In this week’s Week In Review: OpenAI says it wants to buy Google Chrome at the tech giant’s antitrust trial, the British Council partners with AI ads tool Creatopy, Meta expands its ads offering on Instagram Threads, and BMW in China works with ByteDance for marketing.
Brands and agencies
Freelancer Marketplace Fiverr Intro AI Tools
The online marketplace for freelancers Fiverr has launched a new set of AI tools in a recent campaign starring actor and comedian Brett Gelman.
Fiverr Go lets freelancers on the website train their own AI models to help them with creative output and workflows.
In the advert, the actor, who has appeared in BBC TV shows such as Fleabag, stars as ‘Another AI’ , a parody of a Gen AI assistant. The advert addresses some of the contentious issues around AI taking work from creatives, but insists that creativity from the freelancers is needed to use the AI tools effectively.
The British Council Partners with Creatopy
The British Council revealed it has partnered with digital ads platform Creatopy to boost its marketing efforts.
The UK organisation for global cultural and educational ventures has reduced 70 percent of its global content production costs – from €5k to €1.5k – according to Creatopy.
AI was used to localise content for the organisation’s Spanish, French, Georgian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian audiences. Creatopy says the British Council experienced a 50 percent faster turnaround for asset creation.
Creatopy is an AI-powered ad generation tool that designs and scales advertising campaigns.
BMW to Work with ByteDance for Marketing in China
The German automotive manufacturer BMW is partnering with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance for AI-created marketing campaigns in China. BMW’s digital solutions arm Lingyue Digital will use ByteDance’s cloud services platform, Volcano Engine, to product match and give recommendations to consumers.
“We are accelerating the integration of AI technology into our business areas – from research and development, production, and supply chain to products and services, as well as operations,” said Gao Xiang, president and chief executive of BMW China.
“This renewed collaboration with ByteDance is a significant implementation of our AI strategy in the field of marketing services, driving innovation in marketing models and optimising the digital customer journey,” Gao added. “At the same time, it empowers our dealer partners to enhance operational efficiency.”
The National Football League (NFL) Partners with Adobe
The National Football League (NFL) and Adobe have announced they will be partnering to produce AI-generated marketing content and campaigns. The partnership will bring players closer to their fans through providing content and engagement at scale to global audiences. Adobe Express Platform and applications, including Adobe Express and Firefly, will be used by marketing teams at the NFL to create more personalised content and experiences, the league explained.
“We could not be more excited to become an Official Partner of the NFL and bring the best of Adobe technologies to NFL fans globally – inside and outside the stadium,” said Rachel Thornton, SVP and chief marketing officer of Adobe Enterprise.
Media
Dimension Studio Launches AI Production Pipeline
Dimension Studios launched an end-to-end AI production pipeline, where initial animation designs, storyboarding, character and environment designs, shot composition, and voiceovers can all be supported by AI.
The company said the pipeline will enable its artists to produce finished content in weeks as opposed to months.
“When using AI tools for content generation, the control and consistency from shot to shot has been one of the biggest challenges,” Dimension Studio Chief Innovation Officer Junaid Baig said. “What our team has been able to do is to systematize how tools are used to enable consistent results for characters and environment, and to maintain control of assets between shots for things like camera movement or animating multiple characters at once.”
Google Faces Scrutiny from EU and US
The European Commission is evaluating if Google’s ‘AI Overview’ violates media fairness. At the same time, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) aims to break-up the tech giant over antitrust fears.
The EU body is investigating if Google’s AI search feature, that summarises information for search users, violates the Digital Markets Act, the EU Copyright Directive, and the European Media Freedom Act, according to Euroactiv.
At the same time, Google is undergoing an antitrust trial in the US to prevent it from using its AI products to dominate online search.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking an order that would force the tech giant to sell Chrome and block the company’s use of AI tools to preference itself. DOJ attorneys argue that Google’s domination of search puts competitors, like ChatGPT, at a disadvantage.
Tech
Microsoft Rolls Out Copilot Upgrade
Microsoft announced major upgrades to Copilot, across platforms 365, Bing, Azure, Windows, Dynamics and GitHub. Upgrades include real-time summaries on Teams, Excel formula generation, AI-powered customer insights on Azure, and more.
One of the major features introduced is conversational search in Bing, which would allow users to interact with AI-powered search features.
Meta Announces Threads Ad Expansion
Meta said it will expand its advertising reach in Instagram Threads, Meta’s version of X. Meta said it’s letting certain advertisers show ads on the platform to connect with consumers.
The expansion comes after Meta tested adverts in the platform with a small set of advertisers, and signals that the tech giant’s platform has enough users to garner competition amongst advertisers for prime ad locations.
Huawei Creates New AI Chips for Chinese Market
The Chinese tech giant Huawei has created a new AI chip for the Chinese market. This comes weeks after US chip company Nvidia faced bans on shipping its own Chinese-specific AI chips to the region.
The new Huawei chip, 910C GPU, combines two existing Huawei chips, and so isn’t a completely new innovation or technological breakthrough. Still, news of the chip serves as a potential replacement for Nvidia’s chips – the American company largely being seen as monopolising the AI chip market.
Nvidia, Vertiv and IGenius Create World’s Largest Supercomputer
AI chip leader Nvidia, digital infrastructure firm Vertiv, and AI company IGenius have teamed up to create the world’s largest supercomputer in Italy, called the Colloseum.
The computer will be the first sovereign AI data centre for regulated industries, such as finance, healthcare and public administration.
“AI is reshaping the data centre landscape, demanding new levels of scale, efficiency and adaptability for global AI factories,” said Charlie Boyle, vice president of DGX platforms at Nvidia. “Colosseum sets a new standard for building supercomputers for the era of AI.”
OpenAI Wants to Buy Google’s Chrome
One of the biggest tech stories of the week centered around ChatGPT owner OpenAI saying it would be keen to buy Google Chrome if it went up for sale.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Google may have to sell its web browser to restore competition in search – Google widely seen as monopolising the space. However, Google has not offered Chrome for sale.
The statement was said by Nick Turley, OpenAI’s Head of Product, whilst testifying in the trial to break-up Google.
The DOJ raised concerns of Google’s dominance stifling AI innovation, saying that Google’s AI products lead users back to its search page, potentially putting the tech giant at an unfair advantage.
Number of the Week
0.7%. That’s how much WPP reported its overall revenue had dipped in its latest quarterly report. The holding company said its total revenue had fallen 0.7% to £3.23 billion.
Despite this, the company said AI remains a focus for the rest of the year, particularly after the acquisition of data platform InfoSum.
Mark Read, WPP’s CEO said the acquisition accelerates the firm’s “AI-driven data approach”.
