At the core of DEPT®’s approach is the strategic utilisation of large language models. Briski articulated the delicate balance between the ‘pioneering’ and ’boutique’ ethos encapsulated in their tagline, “pioneering work on a global scale with a boutique culture.”

While ‘pioneering’ and ’boutique’ evokes innovation and personalised attention, ‘global scale’ signifies the broad outreach. DEPT® harnesses large language models to disseminate highly targeted, personalised messages to expansive audiences. These models, Briski pointed out, enable DEPT® to comprehend individuals at a massive scale and foster meaningful and individualised interactions.

“The way that we have been using a lot of these large language models is really to deliver really small and targeted messages to a large audience,” says Briski.

However, the integration of AI into various domains – such as retail, sports, education, and healthcare – poses both opportunities and challenges. DEPT® navigates this complexity by leveraging generative AI and large language models trained on diverse datasets, including vast repositories like Wikipedia and the Library of Congress.

Briski emphasised the importance of marrying pre-trained data with DEPT®’s domain expertise to ensure precise contextual responses. This approach guarantees that clients receive accurate and relevant information tailored to their specific sectors.

“The pre-training of these models allows them to really expound upon a bunch of different domains,” explains Briski. “We can be pretty sure that the answer is correct and that we want to either send it back to the client or the consumer or some other system that is sitting in front of the consumer.”

One of DEPT®’s standout achievements lies in its foray into the web3 space and the metaverse. Briski shared the company’s collaboration with Roblox, a platform synonymous with interactive user experiences. DEPT®’s collaboration with Roblox revolves around empowering users to create and enjoy user-generated content at an unprecedented scale. 

DEPT®’s internal project, Prepare to Pioneer, epitomises its commitment to innovation by nurturing embryonic ideas within its ‘Greenhouse’. DEPT® hones concepts to withstand the rigours of the external world, ensuring only the most robust ideas reach their clients.

“We have this internal project called The Greenhouse where we take these seeds of ideas and try to grow them into something that’s tough enough to handle the external world,” says Briski. “The ones that do survive are much more ready to use with our clients.”

While the allure of AI-driven solutions is undeniable, Briski underscored the need for caution. He warns that AI is not inherently transparent and trustworthy and emphasises the imperative of constructing robust foundations for quality assurance.

DEPT® employs automated testing to ensure responses align with expectations. Briski also stressed the importance of setting stringent parameters to guide AI conversations, ensuring alignment with the company’s ethos and desired consumer interactions.

“It’s important to really keep focused on the exact conversation you want to have with your consumer or your customer and put really strict guardrails around how you would like the model to answer those questions,” explains Briski.

In December, DEPT® is sponsoring AI & Big Data Expo Global and will be in attendance to share its unique insights. Briski is a speaker at the event and will be providing a deep dive into business intelligence (BI), illuminating strategies to enhance responsiveness through large language models.

“I’ll be diving into how we can transform BI to be much more responsive to the business, especially with the help of large language models,” says Briski.

As DEPT® continues to redefine digital paradigms, we look forward to observing how the company’s innovations deliver a new era in AI-powered experiences.

DEPT® is a key sponsor of this year’s AI & Big Data Expo Global on 30 Nov – 1 Dec 2023. Swing by DEPT®’s booth to hear more about AI and LLMs from the company’s experts and watch Briski’s day one presentation.

The post Bob Briski, DEPT®:  A dive into the future of AI-powered experiences appeared first on AI News.

The Microsoft co-founder was participating in his annual Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session and was asked about major technology shifts. AI, Gates noted, was in his opinion ‘the big one.’ 

“I don’t think Web3 was that big or that metaverse stuff alone was revolutionary, but AI is quite revolutionary,” Gates wrote. 

With regard to generative AI, a specific kind of AI focused on generating new content, from text, to images, to music, Gates was particularly interested. “I am quite impressed with the rate of improvement in these AIs. I think they will have a huge impact,” he wrote.  

Gates added he continues to work with Microsoft so is following this area ‘very closely.’ “Thinking of it in the Gates Foundation context we want to have tutors that help kids learn math and stay interested. We want medical help for people in Africa who can’t access a doctor,” he added. 

Previous missives from Gates have been more optimistic in terms of the impact of the metaverse. At the end of 2021, in his personal blog, Gates noted he was ‘super impressed’ by the improvements with regard to spatial audio in particular. This enables more immersive meetings, where the sound is coming from the direction of a colleague as per face-to-face discussion. “There’s still some work to do, but we’re approaching a threshold where the technology begins to truly replicate the experience of being together in the office,” he wrote at the time. 

Microsoft has been gradually exploring the metaverse as part of its strategy to ‘bridge the digital and physical worlds.’ October saw a partnership with Meta on platform and software to ‘deliver immersive experiences for the future of work and play.’ The company cited Work Trend Index data which showed half of Gen Z and millennials surveyed envisioned doing some of their work in the metaverse in the next two years.

