In anticipation of the adrenaline-fueled film, everyone can get in on the action by using generative AI to become part of the iconic Expendables cast.

PhotoRoom, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based photo editing app, has joined forces with Lionsgate to launch the official filter for the fourth installment of The Expendables franchise. The AI-powered selfie generator allows fans to recreate themselves in the image of the hardcore mercenaries in anticipation for the film's release on September 22.

The immersive, free tool uses PhotoRoom's leading generative-AI technology to place you in The Expendables universe. Fans simply visit expendables.movie on a phone or computer and upload a selfie. From there, the AI-generator instantly removes the original background and makes you part of the elite team.

PhotoRoom's technology has allowed Lionsgate to create an easy, instant way for fans to recreate their own versions of the movie's explosive posters with the same quality as the promotional posters for the film's cast. The API was implemented in just a few hours and provided instant integration of user photos into the Expend4bles movie poster.

"The Expendables team make the exceptional look easy, and we wanted to provide fans with the same superior experience", said Matthieu Rouif, CEO of PhotoRoom. "Since the franchise was first launched 11 years ago, The Expendables have built a loyal fan base who are eagerly anticipating the next chapter. The filter has heralded a new era of user generated content giving everyone an opportunity to engage with the film creatively while they wait for their favorite action-thriller."

Earlier this year PhotoRoom worked with Warner Bros to create the viral Barbie Selfie Generator and Netflix to promote the latest season of Black Mirror. In addition to these successful campaigns, Lionsgate chose to partner with PhotoRoom for their speed of implementation, ability to handle a large volume of calls and the professional quality of their user-generated output.

"As a leader in creative artificial intelligence, we knew PhotoRoom's technology would deliver an exceptional product for us as we build excitement for the upcoming release," said Sherry Voong, Manager of Digital Marketing at Lionsgate. "There is cult-like quality to our Expendables fanbase and it's important that we engage with them in unexpected ways, making them feel deeply connected to the franchise for years to come. This filter will do that and more!"

Downloaded more than 80 million times globally from mobile app stores, PhotoRoom has become increasingly popular among small businesses, e-commerce vendors and content creators to create high-quality imagery. The photo editing software includes several free tools that are powerful enough to create outstanding images yet simple enough to be used without any training.

Appen Enables Enterprises to Build More Complex Conversational AI Solutions

Appen Limited, a leading provider of high-quality data for the AI lifecycle, today announced the launch of two new products that will enable customers to launch high-performing large language models (LLMs) whose responses are helpful, harmless and honest to reduce bias and toxicity. These solutions are:

AI Chat Feedback — empower domain experts to assess a multi-turn live conversation, enabling them to review, rate and rewrite each response.

Benchmarking — a solution designed to help customers evaluate model performance across various dimensions, such as model accuracy, toxicity, etc.
The rise of LLM-based chatbots and assistants has accelerated demand for more sophisticated conversational AI that can support multiple tasks. It is important to test a LLMs contextual understanding and coherence in complex conversations that extend over multiple turns or dialogues, mirroring real-world applications. This will help identify strengths and weaknesses in handling extended interactions, ultimately enhancing the quality of user experiences and the model's practical utility. Appen's AI Chat Feedback manages the end-to-end flow of data through multiple rounds of evaluation and provides customers required data to help improve models.

Appen's Benchmarking tool solves an inflection point businesses face while under pressure to enter the AI market quickly: how to determine the right LLM to choose for a specific enterprise application. Model selection has strategic implications for many dimensions of an application including user experience, ease of maintenance and profitability. With the Benchmarking solution, customers can evaluate the performance of various models along commonly used or fully custom dimensions. Combined with a curated crowd of Appen's AI Training Specialists, the tool evaluates performance along demographic dimensions of interest such as gender, ethnicity and language. A configurable dashboard enables efficient comparison of multiple models across various dimensions of interest.

"As AI Chatbots grow more advanced, the stakes are higher for enterprises to get them right before they're released into the world, or they risk harmful biases and dangerous responses that could have long-term impacts on the business," said Appen CEO Armughan Ahmad. "Appen's new evaluation products provide our customers with an essential trust layer that ensures they are releasing AI tools that are truly helpful and not harmful to the public. This trust layer is backed by robust datasets and processes that have proven effective in our 27 years of AI training work, and a team of over a million human experts who are attending to the nuances of the data."

Human feedback has been shown to be critical to the performance of LLM models. Appen's world-class technology is reinforced by its global crowd of more than 1 million AI Training Specialists who evaluate datasets for accuracy and bias. The AI Chat Feedback tool directly connects a LLM output with specialists so that it can learn from diverse, natural chat data. Appen leveraged its over two decades of experience with intuitive, efficient annotation platforms to design a chat interface that demonstrates familiarity and ease. Specialists chat live with a model, whether a customer's model or a third party's, and rate, flag and provide context for their evaluation. This white-glove service extends to a project-dedicated staff who meticulously analyze each batch of data, uncovering edge cases and optimizing the data quality.

Acquisition extends market-leading Yahoo Finance's capabilities to social investor communities and community-driven context

Yahoo today announced the acquisition of Commonstock, a broker-agnostic social and community-based platform that drives insights for retail investors. The acquisition advances the power of community for Yahoo Finance and accelerates the brand’s strategy to deliver unparalleled retail investing resources, solutions and experiences to investors of all skill sets and levels.

"Our vision for Yahoo Finance is to be the premier singular destination for all our customer’s financial needs,” said Tapan Bhat, President of Yahoo Finance. “Our platform caters to every stage of the investment process - from providing pre-trade market news and analysis, facilitating engaging pre- and post- trade conversations within our community of like-minded investors, to offering effective self-directed portfolio management tools and insights. Acquiring Commonstock reinforces this vision. The Commonstock team has built a trusted community, sharing high-quality insights and knowledge that help everyday investors create wealth. Together, Yahoo and Commonstock will further empower investors of all skills and levels through a one-stop shop for smart financial decisions.”

Launched in August 2020, Commonstock has emerged as a popular platform for retail investors. With more than $10 billion in connected assets, the platform enables users to link their brokerage accounts, share their portfolio's performance, and discuss their trades and strategies. Its real-time alerts notify users when friends make trades, encouraging the exchange of investment strategies and fostering a collaborative investment environment. Commonstock will enhance the unique capabilities of Yahoo Finance which is home to one of the largest and most active financial communities on the web, with over 150 million global monthly users.

"Joining Yahoo Finance is a tremendous opportunity to build community and products on the largest consumer finance stage, which will positively impact millions of loyal users," said David McDonough, CEO and founder of Commonstock. “For me, it’s personal. Yahoo Finance changed my career trajectory during the financial crisis over a decade ago. I was able to teach myself about the stock market and learned from other investors on the Yahoo Finance message boards. The unique blend of Yahoo’s reach and Commonstock’s expertise in creating retail investment communities is an incredibly powerful combination. This acquisition will allow us to accelerate our mission at scale, emphasizing community-driven knowledge and ensuring the amplification of quality insights to separate signal from noise.”

Commonstock has attracted notable investments from distinguished organizations including Coatue, QED, Floodgate, Upside Ventures, Resolute Ventures, and Abstract Ventures, as well as renowned investors such as Philippe Laffont, Bill Ackman, Ari Emanuel, Michael Li Jin, Turner Novak and Jill Carlson.

With this acquisition, the Commonstock team will join the Yahoo Finance organization. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

via NewMediaWire - Ethical Web AI, also known as Bubblr, Inc. (OTC: BBLR), a pioneering ethical technology firm dedicated to reshaping the online experience, is thrilled to unveil Version 2.0 of its cutting-edge AI Seek consumer app. This new release brings a more affordable and enriched Chat GPT 4.0 experience to users. AI Seek 2.0 is now available for submission to both the Apple and Google Play Store.

Since its initial launch on July 30th, AI Seek has gained traction among users, though it has not yet been extensively marketed. Based on invaluable feedback from early members, the Ethical Web AI team has been able to craft an improved and more intuitive user experience in this updated version.

AI Seek 2.0 boasts a complete redesign, making it even more accessible for users of all tech backgrounds. Gone are the days of navigating through menus; now, users can enjoy icon-driven functions complete with tooltips. Plus, the updated appearance is clean and streamlined, optimized for effortless navigation and usability. AI Seek's user interface (UI) now aligns with the sleek and minimalist aesthetics of Apple's Cupertino and Google's Material design frameworks.

In line with our previous press release, this revamped version of AI Seek will serve as the foundation for essential explainer videos on the AI Seek website, providing users with a more comprehensive understanding of the app's capabilities. Furthermore, we're excited to announce the development of instructive video tutorials that will showcase a variety of use-case scenarios.

