Google’s Bard Rebrands as Gemini in Bold AI Evolution
Artificial Intelligence News Google is on the brink of a significant overhaul in its AI strategy, as evidenced by a leaked company change log by Android app developer Dylan Roussel, suggesting a rebranding of Bard to “Gemini.” This move is seen as Google’s counter to OpenAI’s GPT-4, positioning Gemini as the new flagship model for accessing Google’s AI capabilities. The change log emphasizes that Gemini will retain and enhance the collaborative features users have valued in Bard, marking the beginning of the “Gemini era.”
Despite the leak, Google has yet to officially confirm the name change from Bard to Gemini. The leaked document also highlights an evolution in the user interface (UI) to reduce visual clutter, enhance readability, and simplify navigation, aiming for a more user-friendly experience.
A notable feature in the pipeline is the introduction of voice chat capabilities in Gemini, alongside a new “Ultra 1.0″ model. This model is part of “Gemini Advanced,” a premium subscription offering akin to ChatGPT Plus, which includes advanced features like file uploading. Gemini Advanced aims to excel in complex tasks such as coding, logical reasoning, and creative collaboration, leveraging the Ultra 1.0 model’s advanced AI capabilities.
Gemini Advanced is set to continually evolve, promising new and exclusive features in the near future. These enhancements include expanded multi-modal functionalities, improved coding features, and the option to upload and process more complex data sets. Available in over 150 countries and territories, Gemini Advanced positions itself as a global AI solution.
The impending launch of the Gemini app, initially in English, marks a significant step in Google’s AI expansion. Following the integration of Gemini Pro into the Bard AI chatbot in English last December, Google has extended its AI offerings to over 230 countries and territories in more than 40 languages, encompassing nine Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu. This broad linguistic support underscores Google’s commitment to making its AI technologies accessible on a global scale, catering to a diverse user base. SOURCE
Satya Nadella: A Decade of Transformation and Growth at Microsoft’s Helm
Artificial Intelligence News Microsoft’s stock has soared by more than 1,000% since Nadella took the helm in 2014, compared to the more gradual 185% growth of the broader S&P 500. Microsoft now has a market value of $3 trillion—more than any US publicly traded company, including its longtime rival Apple.
Satya Nadella marked his tenth year as Microsoft CEO on Sunday, capping a decade of stunning growth as he pivoted the slow-moving software giant into a laser focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Microsoft’s stock has soared by more than 1,000% since Nadella took the helm in 2014, compared to the more gradual 185% growth of the broader S&P 500. Microsoft now has a market value of $3 trillion—more than any U.S. publicly traded company, including its longtime rival Apple.
“Nadella’s had the biggest transformation of a tech company potentially ever,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. “The only one that would rival it was Steve Jobs coming back to Apple and turning it around with the iPhone.”
Microsoft has created $2.8 trillion in shareholder wealth in the past decade, meaning an investor who bought a $10,000 stake in Microsoft at the time Nadella took over and did nothing with those shares would have a stake worth about $113,000 now.
HOW IT HAPPENED “Our industry does not respect tradition it only respects innovation,” Nadella told employees in an inaugural memo 10 years ago, an opening salvo that hinted at bigger shifts to come. Microsoft declined requests for an interview.
Now a hero to Wall Street, some were at first skeptical that such transformation could come from an insider who’d already spent 22 years at the Redmond, Washington company. He’s only the third Microsoft CEO, following Steve Ballmer, who lasted for 14 years, and Bill Gates, who co-founded the company in 1975 and took it public in 1986.
Big changes came quickly under Nadella. He marshaled resources to build up the Azure cloud computing platform, a shift in priorities from the company’s longtime reliance on its flagship Windows operating system and the royalties it gets for each PC sold with it. And he largely put the brakes on Microsoft’s ill-fated attempts to play catch-up in the smartphone market, marked by his predecessor Ballmer’s $7.3 billion acquisition of Nokia’s phone business.
