Connect with us

Tech

Should You Start a Generative AI Company?

Published

7 months ago

on

I am thinking of starting a company that employs generative AI but I am not sure whether to do it. It seems so easy to get off the ground. But if it is so easy for me, won’t it be easy for others too? 

This year, more entrepreneurs have asked me this question than any other. Part of what is so exciting about generative AI is that the upsides seem limitless. For instance, if you have managed to create an AI model that has some kind of general language reasoning ability, you have a piece of intelligence that can potentially be adapted toward various new products that could also leverage this ability — like screen writing, marketing materials, teaching software, customer service, and more.

For example, the software company Luka built an AI companion called Replika that enables customers to have open-ended conversations with an “AI friend.” Because the technology was so powerful, managers at Luka began receiving inbound requests to provide a white label enterprise solution for businesses wishing to improve their chatbot customer service. In the end, Luka’s managers used the same underlying technology to spin off both an enterprise solution and a direct-to-consumer AI dating app (think Tinder, but for “dating” AI characters).

In deciding whether a generative AI company is for you, I recommend establishing answers to the following two big questions: 1) Will your company compete on foundational models, or on top-layer applications that leverage these foundational models? And 2) Where along the continuum between a highly scripted solution and a highly generative solution will your company be located? Depending on your answers to these two questions, there will be long-lasting implications for your ability to defend yourself against the competition.

Foundational Models or Apps?

Tech giants are now renting out their most generalizable proprietary models — i.e., “foundational models” — and companies like Eluether.ai and Stability AI are providing open-source versions of these foundational models at a fraction of the cost. Foundational models are becoming commoditized, and only a few startups can afford to compete in this space.

You may think that foundational models are the most attractive, because they will be widely used and their many applications will provide lucrative opportunities for growth. What is more, we are living in exciting times where some of the most sophisticated AI is already available “off the shelf” to get started with.

Entrepreneurs who want to base their company on foundational models are in for a challenge, though. As in any commoditized market, the companies that will survive are those that offer unbundled offerings for cheap or that deliver increasingly enhanced capabilities. For example, speech-to-text APIs like Deepgram and Assembly AI compete not only with each other but with the likes of Amazon and Google in part by offering cheaper, unbundled solutions. Even so, these firms are in a fierce war on price, speed, model accuracy, and other features. In contrast, tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google make significant R&D investments that enable them to relentlessly deliver cutting-edge advances in image, language, and (increasingly) audio and video reasoning. For instance, it is estimated that OpenAI spent anywhere between $2 and $12 million to computationally train ChatGPT — and this is just one of several APIs that they offer, with more on the way.

Instead of competing on increasingly commoditized foundational models, most startups should differentiate themselves by offering “top layer” software applications that leverage other companies’ foundational models. They can do this by fine-tuning foundational models on their own high quality, proprietary datasets that are unique to their customer solution, to provide high value to customers.

For instance, the marketing content creator, Jasper AI, grew to unicorn status largely by leveraging foundational models from OpenAI. To this day, the firm uses OpenAI to help customers generate content for blogs, social media posts, website copy and more. At the same time, the app is tailored for their marketer and copywriter customers, providing specialized marketing content. The company also provides other specialized tools, like an editor that multiple team members can work on in tandem. Now that the company has gained traction, going forward it can afford to spend more of its resources on reducing its dependency on the foundational models that enabled it to grow in the first place.

Since the top-layer apps are where these companies find their competitive advantage, they lie in a delicate balance between protecting the privacy of their datasets from large tech players even as they rely on these players for foundational models. Given this, some startups may be tempted to build their own in-house foundational models. Yet, this is unlikely to be a good use of precious startup funds, given the challenges noted above. Most startups are better off leveraging foundational models to grow fast, instead of reinventing the wheel.

From Scripted to Generative

Your company will need to live somewhere along a continuum from a purely scripted solution to a purely generative one. Scripted solutions involve selecting an appropriate response from a dataset of predefined, scripted responses, whereas generative ones involve generating new, unique responses from scratch.

