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Daily Digest #316

Hello folks, Happy New Year! I wonder how many times I’ll say that this week 😅

Now, back to it!

PICKS

1. OpenAI’s annualized revenue tops $1.6B²⁹⁶ as customers shrug off CEO drama. Some managers think this could go up to $5B in 2024. At last reported $100B valuation for OpenAI, it’ll have a slightly lower valuation multiple compared to Anthropic.

2. Camera makers want to watermark human images (not AI ones)⁵⁴⁶ - Nikon, Sony, and Canon are creating built-in features to add tamper-proof digital signatures to photos taken by their cameras.🍿Our Summary¹⁶ (also below)

3. Figma is betting its AI tools can improve meetings and collaboration⁵⁵⁷ despite the failed Adobe acquisition. Figma's new AI features like Jambot and FigJam AI aim to make meetings more engaging and productive.🍿Our Summary¹⁵ (also below)

TOP TOOLS

• Script it^856† - Build complex AI business workflows that you can reply upon.

• Search for ChatGPT⁵⁴⁵ - Search your ChatGPT history to find old chats.

• Vocabminer^328† - Discover new words in Spanish, and filter the ones you know.

• Agent Search by SciPhi^325† - Agent first approach to science and research queries.

• Cognite⁴⁷⁴ - Open source alternative to create and share chatbots with external knowledge.

• OpenCopilot⁶²¹ - Add a copilot to your product that can take actions.

• Create a game⁶¹¹ that runs in your browser—all inside ChatGPT.

View more →³²⁴

NEWS

What happened, and what’s coming

• Catching up on 2023 with friends from 11 AI startups³⁷⁶ at NeurIPS.

• Stuff we figured out⁶²⁵ about AI in 2023.

• Quick catch-up on best practices for prompt engineering⁸¹¹.

• Developments and companies to watch in AI video³⁸⁸ space.

• The case for AI agents in 2024⁶¹⁵—with a database of 60 AI agent products.

Stuff’s getting real

• GitHub makes Copilot Chat generally available.³⁴⁶

• Microsoft’s Copilot app³⁶⁹ is now available on iOS.

• Sourcegraph Cody²⁶⁰ is now generally available.

• Personalized restoration by Snap¹⁵⁶ - Restoring facial images with prior reference to maintain unique facial features.

• Open source dataset with 35,000 tokens of text adhering to the New York Times writing style guide.²⁵⁹

Lives are changing

• When Silicon Valley’s AI warriors¹⁵⁶ came to Washington—how EA $$s are shaping AI policy.

• Artificial Intelligence^404† as a time dilator.

• AI promises to transform diagnosis of heart disease.²³⁴

• How AI-created fakes are taking business from online influencers.³⁴¹

• Japan's 'omotenashi' culture⁵⁴¹ can offer an edge in the AI age.

View more →⁷⁸

QUICK BITES

The big camera companies Nikon, Sony, and Canon are working on new tech to add digital signatures to photos.⁵⁴⁶ This will help people spot fake AI-generated images.

What is going on here?

Leading camera makers want to find a solid way to tell apart real photos from images edited with AI.

What does this mean?

Deepfakes are getting crazy good these days. It's getting really hard to know what's real anymore. To fight this, Nikon, Sony, and Canon are creating built-in features to add tamper-proof digital signatures to photos taken by their new cameras. These signatures will include key details like when and where the photo was taken, and who took it.

These camera brands have teamed up to make a standard for these digital signatures, that can be checked through a free online tool called Verify. If a photo doesn't have credentials, it flags it as potentially fake.

Sony and AP tested a version of this for journalism-related use cases and Sony is planning to bring the tech to its cameras via a firmware update. Nikon and Canon are planning to release new cameras with similar features.

Why should I care?

Adobe and Google have extensively talked about embedding watermarks and “made by AI” credentials in their AI-generated images. The approach by camera makers is different—adding watermarks to the “real” photos. Things like this might have implications such as only photos with credentials accepted as proofs in courts.

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QUICK BITES

Figma is betting its AI tools can improve meetings and collaboration⁵⁵⁷ despite the failed Adobe acquisition. Figma's new AI features like Jambot and FigJam AI aim to make meetings more engaging and productive.

What is going on here?

Figma is adding AI to its ideation tool FigJam.

What does this mean?

Adobe was to acquire Figma for $20B. Regulators came in, the deal fell off. But in the past few months, Figma has been aggressively pursuing AI to differentiate itself. It acquired an AI startup called Diagram, held internal hackathons and launched various experimental AI features.

These new tools primarily got added to its product called Figjam—the ideation and collaboration tool. They can now suggest icebreakers, summarize discussions, and rewrite meeting notes. As per Figma, early user response has been very positive, with people embracing the playful creative elements.

Why should I care?

Figma is expanding beyond its core design audience with AI. Two-thirds of its users are now non-designers. The larger selling point now is improved collaboration and ideation, regardless of technical skills. It won’t be surprising to see startups expand into additional tasks around their main offering.

While the community is constantly hacking on “Figma to code” stuff, we haven’t seen much from Figma itself (apart from some plugins).

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