News from the AI & ML world
DeeperML - #aiadoption
|
@www.microsoft.com
//
References:
academy.towardsai.net
, pub.towardsai.net
,
Microsoft and Towards AI are addressing the AI skills gap with a new course, "AI for Business Professionals," designed to help professionals move beyond basic AI usage to achieve significant improvements in work quality and innovation. This initiative comes as organizations increasingly recognize generative AI as a game-changer but struggle with effective adoption due to a lack of strategic knowledge and technical skills among their teams. The course aims to transform individuals from merely AI-curious to AI-skilled collaborators, enabling them to use AI not just for speed, but to generate innovative ideas and achieve exceptional quality in their work.
The "AI for Business Professionals" course offers practical training tailored for diverse roles, including software engineers and investment research analysts. It provides modules and actionable strategies designed to optimize coding, streamline administrative tasks, and identify groundbreaking opportunities using AI. The self-paced course includes short videos, hands-on exercises, real-world demos, and expert guidance, all designed for busy, non-technical professionals. Participants will learn how to use AI deeply, effectively, and strategically in their daily work, addressing common issues such as distrust in AI output and uncertainty about time savings. Microsoft emphasized the importance of continuous learning and career development in keeping up with evolving business needs. Nearly half (47%) of businesses say their top workforce strategy over the next 12 to 18 months is to train their existing workforce in AI skills. The course aims to provide individuals with the opportunity to develop the AI skills they need to build confidence, establish fluency, and thrive in the new AI economy. A free lesson is available to preview the course's content and learn how to use AI effectively, and strategically in daily work. The full course is available for $399. Recommended read:
References :
@www.insightpartners.com
//
References:
futurumgroup.com
, www.insightpartners.com
,
Flank, a Berlin-based company, has secured $10 million in funding to advance its autonomous AI legal agent designed for enterprise teams. The funding round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Gradient Ventures, 10x Founders, and HV Capital. The investment will be used to accelerate product development, expand the engineering and commercial teams, and strengthen enterprise partnerships. Flank's AI agent seamlessly integrates into existing workflows, reviewing, drafting, and redlining legal documents, as well as answering legal and compliance questions swiftly.
Flank differentiates itself from chatbots and copilots by autonomously resolving requests directly within tools like email, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, eliminating the need for new interfaces or employee retraining. The agent is designed to handle high-volume workflows, such as NDAs and compliance checks, freeing up legal departments to focus on strategic tasks. CEO Lili Breidenbach emphasizes that Flank allows legal teams to concentrate on high-value work while the agent handles routine tasks invisibly and autonomously. Sophie Beshar from Insight Partners recognizes Flank as a pioneer in autonomous agents capable of real work at scale, addressing the strains faced by legal teams. Microsoft Build 2025 showcased Microsoft's strategic shift towards agentic AI, emphasizing its potential to transform software development. CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the evolution of AI from an assistant to an agent capable of performing complex workflows. Microsoft aims to collaborate with the development community to build the future of agentic AI development. The conference addressed concerns about the role of developers in the age of agentic AI, reaffirming Microsoft's commitment to software development and highlighting AI's role in enhancing, not replacing, human capabilities. AI is also becoming integral in cybersecurity. Impart Security, with recent backing, is developing an agentic approach to runtime security, empowering security teams to proactively address cyberattacks. The increasing complexity of digital interactions and the expansion of attack surfaces necessitate AI-driven efficiency in security. Traditional security systems struggle to keep pace with modern attacks. Impart Security aims to provide comprehensive, actionable, and automated responses to security threats, moving beyond mere detection. Recommended read:
References :
Imran Aftab,@AI News | VentureBeat
//
Tech leaders are rapidly deploying agentic AI, a cutting-edge technology poised to revolutionize the work ecosystem. These dynamic AI agents are designed to augment human decision-making, offering solutions to complex challenges across various industries. Companies are exploring these AI agents, recognizing their potential to take over labor-intensive tasks and provide real-time insights. However, the implementation requires careful consideration of training, testing, and guidance, similar to onboarding new employees.
Despite the enthusiasm surrounding agentic AI, concerns regarding security readiness persist. IT security leaders acknowledge the potential benefits of AI agents but express significant readiness gaps in deploying proper safeguards. To effectively manage these systems, a "human-in-the-loop" approach is crucial, ensuring accountability and risk mitigation. Organizations must establish collaborative frameworks that balance autonomy with robust oversight, aligning AI decisions with broader strategic goals and maintaining ethical standards. To harness the full potential of agentic AI, organizations must prioritize AI fluency among their workforce. AI upskilling remains under-prioritized, with a surprisingly small percentage of staff receiving adequate training. Fostering a culture that embraces technological change through regular training about agentic AI, and highlighting its strengths and weaknesses is essential. Furthermore, role-based training can empower employees across different capacities to effectively utilize generative AI, promoting successful human-AI collaborations and ensuring that the workforce is prepared for this technological shift. Recommended read:
References :
Tom Dotan@Newcomer
//
OpenAI is facing an identity crisis, according to former research scientist Steven Adler, stemming from its history, culture, and contentious transition from a non-profit to a for-profit entity. Adler's insights, shared in a recent discussion, delve into the company's early development of GPT-3 and GPT-4, highlighting internal cultural and ethical disagreements. This comes as OpenAI's enterprise adoption accelerates, seemingly at the expense of its rivals, signaling a significant shift in the AI landscape.
