Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 06/27 – Add Consultants To The List Of Big Winners Of AI So Far

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme right home for Thursday, June 27th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. Is Uncle Sam about to unload a ton of Bitcoin? AI has helped Google translate almost double the number of languages it supports. No surprise, but Amazon is going to take a page out of Temu's book, Figma's big redesign, and another way the AI era is rhyming with the dot-com era.

Starting point is 00:00:55 The consultants are back. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. There's a bit of trepidation in the Bitcoin markets today, which, oh, okay. hey Brian, what else is new? Except this is a little unusual listen to this lead from CoinDesk. Bitcoin fell back towards $60,000 on Wednesday after a wallet tagged to the U.S. government moved about $240 million worth of seized BTC to a Coinbase Prime address, igniting concerns among traders that the digital assets are likely to be sold. Some 3,940 Bitcoin originally seized from a Silk Road vendor was moved by the wallet according to an Arkham Intelligence Social Media Post.

Starting point is 00:01:40 This BTC was originally seized from narcotics trafficker Banmeet Singh and forfeited at trial in January 2024, the post said. The last movement by the government, which in late 2022 seized roughly 50,000 Bitcoin related to the Silk Road website was worth $2 billion on April 2nd, which at the time also put pressure on digital markets. The last confirmed sale by the government was in March 2023 when it unloaded 9,816,000. coins for $216 million, end quote. You know, people don't want to be on the other side of a whale unloading their bags,

Starting point is 00:02:16 and I guess the UF's government probably counts as a whale in this case, obviously. Google has added support for 110 new languages in Google Translate, its largest expansion ever aided by the company's Palm 2 LLM, quoting the verge. Google's Palm 2 AI language model helped translate learn these new languages. is especially good at learning ones that were related to one another, such as languages close to Hindi, like Awadi and Marwadi, and French Creoles like Seychelle-Wa-Criol and Marician Creole, Google's Isaac Caswell said in a blog post. The list of newly supported languages in Translate includes Cantonese, which, quote, has long been one of the most requested languages for Google

Starting point is 00:03:04 Translate, Caswell says, because Cantonese often overlaps with Mandarin in writing, it is tricky to find data and train models. Caswell also says that about a quarter of the new languages come from Africa. Most of the new languages are spoken by at least one million people, Caswell tells the Verge in an interview, while several are spoken by hundreds of millions of people, end quote. Previously, Google Translate supported 113 languages, so AI helped them roughly double that number. From the Can't Beat Em Join them folder, slides shown to Chinese sellers suggest Amazon plans to launch a Temu-like section on its website, featuring cheap items that shipped directly from China to overseas consumers.

Starting point is 00:03:52 Quoting the information. The new marketplace will offer unbranded fashion, home goods, and daily necessities, according to the slides, and orders will take nine to 11 days to get to customers. Amazon told Chinese sellers in a recent closed-door meeting that it would start signing up merchants this summer and begin accepting inventory in the fall. Temu and Sheen have seen enormous growth with U.S. shoppers in recent years by offering eye-wateringly cheap prices on goods that ship directly from China. That has sparked debate within Amazon, which has long-touted speedy shipping times from its massive U.S. fulfillment network, on how to best respond, the information previously reported. There will be a new section on Amazon.com's homepage that takes shoppers to the bargain items,

Starting point is 00:04:35 according to the slides. Sellers joining the bargain section can determine their product selection and pricing and can produce in small batches to test the shoppers to test. the demand for any new products they plan to launch the slideshow. The model is similar to that of Sheehan, which prides itself on getting their suppliers to produce trendy goods in small batches in order to minimize unsold inventory. But Amazon appears to take a more lenient approach with the new offering compared to Temu. Temu dictates what sellers sell and at what prices and takes over the marketing and storefront operation on behalf of sellers. The information reported previously, it's not clear if these Amazon shipments will be made using a U.S. trade provision that exempts

Starting point is 00:05:14 individual packages worth less than $800 from U.S. customs duties. Shina and Temu are among sellers that use the provision, which some U.S. politicians and trade groups have criticized as a tariff loophole, end quote. Speaking of Amazon, as I always say when I do stories like this, maybe round numbers like this are neither here nor there in the end, but this one did catch me by surprise. has reached a $2 trillion market cap for the first time ever. Its shares have done pretty, pretty well since the company's Q1 earnings gaining 27 percent so far this year, quoting Bloomberg. The company is now a member of an elite club of a handful of peers that have surpassed the

