In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, major brands like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to maintain their competitive edge and improve their services.
These companies use AI for coding assistance, ad optimization, productivity improvements, cybersecurity, and more.
As the race for AI dominance intensifies, industry leaders have unveiled ambitious plans to integrate AI-driven solutions, sparking discussions about the potential impact of AI on customers, businesses, and society.
Learn more about the AI advances companies announced during or before the first earnings calls of 2023.
Amazon
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spoke about the latest AI for Amazon Web Services.
- Bedrock is a managed service that simplifies building and scaling enterprise-scale generative AI applications by providing access to a variety of base models including AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Stability AI, and AWS’s exclusive Titan family.
- Inferentia2 and Trn1n are two next-generation Large Language Models (LLMs) that offer better price/performance and training cost savings.
- CodeWhisperer, an AI coding companion that provides real-time code suggestions, becomes available for AWS developers.
Jassy stressed that AWS will continue to innovate, pointing to the recent announcement on LLMs, generative AI and related chips and managed services, hoping that the upcoming rise in machine learning will fuel a significant new cloud business.
chegg
Dan Rosensweig, CEO of Chegg stated, “Generative AI and big language models will have both positive and negative impacts on society and business. At a faster pace than people are used to.”
After speaking with Sam Altman about the role of AI in education, Rosensweig quickly shifted Chegg’s focus to integrating and adopting AI into its offerings.
In partnership with OpenAI, Chegg has developed CheggMate, a homework helper powered by GPT-4. It combines proprietary data with the knowledge of over 150,000 subject matter experts to improve accuracy.
Rosensweig remained optimistic about the plans for the reliable, real-time AI learning companion.
Unfortunately, providing clarity on how ChatGPT may have impacted new Chegg signups caused stock prices to drop 40%.
Drop box
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston expressed excitement about AI and a new strategic goal this year to go beyond files and organize all cloud content for customers.
Houston highlighted the new era of augmented knowledge work, where advances in AI and machine learning are enabling teams to tackle complex tasks and increase productivity. As cloud tools and remote work create chaotic work environments, Dropbox aims to help users organize and simplify their lives with universal search and content suggestions.
Despite economic challenges, Houston remained upbeat, emphasizing Dropbox’s scale, platform neutrality, trusted brand and strong balance sheet as key strengths to weather tough times and invest in the future.
A week before the earnings call, Houston released a memo to employees. It announced the layoff of 500 employees due to the company’s slow growth and the need to shift resources to AI, as “the next phase of growth requires a different mix of skills, particularly in AI and early product development. We’ve brought in great talent in these areas over the past few years, and we’re going to need more.”
Duolingo
Investors are likely to hear about Duolingo’s use of AI in education during the upcoming conference call.
Like Chegg, Duolingo has partnered with OpenAI to integrate GPT-4 into its service. Duolingo Max uses generative AI to answer translation-related questions and act as a language partner for conversation practice.
These developments align with thoughts from a TED Talk with Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan: AI can give every student (with access) an AI tutor and every teacher (with access) an AI assistant.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai updated investors on recent advances in AI.
- Bard, the conversational AI service, now uses the PaLM model. This allows Bard to assist with coding development projects.
- Developers can quickly build generative AI applications using the PaLM API and MakerSuite tools.
- Organizations can leverage generative AI capabilities on Google Cloud Platform and Workspace.
- Google search will use generative AI to offer new conversational search experiences.
- Google Ads will use AI to help advertisers optimize and manage advertising campaigns more effectively.
Pichai concluded his launch, looking forward to “helping people, businesses and society reach their full potential with AI. ”
Philipp Schindler, SVP and CBO of Google, explained AI in keyword relevance, smart bidding and performance max campaigns. Specifically Google:
- Search keyword relevance has been updated using MUM model-based natural language AI, improving ad relevance and performance when multiple overlapping keywords are eligible for an auction.
- Enhanced Smart Bidding models for more accurate bidding based on differences in search ad formats, enabling more effective bidding based on user interaction preferences.
