Exhort Tech Headlines & Highlights for: 11/8/2023
Dan Lausted
A technology strategist focused on creating innovative solutions that drive revenue growth and customer satisfaction!
Thoughts from this weeks headlines ...
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Hey everyone! Hope you are having a great week so far. Here is the latest in Public Cloud, AI and Modern Workplace news updates.
Microsoft is at the forefront of efforts to optimize cloud spending through the practice of FinOps, which combines finance and DevOps to make data-driven decisions. However, it has faced challenges with an undetectable cryptocurrency mining technique on its Azure Automation platform. Microsoft is also making significant changes to enhance its security, addressing concerns stemming from a high-profile cloud breach and criticism from industry executives and federal cybersecurity officials. In the AI domain, Microsoft's partnership with Inworld AI for Xbox game developers has stirred controversy due to concerns about generative AI potentially replacing human input. Furthermore, Microsoft is participating in discussions at the Federal Innovation Series, highlighting the importance of responsible and ethical AI solutions and emphasizing the need for appropriate guardrails when designing AI solutions.
In AWS world, they are playing a pivotal role in the evolution of AI. It has partnered with Infosys to facilitate cloud transformation for financial organizations in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, focusing on accelerating large-scale transformations and introducing new cloud-based solutions. AWS has also introduced Amazon EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML, allowing customers to reserve Nvidia GPUs for specific durations, offering cost certainty. Furthermore, AWS has expanded its relationship with IBM to deepen generative AI innovation and launch an innovation lab in India. The collaboration aims to capitalize on the growth of AI, positioning AWS ahead of its competitors.
And with Google, leadership changes at Google Cloud have introduced Colleen Kapase as the new Global VP. Google Cloud has deepened its partnership with Box, integrating Vertex AI into Box's platform to create generative AI features. This partnership also makes Box available on Google Cloud Marketplace, streamlining content creation and collaboration. On the AI front, Google AI researchers have published a paper highlighting limitations in current AI models, specifically OpenAI's GPT-2 transformer model, challenging the timeline for achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). In terms of advertising, Google has rolled out tools that allow advertisers to create AI-generated content, a feature currently available in the U.S. Additionally, Google is preparing to test its Duet AI side panel for Workspace apps, with a focus on data protection.
And yes, AI powered robots are coming! Look out!
Let's get to work!
Topic: Public Cloud
Microsoft
Organizations are increasingly using multiple cloud environments and need to have control over cloud spending. FinOps is a practice that combines finance and DevOps to help organizations make data-driven spending decisions and optimize for cost. Cloud vendors provide capabilities to track and align cost and performance insights, but analytics can help organizations achieve better results from their cloud investments.
Researchers have developed a cloud-based cryptocurrency miner that is undetectable and cost-free, leveraging the Microsoft Azure Automation service. SafeBreach discovered three different methods to run the miner, including one that could be used to achieve any task that requires code execution on Azure. Microsoft has since issued a fix for the problem, but malicious actors can still exploit it to execute code undetected. Organizations must proactively monitor their resources to detect such behavior.
Microsoft is rolling out an array of changes to its software engineering process to improve its security. These changes are part of the Secure Future Initiative and are meant to set a 'new standard for security'. They include updates to identity security, cloud vulnerability mitigation, and using AI to address evolving cyberthreats. The changes are a response to a high-profile Microsoft cloud breach and criticism from industry executives and federal cybersecurity officials.
AWS
AI has been a prominent field of research since the 1950s, with key players emerging and contributing to its evolution. IBM, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Intel, and NVIDIA have all played a role in its development, with AI now being used in healthcare, finance, customer service, and research. Responsible AI is the next step in its journey, with customer-centric applications and spatial AI and robotic vision gaining traction. The contributions of the tech titans have been instrumental in advancing the boundaries of AI.
Infosys has partnered with Amazon Web Services to support financial organizations in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region with cloud transformation. The partnership will involve accelerating growth of existing large-scale transformations, collaborating with FinTech partners to bring new cloud-based solutions, and investing in co-innovation to deliver new products and services. The collaboration will provide greater business agility, helping organizations restructure their business models and accelerate their migration to the cloud.
GCP
Bronwyn Hastings, the Global VP of Google Cloud, is leaving the company after two and a half years. She is being replaced by Colleen Kapase, a channel superstar with over two decades of top partner executive experience at Snowflake, Citrix and VMware. Mark Haranas, an assistant news editor at CRN, also provided insight into the story.
Box and Google Cloud have announced an expansion of their partnership to integrate Vertex AI, Google Cloud's unified AI platform, into Box's platform to build new generative AI features. These features will include metadata extraction and classification, as well as the ability to automatically recognize and tag products in images. Additionally, the partnership will result in Box being available on Google Cloud Marketplace, and customers will be able to create, open, edit, and save content in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides directly from within Box. These features will help customers process and analyze data faster and collaborate using a common toolset.
Topic: Artificial Intelligence (AI / AGI)
Microsoft
Microsoft has announced a partnership with Inworld AI to empower game developers on Xbox with AI tools. This has sparked a backlash from the industry, as generative AI has the potential to replace humans and save money. There is no overarching dev union or writers union in the video game industry to reject this kind of tech, and it would have to be on a studio by studio basis. Microsoft has had issues with inappropriate AI generated images and polls in the past. Microsoft has announced a partnership with Inworld AI to bring AI tools to Xbox game developers, sparking a backlash from the industry. The potential for generative AI to replace humans and save money has caused concern, as there is no overarching dev union or writers union in the video game industry to reject this kind of tech. Microsoft has had issues with inappropriate AI generated images and polls in the past.