One standout feature of the synchronized desktop microsite is the ability to export results to various file formats, including Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, or even programming language files like DART and Python, without any loss of formatting. This added functionality, not currently available in the native Chat GPT version, is sure to make AI Seek a preferred choice among users.

The Ethical Web AI team is already hard at work on the next iteration of AI Seek, which promises to deliver an even more enhanced user experience. Version 3.0 will introduce a secure desktop microsite for each AI Seek user, granting them full access to the app's functionalities without sacrificing their anonymity or security.

With this suite of exciting updates, Ethical Web AI is solidifying its position as a leader in ethical and innovative technology, bringing consumers a new era of intuitive and secure AI applications.

Bounteous, the digital innovation partner of the world's most ambitious brands, today announces that its Bounteous Accelerator, Activate for Adobe Experience Manager, has been officially recognized as an Adobe Accredited Solution. This accreditation signifies Bounteous’ expertise in delivering exceptional solutions, having met the criteria set by Adobe, including verification by Adobe technical experts, successful previous deployments, and an approved go-to-market plan.

Bounteous now joins an esteemed group of Adobe Partners with accredited solutions for Adobe Experience Manager. Bounteous’ Activate solutions are accelerators designed to maximize speed to value, scalability, and long-term efficiencies. By leveraging these solutions, clients can establish the foundation necessary to create transformative digital customer experiences across all touchpoints, unencumbered by the limitations of traditional accelerators.

“We are honored to receive the Adobe Accredited Solution badge,” said Brett Birschbach, Senior Vice President of Bounteous' Adobe Practice. “Activate for Adobe Experience Manager has helped our customers leverage Adobe Experience Manager to support complex enterprise needs. Adobe Experience Manager is a foundational solution for many of our customers, and Activate gives our customers an implementation built on best practices."

Activate for Adobe Experience Manager facilitates swift and incremental migration to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service by establishing Adobe's best practices and patterns while ensuring long-term flexibility. With unique features exclusively available through Bounteous' Activate, clients can maximize the value derived from Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics, and Adobe Target by streamlining implementation, reducing reliance on custom development, and minimizing ongoing maintenance costs. Activate guarantees that Adobe Experience Manager platforms are not only optimized for MVP but also capable of supporting an enterprise's intricate requirements and scaling without the need for reworking or changing patterns.

​​"Adobe Experience Manager is relied on by brands and businesses worldwide for the delivery of high-impact personalized content experiences," said Tony Sanders, Senior Director, Americas Partner Sales at Adobe. "Bounteous’ strategic approach to Adobe Experience Manager streamlines implementation and allows companies to scale and compete at pace, in an era where customer-facing content is defining business impact."

Bounteous remains committed to delivering innovative solutions and enabling clients to realize their digital transformation goals. The recognition as an Adobe Accredited Solution reaffirms Bounteous' position as a trusted partner for brands seeking to unlock the full potential of Adobe Experience Manager.

You.com, the pioneer in AI chat for search, today announced it’s now available on WhatsApp, empowering more people to experience AI chat and search seamlessly where they text daily.

Around the world, WhatsApp’s expansive user base can now tap into You.com’s vast knowledge and conversational search capabilities. With just a message, users can experience AI chat and search and get answers accompanied by sources and direct web links.

To begin a conversation with You.com on WhatsApp, text +1 585-496-8266 (+1 585 4 YOU COM).

The inclusion of You.com on WhatsApp marks another step toward meeting users wherever they are, providing even more convenient ways to help people get more done.

“At You.com, our goal is to build the most useful chat search engine. WhatsApp is another great way to chat with our AI that is more factual, up-to-date, and will give you citations for your questions — no matter where you are,” said Richard Socher, founder and CEO of You.com.

“WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the LATAM region, which is also where we have seen a lot of growth. Now users worldwide, particularly our wonderful LATAM community, can search without switching apps. We’re just a message away,” said Socher.

Stay Connected with You.com

HCLTech, a leading global technology company, announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to accelerate the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) at the company and by enterprises globally.

The collaboration aims to empower enterprises to harness the power of AWS’s advanced GenAI portfolio that includes Amazon CodeWhisperer, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Titan, AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia.

As part of the collaboration, HCLTech intends to use Amazon CodeWhisperer with over 50,000 HCLTech engineers, cloud practitioners and developers to build secure applications and leverage AI responsibly, internally and for clients.

HCLTech will also integrate its Advantage Cloud platform for automated mass application migration to cloud with Amazon CodeWhisperer, enabling automated rehosting, refactoring and re-platforming treatments with a centralized dashboard to monitor and plan migrations.