Scripted solutions are safer and constrained, but also less creative and human-like, whereas generative solutions are riskier and unconstrained, but also more creative and human-like. More scripted approaches are necessary for certain use-cases and industries, like medical and educational applications, where there need to be clear guardrails on what the app can do. Yet, when the script reaches its limit, users may lose their engagement and customer retention may suffer. Moreover, it is more challenging to grow a scripted solution because you constrain yourself right from the start, limiting your options down the road.

On the other hand, more generative solutions carry their own challenges. Because AI-based offerings include intelligence, there are more degrees of freedom in how consumers can interact with them, increasing the risks. For example, one married father tragically committed suicide following a conversation with an AI chatbot app, Chai, that encouraged him to sacrifice himself to save the planet. The app leveraged a foundational language model (a bespoke version of GPT-4) from EluetherAI. The founders of Chai have since modified the app to so that mentions of suicidal ideation are served with helpful text. Interestingly, one of the founders of Chai, Thomas Rianlan, took the blame, saying: “It wouldn’t be accurate to blame EleutherAI’s model for this tragic story, as all the optimization towards being more emotional, fun and engaging are the result of our efforts.”

It is challenging for managers to anticipate all the ways in which things can go wrong with a highly generative app, given the “black box” nature of the underlying AI. Doing so involves anticipating risky scenarios that may be highly rare. One way of anticipating such cases is to pay human annotators to screen content for potentially harmful categories, such as sex, hate speech, violence, self-harm, and harassment, then use these labels to train models that automatically flag such content. Yet, it is still difficult to come up with an exhaustive taxonomy. Thus, managers who deploy highly generative solutions must be prepared to proactively anticipate the risks, which can be both difficult and expensive. The same goes for if later you decide to offer your solution as a service to other companies.

Because a fully generative solution is closer to natural, human-like intelligence, it is more attractive from the standpoint of retention and growth, because it is more engaging and can be applied to more new use cases.

• • •

Many entrepreneurs are considering starting companies that leverage the latest generative AI technology, but they must ask themselves whether they have what it takes to compete on increasingly commoditized foundational models, or whether they should instead differentiate on an app that leverages these models.

They must also consider what type of app they want to offer on the continuum from a highly scripted to a highly generative solution, given the different pros and cons accompanying each. Offering a more scripted solution may be safer but limit their retention and growth options, whereas offering a more generative solution is fraught with risk but is more engaging and flexible.

We hope that entrepreneurs will ask these questions before diving into their first generative AI venture, so that they can make informed decisions about what kind of company they want to be, scale fast, and maintain long-term defensibility.

Advertisement

This post was originally published on this site

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

AI

Revolutionizing Marketing: The Power of AI in the Digital Age

Published

2 months ago

on

November 21, 2023

By

Embracing AI-Powered Marketing: Transforming Brands in the Digital Marketplace

In the crowded digital marketplace, standing out is challenging. Enter AI-powered marketing, a revolutionary upgrade transforming brands into digital powerhouses.

Hyper-Personalized Campaigns: Beyond Basic Personalization

Gone are the days of generic marketing. Today’s gold standard is AI-driven hyper-personalization. This approach uses customer data analysis to create deeply resonant, individualized marketing campaigns. With AI’s ability to segment audiences based on intricate criteria, including purchasing history and browsing behavior, your messages can hit the mark every time.

Enhanced Customer Journey Mapping

AI’s capabilities extend to mapping the entire customer journey. By predicting needs and preferences at each stage, AI aids in crafting narratives that guide customers from discovery to purchase, integrating your brand into their personal stories.

SEO Wizardry: Mastering Search Engine Dynamics

With ever-changing algorithms, SEO is a complex puzzle. AI serves as a sophisticated navigator, deciphering these changes through machine learning. It aids in keyword optimization, understanding search intent, and aligning content with search trends.

Predictive SEO

AI tools offer predictive SEO, anticipating search engine and user behavior changes. This proactive stance ensures your brand’s prominent visibility in search results, capturing the right audience at the right time.

Social Media Mastery: Crafting a Digital Narrative

AI transforms social media strategies from uncertain to precise. By analyzing vast social data, AI provides insights into resonating content.

