Your weekly briefing on all things AI
Presented by Clark Valberg

When TEGNA—a news station reaching 39% of U.S. households—rolled out AI to handle show direction, audio boards, and graphics, it challenged assumptions about what tasks truly require human judgment, and what could be automated. Teams of 20 were shrunk to teams of 1. At Swedish fintech company Klarna, not only do 90% of their staff use ChatGPT daily, but their custom AI solutions now handle 67% of customer service chats, and Klarna's results are in… despite an added $227M in tech costs, their automation strategy delivered net positive ROI by enhancing existing workflows and cutting their sales & marketing costs by 16%.

Let’s dive in…

> There’s Writing On The Walls And It’s AI-Generated

> JP Morgan CEO Predicts a 3.5 Day Work-Week

> Amazon Bets Big on Anthropic with Another $4B Investment 

> Create High-Performing Websites Instantly with Chordio

> Manage ChatGPT’s Memory For Better Outputs

Rubber Hits The Road with AI-related Job Replacement

A Reddit user recently shared that their local news station (TEGNA) is replacing its production staff with an AI-driven system. This automation will eliminate roles such as director, audio operator, and graphics operator, resulting in the loss of approximately 20 jobs on his local team alone. According to the original poster, the company plans to implement this system nationwide, potentially affecting tens of thousands of jobs at the network.  Other noteworthy examples in the comments section of the post above range from insurance companies and TV, to medical management. Recent analyses from Forbes Advisor, Jitterbit, and other sources compiled by AIPRM (a community-driven prompt enhancing tool), also suggest this case reflects a broader trend of AI reshaping traditional workforce roles. (aiprm)

For a quick signal on where disruption will likely be coming next, a recent Menlo Ventures report shows enterprise spending on generative AI skyrocketed over 6x in 2024, jumping from $2.3 billion to $13.8 billion with key industries and task categories leading the spend:

• Healthcare: $500M

• Legal Services: $350M

• Financial Services: $100M

• Media/Entertainment: $100M

Primary AI Applications by Department:

• Technical (49%): IT, Product Development, Data Science

• Customer-Facing (24%): Support, Sales, Marketing

• Operations (14%): HR, Finance

The numbers paint a sobering reality: With enterprise AI spending surging 6x to $13.8B in 2024, the TEGNA case isn't an anomaly—it's a preview.

More Stories

• Robot “kidnaps” its AI co-workers in Shanghai. (yahoo!tech)

• Wordware, a tool to deploy AI with natural language, announced a $30M seed round, breaking Y Combinator records. (venturebeat)

• AI search tool Perplexity challenges Google Shopping with a curated Black Friday guide. (perplexity)

• aiOla introduces an open-source AI audio transcription model that masks sensitive information in real-time. (venturebeat)

• Meta recruits Salesforce's CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to head its new business AI division. (techcrunch)

• AI can now detect when a lithium battery is about to catch fire. (nistgov)

Real Estate | SafeRent Settles Discrimination Case

SafeRent, an AI tool used by landlords to screen tenants, will stop using scores for applicants with housing vouchers after settling a $2.3 million lawsuit. The lawsuit accused the tool of unfairly affecting Black and Hispanic voucher users. Landlords will now assess tenants based on their full history instead of just the score. (theverge)

Healthcare & Biotech | Malaysia’s First AI Gut Health Test

SpaceGut, backed by SOL Partnership, debuts Malaysia's first AI-powered at-home gut health test. Using a 50,000-profile microbiome database, it delivers personalized insights to tackle rising gut-related issues like metabolic syndrome. Future plans include supplements and wellness services, aligning with global microbiome innovations. (mobihealthnews)

Finance & Banking | JP Morgan CEO Predicts 3.5 Day Work Weeks

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon predicted this week that future generations of employees will work 3.5 days a week, thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence. He cites a McKinsey report that found AI could add $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually. (finance.yahoo)