Starting point is 00:06:00 key market capitalization number. Alphabet passed the $2 trillion threshold in late April, while rallies have pushed market values of Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple to more than $3 trillion. Amazon shares have whipsawed since the company's first quarter earnings when the cloud unit posted the strongest sales growth in a year, helping to power the stock back above the all-time high set in April. The stock rallied in June, recovering losses from the end of May to gain 27% so far this year. Shares of the mega-cap technology company have gotten a lift over the past year as the company cut costs and restructured its business to better take advantage of the AI frenzy. In addition, its key Amazon Web Services business has shown signs of, of re-accelerating growth, a major point of optimism for investors, end quote. Now, what do you think it would do to Amazon stock if they also announced a slew of their own homegrown AI products soon? Didn't we just do a story about that this week? Them may be going after chat GPT directly later this year. Figma has debuted a major UI redesign, also new generative AI tools, and a built-in slideshow feature,

Starting point is 00:07:14 which is all free in beta, but will be a paid product at official launch. Quoting the Verge. Let's start with the redesign, which is intended to lay the foundation for the next decade, according to a blog post. You'll see things like a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. As part of the design refresh, the company wants to, quote, focus the canvas less on our UI and more on your work, and make something that's approachable to new users while still being useful to Figma experts.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Figma says this is the company's, third significant redesign since Figma's closed beta launch. The new look is rolling out as part of a limited beta and users can join a wait list if they want to try it out. Beyond the redesign, the headline feature edition is new generative AI tools, which look like a useful way to quickly get started with a design. They're basically a Figma-focused version of the draft and email type AI tools we've seen many times. In a briefing, Figma chief product officer Yuki Yamashita showed me an example of how Figma could create an app design for a new restaurant. after he typed the prompt into a text box.

Starting point is 00:08:17 Figma mocked up an app with menu listings, a tab bar, and even buttons for delivery partners like Uber Eats and DoorDash. It looked like a generic mobile app mock-up, but Yamashita was able to start tweaking it right away. In another example, Yamashita asked Figma AI to spin up a design for a recipe page for chocolate chip cookies, and sure enough, it did, including an AI-generated image of a cookie. Over Zoom, it looked like a pretty accurate image, but I can't imagine that a basic image of a chocolate chip cookie is hard for an AI generator to make. Figma is also introducing AI features that could help speed up small tasks in big ways, such as AI enhanced asset search and auto-generated text

Starting point is 00:08:54 in designs instead of generic Lorum Ipsum placeholder text. Ideally, all of the new Figma tools will allow people who are newer to Figma to test ideas more easily while letting those who are more well-versed in the app iterate more quickly, according to Yamashita. We're using AI to lower the floor and raise the ceiling, Yamashita says in an interview with The Verge, something CEO Dylan Field has said to the verge as well. Figma AI is launching in a limited beta beginning on Wednesday, and interested users can get on the wait list. Figma says the beta period will run through the end of the year. While in beta, Figma's AI tools will be free, but the company says it might have to introduce usage limits. Figma is also promising clear guidance on pricing when the AI

Starting point is 00:09:32 features officially launch. In a blog post, Figma also spelled out its approach to training its AI models. All of the generative features we're launching today are powered by third-party out-of-the-box AI models and were not trained on private Figma files or customer data, writes Chris Rasmussen, Figma's CTO. We fine-tuned visual and asset search with images of user interfaces from public free commodity files, end quote. Rasmussen adds that Figma trains its models so they learn patterns and Figma-specific concepts and tools, but not from users' content. Figma is also going to let Figma admins control whether Figma can train on customer content, which includes file content created in or uploaded

Starting point is 00:10:11 to Figma by a user, such as layer names and properties, text, and images, comments, and annotations according to Rasmussen. Figma won't start training on this content until August 15th. However, you should know that starter and professional plans are, by default, opted in to share this data while organization and enterprise plans are opted out. The company is likely being specific about how it trains its AI models because of Adobe's recent terms of service disaster, where the company had to clarify that it wouldn't train AI on your work. In addition to the redesign and the new AI features, Figma is adding a potentially very practical new tool. Figma slides, a Google Slides-like feature built right into Figma. Yamashita says that users have already been

Starting point is 00:10:51 hacking Figma to find a way to make slides, so now there's an official method to build and share presentations right inside the app, end quote. We just had a big tech IPO, well, tech and media, and I'll be honest, I'd never heard of this company, but hey, that's on me, right? Online Comics platform Webtoon raised $315 million in its NASDAQ IPO coming in at $21 per share, the top of its $18 to $21 marketed range, valuing the company at $2.7 billion, quoting the FT. The Los Angeles based group is controlled by South Korean Web Portal giant Naver. South Korean companies, including Naver and Kakao, have led the Manja Industries digital transformation, making online comics popular internationally following the global success of K-pop and Korean films and dramas. Webtoon

