Most Read This Week: Generative AI Impacts Business Analytics

Here are this week's most-read stories on AI Business:

Generative AI Could Revolutionize Business Analytics

Last year, the world was introduced to the beginning of the generative AI (gen AI) revolution. Through large language models (LLMs) and deep learning technology, we experienced how gen AI can generate text, images, music and even software code, using prompts in the user's language of choice. Gen AI can use structured and unstructured data to learn from the past and create something that answers users' prompts to build something original.

Gemini is Google’s most capable model yet, due to its multi-modal capabilities, reasoning and problem-solving. The new generation of gen AI models is poised to fundamentally reshape how businesses understand their data in a secure approach and implement its insights.

Thanks to gen AI, data technologies are no longer just for the technically skilled, but are the key to unlocking profit, maximizing productivity and scaling insight, for every business, across all industries and sectors. By automating analytics and making data management more accessible, gen AI will completely redefine the basis on which we think about business intelligence, shifting the focus to working smarter rather than harder. Gen AI enables business knowledge experts to connect and engage with their data and resolve the needs of their business by talking with their data.

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Read more from John Abel, technical director, office of CTO at Google Cloud

Generative AI Funding Hits $25.2 Billion in 2023, Report Reveals

Funding in the generative AI space surged dramatically in 2023 as major players including OpenAI and Anthropic recorded substantial increases in capital, according to a new report from Stanford University.

Stanford’s 2024 AI Index revealed a nearly eightfold increase in funding for generative AI firms, soaring to $25.2 billion in 2023.

The report found that generative AI accounted for more than one-quarter of all AI-related private investment in 2023.

Last year’s major investments included Microsoft’s $10 billion OpenAI deal, Cohere’s $270 million raise in June 2023 and Mistral’s $415 million funding round in December among a host of others.

Stanford’s report noted, however, that corporate spending on AI dropped in 2023, decreasing by 20% to $189.2 billion.

The report attributed the dip to a reduction in mergers and acquisitions which fell 31.2% from the previous year. Despite the drop, nearly 80% of earnings calls for Fortune 500 firms mentioned AI.

Investments were dominated by firms from the U.S., with $67.2 billion invested, almost nine times greater than the amount invested by the second-highest spender, China with $7.8 billion.

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Explore more of the findings from Stanford’s AI Index

Intel Develops World's Largest Neuromorphic Computer System for Advancing AI Research

Intel has developed the world's largest neuromorphic computer system, a hardware stack modeled after the complexities of the human brain.

Named Hala Point, the computing system is designed to support researchers attempting to build next-generation AI models.

The computer was deployed at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Hala Point contains 1,152 Loihi 2 processors that support up to 1.15 billion neurons and 128 billion synapses distributed over 140,544 neuromorphic processing cores.

The hardware is capable of supporting up to 20 quadrillion operations per second, or 20 petaops and achieves up to 12 times higher performance compared to Intel’s initial neuromorphic system, Pohoiki Springs.

Such power exceeds that achieved by GPU and CPU-based systems while using 100 times less energy despite being 50 times faster than conventional hardware.

Learn more about neuromorphic computing

Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Get AI Boost

Meta is enhancing its Ray-Ban smart glasses with an integrated AI assistant, offering voice-activated information access.

Priced at $300, the glasses feature Meta's conversational AI assistant Meta AI built right into the frame, enabling users to access information with just their voice.

Users can now get responses from the AI via the integrated speaker system by saying "Hey Meta" followed by their query.

By utilizing the Look and Ask AI feature, the glasses offer wearers information about the objects they are observing. This includes translating foreign signs for tourists, however, Meta AI currently only supports English, Spanish, Italian, French and German.

The glasses are available now but its Meta AI features are in beta, limited to its smart glasses users in the U.S. and Canada.

A wider launch of Meta AI for smart glasses is “coming soon,” according to a Meta blog post celebrating 10 years of Reality Labs (formerly Oculus). The company plans to add multimodal AI, “so the glasses can understand what you’re seeing to provide helpful answers.”

During the recent launch of Meta AI for its social media apps, the company stated that it will provide more information on the AI assistant for its smart glasses and its Quest line of virtual reality headsets in the coming weeks.

Read more about Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses

AI Helps Nestlé Develop Drought, Disease Resistant Coffee

Scientists at Nestlé are using AI to map the genomic structure of arabica coffee plants to uncover genetic traits that would make crops more resistant to disease and drought.

There are more than 120 species of coffee, but according to Nestlé, 60% of the world's coffee production comes from the arabica plant.

Arabica, however, is more susceptible to rising temperatures and disease than other varieties.

Nestlé wants to breed new arabica varieties that are more resistant to disease and drought. The company's initiative responds to warnings about the climate crisis, which predict heightened droughts and diminished arable land for coffee cultivation.

To ensure the safety of the world’s most prominent coffee variety, Nestlé scientists collaborated with research institutes around the world to create a genomic database on the genetic blueprint of modern-day coffee plants.

They used AI tools and sequencing technologies to map the genetic origins of the arabica plant to try and uncover desirable traits to make future crops more invulnerable.

Learn more about how AI uncovered the origin of arabica coffee