😺 Rufus

PLUS: The internet is changing in a big way

Welcome, humans.

Our favorite Hollywood actors always taught us to use your platform for social change (satire, sort of), so here we go: Dear OpenAI, lately, ChatGPT-4 has been a big pain in the arse, refusing to respond to the simplest of questions. We know you're busy, but kindly address this at your earliest convenience. With love, N & P. 🧡

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

Amazon announced an AI conversational shopping experience.
Bard got an upgrade with Gemini Pro and can now generate images.
ChatGPT performs pretty damn well in technical interviews.
Meta is developing its proprietary AI chips.

Amazon is making its shopping experience more like ChatGPT.

Amazon

Amazon is called “The Everything Store” for a reason—you can literally buy everything you want.

However, these days, “everything” means endless scrolling through Chinese ripoffs that make it difficult to find what you actually want (for us, that’s Charmin Ultra Soft).

Amazon believes AI can preserve Bezos’ cherished customer experience ethos.

In September, it introduced AI-generated product descriptions for sellers, followed by AI-summarized reviews two months later. BUT, in our (mostly) humble opinion, these were low-hanging fruit.

Yesterday, Amazon announced its boldest AI move yet: Rufus, an AI shopping assistant well-versed in everything about “The Everything Store”—including its product catalog, customer reviews, and community Q&As.

Amazon

It’s a conversational layer on top of the regular shopping search experience. So, instead of simply searching for “headphones,” you can engage Rufus in a back-and-forth dialogue, asking:

“What should I consider when buying headphones?”
“Which headphones are best for long runs?”
“Compare the newest AirPods to Raycons.”

*why this matters in a sec…but first* ↓↓↓

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The internet is evolving from search to chat.

Why it matters: While we’re far from fashion gurus, Rufus just feels like a superior shopping experience if Amazon can pull it off.

BTW, not to get too existential, but are we moving towards a future where websites are essentially navigated by AI assistants?

It’s a possibility.

Readers know that we’re big fans of Perplexity, which sifts through the internet for us so we don’t have to scan a sea of Google’s blue links.

And here’s another example:

The tongue-in-cheek commentary from insiders is that AWS—Amazon’s cloud services and a cherished sponsor of ours—became so complex that instead of making it easier to use, Amazon just slapped a chatbot called “Q” on top of it.

AWS

In other words, Q is programmed with your organization’s entire knowledge base, letting users ask business questions directly vs. hunting for information across various tabs.

As for us? We’re not opposed to saving time!

Around the Horn.

Bard is getting an upgrade with Gemini Pro and can finally generate images using Google’s Imagen 2 model.
Meta is building its own AI chips to lessen its reliance on Nvidia.
Google is using AI to improve discovery on Google Maps.
73% of Microsoft Copilot users report that its new AI features helped them complete tasks faster.
A less expensive ChatGPT-3.5 Turbo is now available for developers!

Intelligent Insights.

How Beloved Indie Blog 'The Hairpin' Turned Into an AI Clickbait Farm (link).
How hard is it to cheat with ChatGPT in technical interviews? We ran an experiment. (link).
Hottest Job in Corporate America? The Executive in Charge of A.I. (link).
How Copyright Should Work in the Age of AI: Readers Weigh In (link).
Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih says AI is a ‘moving target’ — but her aim is steady (link).