Let's talk about LangChain and why it is so critical

Hey Readers, Happy Sunday! 👋

Today the email is going a bit late…but better late than never! In today's edition, I'll cover the following:

1. Post of the week: What is LangChain?

2. News of the Week:

• Microsoft Build 2023 announcements: Azure AI Studio, Microsoft Fabric, and Copilots everywhere!

• Adobe Photoshop now has AI built-in

• TikTok is testing a chat interface

Let's dive in! 🤿

📚 My AI post this Week: What is LangChain

LangChain is a new software library created by Harrison Chase that entered the scene around late 2022, amid a skyrocketing interest in Large Language Models (LLMs) due to significant advances in the field. Despite being in its early days, LangChain is already packed with fantastic features for building tools around the core of LLMs. They recently announced $10M in seed funding.

🗞️Top News of the Week

1. Microsoft Build was all about AI

This week Microsft had its annual Developer conference, Microsoft Build. It was packed with announcements sharing the future of AI. I would like to highlight three announcements:

• Microsoft launches Fabric, a new end-to-end data and analytics platform: This new data and analytics platform called Microsoft Fabric, is aimed at unifying and simplifying the data stack for enterprises. The platform centers around OneLake, Microsoft's data lake, but can also pull data from Amazon S3 and soon Google Cloud Platform. It includes integration tools, a Spark-based data engineering platform, a real-time analytics platform, and an AI-based analytics tool. The platform is designed to create a unified experience around core data analytics workloads, with a unified compute infrastructure and a single data lake.

• Copilots are everywhere, you can even develop your own: Microsoft is adopting OpenAI's open plugin standard for ChatGPT to boost AI plugin interoperability across its services, including Bing, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Bing is expanding its plugin support, adding Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Redfin, and Zillow to its ecosystem. Furthermore, Bing is being integrated as the default search engine in ChatGPT to provide more accurate, web-sourced answers. This feature is currently available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and will be offered to free users soon.

• New Azure AI Studio and updates to the Azure OpenAI Service: Microsoft is introducing new tooling for Azure AI to assist developers in constructing, deploying, and operationalizing advanced AI applications. These tools include Azure AI Studio, which simplifies the integration of external data into Azure OpenAI Service. Additionally, Microsoft unveiled Azure Machine Learning prompt flow, designed to simplify the development of prompts while utilizing open-source prompt orchestration solutions like Semantic Kernel. Updates for Azure OpenAI Service, which includes popular models like ChatGPT and GPT-4, have also been announced. These enhancements allow developers to deploy cutting-edge AI models using their own data, a Provisioned Throughput SKU providing dedicated capacity, and plugins to facilitate the integration of external data sources into Azure OpenAI Service. Currently, over 4,500 customers are utilizing Azure OpenAI Service.

2.  Adobe Unveils Future of Creative Cloud With Generative AI as a Creative Co-Pilot in Photoshop

Adobe has launched an AI-powered feature in Photoshop, "Generative Fill," that utilizes machine learning to create realistic images and fill in missing or empty areas seamlessly. By analyzing the image's elements and textures, the tool intelligently generates and blends new pixels, enabling users to remove unwanted elements easily. Developed with an emphasis on ethics, the AI models are trained on diverse datasets to reduce bias. This innovative feature, beneficial for designers, photographers, and advertisers, signifies a significant advancement in AI-driven image editing while acknowledging the need for ethical guidelines and responsible use.

3. TikTok is testing an in-app AI chatbot called ‘Tako’

TikTok is testing a new AI chatbot named "Tako" in select markets to enhance user interaction and content discovery on its platform. Tako appears in the TikTok interface and responds to user questions about videos, offering recommendations for new content based on natural language queries. For example, while watching a historical video, Tako might prompt users to ask about the event's significance or suggest other videos based on the user's preferences. The bot was initially discovered by app intelligence firm Watchful.ai, and while it's not currently public in the U.S., TikTok confirmed the bot is under testing in other global markets, including an early limited test in the Philippines.

See you next Sunday!

Armand 😎