Monthly Brandtech Blend - May 2023

Microsoft Designer, the AI-powered design tool,  is now available in preview

Last month, Microsoft’s AI-powered design tool, Microsoft Designer, was launched in preview. The powerful tool can create designs for different types of content such as presentation decks, social media visuals and posters by leveraging user-generated content and OpenAI’s text-to-image AI, Dalle-E 2. It can also produce written captions and hashtags specifically for social media posts. Still in its early stages, Microsoft has already announced new editing features coming soon to the tool, allowing users to have even greater control when creating their ideal visual. With all the legal concerns around AI-powered image-generation systems violating the copyrights of the artists behind the images, it is unclear how the situation will play out and whether users will in fact have full rights over the created images.

Watch this space! Read more about it in techcrunch

The tech giants exceed revenue estimates for the first quarter of the year

Following what was for most of the tech giants their biggest round of mass layoff in their company’s history last year, the tech behemoths appear to have exceeded expectations for the first quarter of the year. Whilst Amazon reported a total of $127.4 billion in revenue for the first quarter of the year, Meta also beat estimates to record $28.6Bn in revenue for the same period, Alphabet pocketed a total of $69.79 billion in revenue.Both Amazon’s advertising unit and cloud computing business were the two business units that outshone the rest, with the ad segment reporting an increase of 21% year-on-year whilst sales at Amazon Web Services increased by 16% For Meta, revenue from advertising reached $28.1 billion, accounting for the majority of the social media giant’s revenue.However, with AI being at the forefront of its rivals’ priorities, Meta appears to be lagging behind in this aspect. Alphabet will be intensifying its development of AI with the likes of Google developing AI features for some of its most popular products.

Read more about it in The tech portal, The tech portal, The tech portal and The Guardian

Google and Microsoft compete for the future of AI-driven search

The emergence of highly sophisticated generative AI models such as ChatGPT, Dall-E 2, and Midjourney has triggered new competition in the search industry, with Google and Microsoft striving to develop more appealing and customized online search experiences. The rise of generative AI represents a significant shift in the search industry's focus on "call-and-response" engines that enable a two-way conversation between humans and AI.Experts however are warning that the race to create increasingly sophisticated AI models could rapidly become unmanageable.Though the concept of AI has been around for decades, recent months have seen a significant shift in the relationship between humans and AI. Will this moment be seen by future generations as the beginning of a new era?

Read more about this topic in The Drum

'The Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, resigns from Google raising concerns about the potential risks associated with chatbots

Dr Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered the "godfather of AI", has quit Google over concerns regarding misleading information and the danger of AI in the job market. The development of true digital intelligence could pose an "existential risk" to humanity, according to Hinton. One of his major concerns is the possibility of AI chatbots surpassing human intelligence and being exploited by "bad actors". Recently, Elon Musk also raised concerns about AI safety, and Valérie Pisano, CEO of the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, warns that the lack of proper safety measures in AI systems would not be acceptable in any other sector.

Read more about it in The Guardian and The New York Times