CIOInsider India Magazine

It’s no surprise that ‘generative artificial intelligence’ was everywhere during Big Tech’s fall product launch events this year. Industry conferences offer an excellent way to stay on top of AI trends. Here are some of the major fall events centering on generative AI this year.

Amazon
In contrast to previous years, there was significantly more stage time dedicated to software updates, AI features, and premium subscription services, with less emphasis placed on new Echo devices. After a challenging year that featured layoffs as part of a larger reorganization of Amazon's corporate and technological employees, the shift signals a greater focus in the Alexa and Echo business. After previously making plans to retire, the division's longstanding chief Dave Limp oversaw its yearly flagship event for the last time.

There was still plenty of new gear available, such as the wall-mountable Echo Hub, an improved Echo Show 8, a Fire TV Soundbar, and the latest models of Amazon's Ring, Blink, and eero. However, the company was obviously looking to make a statement about AI from the outset in an effort to dispel the notion that it had lagged behind OpenAI and other players in the space.

It started with a sneak peek of its brand-new ‘Let's Chat’ function, which transforms Alexa into something more akin to a voice-activated ChatGPT. As seen on stage, the functionality launches a special session that enables users to interact with Alexa and even pause her without repeatedly saying the wake word. Until the user exits the session, Alexa keeps the conversation's context and takes into consideration preferences like a user's favorite sports team.

Amazon also displayed this movie to demonstrate the features. In conjunction with Amazon's visual ID service, an optional feature enables signed-up customers to initiate and continue a conversation with Alexa by simply staring at the screen without uttering Alexa.

At the event, Amazon also disclosed and showcased the following new capabilities:

the capability to give Alexa commands for numerous actions at once rather than one by one, allowing conversational speech control of smartphone function Map View.

The voice-enabled personal and family safety service Alexa Emergency Assist will cost $5.99 per month or $59 per year.

People with speech or movement impairments can utilize the Fire Max 11 tablet's Eye Gaze function to interact with Alexa.

Microsoft
Following Amazon's products and Services event, when the e-commerce giant unveiled a number of products as well as updated its coveted speech assistant, Alexa, with generative AI capabilities, comes Microsoft's fall event. Microsoft has a clear advantage against Amazon in terms of business use cases for its software and services, notably Microsoft 365, even though the company concentrated on end users while updating the Surface series of computers.

Next Windows 11 Update
On September 26, Windows 11 will receive its subsequent update cycle. Support for the RAR and 7-zip compression formats, as well as an updated File Explorer, Paint, and, of course, Copilot, will all be included. The native inclusion of WinRAR is a wonderful improvement because it takes the user's need to turn to third-party suppliers away. However, Windows 11 would only have extract-only capabilities if the RAR format is illegally distributed.

Microsoft 365 Chat
Microsoft is now integrating generative AI into all of its workplace and productivity applications. Generative AI was previously made available as Copilot for Office 365. Microsoft 365 might be considered as the Windows manufacturer's efforts to acquire a competitive edge against rivals like Salesforce and Google, which employs Duet AI in its Workspace suite.

With Microsoft 365, you can get contextual help with tasks for work, home, etc. The tool sources the data and outputs the results in a tabular style in whichever tool the user is using in response to a straightforward voice command to conduct equity research based on particular financial ratios over the previous six months. Additionally, it includes the Microsoft Designer tool and the Sound Like Me feature, which enable the AI learn to create emails, papers, and other things by mimicking the user.

Bing Chat Updates
The DALL-E 3 text-to-image generator, the newest toy from OpenAI, is now available through Bing Image search, thanks to the firm. And it appears like Microsoft is handling it responsibly. Images created by AI will be marked with the text "Generated with AI" to prevent them from being used to convey false information.

YouTube
Google-owned YouTube has unveiled a suite of AI-powered capabilities that will help both new and established creators and artists create, edit, and share content in bold new ways. According to the social media player, these AI-powered tools will help unlock powerful new forms of creative expression, take the friction out of the creative process, and allow YouTube creators to reach more viewers.

Dream Screen
The platform showcased "Dream Screen" during its Made on YouTube event, an experimental generative AI tool for its Shorts video offering that creates AI-generated video or photo backgrounds in response to suggestions in a matter of seconds. The 'Dream Screen' feature is intended for content producers that are passionate about producing Shorts, a feature that YouTube introduced in 2020 that is similar to TikTok's short-form video format.

YouTube Studio
In addition, YouTube Studio now has a new AI feature that will suggest topics and plot lines for potential videos. The AI recommendations will be tailored to certain creators and will be based on what is currently popular with consumers. A music suggestion system driven by AI will be introduced by the video platform as well. It will take a written description of a creator's video and propose songs to utilize.

YouTube Create
The platform also revealed a brand-new app called YouTube Create that would make it simple for producers to produce Shorts. In order to help creators produce their next YouTube video without relying on complicated editing software, the platform provides video editing tools like precise editing and trimming, automatic captioning, voiceover capabilities, access to a library of filters, effects, transitions, and royalty-free music with beat matching technology.