Learning Generative AI - The tale of 4 market leading players

Gratitude Week Reflections 🙏:

Over the lasy 2 days , I've tried to understand the fascinating talk track of Generative AI through courses offered by four leading AI platform providers - Databricks, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Here's a snapshot of my key takeaways:

Databricks Generative AI Fundamentals Learning Plan:

Coming from the data lake domain, Databricks highlighted the importance of data and also emphasized how proprietary data stands as a competitive advantage in the Generative AI landscape. They also focused on serving and scaling models from multiple providers. The recent acquisition of MosaicML added another layer to their comprehensive approach and talk track.

AWS Generative AI Learning Plan: Business Professionals (Partner):

AWS, with its 20-year AI legacy, showcased a clear POV. The emphasis on flexibility, featuring different models from various leading providers, giving enterprises the power of choice, left a lasting impression. Championed the concept of bringing models to your data, simplifying the process of adding generative AI capabilities to existing applications running on AWS. They showed optionality, including the serverless approach with Bedrock and the choose-your-adventure model with SageMaker Studio, highlighted their commitment to providing diverse and efficient solutions. Overall, AWS presented a very strong point of view in the Generative AI landscape.

Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Generative AI:

Azure's POV was unfortunately not as clear or strong. The learning platform, being text-heavy and less engaging, made it challenging to fully grasp their perspective. They seemed to rely heavily on the PR efforts of OpenAI and ChatGPT, missing the opportunity to weave a cohesive story around their array of AI services. Despite high expectations, especially with their product launches aiming to integrate OpenAI capabilities into various facets and the robustness of GitHub Copilot, the course left me wanting a deeper understanding of their unique approach.

Google Cloud Generative AI Fundamentals:

Google Cloud took a preachy approach, emphasizing Generative AI as just another technique. They wanted us to focus on understanding AI and underscored that GenAI is simply another tool in the AI toolkit. Their dedication to Responsible AI was evident, both in course content and the talk about AI vision to product offerings. Google's training and AI offerings felt like a work in progress—a cohesive story that is still being built using their impressive pedigree in AI.

Common Themes:

What struck me was the unanimous agreement across all courses on the hierarchy - AI ➡️ ML ➡️ Deep Learning ➡️ GenAI. Everyone emphasized on this foundational understanding to make sure we (consumers) learnt the terminology right. Each provider acknowledged the transformative power of Generative AI on business and society, underlining the collective responsibility in deploying this technology ethically.