Starting point is 00:11:48 Entertainment has about 170 million monthly active users in more than 150 countries, including 7.7 million U.S. users. Its main markets are South Korea and Japan, which account for 27% of global readership. Imhe Sok, an analyst at Marei Asset said in a recent report that the U.S. listing would be successful given the industry's explosive growth in recent years. But the company also faces concerns about the industry's slowing revenue growth rates after a pandemic-driven boom. Industry executives hope the success of Webtoon-inspired TV series will bring new international readers to their platforms as global fans seek out the sources of their favorite stories and characters. Webtoon Entertainment, founded in 2005, posted a net loss of $145 million on revenue of $1.28 billion last year,

Starting point is 00:12:35 end quote. Finally today, this piece from the New York Times has the headline, the AI boom has an unlikely early winner, wonky consultants. To which, I said on the socials last night, really? Unlikely? The consultants were the ones who made all the money at the beginning of the web era, because companies needed an internet strategy, just like now I guess they need an AI strategy. It's just that in those days, the consultants, in quotes, were basically any 24-year-old who knew HTML and how to set up a web server. Quote, the next big boom in tech is a long-awaited gift for wonky consultants. From Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey and Company to IBM and Ascensure, sales are growing,

Starting point is 00:13:26 and hiring is on the rise because companies are in desperate need of technology Sherpas, who can help them figure out what generative AI means and how it can help their businesses. While the tech industry is casting about for ways to make money off generative AI, the consultants have begun cashing in. IBM, which has 160,000 consultants, has secured more than $1 billion in sales commitments related to generative AI for consulting work and its Watson X system, which can be used to build and maintain AI models, Accenture, which provides consulting and technology services booked $300 million in sales last year. About 40% of McKinsey's business this year will be generative AI-related,

Starting point is 00:14:06 and KPMG International, which has a global advisory division, went from making no money a year ago from generative AI-related work, to targeting more than $650 million in business opportunities in the United States tied to the technology over the past six months. The demand for tech-related advice recalls the Industries.com boom. Businesses stampeded consultants with requests for counsel in the 1990s, from 1992 to 2000 sales for Sapient, a digital consulting firm went from $950,000 to $503 million. Subsequent technology shifts like the migration to mobile and cloud computing were less

Starting point is 00:14:44 hurried, said Nigel Vaz, chief executive of the firm, which is now known as publicist sapient. In the mid-90s, CEOs would say, I don't know what a website is or what it could do for my business, but I need it, Mr. Vaz said. This is similar. Companies are saying, don't tell me what to build, tell me what you can build, end quote. For businesses, the results have been mixed. Genitive AI is prone to giving people incorrect, irrelevant, or nonsensical information known as hallucinations. It is difficult to ensure that it provides accurate information. It can also be slower to respond than a person which can confuse customers about whether their questions will be answered. IBM, which has a $20 billion consulting business, ran into some of those issues on

Starting point is 00:15:24 its work with McDonald's. The companies developed an AI-powered voice system to take drive-through orders. But after customers reported that the system made mistakes, like adding nine iced teas to an order instead of one Diet Coke requested, McDonald's ended the project. McDonald's said it remained committed to a future of digital ordering and would evaluate alternative systems. IBM said it was working with McDonald's on other projects and was in discussions with other restaurant chains about using its voice-activated AI. Other programs from IBM have shown more promise. The company worked with Dun & Bradstreet, a business data provider, to develop a generative AI system to analyze and provide advice on selecting suppliers. The tool called Ask Procurement will allow employees to conduct detailed searches with specific parameters. For example, it could find memory chip suppliers that are minority owned and automatically create a request for proposals,

Starting point is 00:16:14 for them. Gary Kodovetz, chief data and analytics officer at Dun & Bradstreet, said his team of 30 people needed IBM's help to build the system to reassure customers that the answers that ask procurement provides are accurate. He insisted that customers be able to trace every single answer to an original source, end quote. This is terrible news. The website, ComedyCentral.com, has been taken down, which means, among other things, more than 25 years of clips and episodes of the Daily Show and the entire run of the Colbert rapport are gone. This comes two days after MTV.com disappeared as well, meaning like 30 years of MTV news content

Starting point is 00:17:03 is also gone. Reminder number 5,000, that while in some sense, what is on the internet is permanent and forever, in another very real sense, it absolutely is not. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 06/27 – Add Consultants To The List Of Big Winners Of AI So Far

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