Adobe's latest announcements showcase the true power of Generative AI for marketers

Hi Futurist,

The past two weeks have been wild again. And flown by because of everything that has happened. Therefore, I am sending you insights, inspiration, and innovation straight to your inbox. Let’s dive into the depths of the digital future together and discover the waves of change shaping our industry.

In this post, we're dipping in:

• 📣 Byte-Sized Breakthroughs: Three (technological) developments in the digital landscape

• 🎙️ MarTech Maestros: one webinar, podcast, or interesting paper I believe you should watch, listen to, or read too

•  🧐 Last but not least: Things that I like

Do you have tips, feedback or ideas? Or just want to give your opinion? Feel free to share it at the bottom of this dip. That's what I'm looking for.

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📣 Byte-Sized Breakthroughs

'Byte-Sized Breakthroughs' briefly highlights (technological) developments in the digital landscape

Headstory: Adobe's latest announcements showcase the true power of Generative AI for marketers

The impact of AI on the marketing technology landscape is immense. The number of new tools that are added on a daily basis is impossible to keep up with. But existing tools are also developing to an extreme. Take Adobe as an example. Throughout their entire marketing stack, they've added generative AI functionalities that really make your life as a marketer easy.

What has Adobe done? They're building an end-to-end solution to easily help marketers align content with different channels and audience segments, without using predefined journeys and segmentations. It all has to be more personalized than before. It includes tools for content creation, managing campaigns, and analytics. All under one roof. And I find this quite disruptive. Because it places possibilities in the hands of colleagues who previously needed others for that. It gives you more options and makes you a more complete marketer.

The Adobe GenAI Studio enables marketers to take content from the planning and workflow phase through creation and production to management, publication, and evaluation. It offers the ability to produce a very large number of brand-approved assets in just a few minutes, customized for a range of channels (email, social, etc.). Adobe Experience Manager Sites' new variant generation tool makes it possible to quickly generate variants of existing assets that are personalized for different audiences. Insane. And if that's not enough, they make it possible to train your own Adobe Firefly model and offer a co-pilot assistant that can perform tasks for you. This is the true power of Generative AI. And then I haven't even talked about the integration with Microsoft 365, for example. And all this was announced in the same week that Canva completed the acquisition of Affinity to compete with Adobe.

I love these kinds of developments. Because for us as marketers, for now, it's only a win. In quality, quantity, and efficiency. And I think that's the key. You get more done, with fewer people. Across a wide range of industries and company sizes. As a professional, manager, or entrepreneur, you can use this Easter weekend to answer the question: How are you, your team, or organization preparing for this new reality?

OpenAI's Sora heads to Hollywood(?)

TL;DR

OpenAI is making its mark in Hollywood, possibly even entering partnerships with major film studios, all thanks to the use of Sora, the video generation model OpenAI showcased last month. Recently, Sora has been made available to selected filmmakers and directors for feedback. A few short films have already been launched in a blogpost.

Read it yourself?

Sentiment

The announcement of Sora was met with overwhelming reactions. People couldn't wait to start generating their own 'films'. But the mood seems to be shifting now. Were the actors' strike fears justified after all? Was OpenAI's intention actually to put AI capabilities into the hands of ordinary people rather than big corporations? These are the comments that are widely shared online.

My thoughts

It was predictable, really. I hinted at it in my previous Dip when discussing Sony's former VP, Nicole Seligman. Will Sora ever become publicly available? It's not surprising. The quality is so good. Of course, film studios are looking into it. The silver lining with technological developments like this is that other companies besides OpenAI are hopping on this train too. So if Sora doesn't become publicly available, surely another company will bring this technology to the general public. No doubt about it.

Starbucks suspends its NFT loyalty program, for now

TL;DR

Starbucks is taking its NFT (Web3) loyalty program, Odyssey, offline. The reason? Unknown. Starbucks briefly notes on its website that it was a pilot and that Odyssey needs to go offline for follow-up steps around this program. It's remarkable, considering Starbucks was one of the first major companies to bet on NFTs as a loyalty system, something it is eminently suited for.

Read it yourself?

