AL/ML Spotlights

Website: https://www.proposalgenie.ai/

Their tagline: Write the Perfect Freelancing proposal in seconds

• What They Do: Proposal Genie is a tool designed to streamline the creation of professional proposals, cover letters, and more. It offers customizable templates, collaborative features, and automation to save time and improve efficiency. Built for businesses and professionals, it helps simplify the proposal process while maintaining high-quality output.
• Why They Stand Out: 
  
  • There's many running around (and ChatGPT can be leveraged to do this), but Proposal Genie seems to be fine-tuned specifically for these purposes. There's a cool section to create your own profile, include descriptions of your skills. It also allows you to upload your CV, then you plug in the job details and it'll generate for you. Finally, it allows you to highlight and refine specifics you want changed. Pretty nifty, and effectively slaps a nice UI/UX on top of what people can do with ChatGPT (but don't know how).
  • Jonny: Services like Proposal Genie make it even easier and more streamlined  to do specific tasks which is why I believe that targeted applications like this are always going to be in demand despite the larger players like ChatGPT being able to do the same task. The Chrome extension functionality is a great feature from Proposal Genie that even further streamlines the job application process.
• Concerns: 
  
  • Colin: I worry that people who use these tools are using it because they can't do the writing themselves, and then they never actually learn it. Writing well is hard. Part of that is developing good taste and understanding of the fundamentals. I'm not railing against the technology, but I worry about how this will affect the ecosystem in a few years. It'll be like if everyone grew up with calculators and didn't know how to actually do math themselves. Being capable of using a tool without understanding the fundamentals is extremely dangerous, particularly because even if it can generate various options, the user never developed the correct "taste" to decide which one is objectively better. The users who do have the fundamentals will stand out again in the future because they have better AI-result selection skills, and then the users who do not will have worsened their situation because they can't stand out among the crowd of generative-AI users.
  • Jonny: I wonder how the job application process will change with the advent of these job application tools. Will it become more standardized? That is to say, if everyone is using AI to have super polished applications, what are people going to do to try to stand out?
• Future Outlook:
  
  • We think users should take advantage of Proposal Genie for now because it's clear they are a wrapper running on top of ChatGPT. The price is therefore subject to how much OpenAI intends to charge for ChatGPT's API, making Proposal Genie's future beholden to OpenAI's decisions. If Proposal Genie is looking to use their initial funds to develop and host their own LLM, that might be for the best

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Website: https://theintellecthub.com/

Their tagline: Unlock your potential. Transform your future. With our AI-powered learning platform, your new skills become your superpower.

• What They Do: The Intellect Hub wants to create customized learning courses for individuals. 
• Why They Stand Out: 
  
  • Colin: So… I tried it out. You talk to a quick chatbot and explain what you want to learn. It asks how you best learn, then your current expertise. I chose to learn "How to build an inference engine" and then it created a course on theory for me, then sent me to the course. What's interesting is that it basically searches the internet for all existing free articles, videos, and more to create that course. 
  • Jonny: AI is already revolutionizing the way we learn and the education industry in general. The thing is, everyone learns in different ways. Intellect Hub highlights features such as individualized learning journeys and learning communities which I’m sure some people will find value in.
• Concerns: 
  
  • Colin: I'm not sure what the "Fair Use" status is for an AI that effectively crawls the web for you to create a course. There's an argument that this could all be done manually if your Google-fu is good enough, and it *does* do the correct thing of linking you straight to the source instead of scraping the material into the platform itself. 
  • Jonny: The platform seems unfocused and unpolished—perhaps like the site was built with some rudimentary AI as well. They seem to be pushing for users to publish online courses on their platform which, to me, just looks like a money grab.
• Future Outlook:
  
  • There's a mobile app coming soon this year, which may help those individuals trying to learn on the go.