Content Optimization

AI analyzes performance data to recommend effective content types. This data-driven approach refines your social media content strategy.

Engagement Analysis

AI examines user interaction nuances, understanding engagement patterns. It helps tailor interactions for maximum impact, including adjusting posting schedules and messaging for increased relevance.

Conclusion: Navigating the AI-Driven Marketing Landscape

AI-powered marketing is essential for thriving in the digital age, offering precision and personalization beyond traditional methods. For small businesses, it’s a chance to leverage AI for impactful, data-driven strategies.

As we embrace the AI revolution, the future of marketing is not just bright but intelligently radiant. With AI as your digital ally, your brand is equipped for a successful journey, making every marketing effort and customer interaction count.

Continue Reading

AI

AI: Your Small Business Ally in a Digital Age

Published

2 months ago

on

November 8, 2023

By

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern commerce, small business owners find themselves at a crossroads of opportunity and obsolescence. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI) – once the exclusive domain of tech behemoths, it now stands as the great equalizer, offering small businesses a competitive edge previously unthinkable. The emergence of AI as a wingman for small businesses is not just a fleeting trend but a fundamental shift in how entrepreneurs can leverage technology to revolutionize their operations.

The 24/7 Customer Service Hero: Chatbots

In the digital storefront, customer service is the heartbeat of business survival and success. Chatbots emerge as the indefatigable heroes of this domain. Envision a customer service agent that never clocks out an entity that requires no sleep or sustenance yet delivers consistently and instantaneously. These AI-driven chat interfaces embody the essence of your brand’s voice, capable of handling a barrage of customer queries with a speed that outpaces the swiftest of typists. They are the embodiment of efficiency – ensuring that customer satisfaction is not just met but exceeded around the clock.

Unearthing Market Treasures: Data Dive

AI’s prowess in pattern recognition has catapulted data analytics into a realm once considered the stuff of science fiction. Small business owners armed with AI tools can sift through vast swathes of data to extract actionable insights. These algorithms act as modern-day oracles, predicting market trends, discerning customer behaviors, and offering sales forecasts with remarkable accuracy. Equipped with: this knowledge, small businesses, can navigate the market with the foresight and precision of an experienced captain steering through foggy seas.

Personalization at Scale: Customize Like a Boss

The age-old business mantra of the customer is king is given new potency with AI’s personalization capabilities. Tailoring the customer experience is no longer a luxury but a necessity. AI enables small businesses to offer bespoke experiences to consumers, making them feel like the sole focus of their attention. It’s personalization executed with such finesse that customers are left marveling at the thoughtfulness and individual attention, fostering loyalty and establishing deep-rooted brand connections.

Offloading the Mundane: Task Slayers

Repetitive tasks are the bane of creativity and innovation. AI steps in as the ultimate task slayer, automating routine chores that once consumed disproportionate amounts of time. From scheduling appointments to managing inventory, AI liberates entrepreneurs from the drudgery of administrative duties, freeing them to refocus on the creative and strategic endeavors that propel business growth.

Mastering Social Media: Social Savants

Social media – the pulsing vein of modern marketing – demands astuteness and agility. AI emerges as the savant of social media, capable of demystifying platform algorithms to optimize content delivery. It knows the optimal times to post, the types of content that resonate with audiences, and the strategies that convert passive scrollers into engaged customers. By automating your social media presence, AI transforms your brand into an online sensation, cultivating a digital community of brand ambassadors.

The Verdict: Embracing AI

For a small business owner, AI is not about an overnight overhaul but strategic integration. The goal is to start small, allowing AI to shoulder incremental aspects of your business, learning and scaling as you witness tangible benefits. The transition to AI-enablement does not necessitate a background in technology; it requires a willingness to embrace change and a vision for the future.

In summary, as the digital revolution marches forward, AI stands ready to partner with small businesses, providing them with tools once deemed the province of giants. This partnership promises to elevate the small business landscape, ushering in an era of democratized technology where every entrepreneur can harness the power of AI to write their own David vs. Goliath success story. AI, the once-distant dream, is now the most loyal wingman a small business can enlist in its quest for growth and innovation.

