Large language model: Subscribers drive growth at Duolingo
Large language model(s) Though Duolingo has amassed a userbase that outweighs the populations of many of the nations whose languages it teaches, converting that army of linguaphiles into a sustainabl...
Fun and games: Duo's gamification and absurd TikToks are working
Word games A huge part of Duolingo’s success is in good old-fashioned entertainment, or — as critics see it — the gamification of the language-learning process. The company has made no secret of its ...
Cyber-colleagues: Where AI might fit in the American workplace
Bots illustrated After some of its content was revealed to be AI-produced and accredited to non-existent authors, the CEO of Sports Illustrated was fired by the magazine’s publisher, The Area Group, ...
AI high: Google is in talks to invest millions into Character.ai
AI’m feeling lucky Google is reportedly lining up an investment worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Character.ai, just weeks after the company agreed to push some $2 billion into another AI s...
A little more conversation: Company executives can't stop talking about AI
A little more conversation Interestingly, executives at top companies seem to be doing the exact opposite — they can’t stop talking about AI, perhaps hoping that if they position their companies as “...
McDonald's: The fast food giant is winning the tech war
Grimacing McDonald’s investors were lovin’ it yesterday, after the company posted earnings that beat estimates across the board . The fast food giant reported Q2 net income of $2.3 billion, up 94% o...
Meta morphs: Never mind the metaverse, it's all about AI
Meta morphs 3 billion monthly active users. That's the latest milestone the world’s largest social network has exceeded for the first time ever, according to Meta’s 2Q report, equivalent to more tha...
Duolingo: The language-learning app is pushing the boundaries of AI
Influencer app Time magazine has released its latest list of 100 Most Influential Companies . Many of the usual suspects appear in the rankings — Apple, Chipotle, Disney — but one company in particu...
Blurred lines: "Photoshopped" is about to get a whole new meaning
Wings and lassos Adobe is the latest company to jump on the AI bandwagon, announcing last week that it's integrating the technology into its editing software Photoshop. The new tool will work simila...
Talk is cheap: Like everyone else, CEOs can't stop talking about AI
Talk is cheap Not ones to miss out on a hot trend, the management teams at America’s largest companies can’t stop talking about AI (e.g. Google ). Indeed, there were more than a thousand references t...
Name-dropping: The number of babies named Alexa is dropping quickly
Last week Amazon commenced its layoffs, with 10,000 employees set to lose their jobs — the largest cuts in the company’s history. Name-dropping The cuts hit the Alexa voice assistant division especi...
Amazon's ad business is huge
The big tech news flow just keeps coming this week, and last night it was Amazon's turn. The e-commerce giant did a Google, not a Facebook, reporting an impressive set of results on all fronts — and r...
Uber Eats: How Uber's "second business" shone in 2020
2020 was a bad year to be in the ride-hailing business. For Uber, revenue in their mobility business was down 52%. Fortunately they have been busy building Uber Eats into a food delivery giant — which...
Google completes the Big Tech acqui-hire hat trick
We have previously discussed Microsoft and Amazon acqui-hiring AI startups Inflection and Adept, and today, we have reached a Big Tech x AI acqui-hire hat trick. The Information reported that Google i...
Apple iPad sales up, iPhone sales down, as Services posts record $24 billion revenue
Q3 earnings showed a bump in Mac and iPad sales, but a continued dip in iPhone sales as customers wait for the new “Apple Intelligence” features to roll out to iOS18 later this year, in what CEO Tim C...
Taco Bell is adding artificial intelligence to 100s of drive-thrus
Depending on where you live, the next time you pull in to get a Cheesy Roll Up or Crunchwrap Supreme, you might be telling your order to a robot rather than an actual human being. Burrito bots Yum! Br...
Alibaba announces AI search engine for businesses
Alibaba will launch an AI-powered search engine for international merchants in September, the Chinese e-commerce giant said on Wednesday. Traditionally, businesses would have to manually search and si...
An AI business boost was no panacea for Microsoft
Microsoft’s investments in AI are starting to pay off. The trouble was, this wasn’t enough to offset the slowdown in growth for cloud services during the past quarter. Shares of were down nearly 8% in...
Wall Street is starting to ask CEOs when their AI spending binge will actually make money
Analysts who cover Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Youtube, used to ask about artificial intelligence with curiosity. Now they want to see results. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive...
Reddit is negotiating moats for access in search results
To get through Google’s Search morass — filled as it is with bad AI Overviews and sponsored content — it often helps to append “site:reddit.com” to your query. Right now, Google, which already has way...