customizable prompt templates to automate repetitive tasks.
• New AI agents in Copilot for specialized roles like HR, IT support, meeting collaboration, and project management.
• Enhanced Copilot Studio with autonomous capabilities, allowing agents to take background actions without human prompting.
• For Teams users, Copilot will analyze screen-shared content during meetings, providing insights from both conversations and visual content.
• PowerPoint is getting new AI features, including a Narrative Builder to create presentations from referenced documents and the ability to translate entire presentations into 40 languages while maintaining design.

Microsoft also emphasized its commitment to AI education, noting that they’ve helped train over 23 million people in AI and digital skills in the past year.

Google Gemini Gets Memory and App Control

Google is rolling out two significant updates to its Gemini AI:

1. A new memory feature allows Gemini to remember personal information for more contextual responses. For example, it might remember your favorite foods or work details to reference when relevant. This feature is currently available only to Google One AI Premium subscribers at $20/month, works only in English on the web client, and can be turned off.
2. Google may be preparing Gemini to take action within apps. Hidden in Android 16’s developer preview is a new “app functions” API that could give Gemini the ability to perform direct actions within apps. This could mean, for instance, ordering food through DoorDash without opening the app – you’d simply tell Gemini what you want.

These updates significantly expand Gemini’s capabilities and position it as a more powerful digital assistant.

Meta Makes Major Enterprise AI Play

Meta has hired Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new business AI group. This move comes as Meta’s Llama models have seen over 600 million downloads and Meta AI claims 500 million monthly active users.

Shih stated on X: “Our vision for this new product group is to make cutting-edge AI accessible to every business, empowering all to find success and own their future in the AI era.”

This hire signals Meta’s serious intentions to expand its presence in the enterprise AI market.

U.S. Calls for “Manhattan Project” Style AI Initiative

A major U.S. congressional commission is calling for a Manhattan Project-style initiative to develop artificial general intelligence. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan group established by Congress in 2000, says America needs this type of large-scale public-private partnership to stay competitive with China in the race to develop AI systems that match or exceed human intelligence.

While the commission is advocating for a massive collaborative effort similar to the original Manhattan Project, they haven’t yet specified exactly how much money should be invested or how the partnership would be structured.

One specific suggestion came from Jacob Helberg, a commissioner and senior advisor to Palantir’s CEO. He proposed streamlining the permitting process for data centers, noting that energy infrastructure is currently a major bottleneck in training large AI models.

Amazon Doubles Down on Anthropic with $4 Billion Investment

Amazon has invested another $4 billion in AI company Anthropic, bringing its total investment to $8 billion. As part of this expanded partnership, AWS will be Anthropic’s primary cloud and training partner.

A key aspect of this collaboration involves close work on AWS Trainium hardware, a purpose-built machine learning accelerator for high-performance model training. Anthropic’s engineers are working directly with Amazon’s Annapurna Labs team on developing and optimizing future generations of Trainium accelerators.

Interestingly, despite this deep collaboration, Amazon also appears to be trying to reduce its reliance on Anthropic. A report from The Information reveals that Amazon has developed a new AI model that can process images and video, potentially making it less dependent on Anthropic’s technology.

AI Agent Startup Raises Massive $56M Seed Round

A new AI startup called /dev/agents has secured a $56 million seed round at a $500 million valuation. The company is building what it calls an operating system for AI agents – autonomous programs that can handle complex tasks without human supervision.

Led by former Stripe CTO David Singleton and backed by ex-Android and Meta Oculus veterans, the company draws an ambitious parallel to Android’s role in the mobile revolution. They aim to build the essential platform for AI agents to reach their full potential.

The startup has attracted high-profile investors including Andrej Karpathy and Scale AI’s Alexander Wang. However, details about the actual product remain scarce, with their website offering minimal information.

Salesforce Brings AI Agents to Slack

Salesforce is adding its AI agents to Slack, positioning them as digital coworkers within Slack workspaces. The Agentforce platform gives these AI assistants access to an organization’s Slack conversations and enterprise data, allowing them to understand context and take more relevant actions directly in the flow of work.

These AI agents are designed to actively suggest and execute actions across different departments. For example:

• HR agents can handle onboarding and benefits questions
• IT agents can resolve help desk tickets
• Sales agents can prepare executive briefings and create proposals

Early adopters like Accenture have already developed IT support agents that handle first-tier questions in Slack channels. Box CEO Aaron Levie describes it as the realization of a long-held dream in computing – having a single conversational interface where humans and AI work together seamlessly.

Salesforce says Agentforce will become available through Slack, though specific pricing and availability details haven’t been announced yet.

Apple Preps AI-Powered Siri Upgrade

Apple is preparing to launch an AI-powered version of Siri in an attempt to catch up with competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, Apple is developing what employees internally call “LLM Siri,” a major upgrade that aims to transform the 13-year-old digital assistant into a much more conversational AI powered by large language models.

Key improvements promised by this upgrade include:

• More human-like interactions
• Better handling of complex tasks
• Expanded control of third-party apps
• Integration with Apple Intelligence features like text generation and summarization

The new Siri will be built on Apple’s own AI models and is currently being tested as a separate app on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Apple plans to formally announce the updates as early as 2025 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16, with consumer availability expected in spring 2026.

Suno v4 Raises the Bar for AI Music

Popular AI music generator Suno has released a major update that’s generating significant buzz. The new version, Suno v4, promises improved overall audio quality and more sophisticated song structures, along with the ability to handle complex musical arrangements and produce clearer lyrics.

New features introduced in this update include:

• A “Remaster” function that can upgrade existing tracks to the new v4 quality level
• A Cover Art generator to create visuals matching your music’s style
• A “Covers” feature that can reimagine songs in different styles
• “Personas” that allow users to maintain a consistent musical identity across multiple creations

The update is currently in beta and available to Suno’s Pro and Premier subscribers.

Eleven Labs Doubles Down on Voice AI

AI voice cloning company ElevenLabs has announced two significant updates:

1. A platform for building conversational agents: This new tool allows developers to create customizable AI agents that can be fine-tuned across multiple variables, from tone of voice to response length. The platform can work with various language models including those from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, and developers can even integrate their own custom models and knowledge bases.
2. GenFM: This new service transforms written content into AI-hosted podcast discussions. Available through their ElevenReader app, it can take any PDF, article, or ebook and turn it into a podcast featuring two AI co-hosts discussing the content in any of 32 languages.

These updates leverage ElevenLabs’ expertise in voice technology to create more natural-sounding AI conversations and open up new possibilities for content creation and distribution.

Runway’s “Frames” Tackles AI Image Consistency

Runway has unveiled a new AI image model called Frames that claims to make major advances in controlling styles across AI-generated imagery. This addresses a significant limitation in today’s AI image generation tools – the ability to maintain consistent visual styles across multiple generations.

The model’s capabilities are organized around the concept of “worlds” – coherent visual styles that can be consistently applied across multiple generations. Runway provides examples of worlds they’ve created, including one that replicates the aesthetic of 1970s album art and another that mimics the visual style of disposable camera photos.

This technology is being gradually rolled out through Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha platform and API, potentially opening up new possibilities for consistent visual storytelling and brand identity maintenance in AI-generated imagery.