Newsletter #23: OpenAI DevDay on Nov 6th was a big day for AI, but there was one thing I was especially stoked on.

On November 6th, Sam Altman and OpenAI hosted their first annual DevDay for 900 or so developers. To say it was well received would be an understatement.

Just as we all remember the GOAT, Steve Jobs and his “There’s an app for that”, this was Sam Altman’s “There’s a GPT for that” moment.

Instead of providing a top 5 of DevDay, I’m going to focus on the one thing I’m most stoked on - AI Agents - as I think this is where the magic is the most magical, right now.

Let’s start with what Sam announced on 11.06 at DevDay associated with AI Agents via their associated blog post:

“Introducing GPTs: You can now create custom versions of ChatGPT that combine instructions, extra knowledge, and any combination of skills.” (link).

“We’re rolling out custom versions of ChatGPT that you can create for a specific purpose—called GPTs. GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a tailored version of ChatGPT to be more helpful in their daily life, at specific tasks, at work, or at home—and then share that creation with others.”

“Anyone can easily build their own GPT—no coding is required. You can make them for yourself, just for your company’s internal use, or for everyone. Creating one is as easy as starting a conversation, giving it instructions and extra knowledge, and picking what it can do, like searching the web, making images or analyzing data.”

“Starting today, you can create GPTs and share them publicly. Later this month, we’re launching the GPT Store, featuring creations by verified builders. Once in the store, GPTs become searchable and may climb the leaderboards. We will also spotlight the most useful and delightful GPTs we come across in categories like productivity, education, and ‘just for fun.’ In the coming months, you’ll also be able to earn money based on how many people are using your GPT.”

“Enterprises can get started with GPTs on Wednesday. You can now empower users inside your company to design internal-only GPTs without code and securely publish them to your workspace. The admin console lets you choose how GPTs are shared and whether external GPTs may be used inside your business. Like all usage on ChatGPT Enterprise, we do not use your conversations with GPTs to improve our models.”

One of the likely reasons there has been a shift in AI coverage over the last 6 months that has questioned if it’s more hype than signal is the ratio of people who had tried ChatGPT but hadn’t yet experienced ChatGPT Plus.

ChatGPT Plus enabled users to benefit from v1.0 (i.e. plug-ins) of this technology which was kind of mind blowing whereas if you stuck with ChatGPT only, you might have viewed it as a “meh” after using it sporadically...

Now, we’re all going to be able to experience this more advanced version, build on top of it and take everything to the next level which is going to be amazing.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bill Gates published “The Future of Agents: AI is about to completely change how you use computers” (link) on his blog (GatesNotes), on 11.09.

TLDR version of Bill’s POV:

1. “In the near future, anyone who’s online will be able to have a personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence that’s far beyond today’s technology.”

2. “Agents won’t simply make recommendations; they’ll help you act on them.”

3. “Having one will be like having a person dedicated to helping you with various tasks and doing them independently if you want.”

If you want to go deeper on the macro implications of this stuff, check out the Humane launch and the speculation around OpenAI and the AI-first hardware space which could be viewed as the next step in how humans and AI enabled experiences happen, beyond mobile.

Humane is a wearable pin that was designed to be the “iPhone for the AI generation” as profiled in “Humane wants its new AI pin to liberate you from your phone screen” (link).

“I just love the way the computer’s there, and then the computer’s gone,” Ken Kocienda tells me, maintaining eye contact. “One of the aspects is, you stay in the moment with people that you’re with.”

“It’s a new kind of wearable device,” lead designer Imran Chaudhri said on stage at a TED talk in May, where he previewed the Pin for the first time. It allows you, he said, “to access the power of compute while remaining present in your surroundings, fixing a balance that’s felt out of place for some time now.”

As mentioned in the article, there are other ex-Apple leaders focused on building AI-first consumer hardware including legendary Jony Ive which was included in “Newsletter #20: Last 7 or so days of AI has left me speechless (good kind)” (link).

Jony Ive 2.0 appears to be Sam Altman’s partner in building a Generative AI enabled iPhone competitor, that will likely be backed by a $1B investment from SoftBank / Masayoshi Son. Kind of a big deal all around. (“OpenAI and Jony Ive in talks to raise $1bn from SoftBank for AI device venture” via FT).