Technology | Browser Wars: OpenAI vs. Google

OpenAI is rumored to be building a browser to rival Chrome, aiming to shake up Google's dominance in web browsing. They’re also reportedly working with Samsung to bring its AI to Galaxy smartphones, potentially replacing Google's Gemini AI. Meanwhile, the DOJ is ramping up its antitrust fight, calling for Google to separate from Chrome entirely. With these developments, the battle for control of how we search and browse online is heating up. (techradar) (theverge)

Retail & E-commerce | Google Upgrades In-Store Shopping

Google Lens now enhances in-store shopping by allowing users to photograph products to access reviews, price comparisons, and local inventory details, thereby facilitating informed purchasing decisions. While theoretically, the goal is to make shopping more omnichannel, retailers will need to be more wary of how their in-store offerings compare to their online competitors. (techcrunch)

Media & Entertainment | YouTube Launches AI Video Backgrounds

YouTube’s Dream Screen now lets creators generate AI video backgrounds from text prompts, powered by Google DeepMind’s Veo model. This feature creates 1080p cinematic clips for Shorts, available in select countries, and helps it stand out from the pack of social media platforms for creators. (techcrunch)

Chordio: A ChatGPT-like Interface for Building Websites

Chordio, a tiferes portfolio company, is an AI-powered UX design platform that enables rapid prototyping by generating wireframes from textual descriptions. It helps product teams visualize concepts quickly, explore multiple design ideas, and iterate faster, significantly accelerating the product development process. Chordio offers 24/7 design support, ensuring continuous progress, and its AI-driven approach provides innovative solutions to complex UX challenges. By streamlining design workflows and fostering creative problem-solving, Chordio empowers teams to deliver better products in less time.

More Tools:

• Salestools.io: is an automated SDR (sales development rep) that you can turn on auto-pilot or co-pilot for prospecting & booking demos.

• Gan.ai: creates millions of personalized videos from a single recording.

• Sparkbase.ai: automates B2B sales call bookings using real-time data and signals.

• TwinMind: offers real-time suggestions, summarizes PDFs, answers browser questions, and automates text input.

• ReadPartner: provides quick summaries of websites, videos, and documents to help save time.

• Vozo AI: allows users to translate, rewrite, redub, and lip-sync videos using prompts.

• Julep AI: builds AI agents with long-term memory to manage complex, multi-step tasks.

• Buddler: an intuitive SEO tool designed to uncover opportunities for fast organic traffic growth.

• Anthropic gains an additional $4B in funding from Amazon, cementing AWS as its main training partner. (techcrunch)

• Crusoe raises $686M, reportedly linked to OpenAI's data center operations. (techcrunch)

• Odoo secures $527M to Advance AI and Expand Open-Source ERP. (techcrunch)

• Enveda secures $130M to drive plant-based drug discovery powered by AI. (yahoo!finance)

• MatX Raises $80M in Series A Funding to Develop AI Chips for LLMs. (techcrunch)

• Lightning AI secures $50M in funding to enhance its AI model fine-tuning and deployment platform. (techcrunch)

• Federato raises $40M to revolutionize insurance risk analysis with AI solutions. (techcrunch)

• Wordware raises $30M to simplify AI development through intuitive document-based tools. (techcrunch)

• Benchmark invests $19M in New Lantern, advancing AI-driven solutions for radiologists. (techcrunch)

• Converge Bio raises $5.5M in seed funding for its biotech-focused LLM platform. (techcrunch)

_. Prompting Tip _.

Manage ChatGPT’s Memory

Do you know what information ChatGPT is storing about you? Ethan Mollick on X recently shared his discovery after wondering why his chats kept slipping into a British accent…

Because ChatGPT uses what’s stored in its memory to cater its responses, making sure that that information is accurate can significantly boost the quality of the outputs you get. Especially since ChatGPT can make general assumptions about you from a single chat, managing memory is a useful step for fine-tuning responses in a particular style. It’s also extremely easy to do: