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Daily Digest #397

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Hello folks, many big players are making moves to get their piece of the AI pie. Here’s what we have today;

PICKS

1. Apple continues to work silently researching LLMs. This time, they have also released the weights of a new model family OpenELM.⁷⁵⁷ It can run on iPhones smoothly. Rumours say Apple is also working on custom chips for AI²⁴⁹.

2. Perplexity, the hot AI search company, is now an unicorn.⁵⁷⁴ It just raised another $62.7M and added an enterprise plan. Perplexity’s revenue has grown from $3M to $20M in 6 months (since its last raise).🍿Our Summary¹² (also below)

3. Open AI has upgraded its API to be more enterprise-friendly.³³³ There’s a “Private Link” between Azure and OpenAI to avoid internet exposure that joins previous upgrades like Projects, Assistant API v2 and cost management features.

4. Adobe is launching its Firefly Image 3^230† model in beta. It’s available at firefly.adobe.com^355† and powers new features in Photoshop’s desktop app (beta version).🍿Our Summary¹¹ (also below)

ps: I’m also hearing chatter about Google’s new model which is even better than Gemini 1.5 Pro. Remember, I/O is just around the corner.

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• The UK's first No Code and AI conference²¹⁶ is taking place on 21st May. Use BENSBITES for 50% off the ticket price.

• AI in production²⁰⁹ - A 2-day conference on July 18-19 to master implementation strategies for AI product development.

• Coca-Cola partners with Microsoft¹⁴⁸ and commits $1.1B in cloud and GenAI spend.

• Meta Rayban glasses²⁶⁶ are going multimodal, letting Meta AI see the world.

• Amazon wants to host¹⁵⁴ companies’ custom generative AI models.

• BrevDev partners with AkashNet to increase affordable GPU availability.⁸³

• French startup FlexAI exits stealth with $30M¹⁰⁷ to ease access to AI compute.

• Phi-3 weights¹³⁷ are out. The response to its performance is better than earlier Phi models but there are still shady vibes on benchmark numbers.

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QUICK BITES

Perplexity, the AI search startup going against Google is on a roll.⁵⁷⁴ It just raised a huge round, doubling the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion. Plus, it has released an enterprise offer for companies after testing it with the likes of Stripe and Zoom.

What is going on here?

Perplexity has raised $62.7M and added an enterprise plan.

What does this mean?

Perplexity’s new enterprise plan is 2x pricier than its paid offer for AI-generated answers. Companies can get their employees access to this tool at $40/month/user along with features like data privacy and user management.

Companies like Zoom, Bridgewater, and Databricks are already using Perplexity Enterprise Pro and have good things to say.

The new funds raised will go towards the global expansion of the startup. It started the chain with SK Telecom from South Korea earlier this year and has added Japan’s SoftBank Corp. and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom to this list.

Why should I care?

Often enterprise AI is confined to thinking about internal search. Perplexity is betting that external searches are equally (or more) worthy to the company. If you research anything online, this matters. Imagine saving hours every week with a search tool that actually understands your questions.

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QUICK BITES

Adobe's revamped AI model, Firefly Image 3^230†, powers some crazy new Photoshop features alongside their stand-alone web app. These upgrades focus on effortless customization, faster generation and quality boost.

What is going on here?

Adobe’s Firefly Image 3 is in beta now. It’s available at firefly.adobe.com^355† and powers a few new features in Photoshop’s desktop app (again, beta version).

What does this mean?

You can now use images as a reference for the generations. Adobe calls these "Structure Reference" and "Style Reference" features—they kinda do what it says on the tin! Just show it the reference picture, describe the change in style or structure and it’ll get the job done. Forget wrestling with paragraphs of prompts.

Example: Want a photorealistic cat in a Van Gogh-inspired landscape? Upload your cat pic, mention Van Gogh and boom—done.

Also, you can:

• Use one of the three initial variations that Firefly generates to create more variations similar to the one you picked.

• Create backgrounds for a subject. Game-changer for product photography.

The base Firefly 3 nails subtle details like lighting, expressions on faces, and even rendering text in images. This stuff was hard to get right before—big quality boost here. If their claim of "faster ideation and experimentation" is true, this means less time fiddling and more time creating.

Why should I care?

Because time is money, right? These tools streamline the creative grunt work. That frees you up to focus on the bigger picture. Plus, Adobe's betting on these AI features being safe for commercial use (unlike other tools). That's a BIG deal if you're selling your creations.

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