But some of the biggest changes were in the company’s culture, a shift away from Microsoft’s brash external reputation and internal bickering to a more collaborative approach that Nadella has modeled in his own collegial personality and engineer’s mindset.
LEARN-IT-ALL CULTURE “Microsoft is known for rallying the troops with competitive fire,” Nadella said in his 2017 autobiography. “The press loves that, but it’s not me.”
Much of Nadella’s strength is how he stands out from the typical “very strong ego CEO,” said Raimo Lenschow, a stock analyst at Barclays who covers 36 tech companies. Instead of making bold pronouncements, Lenschow said Nadella takes a more measured approach to explaining “where he thinks the future is going.”
And “whether it’s the person making food in the cafeteria, an engineer, a finance executive, or a customer, he treats everyone in the same. SOURCE
Tech & AI Boost Tax Compliance, CBDT Chief Asserts
Artificial Intelligence News CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta believes that the use of technology, including artificial intelligence, has helped improving tax compliance.
Around 44 lakh e-mails were sent to taxpayers in December for mismatches between their declared income and financial transactions based on technology-based risk assessment, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta said. With the use of technology, including artificial intelligence and changes in the law, the possibilities of tax evasion have been plugged to a great extent and have helped in improving tax compliance, Gupta said in a post-budget interview to The Indian Express.
New technology is used everywhere. We shot off around 44 lakh emails in December to those (taxpayers) where the returned income and financial transactions were having some sort of mismatch based on the risk-assessment analysis. Just nudging the taxpayers that this is what we are finding, please check whether you have rightly disclosed your income in the higher buoyancy in direct tax revenue, as outlined in the Budget 2024-25 presented last week, has come mainly on the back of technology along with other measures being taken to plug leakages, Gupta said. “There are a multitude of factors. One is the use of technology for the data which is available with us, and its disclosure to the taxpayer through AIS (Annual Information Statement), and then, we are prefilling returns… we have also done quicker processing, quicker issue of refunds, there is better taxpayer confidence in the tax department. Changes have been made in the law in the sense that whatever were the possibilities of evasion, I’m using this word, they’ve been plugged to a great extent. So the taxpayer is expected not to resort to those methodologies (for evasion),” he said.turn of income,” Gupta said.
For large-scale variations between the declared income and the financial transactions, the tax department is approaching taxpayers through the e-verification scheme.
“E-verification is also giving some better results in the sense that then the taxpayer is really thinking in what way he or she should have disclosed the real income,” he said.
While the Budget announced withdrawal of outstanding direct tax demands up to Rs 25,000 for the period up to financial year 2009-10 and up to Rs 10,000 for financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15, the income tax department is working separately on resolution of tax demands through its demand facilitation centre (DFC) in Mysuru, involving chartered accountants, taxpayers, and assessing officers for tax demands of over Rs 1 crore.
For higher demands of about Rs 1 crore, we have started with the demand facilitation centre we have a dedicated team of people there who are getting in touch with the taxpayers, their chartered accountant and the assessing officer. So, they put all three at one time (together) seeking their convenience and trying to resolve those matters. At times there could be the case that the assessee has paid the tax but it is not being reflected, it could be that there are appeal effects or rectifications or some petition, which is to be disposed of and the attempt is to correct the demand. Then we can pursue the taxpayer for payment thereof or to see to it that the appeal is quickly disposed of. So, that process is already on,” Gupta said.
The DFC was set up in July 2022 and it has taken up tax demand cases of 1.46 lakh in number so far and the amount of demand has been reduced by Rs 3.57 lakh crore, the CBDT Chairman said.
“It’s an effort to clean the system, to unclog the system and focus the energies for something better,” he said.
On the decision to not extend the concessional corporate tax rate of 15 per cent for new manufacturing units set up after March 31, 2024, Gupta said enough time had been given to such units. Around 3,000 new manufacturing units had opted for the concessional rate of 15 per cent in 2022-23, he said, adding that the number could be higher for the ongoing financial year 2023-24.