While there is a lot to be excited about in the B2C space, let’s make it real in the B2B space.

Let’s start by defining an AI Agent and what an intelligent system is, in universal language.

Think of an AI Agent as an intelligent system capable of performing certain tasks, adapting and learning from its environment to carry that new information forward to improve decision making and the actions it takes.

(Newsletter #9: Systems of Intelligence enabled by Generative AI have staggering implications (s / o Jerry Chen) (link) might be helpful if you want to go a bit deeper.)

AI Agents are often confused with chatbots because of the similarity of the interface layer but think of a chatbot as a telephone that only makes phone calls and an AI Agent as an Internet enabled smartphone aka a super computer in your pocket.

The intelligent system can be thought of as all of the horsepower on the back end enabling the AI agent including Large Language Models (i.e. GPT-4 Turbo, Llama 2, Claude etc) that capitalizes on the recent advances in AI including those that enabled the launch of ChatGPT on 11.30.22.

Where it gets kind of wild is an AI Agent’s ability to autonomously interact with other AI Agents or humans, the way they understand the native human language of conversation and therefore the implications for the way businesses operate going forward.

The optimistic case for how recent advances in Artificial Intelligence will impact the economy in the near-term include the expected productivity boom which isn’t hard to get behind when you consider the impact AI Agents can have, today, on how businesses operate going forward.

Reminds me of “The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth” (link) published by Goldman Sachs 03.26.23 which included a scenario where a productivity boost could drive a 7% or almost $7tn increase in annual global GDP over a 10-year period.

To keep it super tactical, consider an AI Agent as the world’s finest Chief of Staff…but instead of only one, imagine a world where every employee could have their own digital equivalent of a Chief of Staff (AI Agent) to help them / their team / their company be more productive?

Here are a couple highly relevant aspects of what a Chief of Staff does that can be replicated and / or enhanced, significantly, through the introduction of an AI Agent:

• Strategic Advisor: Trusted advisor with visibility across the organization to provide counsel and insights on various matters

• Communication Facilitator: Cross-functional communicator and enabler to ensure knowledge is being shared, accessed and applied to optimize decision making, resource allocation and performance

• Prioritization + Agenda Setting: Helping prioritize and set leadership’s agenda to increase the probability of the right goals being set and achieved

• Representative Role: Representing leadership in various forums, meetings and discussions, both internally and externally

• Knowledge Management: Operationalizing data hygiene frameworks to ensure proprietary data is organized, current and actionable for various cross-functional teams to benefit from

Below are outcomes an AI Agent could generate for not just a CEO but any number of other people within an organization to improve their workflows and enhance their performance.

• Photographic Memory: Imagine never forgetting the smallest, oldest detail that otherwise you’d have to go digging but instead, you ask your AI Agent or even better, they proactively remind you of a very nuanced insight that you might have missed?

• Make More, Better + Faster Decisions: Imagine accelerating your transition from Descriptive to Predictive Analytics and democratizing access via each employee's AI Agent with appropriate guardrails so you push decision making to the edges to unleash high-performance team culture?

• Knowledge Base / Graph 2.0:Imagine converting all of your company’s collective knowledge and intellectual property into an environment accessible in real-time through AI Agents that can be queried by your people using the most native form of communication, our voice?

• Predictive Analytics 2.0: Imagine converting all of your Qualitative Data Into Quantitative Data that can be used to enhance your Machine Learning Models today and going forward based on your AI Agents’ work on behalf of your colleagues?

• Attend Less Meetings But Never Miss A Beat: Imagine every “Important but not Urgent” meeting that you can’t make is attended by your AI Agent who provides you with a synthesis, maintains your data hygiene across CRM / Knowledge Base / Graph and helps you adjust your cross-functional goals, agendas and communications going forward?

Last but certainly not least, quick work update on my end.

If you’ve read this far, it’s likely you’re as stoked on all things AI as I am and wasn’t surprised by how grateful, excited and ready I was to become the COO of Gemini Sports Analytics with my first day being 10.30.23.

But for those who weren’t aware, here’s the Linkedin post (link) including a link to the one-page summary of the AI native, predictive analytics tool we’re building for Professional + Collegiate sports organizations.

Anyhow, that’s it for this week.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday and the week ahead.

Talk soon.

Alec