Sentiment

The Web3 community is raising eyebrows at this move. Especially since one of the leaders of the program is a prominent figure in the Web3 community itself. At the same time, this community sees Starbucks as a giant corporation, not in the same game as a startup born to be disruptive. Mixed feelings prevail.

My thoughts

Personally, I'm surprised. Of course, there's a market for Web3 developments, but so far, it remains niche. Which is a shame, because functionally, the use of NFTs as a loyalty program offers more benefits to users than traditional variants. So, every loyalty program benefits from it. The real reason behind Starbucks' decision remains speculation. But it doesn't help the acceptance of NFTs and Web3. Especially not with rumors that even Nike might end its Web3 division, RTFKT, by the end of this year.

More byte-sized breakthroughs:

• Is Apple developing its own AI model or relying on other players?
  The date is set. Between June 10th and 14th, Apple organizes its annual developer conference. Analysts then expect the announcement of AI additions to the iPhone. And what appears? Rumors suggest Apple is in talks with Google for Gemini, OpenAI for GPT-4, and Anthropic for Claude. In my eyes, this would signify a loss of face for Apple: the inability to develop its own AI model.

• Large Language Models giving each other instructions
  The future where everyone has their own AI assistant that can talk to each other has come a step closer in the past two weeks. Swiss researchers have succeeded in getting two large language models to communicate with each other, with one large language model giving instructions to the other. The other then executed these for 85% of the cases.

• More AI-powered devices are hitting the market, and they're here to stay
  We're seeing more and more AI-powered devices enter the market. However, these are mostly closed-source. That's now changing. Open Interpreter is an open-source device. It's a device that's connected to your computer. You talk to an egg-like object, and the AI model controls your computer to carry out the task. The best part, because it's open-source, you can work with the model yourself to develop your own AI devices.

🎙️ MarTech Maestros

In 'MarTech Maestros,' I share one webinar, podcast, or interesting paper I've encountered, which I believe you should watch, listen to, or read too.

Voices of AI: Sam Altman's vision on the future

Everyone with even a slight interest in the future of AI should listen to this podcast by Sam Altman. Here, he occasionally talks about his views on where it's headed, the potential impact, and what he considers important in its development. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of someone shaping the path to the next generation of AI models.

 🧐 Last but not least

• The future of watching sports: I've mentioned examples like this before, but it remains cool. Watching sports through a VR headset in this way.

• Adobe pioneers seamless video translation with lip-sync: Adobe is working on a feature that translates videos easily, syncing the lips while retaining the original voice.

• ChatGPT's new features and GPT-5 buzz: In previous Dips, we showcased various new potential features of ChatGPT. Now, several more are potential features leaked. For instance, the option to try ChatGPT for free without needing to create an account immediately. Or the removal of the 40 messages per 3-hour limit. Also, the possible inpaint feature in Dalle-3. Moreover, rumors about the launch of GPT-5 are growing louder. Sam Altman himself stated they would introduce a new model this year. If that wasn't enough, Open AI has also filed a trademark for their own voice engine. Wouldn't be surprised if they developed a tool similar to Elevenlabs. And to conclude, they are testing whether GPT builders can receive usage-based GPT earnings. Thereby, they will fulfill their earlier announcements, where the GPT Store becomes a real store.

• Apple's AI ambitions intensify: Rumors about Apple's own AI models are becoming more persistent. Despite continuing to engage with other companies, they are researching the best technical foundation for multimodal large languages models.

• Current AI models' illusions diminished: These are exciting developments. Current AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini often hallucinate. This tool negates that. If you wish to see an example of how an AI model can solve customer service issues, as we discussed with Klarna before, this is your answer.

• Polish company develops human-like robots: This Polish company is developing robots with human bodies, starting with hand movements. And it's fascinating to watch.

• Upscaling AI-generated images for campaigns: It's always beneficial to upscale your AI-generated images for sharper quality, making them usable for your campaigns. There are tools on the market for this, mostly paid. This is an open-source tool. And thus, free.

• Pika introduces lip syncs, followed by Runway: A few weeks ago, we saw Pika introduce the lip syncs feature. Now, Runway is the next AI video model adding lip syncs.

• Google Introduces Vlogger: All influencers, take note. Google presents Vlogger. With just a simple photo of you, it generates a video in which you talk and make hand movements.

