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A new report by the German publication Heise claims OpenAI's GPT-4 will be introduced next week and could potentially be multimodal, meaning the AI model may be able to analyze, respond to, and/or generate images and videos in addition to text.
Heise attributed the update to Andreas Braun, CTO of Microsoft Germany and lead of Data & AI STU.
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Braun reportedly made the announcement at Microsoft's "AI in Focus — Digital Kickoff" today.
According to a Heise translation, Braun said they "will introduce GPT-4 next week," and it will involve "multimodal models that will offer completely different possibilities — for example, videos."
He was joined by Marianne Janik, Microsoft Germany CEO, who said AI is not about replacing employees but filling in for repetitive tasks in new ways.
At the time of this writing, neither Microsoft nor OpenAI had confirmed or denied the news.
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During a January interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman commented on the future release of GPT-4, saying that "people are begging to be disappointed, and they will be."
He declined to say when the company's next GPT language model will be released, commenting only that it will "come out at some point when we are confident we can do it safely and responsibly."
Microsoft is hosting a "future of work with AI" special event on March 16th at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET.
HEISE
Grammar and spell checker Grammarly is the latest to launch a generative AI tool.
Called GrammarlyGo, the tool generates text and messages based on a user's unique writing style. It's expected to open up to most Grammarly users in April.
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Grammarly will be able to craft original writing for emails, social media, and long-form communications within other apps and websites, the company said.
The AI tool suggests text based on a user's situational, organizational, and professional context.
Its content can copy each individual's unique writing style.
GrammarlyGo can deliver prompts to help users simplify and improve writing. These include quick drafts and one-click replies to emails.
It's also capable of rewriting for length, tone, and clarity, and generating ideas or outlines to accelerate content creation, according to Grammarly.
Anthropic, an AI startup and OpenAI competitor that's known for its chatbot Claude, has raised another $300M in funding at a pre-investment valuation of $4.1B.
Google previously invested a separate $300M to $400M into Anthropic, giving the tech giant a 10% stake in the startup.
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Spark Capital is leading the latest round, which adds to the $1.1B Anthropic had raised previously from investors such as former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, former Alameda Research co-CEO Caroline Ellison, and Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn.
Anthropic, which calls itself an "AI safety and research company," recently debuted the Claude general-purpose AI assistant that's been viewed as a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Claude is currently in a closed beta.
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Google reportedly invested at least $300M in Anthropic sometime in late 2022.
The San Francisco-based startup has partnered with Google and is purchasing cloud computing and resources from the tech giant.
Antjhropic had previously sought a valuation of $5B or more.
Community messaging app Discord is adding more experimental AI features to its platform. This includes upgrading its existing Clyde bot
with OpenAI ChatGPT technology, allowing the bot to answer questions and converse with users.
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- Starting next week, Discord will make the Clyde chatbot available for free to a small number of servers for its alpha users.
- After that limited experiment, Discord plans to add the chatbot to additional servers for more users to hold conversational interactions.
- Users will be able to summon the bot by typing @Clyde.
- In addition to Claude, Discord is bringing a feature that uses generative AI to "remix" avatars, as well as AI-generated Conversation Summaries.
- Discord is also adding OpenAI technology to its automated content moderation tool.
- Called AutoMod, it can block unwanted messages based on words configured by server admins and moderators.
- The upgraded tool will be able to understand the conversational context and flag messages to moderators.
Microsoft announced the general availability of ChatGPT in its Azure OpenAI service for businesses and developers.
The service makes it easier for enterprises to add OpenAI's technologies to their cloud apps and services in a compliance-friendly manner.
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As of today, Azure OpenAI users can access a ChatGPT preview, with pricing marked at $0.002 for 1,000 tokens. Billing begins on March 13.
ChatGPT can be used to generate copy such as emails, summarize content, and aid in software programming, Microsoft said.
It joins other OpenAI models in the Azure cloud service, which include the AI image generator DALL•E 2, the code-generating system Codex, and GPT-3.5, the large language model that ChatGPT is based on.
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At present, Azure OpenAI Service is only open to Microsoft's "managed customers and partners," meaning developers have to apply for special access.
Microsoft first announced the Azure OpenAI Service in January. With the general availability, more Azure business customers can now incorporate AI technologies into their own applications in the cloud.
Bolstered by new AI offerings, Microsoft's Bing search engine has surpassed 100 million daily active users for the first time.
Bing still trails the more than 1 billion daily active users that use Google's search engine.
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- The milestone was achieved in part thanks to the new Bing preview, which offers AI features including a chatbot and now has more than 1 million users.
- In updated figures released today, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi said about a third of users who signed up for the preview are new to Bing.
- Another third use chat AI in their search queries daily.
- Other factors driving Bing's trial and usage are the steady growth of Microsoft Edge, which utilizes Bing as its default search engine.
- Additionally, Bing's web search ranking has increased in relevancy after introducing a new Prometheus AI model, resulting in better search quality, Mehdi said.
Microsoft first unveiled its new Bing search engine, dubbed an "AI copilot for the web," on Feb. 7.
The AI-powered Bing searches for and summarizes web content in a conversational-like way. It has a new chat interface for users to converse with a chatbot about their search.
Since the new Bing was introduced, there have been over 45 million chats, according to Mehdi.
