In this episode of Room for Growth, Billie sits down with accomplished CMO Pauline Reader. With a career that includes CMO and SVP marketing leadership positions with renowned brands such as eBay, Minted, and Stitch Fix, and most recently Podium, a communication SaaS platform for SMBs and larger enterprises. Pauline now runs Reader Consulting, wher…

OpenAI introduced GPT-4o as a new model and the foundation for ChatGPT. The company also offered more than a dozen videos and other use case examples, which enabled us to break down many of the nuances enabled by the new model. Is this the voice assistant everyone always wanted? A day later, Google debuted its latest updates for Gemini and offered …

Key stories in this episode include shadow AI arriving via employees, Meta’s secret generative AI strategy, and a new framework for entertainment applications powered by the technology. There are also six stories about big funding rounds and several products adding generative AI-powered features. Generative AI News Top Story of the Week 🔦 Employees…

Over two recent weeks a landslide of stories mostly revolved around large language models (LLM). Llama 3 was the biggest news, but the debut of new models by Microsoft, Mistral, and X.ai also pointed to a downstream impact. We also have a couple of nine-figure funding rounds, a nine-figure acquisition, and a new unicorn valuation is confirmed. Read…

For you today, we have updates around Google Cloud Next, the LLM announcement gauntlet continues, new funding rounds, and text-to-music apps. This week’s news concludes with a discussion around the shortcomings of autoregressive large language models (LLM) and why the technology is unlikely to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). Read the…

We begin this week with three thematic discussions. Generative AI myths reviews the recent Stargate rumors and why journalists are so easily co-opted into publishing stories that may have a seed of truth shrouded in impractical, nonsensical claims. We also discuss three news items highlighting how generative AI is transforming the search market and…

We begin with an in-depth discussion of Microsoft’s not-quite acquisition of Inflection AI and the billion-dollar startup’s recent large language model (LLM), which appears to approach GPT-4-level performance. We carry on with the LLM roundup with a review of Grok-1’s open-source debut, Apple’s discussions with Google about using Gemini for the iPh…

Google dominated the generative AI news earlier in 2024. The unexpected introduction of Gemini 1.5 is covered in depth, and guest host Allen Firstenberg discusses his first-hand experience testing the model. We also cover the Gemma open-source models and Google’s latest PR misstep related to its image generation. Also on tap are discussions around …

In this episode of Room for Growth, Billie is joined by two WillowTree colleagues, Kate Gallaher (Partner & VP, Head of Financial Services) and Caitlin Watson (Partner, Marketing Services), as they delve into global loyalty in financial services. Focusing on credit card payment processors and retail banks, they explore the complexities of building …

On the heels of Adobe Summit, we’re joined by Brightline Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer Kevin McAuliffe as he and Billie dive deep into brand loyalty, building trust, technology innovation, and what it means to be a leader today. Brightline partnered with WillowTree to achieve its vision of fully modernizing train travel. Tapping i…

Vijay Balasubramaniyan is the CEO and co-founder of Pindrop. He first joined me on the podcast way back in 2019 for episode 86. I still recommend people listen to that episode. You will learn a lot about voice authentication. In 2021, Vijay returned for episode 193. We now have him three years later and the topic is new. Deepfakes and voice clones …

Joanna Czajka joined me to discuss how her team integrated OpenAI technology into the Opera browser to provide more value to users. She goes into the journey that started with rethinking the browsing experience and being midstream in that process when ChatGPT launched. That led to more rethinking of the experience and the introduction of several ge…

We are just days away from Adobe Summit: our bags are packed and we are bringing an all-star crew to Las Vegas. But before we head out to one of the largest MarTech conferences in the world, we’re connecting with Mike Kellner, TELUS Director - AI Data & Analytics. Mike shares win stories from the leading global telecommunications providers’ recent …

We have 16 generative AI news stories from the first two weeks in February. The evolution of assistants topped the news with ChatGPT, Gemini (aka Google Bard), and Hugging Chat. We break that down in depth and how memory and how generative AI personal assistants are attempting to fill in the gaps where their predecessors fell short. There is more f…

Here are fifteen generative AI news stories from the past week. Links to the articles are below, or you can watch the GAIN Rundown via YouTube above. Deepfakes and momentum by Microsoft topped the news this week, while positive moves by Google may have gone unnoticed. Plus, we have another deep dive into new retail-oriented solutions, new funding r…

We have sixteen generative AI news stories again for you this week on the Generative AI News Rundown (GAIN). Watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news. ChatGPT went to college this week as Arizona State University announced a partnership with OpenAI, while Washington State adopts new generative AI guidelines encoura…