• An AI video generation model is open source, almost as good as Sora: Okay. To be honest, this isn't as good as OpenAI's Sora itself. But the fact that there's now an open source AI video generation model for organizations to use is still insane.

• Transform images into desired styles: These are fun things to play with. Transform any image into your desired style.

• Robot developments by NVIDIA: We've seen different parties in previous Dips developing robots. NVIDIA introduced GR00T at their conference. But there was more news during the conference, like digital twins for the Apple Vision Pro.

• Transforming your living spaces: This is insane. You can transform your living room, garden, or kitchen into a world as you wish to see it. Is this what the Metaverse should be?

• A new way of learning: The new way of learning. Ask a question, and this tool transforms your question into an explainer video.

• Neuralink's vision restoration experiments: Elon Musk's company Neuralink confirmed they are currently testing on monkeys if vision can be restored in those born blind, using a chip. But that's not all. This person also managed to play chess by just thinking about it.
  Neuralink AI

• Gemini Pro 1.5, available for everyone: Gemini Pro 1.5, with a 1 million token window, is available for everyone. Many new tools in the past year were a wrapper around GPT-4. I now expect many new gadgets using Gemini Pro 1.5 as their AI model.

• Stability AI's new API capabilities: Stability AI, Midjourney's competitor, now has API capabilities. This makes it easier for tools to automatically generate images without human intervention. A feature that Midjourney, for example, does not yet have. They will also soon come with a chat interface.

• Europe, take note: The US government invests $8.5 billion in Intel to expand its production capabilities for chip manufacturing. Guess three times what these chips will most likely be used for…

• Generating websites from simple prompts: Generating websites based on a simple prompt is getting better. Check out this example from Dora AI.

• YouTube to ask content creators about AI use: YouTube will ask content creators if their videos were made with AI.

• Google and Liverpool develop AI model for football clubs: Google, in collaboration with Liverpool, developed an AI model to give football clubs more insights into corner kicks.

• Computers that can emit scents: This would literally be crazy. Computers that can emit scents. But work is underway on it. Imagine watching Pirates of the Caribbean and smelling the sea.

• Elon Musk makes his AI model open source: As mentioned in the previous Dip, Elon Musk has made his own AI model open source. To show OpenAI that he is indeed open.

• The future of software development: In the previous Dip, we discussed Devin, the AI Software Engineer. MetaGPT might just up the ante. Not to be confused with Meta from Facebook & Instagram. They launched an environment that can write code, then debug and fix potential errors. Facebook & Instagram's Meta also came up with something similar, a model that can perform tests. Whether it's Devin, MetaGPT, or anyone else, it all plays into what the CEO of NVIDIA said: the development language becomes plain English in the future, and AI bots will program with a supervised AI model.

• China trails in AI development: China lags behind in developing AI models. In America, the biggest AI companies like Amazon, Meta, and Open AI are located. In Europe, England and France are strongly represented. Although Alibaba in China is making strides, the Chinese government mainly relies on Meta's AI model. Still an interesting fact.

• This AI bot detects emotions and responds accordingly: This conversational AI bot recognizes emotions and can respond based on them. You see in real time how this tool recognizes the emotions in your speech and how the bot responds to it.

• Amazon goes all-In on Anthropic: Amazon is going all-in on Anthropic, currently the biggest competitor to Open AI. They are investing an additional $2.75 billion, making it their largest investment in another company to date.

• Was this video real or fake? Even AI experts can't agree: This video went viral. The reason? It was AI-generated. Or no, it turned out not to be? Or was it after all? Either way, the confusion was immense. Especially among people in the AI scene. Two tools claimed the video was made by them. It just goes to show how thin the line between reality and fake is becoming. And it's getting even thinner. Just look at what HeyGen came up with.

This was it. Our eighth digital dip together. It might seem like a lot, but remember; this wasn't even everything that happened in the past few weeks. This was just a fraction.

If you found yourself pondering over Easter breakfast on how you're preparing for the new reality but can't figure it out, send me a message. We can discuss it together. I'm more than happy to help you through this transition. After all, it remains 'simply' change management.

Looking forward to what tomorrow brings! ▽

-Wesley