At the Federal Innovation Series: Leading in the Era of AI summit, government leaders and technology experts discussed how AI is revolutionizing government operations and services. Microsoft's Federal senior vice president highlighted the importance of partnering together for innovation and Microsoft's commitment to responsible and ethical AI solutions. Panelists discussed the need for appropriate guardrails when designing AI solutions, the role of AI in cybersecurity, and the importance of building trust and developing blueprints for employees and partners.
Microsoft has partnered with Inworld AI to bring new AI tools to Xbox to make game development easier, such as an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine. These tools will be optional for developers, and it remains to be seen how they will impact gameplay. Microsoft's cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions, including Azure OpenAI Service, are also part of the partnership.
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AWS
Amazon has launched a new product, Amazon EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML, which enables customers to buy access to Nvidia GPUs for a defined amount of time. Customers can reserve cluster sizes of 1-64 GPUs per instance for up to 8 weeks in advance, with the instances automatically shutting down when the time frame is over. This gives customers cost certainty and Amazon the ability to put in-demand resources to work in an auction-like environment. The service is available in the AWS US East (Ohio) region.
The Conversation recently published an article discussing the prevalence of insomnia and its effects on the public. It also highlighted the importance of mental health and getting adequate sleep for a healthy lifestyle. Additionally, the article touched on the various treatments available for insomnia.
Amazon's AWS is well-positioned to capitalize on the AI revolution and is ahead of Microsoft Azure in a key area.While investors have been worried about cloud customers' cost optimization efforts over the past year, Amazon has been savvily turning this into long-term growth opportunities for AWS. Though AWS also faces notable risks that investors should consider.
GCP
Three Google DeepMind researchers have published a paper demonstrating that current AI models are not very good at coming up with outputs outside of their training data. The paper focuses on OpenAI's GPT-2 transformer model, which is theorized to be able to lead to artificial general intelligence (AGI). Despite the promise of transformers, the paper found that they are not able to do tasks outside of their training data, even if the task is simple. This finding may challenge the belief of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that AGI will be achieved by 2028.
Google is rolling out tools that let advertisers create AI-generated content using the same technology as the Bard chatbot. The feature is now available on Google's Performance Max advertising product and allows US advertisers to quickly create high-quality, personalized assets on various Google platforms. The AI-generated imagery contains a visible watermark and is tagged as such, and it can be used to create versions of the same ad or build new ads from scratch. The feature is currently in beta and only available in the US.
Google has expanded its generative AI-powered search platform, Search Generative Experience (SGE), to more than 100 countries and territories and added support for four new languages. Users can now ask follow-up questions directly from the main results page and use homonyms to translate statements. SGE is Google's answer to Microsoft's Bing search engine and is expected to evolve over time.
Topic: Modern Work
Microsoft
Researchers from Zscaler have discovered over a hundred security vulnerabilities in Microsoft 365 due to the addition of SketchUp, which they claim to have bypassed the patches Microsoft released. Microsoft disabled the support for SketchUp to prevent exploitation, and customers should view SketchUp's status on its dedicated page. Zscaler also mentioned that they will be releasing more details in the coming days.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is now available for E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium Customers, costing $30 per person per month. It can generate meeting summaries for Teams calls and create PowerPoint presentations from documents. Some elements are still in preview but will likely ship to broad availability in the next few months.
Dell Technologies has launched new services for Microsoft 365 Copilot to help customers adopt and scale the technology quickly. The services include assessment, advisory, operational readiness and implementation services. Dell also has services for Microsoft Azure and multicloud management, data platform services, and security services for Microsoft Defender for Cloud and IoT.
AWS
Microsoft and Amazon are reportedly in the midst of a $1 billion deal for 1 million Microsoft 365 licenses for Amazon's corporate and frontline employees. The transition to cloud-based productivity tools is scheduled to start this month and complete by early 2024. The deal could potentially put an end to the long-standing rivalry between the two companies, though Microsoft has yet to confirm the specifics of the agreement.
GCP
Google Meet is rolling out an optimized "On-the-Go" mode that allows users to have an audio-only experience when they are in motion, such as walking, riding in a car, or sitting on public transit. It streamlines the interface and provides easy access to features like mute/unmute, raise hand, and audio device selection. The mode can be activated manually or automatically when the device senses the user is mobile. It is rolling out now and will soon be available to all Google Workspace users and Google personal account users.
Google is preparing to test its Duet AI side panel for Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, and more. It has updated its privacy policy to ensure users' data is protected, and data collected to improve Workspace Labs features will be kept separate from user accounts for 18 months, or up to four years if it has been reviewed by humans. Users can opt out of Workspace Labs, although they may not be able to rejoin once they have done so.
Topic: Future / Out There
Smart robots are becoming increasingly popular in factories, homes and other industries due to their ability to carry out repetitive tasks with precision. AI and robotics are being combined to create a new age of smart robots which are expected to fill jobs that are going begging due to a shrinking workforce and an aging population. AI and robotics will also transform supply chain management, and robots will be able to communicate and collaborate with humans more easily. In the next five years, robots will be able to follow real-time instructions and make complex decisions autonomously.