Sixteen generative AI news stories from the past weeks were on the agenda for this week’s edition of GAIN. You can watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news. Meta, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, Anthropic, Amazon, Walmart, McKinsey, 1x, Will.i.am, and more all had news this week. Eric Schwartz, head writer of…

We highlighted 19 generative AI news stories from early January in the latest episode of GAIN. Watch the video discussion above or read the news through the links below. CES is the featured segment at the top, with some hits and misses but mostly misses. We also have news from OpenAI with two ChatGPT announcements. That is followed by news from Goo…

Google once again made our featured story section with an independent benchmark performance analysis of the Gemini Pro LLM compared with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. We go into more depth about the benchmarks and how to interpret the results. Channel 1 says it’s positioned to change the news media with its virtual human avatar-delivered stories and Accenture…

Google ranks as our featured story section with the launch of the Gemini LLM and the new AI Studio. Mistral and Microsoft were other big newsmakers with the introduction of small LLMs this past week. And there is a lot on the new product and funding front, the EU AI Act, an OpenAI and news media tie-up, and a lot more. Generative AI News Featured S…

To say November closed with a flurry of generative AI news is a severe understatement. OpenAI almost melted down pulled it back together, and then we had a birthday for a little product called ChatGPT. Nearly every OpenAI competitor attempted to seize on the company’s turmoil and ramped up their visibility for sales, product announcements, or fundr…

Today, we have a special episode that was recorded in the midst of the OpenAI management saga where CEO Sam Altman was fired and then hired back. While the management issues have been updated, I thought you might like a window into how developers were thinking about this incident and how the harm in reputation and relationships won't soon be resolv…

This week continues the theme of market shift. Satya Nadella correctly aligned with the generative AI zeitgeist in focusing on practical applications of the technology. Individuals and companies have moved past bewilderment and wonder and now want to begin implementing and adopting solutions that offer tangible value. Eric Schwartz, head writer of …

GPTs enable users to create a custom ChatGPT experience for themselves and others. Developers gathered to discuss their early creations using OpenAI's latest innovation and wat they've learned.By Bret Kinsella

Your Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is here. This week represents a market shift. OpenAI Dev Day is the biggest news, but Grok from x.ai/Twitter/X, GitHub Copilot, a big cyber attack, and other stories depict a rapidly shifting market. We saw shifts earlier this year, but many seemed reactionary or random. Today, everything seems much more inten…

OpenAI Dev Day offered the industry a lot of new announcements and useful features. GPTs offer a no-code ChatGPT customization option for users, the Assistant API provides new features for developers, and GPT-4 Turbo is more capable and less expensive to use for chat use cases than 3.5, and maybe GPT-4 itself. If you would like a 12-point rundown o…

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for November 3, 2023 is here. Just when we thought it might be a slow news week, it just pours in. Eighteen stories this week! Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week 🔦 Deepfake consumer sentiment - Key findings from a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults shed new light on consumer awareness, experience, and con…

Atul Deo, general manager for Amazon Bedrock, the generative AI service from AWS, recently shared the company’s view on the industry, use cases, technology, and how Amazon is serving its customers. Thoughout the hour-long interview, Deo talked about his experience with machine learning in customer contact center applications, transcription services…

This week’s Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown covers two weeks of news. Eric Schwartz of Voicebot.ai and I jammed in 16 different news stories and a few other tidbits in this double roundup. Featured stories this week include: OpenAI Economics - OpenAI is generating a lot of revenue from ChatGPT Plus subscriptions and API usage by software provider…

This week’s Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown focuses more on features and economics than foundation models. Featured stories this week include: Adobe and Canva show the marketers new tool sets - Adobe introduced a new list of features, upgraded Firefly models and a new text-to-vector-image model that will make manipulating AI generative images eas…

Here is today’s Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown that kicks off a new month and a new quarter. It looks like October is going to be just as active as September. Featured stories this week include: Deepfake scams more frequent - Recent deepfakes of MrBeast and Tom Hanks highlight the proliferation of deepfake-fueled fraud and the lack of detection …

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown wrapping up an active September had more big stories than any other week of the month. The tech giants were out in force once again with news from Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI. Featured stories this week include: Amazon Goes Long on Anthropic, and Bedrock Gets a Boost - Amazon’s $4 billion investment in Anthropic i…

We have another episode of the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown, which provides a live discussion of the week’s top industry news. This week, the tech giants were out in force with news from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and OpenAI. Featured stories this week include: Alexa Gets an LLM - Amazon has had a large language model (LLM) for years, …

