Hello Tuners,

Google DeepMind just dropped Veo 2, an AI that can create 4K videos with crazy realistic motion and lighting, Hollywood magic at your fingertips. Plus, Imagen 3 is stepping up the game with ultra-detailed, photo-realistic images, making it a must for any creative. Over in the dev world, GitHub’s giving away Copilot for free! You heard that right; now, every coder can get AI help without the paywall (well unless you knew about Tune.ai). And Grammarly’s getting even brighter with a significant acquisition, becoming the ultimate productivity assistant.

• Lights, Camera, DeepMind

• GitHub Copilot is Free for Devs

• Grammarly Acquires Productivity Startup

• Marketers On Alert for Generative Engine Optimization

Lights, Camera, DeepMind

Google DeepMind has unveiled Veo 2, an advanced video-generation AI that creates up to 4K resolution videos with improved clarity, camera controls, and more realistic motion and light effects. Veo 2 can produce two-minute clips with a better understanding of physics and textures, addressing challenges such as fluid dynamics and complex camera angles. Initially available through VideoFX, it aims to expand into Google’s Vertex AI for broader use. However, the technology still struggles with generating intricate details and maintaining coherence over long durations.

In addition, Google has updated Imagen 3, its image generation model, to produce more detailed, photo-realistic images with improved fidelity to text prompts. With enhancements in texture, composition, and style rendering, Imagen 3 is designed to support various creative industries. These tools, though promising, still face hurdles like ensuring consistency and avoiding deepfakes, and Google is working on refining them further through collaborations with creators and feedback loops.

GitHub Copilot is Free for Devs

GitHub dropped a bombshell for developers: the Copilot tool is now free, shipping by default with VS Code. Until now, Copilot was behind a paywall, with only verified students, teachers, and open-source maintainers getting access. However, The new free version comes with some limitations, with 2,000 code completions a month and a smaller selection of AI models (Claude 3.5 and GPT-4). But for casual coders and newcomers, it's a huge win. Now, you can start coding with AI assistance without the monthly fee hanging over your head.

With 150 million developers on GitHub and counting, CEO Thomas Dohmke sees this move as part of a bigger picture: making software development accessible to a billion people worldwide. GitHub’s strategic shift to a freemium model, following years of offering free private repos and Codespaces, is all about expanding its reach in an increasingly competitive AI coding market. With rivals like Tabnine and AWS in the mix, GitHub is betting that its default integration with VS Code will be the killer feature, especially in regions where $10 a month is a big ask. It's all part of their plan to make coding with Copilot the new standard for devs everywhere.

Grammarly Acquires Productivity Startup

Grammarly is leveling up its game by acquiring productivity startup Coda. Coda’s CEO, Shishir Mehrotra, will step in as Grammarly's new CEO. While the financial details remain under wraps, this acquisition is set to supercharge Grammarly’s AI capabilities, turning it into a full-fledged "AI productivity platform." With Coda’s AI tools and products in the mix, Grammarly will offer new features like generative AI chat and a productivity suite, helping users work smarter, not harder.

Mehrotra, a former YouTube exec, envisions a future where Grammarly’s assistant goes beyond just writing suggestions. It'll tap into your productivity ecosystem, from emails to project trackers, to become a more proactive, permission-aware helper. Long-term, Coda Docs will integrate Grammarly’s AI, blending the best of both worlds for a truly revolutionary productivity experience. With Grammarly already boasting 40 million active users and a $13 billion valuation, this acquisition positions them even more strongly against competitors in the booming AI writing and productivity space.

Marketers On Alert for Generative Engine Optimization

As AI-generated search results continue to rise in 2024, many websites are seeing organic traffic dip, especially with Google’s AI Overviews causing zero-click searches. Enter generative engine optimization (GEO), also known as AI search visibility optimization. This new strategy is aimed at helping companies track and optimize their presence in AI-driven search results, much like SEO does for traditional search. Otterly.AI, a startup from Austria, has hit the ground running, exiting stealth mode after surpassing 1,000 users, providing tools for developers and marketers to understand and adjust to AI search impacts, including Google’s AI Overviews.

Otterly provides real-time tracking and insights that let companies monitor AI search results and adjust their content strategies accordingly. Moving from monthly to weekly tracking, Otterly helps teams quickly test and optimize their content for AI-driven search engines. As clicks become less important, the focus shifts to brand visibility in AI-powered results. Otterly is positioning itself as the go-to tool for AI search optimization, with plans to expand its capabilities and eventually rival SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs, all while keeping its growth organic and focusing on partnerships, like the upcoming one with Semrush.

Weekly Research Spotlight 🔍

Phi-4

Introducing phi-4, a 14-billion parameter language model developed focusing on high-quality data. Unlike typical models that primarily rely on organic data from the web and code, phi-4 strategically integrates synthetic data throughout its training. While previous models in the Phi family relied on distilling knowledge from a teacher model like GPT-4, phi-4 surpasses GPT-4 on STEM-focused QA tasks, demonstrating that its data-generation and post-training techniques offer more than just distillation.

Despite maintaining the same architecture as phi-3, phi-4 delivers superior performance, particularly on reasoning-intensive benchmarks. This is achieved through a refined training curriculum, improved data quality, and innovative post-training methods, all of which enhance its capabilities relative to its size.

LLM Of The Week

Falcon 3

Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi has introduced Falcon3, a family of decoder-only large language models with under 10 billion parameters. Falcon3 builds on previous versions, enhancing performance in areas like science, math, and code. The release includes five base models: Falcon3-1B-Base, Falcon3-3B-Base, Falcon3-Mamba-7B-Base, Falcon3-7B-Base, and Falcon3-10B-Base. Key innovations include single large-scale pre-training, depth up-scaling for improved reasoning, and knowledge distillation for compact models, all designed to improve performance and reduce training costs.

Falcon3 has set high benchmarks for small to medium-sized LLMs. For instance, Falcon3-1B-Base outperforms SmolLM2-1.7B, while Falcon3-10B-Base achieves state-of-the-art results in the under-13B category. Additionally, Falcon3-Mamba-7B leads as a top-performing State Space Language Model (SSLM), offering improved reasoning and a 32K context length. The models are compatible with Llama architecture, enabling better integration into the AI ecosystem. Falcon3 also includes specialized variants like Instruct and GPTQ, ensuring flexibility for various applications.

Best Prompt of the Week 🎨

Today's Goal: Try new things 🧪

Acting as an Event Planning Strategist

Prompt: I want you to act as a content and business strategist. You will create a structured daily plan specifically designed to help an individual start a sustainable living vlog and simultaneously develop a merchandise line. You will identify key strategies for content creation, develop actionable steps for building a consistent brand voice around sustainable living, and help generate ideas for engaging vlog topics. Additionally, you will outline the process for designing and launching a merchandise line that aligns with the values of sustainability, and select tools for content production, merchandise creation, and promotion. My first suggestion request is: "I need help creating a daily activity plan for someone who is starting a sustainable living vlog and planning to launch a related merchandise line."

This Week’s Must-Watch Gem 💎

This Week's Must Read Gem 💎