From a big new addition to a prominent AI assistant to a controversial possible update to ChatGPT, here are extracts from some of this week’s most popular news stories.
Zoom’s New-Look AI Companion Reveals Its Broader Ambitions
Zoom has unveiled its new-look AI companion, announcing a series of innovations to boost its agentic capabilities.
Chief among these is a fresh Custom AI Companion add-on that enables users of Zoom’s AI assistant to connect directly with 16 third-party apps, including ServiceNow and Salesforce.
However, this isn’t just a case of standard integration.
Instead, these connectors allow users to trigger actions in these third-party applications, via the AI Companion, without leaving Zoom.
As such, Zoom reduces the need to switch between applications when running activities like updating customer cases, revising projects, and completing onboarding activities.
The enterprise communications stalwart believes the revamped agentic AI tool will help users “maximize efficiency”.
Yet, the move also signals Zoom’s broader ambitions to position its communications platform as an organization’s operational center point. (Read on…).
OpenAI Ponders Adverts on ChatGPT as It Bids to Reimagine Commerce Experiences
Last month, the OpenAI Podcast launched, with the first episode featuring CEO Sam Altman.
During the conversation, host Andrew Mayne quizzed Altman over the potential for OpenAI to insert advertising into the much-loved AI model.
Many have touted the move, with the company projected to burn through $26BN and accumulate $14.4BN in losses this year, per the New York Times.
Addressing the speculation, Altman claimed he’s "not totally against" the idea. Yet, they aren’t sure what an advertising product would look like.
"I can point to areas where I like ads," said the CEO. "I think ads on Instagram are kind of cool [and] I’ve bought a bunch of stuff from them. But I think it would be very hard to get it right; it would take a lot of care."
Altman then underscored the high degree of trust in the independence of ChatGPT’s outputs, and appeared unwilling to break that.
Indeed, the OpenAI head honcho believes faith in web search has fallen, as with social media, because "you can tell you’re being monetized." (Read on…).
Salesforce Finally Gets Unified Contact Center Routing Right, Thanks to AWS
The Salesforce Omni-Channel engine is a unified routing solution that directs incoming customer interactions to support reps across contact center channels.
However, until recently, it had a glaring gap: voice.