Continue Reading

Tech

Apple’s October Scary Fast Event: Everything revealed about the new MacBook Pro, iMac and M3 chips

Published

3 months ago

on

October 31, 2023

By

It’s time for another Apple event, with a spooky twist. The company announced a surprise “Scary Fast” event last week, prompting the rumor mill to speculate that Apple would be revealing new chips to power a new lineup of Macs.

As our resident Apple expert Brian Heater wrote, a new 24-inch iMac and a MacBook Pro refresh would be the most likely new announcements to expect from the October event, and as it turns out, he was spot-on. Apple’s new M3 chip lineup was the focal point of the event, powering each of the devices Apple showcased in their half-hour prerecorded event that had some fog, some bats and ominous choir music…but no big surprises for those following the rumor mill.

Since the event kicked off off at the uncharacteristically late time of 8pm ET / 5pm PT, so you might have missed out out on the reveals while putting the finishing touches on your Halloween decorating, or watching Monday Night Football. No judgement, we’re here to recap everything the October Apple event showcased in one spot.

New M3 chips

Credit: Apple

The “scary fast” part of the Apple event, as expected, are the new M3 chips. Apple has announce a M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max, which will be included in Apple’s new 24-inch iMac, MacBook Pros.

This time around, Apple has placed an emphasis on graphical horsepower, with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shading and Dynamic Caching, which Apple claims “dramatically increases the average utilization of the GPU” by allotting exact amount of local memory to given tasks. These new chips were frequently benchmarked against their M1 predecessor, with Apple claiming the M3 renders at 2.5x the speed of the M1 and its CPU is 30% faster than the M1.

Check out the full rundown of the three M3 chips right here.

New MacBook Pro models

Apple MacBook Pro 2023 Update in Space Black Color

Credit: Apple

Yes, the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros come with upgraded internals, but the first thing you might notice is the new color: Space Black. Beneath that color, you’ll find that new line of M3 chips. The 14-inch MacBook Pro can contain any of the trio, while the 16-inch model will only come with the M3 Pro or M3 Max chips.

As we’ve noted, the M3 chips packed into both models are putting an emphasis on getting the most out of the new GPU, though Apple also boasts that both form factors’ battery can last 22 hours on a single charge.

Both are available for preorder tonight, with the 14-inch MacBook Pro starting at $1,599 and going to $1,999 with the M3 Pro. The baseline 16-inch MacBook Pro goes for $2,499 and the pricing for the M3 Max chip upgrade for both models has yet to be disclosed.

And that space black color is exciting news for any Mac fan still pining for the 2006 MacBook, whose dark tone hadn’t been replicated in the MacBook iterations that followed, even those Midnight MacBook Airs.

Check out the full rundown on the new MacBook Pros here.

New M3 iMac

2023 M3 iMac Spec Rundown

Credit: Apple

Apple’s iMac line is getting a colorful refresh, with an added M3 chip to add horsepower to the palette change. Apple is sticking with the 24-inch form factor, and upgrading the screen with a 4.5K retina display, 1080p FaceTime camera and a six-speaker system supporting Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. The new iMac will be available for preorder with green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue and silver options starting tonight.

The $1,299 baseline comes with a 8-core GPU and 8-core CPU, with a $1,499 version upgrading you to a 256 SSD.

For more info about what else is new in the M3 iMac, head here.

An sneaky iPhone showcase

You may not have noticed it, but at the very end of the event, Apple dropped a quick note on the stream: “This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac.” It’s a bit of a victory lap, but as our other Apple expert Darrell Etherington notes, it’s a pretty impressive flex for Apple to shoot its half-hour hardware showcase entirely on a phone.

Recap the full Scary Fast event

If you want to just dive right in and experience the October event all over again or for the first time, you can catch the entire archive via the YouTube embed below right on Apple’s website.

This post was originally published on this site

Continue Reading

Trending

SmallBiz.com does not provide legal or accounting advice and is not associated with any government agency. Copyright © 2023 UA Services Corp - All Rights Reserved.