Strategy in an Era of Abundant Expertise
The Augmented Manager Newsletter
✍️ In This Issue ✍️
This Week in AI: Dr. ChatGPT, No More Tik-Tok, Shoplexity and the Mini Robots
AI Company Updates: NVIDIA, Google, Meta, Apple and Anthropic
Strategy in an Era of Abundant Expertise - HBR Article
AI Tools We Love: ElevenLabs - All Things Around Voice 🛠️
Culture Corner: The Beatles’ final song, restored using AI, is up for a Grammy
AI Art: Wheel of Time
Prompting Like a Pro: ChatGPT Prompting Frameworks Cheat Sheet
Quote for You: Virginia "Ginni" Rometty💡
This Week in AI
🧑⚕️ Dr. ChatGPT: ChatGPT beats doctors in diagnosis, according to a small study.
❌ No more Tik-Tok: Bill to ban social media use by under-16s arrives in Australia’s parliament.
📡 Instant voice agent in 40+ languages: Voice cloning superhero ElevenLabs enables users create their own customer-facing AI agents. API for enterprises is available.
🛍️ "Shoplexity: My favourite search platform, Perplexity will provide a new service for subscribers: shopping recommendations, letting order products directly on the platform with one click. Amazon and Google just became a new rival.
🤖 We, Robots: Tesla is offering a small, 1:10 scale version of its Optimus robot. Unfortunately, it's already out of stock after it sold out in less than 24 hours. Maybe you can get one used soon. Or, go for the big one.
👯 AI can now create a replica of your personality: A two-hour interview is enough to accurately capture your values and preferences, according to new research from Stanford and Google DeepMind.
💬 Open source Chinese AI surprise: DeepSeek’s first reasoning model R1-Lite-Preview turns heads, beating OpenAI o1 performance.
🔬 OpenScholar: A new artificial intelligence system, called OpenScholar, is promising to rewrite the rules for how researchers access, evaluate, and synthesize scientific literature.
AI Company Updates
🔍 Free search!: Google must sell Chrome to end monopoly to break up the company’s illegal monopoly in online search.
🧬 NVIDIA: The world's now largest company unveiled a new LLM-powered physics simulator called Omniverse, and, an open-source AI platform designed to speed up drug discovery. Good news for Pharma!
🖥️ NVIDIA's Blackwell chip Is fine: Chip production delays and a rumored overheating issue haven’t slowed down Nvidia, which reported another quarter of blockbuster earnings and said Blackwells are now in the hands of Microsoft and OpenAI.
🔒 Apple Macs under attack: Zero-day attacks are threatening Intel Chip based Macs. Update your Mac ASAP!
🤝 Meta's new AI Hire: Meta hired Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new organization building AI tools for businesses.
🎭 Anthropic: Anthropic's Claude Agent with Computer Use shows strengths and limitations in new study.
HBR Article: Strategy in an Era of Abundant Expertise
Harvard Business Review's latest article "Strategy in an Era of Abundant Expertise" explores how advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are fundamentally changing the business landscape by making knowledge and expertise more accessible. As AI technologies evolve, companies must adapt their strategies to maintain competitive advantages in a market where expertise can be quickly acquired by competitors. The authors emphasize that businesses must continually refine their unique capabilities to stay relevant.
Key Takeaways
Changing Nature of Expertise: Expertise is defined as a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Companies historically gained competitive advantages through unique expertise in specific areas, such as Toyota's lean manufacturing or Walmart's distribution efficiency. However, the rapid growth of AI means that staying at the forefront of all relevant areas is increasingly challenging.
Two Forces Shaping Business: The expansion of global expertise and the decreasing cost of accessing that expertise are reshaping how companies operate. While existing firms can benefit from lower costs, new entrants can disrupt markets more easily, as seen with social media platforms that democratize content creation.
Rethinking Organizational Structures: As companies increasingly rely on external expertise, they can focus on core competencies while outsourcing non-essential functions. This shift allows businesses to streamline operations and allocate resources more effectively.
AI's Transformative Impact: AI tools are being integrated into workflows, enhancing productivity and efficiency across various roles. Early evidence shows that AI adoption can significantly improve task completion rates and overall employee performance.
Implications for Strategy
In light of these changes, companies must reevaluate their strategies by asking three critical questions:
What problems will customers solve with AI? Companies need to anticipate which aspects of their services may become obsolete as customers turn to AI solutions.
How must our expertise evolve? Businesses must identify which areas of their expertise require enhancement to maintain a competitive edge over AI capabilities.
What assets can we develop to stay competitive? Companies should focus on building durable advantages such as strong customer relationships, brand loyalty, and unique insights from customer research, which are less likely to be affected by AI advancements.
By addressing these questions, organizations can better position themselves for success in an era characterized by abundant expertise and rapidly evolving technology.
AI Tools We love
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs offers advanced AI-powered text-to-speech (TTS) technology, delivering natural, realistic voice generation for business and creative use. It's perfect for enhancing communication, content creation, and customer interaction.
Key Features
🗣️ Natural-Sounding AI Voices: Realistic voices that mimic human speech with multiple accents and emotions.
🎙️ Voice Cloning: Create custom voices tailored to your brand or project.
🌍 Multi-Language Support: Generate voices in various languages and accents for global audiences. Hungarian is there but still a bit creepy, especially when it comes to NUMBERS...
🎭 Emotion Control: Adjust tone to fit any context (e.g., formal, excited). IT's really fun to play with it!
⚡ Real-Time Synthesis: Quick voice generation for time-sensitive projects.
And, what businesses will admire most:
🤖 Custom Voice Agents: Build branded AI voice agents with feature called "Conversational AI" and integrate them into apps, websites, or services via API. You can try it here, kind of amazing: Voice Agents Playground.
🔗 Easy Integration: API access for seamless embedding into your workflows.
Why Use It?
Efficiency: Save costs on human narrators for recurring updates.
Scalability: Perfect for projects of any size with consistent voice branding.
Innovation: Modernize communication and elevate customer experiences.
Culture Corner
The Beatles' "Now and Then" – A Grammy-Nominated Milestone
Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the music industry, and one of its most remarkable examples is The Beatles' 2023 release, "Now and Then", a song brought to life with the help of AI technology. Originally written and recorded by John Lennon in the late 1970s, the demo was considered unusable due to poor audio quality.
In 2023, using cutting-edge AI tools, producer Giles Martin and the team separated Lennon's vocals from the old cassette recording, allowing them to integrate it seamlessly with new instrumental contributions from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. This process not only preserved the original essence of the song but also revived it for modern audiences.
The song, released on November 2, 2023, has resonated deeply with fans and critics alike. Its restoration marks a significant milestone in how AI is reshaping the music industry by preserving and reimagining legacy works.
"Now and Then" has been nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2024, placing it alongside contemporary giants like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. The project highlights the potential of AI to breathe new life into old art while sparking conversations about technology's role in creativity.
AI Art
The Wheel of Time
Become an artist yourself! Think of anything, give it a name, and add the required style and parameters. Here is an example:
Tool: Midjourney
Prompt: the wheel of time, abstract, modern, geometric painting, harmonic colours, minimalistic style --ar 1:1 --s 250 --v 5.2
Prompting Like a Pro
Can't remember ChatGPT prompting frameworks? There are tons out there, here is a good cheat sheet for you:
Quote for You
“Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” — Ginni Rometty
Virginia "Ginni" Rometty (born July 29, 1957) is an American business executive who was executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She was previously chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the first woman to head the company.
I hope, you liked this piece.
Thanks for reading!
✌️Until next time!
The Augmented Manager
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