Meta has announced a new open-source AI model that links together multiple streams of data, including text, audio, visual data, temperature, and movement readings.

The model is only a research project at this point, with no immediate consumer or practical applications, but it points to a future of generative AI systems that can create immersive, multisensory experiences and shows that Meta continues to share AI research at a time when rivals like OpenAI and Google have become increasingly secretive.

The core concept of the research is linking together multiple types of data into a single multidimensional index (or “embedding space,” to use AI parlance). This idea may seem a little abstract, but it’s this same concept that underpins the recent boom in generative AI. Read More

This essay was originally written in December 2022 as I pondered the future of my job. I sat on it because I wasn’t sure of the optics of posting such an essay while employed by Google Brain. But then Google made my decision easier by laying me off in January. My severance check cleared, and last week, Brain and DeepMind merged into one new unit, killing the Brain brand in favor of “Google DeepMind”. As somebody with a unique perspective and the unique freedom to share it, I hope I can shed some light on the question of Brain’s existence. I’ll lay out the many reasons for Brain’s existence and assess their continued validity in today’s economic conditions. Read More

As Google looks to maintain pace in AI with the rest of the tech giants, it’s consolidating its AI research divisions.

Today Google announced Google DeepMind, a new unit made up of the DeepMind team and the Google Brain team from Google Research. In a blog post, DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis said that Google DeepMind will work “in close collaboration . . . across the Google product areas” to “deliver AI research and products.”

As a part of Google DeepMind’s formation, Google says that it’ll create a new scientific board to oversee research progress and the direction of the unit, which will be led by Koray Kavukcuoglu, VP of research at DeepMind. Eli Collins, VP of product at Google Research, will join Google DeepMind as VP of product, while Google Brain lead Zoubin Ghahramani will become a member of the Google DeepMind research leadership team, reporting to Kavukcuoglu. Read More

Amazon is throwing its hat into the generative AI ring. But rather than build AI models entirely by itself, it’s recruiting third parties to host models on AWS.

AWS today unveiled Amazon Bedrock, which provides a way to build generative AI-powered apps via pretrained models from startups including AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI. Available in a “limited preview,” Bedrock also offers access to Titan FMs (foundation models), a family of models trained in-house by AWS. Read More

Building on the exciting new developments around generative AI, we are happy to launch the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, a 10-week program designed to take the most promising generative AI startups around the globe to the next level.

To fully benefit from the program, startups should have a minimal viable product (MVP) already developed, some traction with customers, and be working to enhance their product value proposition in order to scale. Although the program is open to all startups, those already building on AWS will receive the most benefit from the accelerator’s dedicated AWS Solutions Architect team, who will support every step of their product development. The program is open to companies around the globe, with no limitations around use case—we want to empower companies applying generative AI to solutions from legal and marketing, to software engineering, green energy, and life sciences, including drug discovery. Read More

Here’s a rundown of the AI-powered productivity features announced this week by Google for Workspace and Microsoft for Office 365.

Microsoft wasn’t a name you’d have come to associate with innovation. But the company’s newfound love for AI and its pouring billions into the tech is changing that. The company’s search engine Bing recently shot into the limelight after being limited to a single-digit market share for over a decade, thanks to the new AI chatbot integration.

Microsoft has undoubtedly won the AI-boosted search engine race, pulling ahead of Google at it. And now the focus has shifted toward integrating AI into office productivity apps.

Earlier this week, Google announced a suite of upcoming generative AI features for its various Workspace apps, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Only a couple of days later, Microsoft announced 365 Copilot – similar generative AI capabilities for its own office productivity apps. Neither of the two additions has been rolled out to the general public as of yet, but enough information has been provided nevertheless to differentiate between the two. Read More