- Expanded access to the Automatically Created Assets (ACA) beta for all English-speaking advertisers, enabling them to generate text assets with responsive search ads and use AI to minimize manual work and get fresh, relevant creatives.
- Encouraged advertisers to combine core search with Performance Max, which reportedly resulted in over 18% more conversions at a similar CPA on average, a 5-point increase in 14 months.
- Made advances in AI support for bids, creatives, search matching, and new formats like YouTube Shorts that have helped improve results.
“AI has long been a key driver of our business. Advances strengthen our ability to help businesses large and small respond to rapidly changing market and consumer shifts in real-time and deliver measurable ROI when it’s needed most.”
Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, guided investors through the use of AI in Google Workspace to improve internal productivity. Porat also noted an intentionally slower hiring pace and continued focus on Google DeepMind, which was acquired in 2014.
Meta
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made AI the main topic of Meta’s conference call.
- Over 20% of the Facebook and Instagram feed is filled with content selected by AI from profiles, pages and groups you don’t follow.
- Useful AI agents could be made available to millions via WhatsApp and Messenger for business messaging, customer support and more.
- Further investment in infrastructure is required to support new LLMs and scaling of generative AI products.
Susan Li, CFO of Meta, explained how AI could offer advertisers greater automation through Advantage+ Shopping and that the capital expenditures will support “the ongoing build-out of AI capacity to support ads, feeds and reels, as well as increased investment in capacity for our generative AI -Reflect initiatives.”
During the Q&A, in response to a question about hiring, Li noted that Meta has been on a hiring freeze for the past six months and if hiring resumes, it would be talent in generative AI, ads, infrastructure, and trade other new products.
Microsoft
During a recent conference call on the results, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the company’s focus on and future in AI.
- Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing service, gained market share as customers continued to choose it for AI-powered applications.
- The Azure OpenAI Service, which combines advanced models like ChatGPT and GPT-4 with the capabilities of Azure, has seen a tenfold increase in customers’ QoQ.
- GitHub Copilot and Dynamics 365 Copilot for CRM and ERP systems demonstrated Microsoft’s commitment to increasing productivity through AI.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot, Viva Sales and Security Copilot demonstrated AI integration in different aspects of the company.
Microsoft CFO Amy Hood announced that the company expects healthy revenue growth in its biggest quarter of the year, driven by customer demand for differentiated solutions like its AI platform and Microsoft Cloud.
Hood emphasized Microsoft’s focus on long-term financial growth and profitability as it enters the AI age. The company plans to continue investing in cloud infrastructure, particularly AI-related spending, to meet growing demand.
When asked about AI regulation, Nadella said Microsoft has been proactive in addressing unintended consequences of AI, rather than moving toward implementation of regulation with AI principles, internal audits, and a chief AI officer responsible for maintaining standards and compliance wait.
Snapchat
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel reviewed its focus on visual communication between friends and family and differentiated it from other platforms with the launch of My AI, an AI-powered chatbot.
New features include adding My AI to group conversations, providing location recommendations from Snap Map, and suggesting relevant AR lenses.
During the Q&A, Spiegel explained how Snapchat uses AI in messaging, augmented reality (AR), and content/ads.
- In AR, AI-powered lenses have generated significant engagement, and the intersection of AR and AI is critical to future Spectacles.
- On the messaging side, conversational AI plays to Snapchat’s strengths as users enjoy communicating with My AI.
While no specific stats are shared, Spiegel said Snapchat is cautiously rolling out My AI while happy with the level of engagement so far.
I’m looking forward to
The growing emphasis on AI-driven solutions by industry giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others underscores the potentially transformative impact of AI on businesses and society at large.
As companies increasingly invest in AI infrastructure and talent, they are shaping the future of technology and creating new opportunities for innovation.
However, this rapid shift towards AI integration also raises questions about potential risks, ethical considerations and the need for regulation to ensure advances in AI benefit everyone.
Featured image: iQoncept/Shutterstock