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for September 14, 2023 is here. We are seeing another acceleration in the news cycle. Featured stories this week include: NVIDIA and the Chip Industry Rises - New GPU performance gains for existing H100 chips, the expected improvements from the GH200, and a revenue rise for the global semiconductor industry. Jo…

Fresh off her whirlwind experience at Forge 23, Braze’s annual customer conference for marketers and their tech partners, Billie highlights some of the biggest brands there, her favorite moments, and the most exciting predictions for 2024. Spoiler alert: It’s an exciting time for marketing, and you’ll want to listen before deep-diving into strategy…

Digital sports media offers many immersive options for fans, whether they’re streaming pre-game analysis, attending games live at the stadium, or interacting with player content during their commute. But with all that noise, it can be challenging for sports media brands to break through, especially with so many gaps and roadblocks in the fan experi…

It’s a bittersweet 50th episode of Room For Growth as Billy Fischer announces his departure from the podcast and from WillowTree. In this, their last episode as co-hosts of Room For Growth, Billy and Billie discuss their top 5 reflections, their favorite projects, and other rewarding experiences they’ve shared working together over the past 12 year…

Patricia Scanlon is the founder and executive chair of Soapbox Labs, the company behind the industry's leading automated speech recognition (ASR) for children. Scanlon has a PhD in speech recognition, signal processing, and machine learning from the University College Dublin, and previously was an adjunct lecturer at Trinity College and on the rese…

We return this week with the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for September 8, 2023. Get ready for a lot of product announcements and some special segments on NVIDIA and how cloud providers are influencing the competitive landscape: NVIDIA Blowout revenue - GPU purchases are upstream of generative AI software sales. NVIDIA just announced a record …

The days of companies announcing core values and automatically earning public trust are over. Authenticity and proof through action are crucial, and in designing loyalty programs and growth campaigns for clients, WillowTree’s Design practice works with clients to leverage more than technology and data as growth drivers — they’re leveraging the bran…

Earning a competitive edge through customer experience is vital to building consumer trust and loyalty. But often this responsibility is shared across multiple departments with different motivations and communication styles. Another challenge many companies face is adapting to emerging trends in the MarTech landscape, including AI, personalization …

Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 31, 2023. Google may have dominated the headlines this week, but it was hardly alone. Special segments this week include: ChatGPT Enterprise - What was announced, where is it headed, and what are the implications? BTW, you may be interested in the Yammer go-to-market strategy reference as point 7 in the …

Preparing for the future of AI is a top priority for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Where’s the best place to start? When it comes to brand messaging in digital marketing, how will AI impact the ‘era of authenticity’? How will increasingly ubiquitous AI chatbots affect customer engagement as they become another competitor for attention a…

Fashion retail is notoriously competitive and constantly evolving, creating many unique challenges for marketers. With the largely forgotten in-store experience taking a backseat to its digital counterpart, how do we bridge that gap? Ultimately, in today’s climate, success comes down to effectively using technology to gain customer insight. For Sar…

Oren Aharon is CEO and founder of Hour One, a leader in virtual human innovation, and a pioneer in generative AI. He joined Bret Kinsella to talk about how the technology behind virtual humans has evolved and the role generative AI is playing in the next set of features. Hour One's new Reals Activate technology can transform any video into a script…

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back for August 24, 2023. Special segments this week include: What does the market data say about generative AI adoption? We look at 10 charts that explain a lot about what is happening, why it is happening, and where we are headed. Meta challenges OpenAI with an open-source automated speech recognition and …

Sarah Rojewski, Telefonica's manager of AI and automation in Germany, and Patrick Esslinger, co-founder of VUI Agency joined Bret Kinsella to talk about the evolution of conversational AI in the contact center and the introduction of generative AI. Rojewski even goes into detail about the latest generative AI project and how the company is looking …

It’s time for the Generative AI News (GAIN) Rundown for August 17, 2023. Special segments this week include: Using GPT-4 to moderate LLM inputs The groups pressuring CEOs to adopt generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Voicebot.ai’s head writer, Eric Schwartz, joined Bret Kinsella this week to break down all of the top industry…

We’re back with Season 3 of Room For Growth, taking a deep dive into the financial services industry with Chris O’Brien from M&T Bank. With artificial intelligence proliferating in more and more industries, many financial marketers are in a test-and-learn phase to discover AI use cases with truly impactful business outcomes. In contrast, large bank…

The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 11, 2023 is here. Special segments this week include: GPTBot and OpenAI’s plans to politely crawl the web, along with how most websites will react or should react Amazon’s generative AI strategy and how that will carve out unique positioning compared to OpenAI, Google, and others The significance of …