Welcome, humans.
Heads up! Our new merch store just dropped some fresh “Neu” gear:
From caps that increase your cool factor by 1,000x (what’s cooler than a cat with sunglasses?!) to hoodies that boost your coding mojo*, we've got all your fall fashion needs covered.
You read The Neuron every day. You’re interested in AI. You love cats (most of you, anyway). The only question you need to answer is why not treat yourself to some Neuron drip??
*Disclaimer: Wearing Neuron merch does not *~actually~* increase your coding skills or AI knowledge—but hey, you'll look good trying!
Here’s what you need to know about AI today:
- ElevenLabs released a new app that turns any written text into audio.
- AMD acquired ZT Systems for $4.9B to better compete with Nvidia.
- AWS unveiled RAGChecker to improve AI-generated responses.
- Salesforce released its own open-source AI models.
ElevenLabs' new app is trying to “podcastify”everything.
ElevenLabs Reader
Imagine a world where any text, in any language, can be instantly transformed into natural-sounding speech. That’s basically what ElevenLabs is trying to do with its new Reader app.
ElevenLabs’ wants to expand your audio library beyond podcasts and audiobooks to include any article, PDF, or ebook on your phone—and yes, that includes newsletters like us!
BTW, this isn’t sponsored content, it’s just friggin’ cool—try it on iOS here, and Android here.
The app has been around since June, but just expanded to support an impressive 32 languages with a vast library of voices—even those of iconic celebs.
Some cool use cases:
- Judy Garland can teach you biology while walking to class.
- James Dean can narrate your steamy romance novel.
- Sir Laurence Olivier can read you today’s newsletter—just paste the web link and enjoy!
This new app is powered by ElevenLabs' advanced Turbo v2.5 AI voice model.
This same tool is available via API (an easy way to connect to it in your own application), which is already being used to power voice interactions for various platforms like the Rabbit r1 device, Perplexity, and more.
Plus, the company announced the API is 50% cheaper… making it more affordable to roll out high quality text-to-speech for all kinds of products.
Why it's important: ElevenLabs shared how major Youtubers are using its dubbing services to expand their content into new regions with voices that actually sound like them (thanks to ElevenLabs’ ability to clone voices).
Oh, and BTW, it’s estimated that up to 20% of the population may have dyslexia. So providing people an option to listen to (instead of read) content, in their own language, wherever they go online can only help increase engagement and communication.
Win-win if you ask us!
Would you rather read or listen to your daily news content?
Read
Listen
Mix of both
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Around the Horn.
- AMD acquired ZT Systems, a custom AI and cloud infrastructure designer, for $4.9B to better compete with Nvidia.
- Salesforce released its own open-source xGen-MM models to advance visual language AI research.
- AWS unveiled RAGChecker, a tool that could significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated responses in fields like medicine, finance, and law.
- 56% of the Fortune 500 now cite AI as a risk in their annual reports.
Treats To Try.
See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!
- *We have secondary ad spots available in August. Get your brand in front of 450,000+ professionals here.
- Central automates payroll, benefits, and compliance tasks for startups, saving founders time and hassle.
- Meme Alerts uses AI to send daily viral meme templates to help social media managers and creators stay on top of trending content.
- Coldreach finds ready-to-buy leads and provides relevant conversation starters using customizable buying signals and AI research.
- Clerkly is a search engine that answers questions about U.S. regulations using only official government sources.
- mood2music detects your mood and suggests matching songs and playlists to enhance your listening experience.
- Hamming automates testing for AI voice agents so you can simulate thousands of calls and optimize your systems quickly.
Tuesday Ticker
Here are the results from last week’s poll:
- C.S. chose Education: “It would be great to be able to create digital twins of dangerous environments for which hands-on training is needed.”
- J.C. chose Architecture: “My buddy opened a Dance Studio - basically a big empty room - and had to pay an architect an exorbitant sum to draw the changes for the city zoning department. Save time and save money.”
- P.G. chose Film / Animation: “You can fully immerse yourself into a movie, into a parallel world. Hogwarts, Jurassic Park, Super Marios Bros, you name it. Like Universal Studios, but better!”
A Cat's Commentary.