The government will take a call on whether or not to give an extension or introduce some new measure for these new manufacturing units at the time of the full budget, which is likely to be presented in July after elections. “The government will take a call at the time of the regular budget, whether it wants to introduce something or not, but as of now, enough extension has been granted from 2019 to 2024,” he said. SOURCE
Banking and Tech Primed for Major Shake-Up by Generative AI
Artificial Intelligence News By Steve Lohr A new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to turn old assumptions about technology on their head.
For years, people working in warehouses or fast food restaurants worried that automation could eliminate their jobs. But new research suggests that generative AI — the kind used in chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT—will have its biggest impact on white-collar workers with high-paying jobs in industries like banking and tech. Artificial Intelligence Newsreport published on Thursday by the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit research center, and SHRM, formerly the Society for Human Resource Management, stops short of saying the technology will do away with large numbers of jobs. But it makes clear that workers need to better prepare for a future in which Artificial Intelligence could play a significant role in many workplaces that until now have been largely untouched by technological disruption. For people in tech, it means they may be building their AI replacements. “There’s no question the workers who will be impacted most are those with college degrees, and those are the people who always thought they were safe,” said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute.
For hundreds of corporations, the researchers estimated the share of payroll spending that goes to workers employed in the 200 occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI Many of those jobs are held by affluent college graduates, including business analysts, marketing managers, software developers, database administrators, project managers and lawyers.
Companies in finance, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, have some of the highest percentages of their payrolls likely to be disrupted by generative AI. Not far behind are tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta. Getting AI to do human work could result in big savings for those companies. The research estimates that banks and some tech companies spend 60 to 80 percent of their payrolls, or more, on workers in occupations most likely to be affected by the new technology.
The retail, restaurant, and transportation industries are least likely to be affected by generative AI, the report found. Companies like Walmart, McDonald’s and Delta Air Lines mostly employ workers without college degrees who perform roles like helping customers, stocking shelves, cooking food and handling baggage. They spend less than 20 percent of their payroll on employees in occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI.
The report doesn’t predict potential job losses related to generative AI. That will be up to employers, the report said, and whether they want to bank the savings from AI automation or use that money to invest and grow, adding more workers. Most experts expect that AI will mostly change jobs for the next few years rather than eliminate them — though that could change if the technology improves sharply.
The report highlights the need for increased training to prepare workers to adapt to a fast-arriving technology, said Johnny C Taylor Jr, chief executive of SHRM. “Corporations and governments are going to have to seriously invest to get ahead of this,” he said. The report is the latest entry in a growing field of work trying to predict the effect of generative AI on the economy and the workplace. Other studies have forecast a surge in economic growth and productivity, automating activities that add up to the equivalent of millions of jobs, and time savings of up to 50 percent for routine office and coding tasks. SOURCE
Conclusion
The recent developments across various sectors highlight a pivotal moment in technological advancement and leadership. Google’s strategic rebranding of Bard to Gemini signifies a major shift in the AI landscape, promising enhanced collaborative features and a user-friendly experience with the introduction of Gemini Advanced. Meanwhile, Microsoft, under Satya Nadella’s visionary leadership, has witnessed unprecedented growth, emphasizing the transformative power of cloud computing and AI. The emphasis on AI and tech in enhancing tax compliance by the CBDT Chairman underscores the pivotal role of technology in governance and regulatory frameworks. The banking and tech sectors are poised for a significant transformation with the advent of generative AI, challenging traditional roles and creating new opportunities for innovation. Furthermore, the collaboration between IIT KGP and Ericsson marks a significant leap in AI and tech research, setting the stage for groundbreaking developments in 6G networks and beyond. These narratives collectively underscore the relentless march of technology, reshaping industries, governance, and research, and heralding a new era of digital innovation and strategic foresight.
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Further Reading & References
Next-Gen Breakthroughs: AI’s Bold Leap into Music, Robotics, and the Future of Search Technology
AI Daily News: Charting New Territories in Education and Predictive Technologies
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