(Image Credit: Kuhlmann /MSC under CC BY 3.0 DE license)

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The startup has attracted interest for its ability to design and deploy interactive characters with more realistic interactions across the metaverse and other virtual words like video games.

In current video games, NPCs have pre-scripted responses. AI-powered virtual characters like those Inworld are developing can offer dynamic responses to general questions about the local area or wider world.

While graphics have generally become more immersive over the years, interactions have largely remained the same. The ability for NPCs to hold conversations more naturally will be a giant leap forward for gaming and help to deliver on the metaverse’s bold promises.

Inworld’s potentially key role in the future of the metaverse and gaming market – which is already worth hundreds of billions of dollars – has opened investors’ wallets.

Since it left stealth last year, Inworld has raised $70 million. In March, it raised $10 million in a strategic funding round.

Inworld was also notably included in the latest Disney Accelerator cohort which also included blockchain network Polygon, NFT platform Flickplay, AR hardware and interface developer Red 6, metaverse e-commerce platform Obsess, and immersive experience provider Lockerverse.

“I’ve long believed that interactions, memories, and connections formed in immersive worlds can become as real as those formed in real life. It’s why I’m excited about being named a Disney Accelerator company,” wrote Inworld AI CEO Ilya Gelfenbeyn in a LinkedIn post about the accelerator.

“Our platform for creating memorable, AI-powered characters will unlock new opportunities for creators in entertainment, gaming, the metaverse, and other digital realms who are ready to create memories like mine.”

Inworld Studio launched in beta a few months ago. The no-code system works with most common game and metaverse engines, including Unreal and unity.

“It’s crazy to think that Inworld was founded just 13 months ago. Since then, we raised two seed rounds, were selected for the Disney Accelerator, launched the beta version of our product, and now, closed our Series A!” wrote Gelfenbeyn in a blog post.

“It’s been impressive to see our community bring characters to life with AI. I know the best is yet to come.”

(Image Credit: Inworld)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

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The post Inworld closes $50M Series A for its realistic NPC generator appeared first on AI News.

Translation apps have been fairly adept at the most popular languages for some time. Even when they don’t offer a perfect translation, it’s normally close enough for the native speaker to understand.

However, there are hundreds of millions of people in regions with many languages – like Africa and Asia – that still suffer from poor translation services.

In a press release, Meta wrote:

“To help people connect better today and be part of the metaverse of tomorrow, our AI researchers created No Language Left Behind (NLLB), an effort to develop high-quality machine translation capabilities for most of the world’s languages.

Today, we’re announcing an important breakthrough in NLLB: We’ve built a single AI model called NLLB-200, which translates 200 different languages with results far more accurate than what previous technology could accomplish.”

The metaverse aims to be borderless. To enable that, translation services will have to quickly offer accurate translations.

“As the metaverse begins to take shape, the ability to build technologies that work well in a wider range of languages will help to democratise access to immersive experiences in virtual worlds,” the company explained.

According to Meta, NLLB-200 scored 44 percent higher in the “quality” of translations compared to previous AI research. For some African and Indian-based languages, NLLB-200’s translations were more than 70 percent more accurate.

Meta created a dataset called FLORES-200 to evaluate and improve NLLB-200. The dataset enables researchers to assess FLORES-200’s performance “in 40,000 different language directions.”

Both NLLB-200 and FLORES-200 are being opened to developers to help build on Meta’s work and improve their own translation tools.

Meta has a pool of up to $200,000 in grants for researchers and nonprofit organisations that wish to use NLLB-200 for impactful uses focused on sustainability, food security, gender-based violence, education, or other areas that support UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

However, not everyone is fully convinced by Meta’s latest breakthrough.

“It’s worth bearing in mind, despite the hype, that these models are not the cure-all that they may first appear. The models that Meta uses are massive, unwieldy beasts. So, when you get into the minutiae of individualised use-cases, they can easily find themselves out of their depth – overgeneralised and incapable of performing the specific tasks required of them,” commented Victor Botev, CTO at Iris.ai.

“Another point to note is that the validity of these measurements has yet to be scientifically proven and verified by their peers. The datasets for different languages are too small, as shown by the challenge in creating them in the first place, and the metric they’re using, BLEU, is not particularly applicable.”

A demo of NLLB-200 is available here.

(Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

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The term “metaverse” was first coined in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash but interest has skyrocketed in recent years. Long-term, the metaverse is expected to essentially be a new version of the web—a network of interconnected virtual worlds that can even combine elements of the real world.

The pandemic saw everyone scramble to find new ways to connect, work, socialise, and just live. While we’re hopefully now reaching the endemic stage, no-one really knows what’s around the corner. In such an uncertain world, it’s unsurprising that interest in the metaverse remains high.

