For the past 25 years, my business has focused on what's new, what's next, and what it means for your business. The theory is that we spend our time sorting signal from noise so you don't have to. To give you a sense of just how fast AI is evolving, here's a small list of announcements from this past week. Remember, today you are experiencing the slowest rate of technological change you’ll ever experience for the rest of your life.
Google released Gemini 2.0, its "most capable model yet." Key features include:
- Gemini 2.0 Flash: An experimental version with improved speed and performance, supporting multimodal inputs and outputs.
- Deep Research: An AI research tool in Gemini Advanced with agentic capabilities, enabling it to explore complex topics independently.
- AI Overviews: Enhanced AI-powered search summaries, set to roll out more broadly in early 2025.
- Trillium: Google's sixth-generation tensor processing unit for accelerating machine learning workloads.
OpenAI
OpenAI is six days into its "12 Days of OpenAI." Here’s what has been announced so far:
- Day 1: Released the full version of the o1 reasoning model and introduced ChatGPT Pro, a $200/month subscription offering unlimited access to GPT-4o and Advanced Voice Mode.
- Day 2: Announced Reinforcement Fine-Tuning, enhancing AI model training capabilities.
- Day 3: Launched Sora, a text-to-video AI tool enabling users to generate videos from text prompts.
- Day 4: Introduced Canvas, an interface for collaborative writing and coding with ChatGPT.
- Day 5: Integrated ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, enhancing AI accessibility on Apple devices.
- Day 6: Unveiled Advanced Voice with Video and Santa Mode, adding festive features to ChatGPT's voice capabilities.
Microsoft
Microsoft announced several updates to its Copilot AI assistant:
- Copilot Actions: Automated task management using simple prompts.
- Agents in Microsoft 365: New AI agents for various tasks, including unlocking SharePoint knowledge and real-time language interpretation in Teams meetings.
- Enhancements to Copilot in Teams, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
- Copilot Pages: A collaborative AI canvas with a new "rich artifacts" feature.
- Copilot Control System: New tools for IT teams to manage and analyze Copilot usage.
Meta
Meta made two significant AI-related announcements:
- Meta Video Seal: An open-source watermarking tool for detecting AI-generated videos.
- Meta Motivo: A new AI model capable of controlling the movements of human-like virtual agents, aimed at enhancing Metaverse experiences.
These are just the highlights. There were more than a hundred major announcements this week, including Google's breakthrough in quantum computing research. Oh, and the integration of Project Astra and Project Mariner into Gemini 2.0 as well. I’m pretty sure my brain is going to explode. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s
P.S. It's time to to the Shelly Palmer Innovation Series Breakfast at CES on Wednesday, Jan 8. We have an incredible lineup of speakers you won't want to miss.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
