GM Readers! ☀️

Welcome to the 13th issue of Evolving Internet Insights!

Quote we’ve been thinking about this week: “Generative AI is 50% tech, 50% culture change," said Matt Wood, AWS vice president of AI.

Thanks for reading!

Liang and Dan 🙌

🌰 In a Nutshell

• Meta launches AI-powered celebrity chatbots

• Open AI wants to build its own mobile phone

• Getty Images makes a splash and launches its own Gen AI tool

• College educated workers fear technology will displace them and their jobs

💾 Byte-sized Stories

This week’s top stories with our insights on top.

1. Now You Can Talk to Celebrities On Meta (Sort Of) 🤖

⚡️ TL;DR: Meta has rolled out 28 AI chatbots personified by celebrities across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. These AI chatbots are based on the personalities of celebrities like Kendall Jenner, Dwayne Wade, and Paris Hilton. Zuckerberg said “This [functionality] isn’t just gonna be about answering queries… this is about entertainment and about helping you do things to connect with the people around you.”

⚡️ So What: By giving users the allure of celebrity interaction powered by AI, Meta hopes to reverse the troubling trend of declining usage and engagement on some of its platforms (particularly with the younger demographic). A 2022 Pew Research survey showed a steep decline in Facebook usage amongst teens. This year, the launch of Threads, Meta’s X/Twitter competitor, achieved an initial spike of users but has struggled with engagement since then.

⚡️ Zoom Out: Meta also announced that over time it will make AI chatbots available for businesses and creators and will release an AI studio tool for people to build their own AI “personalities.” Instead of having users just consume content from AI chatbots, Meta wants to also enable anyone to create an AI chatbot version of themselves. More broadly, enabling the average person to create was the central thesis behind social media platforms that led to their rise and prominence.

Read More Here, Here, Here

2. OpenAI is Building an AI-first Phone 🍎

⚡️ TL;DR: OpenAI is in advanced talks to team up with Jony Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone, to build the “iPhone for AI” or as we like to call it the “AiPhone.” Softbank is reportedly investing $1 billion to seed the new venture. OpenAI wants to create a more natural and intuitive user experience for those engaging with its AI technologies.

⚡️ So What: The best way to make a device that works natively with your technology is to purposely build it from the ground up. While the right cast of characters is involved in this effort, building hardware that is as loved and ubiquitous as the iPhone is no small feat. If successful, OpenAI could end up becoming one of the most consequential companies in the Age of AI (even more so than it is now).

⚡️ Zoom Out: Is building hardware cool again? In addition to the OpenAI news, other AI companies are pitching their AI-first hardware products. Notably, Meta in collaboration with Ray-Ban recently launched AI-powered smart glasses that allow the wearer to livestream, walk you through a DIY project, translate signage, etc. Both OpenAI and Meta want to own the entire AI stack (read: vertically integrate) with their software and hardware offerings. While exciting, remember that building hardware is hard.

Read More Here, Here, Here

P.S. Our next Brainfood Issue will deep dive on the AI x Hardware Trend

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3. Getty Images Rolls Out Its Own Generative AI Tool 📸

⚡️ TL;DR: Getty Images, in collaboration with Nvidia, has rolled out a gen AI tool that allows users to create images utilizing Getty’s image library. Getty has close to 500M assets (images, videos, etc) in its repository. Users that use Getty’s tool will be fully covered in terms of copyright and legal protection when publishing these AI-generated images.

⚡️ So What: Early this year, Getty Images filed suit against Stability AI for misusing Getty’s images to train its AI model. Unlike other models, Getty’s gen AI tool wants to promote the responsible and ethical creation of AI-generated content. For example, users cannot use the model to create certain images (such as images of Joe Biden). Additionally, Getty will pay creators when it uses their AI-generated images to train future versions of its model.

⚡️ Zoom Out: Getty is a perfect example of a business that got tired of fighting the AI trend and instead leaned into it by leveraging its IP library and proprietary assets. This is analogous to how consulting firms like McKinsey and PwC leaned into AI and got ahead of the curve to empower their employees and improve their businesses.

Read More Here, Here, Here

📊 Let’s Get Graphic

One visual we couldn’t stop thinking about.

22% of US Workers Worry Their Job Will Become Obsolete Because of Technology

⚡️ Takeaway: While 22% is a minority proportion of the respondents, that number is considerably higher than the ~15% measured in previous years – a period before the rise of the current Gen AI boom.

Diving deeper 🤿 the increase in those who worry was driven primarily from college-educated workers: from 8% to 20% over the same time period.

Unlike previous technological revolutions, Gen AI technologies acutely disrupt knowledge work.

🐇 Down the Rabbit Hole

Some deeper dives to help you get smarter on emerging tech.

1. A guide for finding product-market fit in B2B: an excellent long read on how to find product-market fit.

2. Securing AI is the Next Big Platform Opportunity: a blog post by Lightspeed Ventures Partners highlighting how security platforms and solutions represent a massive opportunity.

3. How are People Using ChatGPT?: a great study that dives into how people are using ChatGPT with chock full of insights.

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