Dan Helfrich, Chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting, said:

“We are excited to launch Deloitte’s Unlimited Reality Offering and the Dimension10 Studio to help our clients take advantage of the exponential growth in virtual worlds and economies.

There is huge potential for digital realms to benefit business and society at large and we are pleased to offer access to connected virtual worlds that may exceed the economics of our current physical economy.”

Unlimited Reality provides guidance to businesses and how they can transform their operations with shared virtual experiences, physically-accurate digital twins, the monetisation of digital assets, engagement with customers using Web3 architectures, and imagine workplace models that combine humans and machines.

To achieve this goal will require Deloitte to provide guidance to clients across a number of emerging technologies including AI, IoT, blockchain, AR/VR, and 5G.

Emerging technologies are, by their very nature, often difficult to get started with and businesses may have to juggle a number (if not all) of them in order to create a great experience.

Using AI to create value in the virtual and physical worlds

Deloitte is launching Dimension10 Studio, a virtual and physical innovation space where the firm’s professionals can help clients to build AI-powered metaverses.

Dimension10 Studio is built on a technology foundation of NVIDIA-Certified Systems with NVIDIA RTX GPUs to power Omniverse Enterprise. It will be complemented by Deloitte’s in-house NVIDIA DGX supercomputer that powers its AI, analytics, cloud and digital practices.

In August 2021, Deloitte unveiled ‘The AI Dossier’ to help business leaders understand the value AI can deliver so they can make smarter decisions about when, where, and how to deploy AI within their organisations.

A recent study by Deloitte found that 74 percent of businesses are still in the AI experimentation stage and without a clear vision. Deloitte says its Unlimited Reality offering enables clients to explore and simulate cross-industry AI use cases outlined in The AI Dossier in a virtual world.

Deloitte believes AI creates value for businesses in six key ways:

• Cost reduction: Reducing low value and often repetitive tasks
• Speed to execution: Minimising the time required to achieve results
• Reduced complexity: Enhancing decision-making through proactive and predictive analytics
• Transformed engagement: Improving how people interact with technology
• Fueled innovation: Enabling innovative new models
• Fortified trust: Bolster security against threats

“While AI adoption rates and maturity vary widely across industries, AI is driving new levels of efficiency and performance for businesses of all sizes,” explained Irfan Saif, US AI co-leader, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, and principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

“Organisations have the opportunity to unlock the full potential of AI when they embrace it and deploy it at scale throughout their enterprise.”

(Photo by Julien Tromeur on Unsplash)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo. The next events in the series will be held in Santa Clara on 11-12 May 2022, Amsterdam on 20-21 September 2022, and London on 1-2 December 2022.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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70 percent of the 2,341 respondents across 30 business sectors picked AR as disrupting their industry most out of a selection of seven emerging technologies: AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, IoT, blockchain, and 5G.

Filipe Oliveira, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, commented: “This change in how people see AR will likely be long term, and not just a temporary blip. It is clear that people are warming towards the technology, even if they don’t believe that it will make a big difference tomorrow.” 

AI wins some ground back when it comes to confidence in the technology. 57 percent of the respondents believe that AI will live up to all of its promises compared to just 26 percent for AR.

Along those same lines, 31 percent believe “The technology is hyped, but I can see a use for it” for AI, while a huge 50 percent report the same for AR.

Apple’s decision to add a LiDAR sensor to its latest mobile devices was seen as an important step towards the mass adoption of AR. Excitement is also growing around so-called “metaverses” that converge virtually-enhanced physical reality with physically-persistent shared virtual spaces.

SenseTime, one of China’s leading AI companies, announced earlier this week that it had partnered with BilibiliWorld to create a metaverse. The experience leverages SenseTime’s AI and mixed reality technologies to enable players to enjoy role-playing games that seamlessly blend reality with virtuality.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said the company “will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company”. As the owner of Oculus, Zuckerberg’s plans for the future of Facebook will likely make people think of a large virtual space similar to that depicted in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One novel and the 2018 film adaptation.

Some people have expressed concern about a large centralised company such as Facebook having control over such a potentially ubiquitous world and the content they consume. Many believe that an open-source decentralised version is vital:

Zuckerberg, for his part, claims that no one company will run the metaverse and it will be an “embodied internet” that is operated by many different players.

Decentraland is an early example of what a truly decentralised virtual space could look like. The platform makes use of a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) to make policy decisions such as what content is allowed in addition to taking advantage of the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) trend to offer exclusive in-world items.

AR and AI are both important emerging technologies that can often go hand-in-hand, but it’s clear that the latter is losing its perspective among professionals as having the biggest impact on their industries over the coming years.

(Photo by My name is Yanick on Unsplash)

Want to find out more from executives and thought leaders in this space? Find out more about the Digital Twin World event, taking place on 8-9 September 2021, which will explore augmenting business outcomes in more depth and the industries that will benefit.

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