It’s been a huge week for AI, and it’s only Tuesday. Major developments from OpenAI’s Advanced Voice, Friend, Meta SAM 2, Speechmatics, Perplexity, Midjourney, Runway, Leonardo, and NVIDIA. Here’s everything you need to know.

Voice Mode for ChatGPT

OpenAI has begun a limited ‘Alpha’ access rollout of its anticipated ‘Advanced Voice Mode’ for ChatGPT Plus. The feature offers natural, real-time conversations and the ability for the AI to detect and respond to emotions.

We’re starting to roll out advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users. Advanced Voice Mode offers more natural, real-time conversations, allows you to interrupt anytime, and senses and responds to your emotions.

Users in this alpha will receive an email with instructions and a message in their mobile app. We’ll continue to add more people on a rolling basis and plan for everyone on Plus to have access in the fall. As previously mentioned, video and screen sharing capabilities will launch at a later date.

Avi unveiled Friend

Avi just unveiled Friend, an AI wearable designed to combat loneliness by providing constant companionship. The pendant takes a different approach compared to other AI wearables by focusing on emotional companionship rather than productivity.

Meta introduced Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2)

Meta introduced Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2) It’s an advanced AI model that can identify and track objects across video frames in real time. Editing tasks like object removal or replacement are going to be as simple as a single click shortly.

Speechmatics launched Flow

Speechmatics launched Flow, a new API for developers building with voice AI. It has high accuracy & broad language support, perfect for AI assistants & conversational agents.

Publishers’ Program by Perplexity

Perplexity just introduced a “Publishers’ Program” to share ad revenue with media partners. The program includes cash advances on future revenue as Perplexity builds its advertising model, set to launch in September.

Midjourney released v6.1

Midjourney released a new update to it’s AI image generator with V6.1 Upgrades include improved image quality, coherence, and text rendering, along with new upscaling and personalization models, offering faster processing and enhanced overall aesthetics.

Runway announced that Gen-3 Alpha

Runway announced that Gen-3 Alpha, the startup’s popular AI text-to-video generation model, can now create high-quality videos from still images.

Canva acquired Leonardo Ai

Leonardo Ai just announced its acquisition by Canva — aiming to accellerate innovation and expand research. It’s been impressive to watch this grow!

NVIDIA’s Project GR00T

NVIDIA’s Project GR00T introduced a new approach to scale robot data. It uses the Apple Vision Pro for teleoperation, RoboCasa for environment simulation, and MimicGen for motion, potentially revolutionizing data collection in robotics.

Author: Rowan Cheung