OpenAI's recent $3 billion acquisition of Windsurf, an AI-native integrated development environment (IDE), underscores its urgent need to defend its territory in AI-powered coding against growing competition from Google and Anthropic. The move reflects OpenAI's imperative to equip developers with superior coding capabilities and secure a dominant position in the emerging agentic AI world. This deal is seen as a defensive maneuver as OpenAI finds itself on the back foot, needing to counter challenges from competitors who are making significant inroads in AI-assisted coding. Meanwhile, tensions are reportedly simmering between OpenAI and Microsoft, its key partner. Negotiations are shaky, with Microsoft seeking a larger equity stake and retention of IP rights to OpenAI's models, while OpenAI aims to claw those rights back. These issues, along with disagreements over an AGI provision that allows OpenAI an out once it develops artificial general intelligence, have complicated OpenAI's plans for a for-profit conversion and the current effort to become a public benefit corporation. Furthermore, venture capitalists and limited partners are offloading shares in secondaries, which may come at a steep loss compared to 2021 valuations, adding another layer of complexity to OpenAI's current situation. Recommended read:
References :
Chris McKay@Maginative
//
OpenAI has released its latest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, designed to enhance reasoning and tool use within ChatGPT. These models aim to provide users with smarter and faster AI experiences by leveraging web search, Python programming, visual analysis, and image generation. The models are designed to solve complex problems and perform tasks more efficiently, positioning OpenAI competitively in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Greg Brockman from OpenAI noted the models "feel incredibly smart" and have the potential to positively impact daily life and solve challenging problems.
The o3 model stands out due to its ability to use tools independently, which enables more practical applications. The model determines when and how to utilize tools such as web search, file analysis, and image generation, thus reducing the need for users to specify tool usage with each query. The o3 model sets new standards for reasoning, particularly in coding, mathematics, and visual perception, and has achieved state-of-the-art performance on several competition benchmarks. The model excels in programming, business, consulting, and creative ideation. Usage limits for these models vary, with o3 at 50 queries per week, and o4-mini at 150 queries per day, and o4-mini-high at 50 queries per day for Plus users, alongside 10 Deep Research queries per month. The o3 model is available to ChatGPT Pro and Team subscribers, while the o4-mini models are used across ChatGPT Plus. OpenAI says o3 is also beneficial in generating and critically evaluating novel hypotheses, especially in biology, mathematics, and engineering contexts. Recommended read:
References :
Ryan Priem@AI Accelerator Institute
//
References:
AI Accelerator Institute
Google is significantly enhancing its Customer Engagement Suite with the addition of human-like AI agents, marking a new era in AI-powered customer interactions. Announced at Cloud Next 2025, the update focuses on creating more interactive and personalized experiences through its Conversational Agent product. These enhancements include improved voice comprehension, emotional intelligence, and streaming video support, enabling the bots to adapt better to real-time conversations and even "see" service tickets presented via customer devices. This move aims to make AI agents more accessible and easier to deploy, transforming how businesses engage with their customers across all touchpoints.
Google's upgraded Conversational Agents now leverage the latest Gemini models, including Gemini 2.5 Flash, to achieve a more human-like sound, higher comprehension levels, and the ability to understand emotion. To further streamline the agent development process, Google is introducing an AI assistant with a no-code interface and an Agent Development Kit. The suite also includes new connector tools that allow the software to perform specific tasks like product lookups, adding items to shopping carts, and processing checkouts through API calls. These additions reflect Google's commitment to providing organizations with the resources needed to build and deploy advanced conversational AI agents effectively. Launched in September 2024, Google’s Customer Engagement Suite is positioned as an AI-powered platform designed to help organizations deliver better customer experiences. With these new enhancements, Google intensifies its competition with other customer experience (CX) players such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom, and Amazon Web Services, all of whom are integrating AI to improve customer service through various channels like chat, voice, and video. Duncan Lennox, Google’s vice president and general manager of applied AI, highlighted the transformative potential of AI agents, stating that they enable new levels of hyper-personalized, multimodal conversations with customers, ultimately improving customer interactions across all touchpoints. Recommended read:
References :
|
BenchmarksBlogsResearch Tools |