Meta Launches AI Chatbots, Amazon Invests in Anthropic, and Is OpenAI Building a Consumer Device? Newsletter #25.

Meta is entering the chatbot wars, releasing its own chatbots on Whatsapp, Instagram, and Messenger.

• Meta Launches AI Chatbots

• ChatGPT Gets Internet Access and Multi-Modal Input

• Amazon Invests in Anthropic

• Is OpenAI Building a Consumer Device?

• September Yet Again a Poor Month for Stocks

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Meta Launches AI Chatbots

Meta is entering the chatbot wars, releasing its own chatbots on Whatsapp, Instagram, and Messenger.

The company announced at its Meta Connect event last week that each of the 28 chatbots will have their own character targeted at a specific niche.

The personalities will be voiced by influencers and celebrities including a dungeon master played by Snoop Dogg.

The initial batch of personalities is already available to US users and more will be rolling out soon to target more niches such as fashion and philosophy.

Meta sees these as general purpose tools that can help people with everything from booking holidays to homework and hopes that they will help drive engagement on its platform. It has partnered with Microsoft to use Bing to power the chatbots.

Some of Meta’s AI characters are familiar faces, but most are just made up.

Meta also hopes the chatbots will help it attract more younger users to its products after Instagram was overtaken by TikTok as the most popular social media platform for teenagers last year.

Researchers have found before though that adding a personality to AI often makes it more toxic, it’ll be interesting to see how well these new chatbots work and if they can help Meta win in the battle for attention.

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ChatGPT Gets Access to the Internet and Multi-Modal Input

OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT users will now be able to surf the web.

Whereas before the program could only access information prior to September 2021, it will now be able to access the internet and all information available on it.

In a post on X, OpenAI said:

“Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we'll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4”

The company also announced last week that an update to ChatGPT will allow users to have voice conversations and interact with it using images:

“We are beginning to roll out new voice and image capabilities in ChatGPT. They offer a new, more intuitive type of interface by allowing you to have a voice conversation or show ChatGPT what you’re talking about.”

ChatGPT will be able to answer user questions about the world.

They give the example of someone taking an image of a landmark when they’re abroad and then being able to have a live conversation about its history and significance.

The update will be released in the next two weeks to Plus and Enterprise users.

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Amazon Invests in Anthropic

Amazon plans to invest $4 billion into AI startup, Anthropic.

It’s another big investment in the AI space after Microsoft invested in OpenAI earlier this year and Amazon’s partnership with AI platform, Hugging Face, announced in February.

The partnership with Amazon comes despite Google’s $300 million investment in Anthropic last year and Anthropic's announcement seven months ago that it would use Google's chips and cloud platform to train its models.

AWS will now be Anthropics primary cloud provider instead of Google.

Amazon is said to have a much smaller stake than the 49% ownership that Microsoft has of OpenAI, but the exact stake will be set at a later funding round.

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Is OpenAI Building a Consumer Device?

OpenAI is reportedly in advanced talks with former Apple designer, Jony Ive, and Softbank, about building the “iPhone of AI”, according to the FT.

They hope the device will help create a more natural and intuitive user experience for AI interaction, much like how the iPhone helped launch the mobile internet in 2007.

Talks are at an early stage and an exact design, or even device, hasn’t been decided yet.

Will the new device be similar to a phone or something altogether different?

The smartphone market has been saturated for years however, and many in the tech world have been trying to come up with the next consumer electronics device for years.

Headsets, such as Meta’s Quest and the Apple Vision Pro, are one possible option but it’s likely that OpenAI will have something else up its sleeve.

Ive, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Softbank say it could still be several months before the project is officially announced.

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September Yet Again A Poor Month For Stocks

September was a poor month for the stock market yet again, with lingering worries over additional interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve contributing to investor unease.

Mixed second-quarter earnings and escalating costs, alongside fears of a looming U.S. economic downturn, further exacerbated the market's poor performance.

After an ok start to September, it was really the second half of the month when the S&P 500 began to fall.

Traditionally, September has been a poor month for stock market returns. This phenomenon, dubbed the "September Effect," can be attributed to several factors including tax considerations, and pessimism following the summer months.

Let’s hope October’s better!

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