✨ Issue #40

Clark Valberg
March 12, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Your weekly briefing on all things AI

This week, discover how Klarna's switch to AI replaced 700 jobs, delve into the expanding world of AI voice assistants, get the scoop on Sam Altman's latest moves, and see how Perplexity AI reached unicorn status. It's a compact look at AI's growing ability to do human tasks.

📈 Klarna cut their avg. ticket resolution time down by 9 minutes with AI.

🏆 Altman’s back, back again. Sam, plus 3 others, added to OpenAI board.

🦄 Perplexity is solving users’ problems with Google search and is growing fast.

🗣️ AI voice assistants are getting really good. We noted 4 (of many).

📰 AI in the News

Klarna Replaces 700 Employees With AI

Klarna, collaborating with OpenAI, introduced an AI customer service assistant that handled 2.3 million conversations in its first month, equivalent to the workload of 700 full-time agents. This AI assistant, available in over 35 languages, efficiently handles tasks like refunds and financial advice, reducing repeat inquiries by 25% and cutting resolution time by 9 minutes without compromising customer satisfaction. Klarna sees this as a step towards a fully AI-powered financial assistant, enhancing the consumer experience in retail banking.

Despite its efficiency, Klarna maintains human agents for complex issues, using AI primarily for simpler requests. The company's $2 to $3 million investment in AI is expected to increase profits by $40 million, even as it faces concerns over potential job displacement, particularly after laying off 700 employees. However, Klarna denies any direct link between AI implementation and these layoffs, suggesting displaced agents could find new roles through its global partners.(Full Story)

Sam Altman Officially Reinstated to OpenAI Board

OpenAI announced the reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman to its board of directors, along with the addition of three new members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, Nicole Seligman, and Fidji Simo. The appointment of new board members follows criticism of the board's all-male makeup and concerns about lack of diversity.

Sue Desmond-Hellmann brings experience from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Genentech, Nicole Seligman has a background in law and corporate leadership, and Fidji Simo previously held executive roles at Meta and Facebook.

The decision to reinstate Altman and expand the board came after an investigation by WilmerHale, which concluded that Altman's ouster was due to a breakdown in the relationship with the prior board, not performance or safety concerns. OpenAI also announced new corporate governance guidelines, including a strengthened conflict of interest policy and the establishment of a whistleblower hotline. (Full Story)

🛠️ Tool of the Week

Fillout’s AI Form Builder has captured the magic of generative AI. Whether you’ve just got a concept, have a list of questions already, or have a mockup, this AI generator can create a useable form within seconds. Use cases include gathering internal feedback, gathering customer feedback, creating a marketing quiz/form for generating leads, and so much more. They’ve also got integrations with popular apps like Notion, Hubspot, Airtable, and even Stripe (with no additional commissions).

More Tools

This week, AI voice assistants were top of mind, with lot’s of them popping up recently and gaining steam. Here are a few worth highlighting:

Vapi.ai - While Vapi requires development to deploy for your business, its solution to the latency problems and robotic sounds of many other apps is astounding. You can hear for yourself on their homepage.
Poly.ai - This is another voice enabled assistant with uncanny resemblance to human voice. They have recorded calls you can listen to here.
Air.ai - This agent sounds more like a robot than the others, but it can integrate with & autonomously act on over 5,000 different apps. Based on their demo, which is worth a listen if you want a chuckle, seems to be more culturally aware than others I’ve seen.
Lovo.ai - While this app still feels like you’re talking to a bot, they’ve got 100+ languages to leverage and their platform allows for pronunciation training and adding sound effects.

📈 Venture Deals

Perplexity.AI Approaches $1 Billion Valuation

Perplexity AI is on the verge of reaching unicorn status with a valuation of around $1 billion. They aim to tackle the limitations of conventional web search by providing AI-generated responses devoid of ads, paid placements, and SEO bias. Their growth trajectory has been rapid since its $25.6 million Series A funding, with reported annual revenue exceeding $10 million. The company's valuation is set to double within just two months, reflecting investors' strong faith in AI ventures. Investors and strategics are backing Perplexity AI despite its status as a young startup challenging established players like Google in search. (Full Story)

More Venture News

MiniMax raised $600M to create AI generated social experiences (link)
Ideogram raised $80M for AI image generation (link)
Overjet raised $53.2M to enhance clinical care and administrative efficiency for Dentists (link)
Taalas raised $50M for silicon AI chip technology (link)
Remofirst raised $25M to take on HR tech Goliaths (link)
IO Research raised $30M for blockchain enabled computing power (link)
Ema (Enterprise Machine Assistant) raised $25M to help workplaces enhance tech adoption and productivity (link)
Codified raised $4M to increase reliance on business data for insights and address growing concerns over data security and privacy (link)
Looq raised $2.6M to advance critical infrastructure digitization and diagnosis (link)