“GenAI is a powerful technology that has the potential to revolutionize industries,” said Prabhakar Appana, Senior Vice President and Head of AWS Ecosystem Business Unit, HCLTech. “By collaborating with AWS, we bring to our clients the latest GenAI capabilities to accelerate innovation and establish a robust global AI economy.”

The AWS-HCLTech collaboration demonstrates a shared commitment to exploring industry solutions leveraging AI advancements. For instance, HCLTech developed Ziva on AWS, an AI bot for the financial services industry. HCLTech has also been recognized as an ML-powered Amazon Connect launch partner, further underscoring the strength of this strategic partnership.

“The rapid adoption of CodeWhisperer is indicative of the value it provides to the developer community by helping them build software faster, more responsibly and more securely,” said Deepak Singh, Vice President of Next Gen Developer Experience, AWS. “GenAI has emerged as a transformative technology that will reimagine how applications are built, and with this collaboration, we look forward to helping 50,000 HCLTech engineers, cloud practitioners and developers leverage the power of AWS GenAI technologies to build and innovate faster and responsibly.”

HCLTech offers a unique set of end-to-end AI capabilities from chip development to business process optimization. Leveraging strategic partnerships with AWS and many others, HCLTech is paving the way for the adoption of GenAI across industries.

ACE LLMs are a family of domain-specific models, purpose-built to transform enterprise conversations. Built atop foundation models, ACE LLM is fine-tuned for specific industries and functions, with built-in guardrails and controls.

Gupshup, the world's leading conversational engagement platform, today announced the launch of ACE LLM, a family of domain-specific Large Language Models specialized for functions such as marketing, commerce, support, HR & IT, and industries like banking, retail, utilities and more. Built upon foundation models such as Meta's Llama 2, OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo, Mosaic MPT, Flan T-5, and others, ACE LLM has been meticulously adapted for specific industries and functions and is also equipped with enterprise-grade safety controls and guardrails.

ACE LLM empowers enterprises to quickly and effectively transform conversational experiences across various stages of the customer lifecycle. From product discovery, lead generation, and commerce to troubleshooting and customer support, these models enable more precise, human-like interactions delivered with speed, scale, and compliance along with data governance, all while maintaining a lower total cost of ownership.

Available in 7 to 70 billion parameter sizes, ACE LLM generates text in 100+ languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Bahasa, Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, and English among other languages. ACE LLM can be even more powerful in conjunction with the journeys built in Gupshup's Conversational Engagement Platform to enable goal-oriented business conversations that drive conversions. 

In a poll done by Gartner recently, 68% of executive leaders believed that the benefits of Generative AI far outweigh the risks. Despite this widespread acknowledgment, enterprise usage of Generative AI globally has suffered because of concerns about costs and data security. ACE LLM addresses these issues, enabling enterprises to harness the transformative power of generative AI.

The built-in guardrails in ACE LLM eliminate irrelevant, out-of-context responses. When combined with a company's knowledge base, the lift in accuracy levels and transparency make the output ready to handle dynamic user conversations. In addition, this unique LLM also supports enterprise-level controls for accuracy, source data boundaries, tone, auditing, teach mode for non-generative responses, automated testing, and analytics. 

Beerud Sheth, CEO and Co-Founder of Gupshup, said "To harness the full power of foundation LLMs, enterprises need to fine-tune them for their domain requirements and add additional guardrails around security, compliance, and relevance, while also ensuring data residency and cost efficiency. Gupshup is excited to launch the ACE LLM family of domain models, which are custom-built to fill this gap, thereby enabling enterprises to transform their customer experiences."

ACE LLM is available in the Gupshup public cloud and offers deployment options with support for geo-specific data residency or enterprise private cloud (VPC) with high scalability.

Gupshup is a pioneer in leveraging domain-specific, fine-tuned large language models (LLMs) to automate the creation of enterprise-grade chatbots with appropriate guardrails. In January 2023, it launched Auto Bot Builder, a tool that leverages LLMs to automatically and effortlessly build advanced chatbots for enterprises. Auto Bot Builder initially leveraged OpenAI's GPT-3 as the foundational model, and since then has added support for more models such as Llama 2, OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo, MPT, and others. The chatbot building tool has been deployed by a number of Gupshup's clients including Middle East's largest utility DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) and Tata capital, one of India's leading NBFCs among others.