Website: https://www.factiverse.ai/ 

Their tagline: Verify your information and mitigate risk

• What They Do: It's an AI tool for detecting and verifying claims in text. The Factiverse AI allows professionals to protect their organizations from misinformation by automating manual research tasks. It also has a nifty UI for identifying factual, biased, or opinionated claims in your text while providing sources which support or dispute such a claim. 
• Why They Stand Out: 
  
  • Colin: This is actually interesting to me because fact-checking is a very difficult task. Checking information, cross-referencing it, and finding multiple supportive sources is an onerous task I was taught in journalism school. There's that story where a lawyer submitted an AI brief and it went horribly wrong. "Is that true?" is such an important question for bringing credibility to your personal brand. In the current age where misinformation runs rampant, it's important to be able to cross-reference and fact-check something before you put it out into the world. 
  • Jonny: When the cost of publishing information is essentially free, being able to discern fact from fiction can be incredibly difficult. Factiverse is super interesting in this realm as it claims to have access to a host of search engines and millions of scientific articles, enabling it to be a powerful fact checking companion. 
• Concerns: 
  
  • Colin: As the Factiverse FAQ says: it's designed to aid you in your quest for factual information, but isn't intended to replace humans at all. I just worry that people think fact-checking being simplified means it's easily doable without second-order and third-order thinking. We need to stress the very important need to check each individual source this tool shows you and evaluate if that source is credible enough for the claim to be trusted.
  • Jonny: Factiverse seems to have a well-executed vision and well-intentioned mission. Growing up in the internet age has taught me to be skeptical of everything so my main concerns with a service like this is if it can be trusted. It’s a bit meta, I know—but my gut reaction is that I would still want to fact check the fact checking AI. 
• Future Outlook:
  
  • We look forward to any tool that purports to fight misinformation, and will be following Factiverse's career with great interest.

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Website: https://gamma.app/ 

Their tagline: A new medium for presenting ideas. Powered by AI.

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• What They Do: 
  
  • “Beautiful presentations, documents, and websites. No design or coding skills required.” puts it pretty succinctly. 
• Why They Stand Out: 
  
  • Colin: The trend continues: AI tools to enhance humans with AI-integrated workflows. I think the hardest step of creation is solving the "blank page" problem – so having a tool like this which gives you a stepping off point with minimal resource input is great.
  • Jonny: As someone who has built their fair share of slide decks, the ability to create a visually appealing and fully functional slide deck with AI simply by prompting is really appealing. Gamma is a bit more polished than other similar tools and is gaining in name recognition. I think they have potential to be the leader in this sector and be a real disruptor in the world of design.
• Concerns: 
  
  • Colin: The problem with these tools is they are only as good as the user, but also, they're only as good as what they're trained on. It basically exists for two ends of the spectrum: getting started, or finalizing polish. There are no good solutions for solving the parts of the creation process that require human vision and taste. That's good for human workers, but bad for orgs that fall into the trap of believing these tools can replace humans.
  • Jonny:  I’ve tried a few similar tools and none of them have been able to give me the level of output that I’d want to see or feel comfortable with using professionally. Gamma is at risk of falling in that same category. Unless they are able to get to the point where it’s literally like giving directions to an expert designer who can do anything you want, I’m not sure if they can differentiate enough or compete with other entrants and giants like Canva and Adobe who are working on similar tools. Their decision to tackle both presentations and website design may further stretch their focus, leaving them vulnerable to competitors specializing in either domain.
• Future Outlook:
  
  • Gamma’s dual focus on presentations and website design could create a unique niche if executed well. Bridging these two needs seamlessly might appeal to users seeking versatility in a single platform. With continued advancements in AI and design automation, Gamma has the potential to innovate and carve out its space, provided it delivers the quality and flexibility professionals demand. Success will depend on whether they can meet these high expectations and stand out in a crowded market.

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Website: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-microsoft365-chat 

Their tagline: “Your AI assistant for work​”

• What they do: An AI agent for Microsoft 365. Allows users to summarize, brainstorm, and draft content.
• Why They Stand Out: 
  
  • Colin: Native integration with Microsoft 365 suite is super. Embedding with commonly used tools is excellent, especially if it acts as a seamless bridge. A lot of mental power is spent on carrying knowledge or tasks across tooling, which this definitely solves.
  • Jonny: Copilot is the power AI tool that is going to unlock a new level of productivity for millions of users of the Microsoft suite of products. It’s one of those tools that is going to kill a bunch of startups because why would businesses continue to use and pay for an array of AI software from different providers when Copilot is going to be offered for free and is already integrated into their existing tools/database?
• Concerns: 
  
  • Colin: Data accuracy and context. Users reliant on the tool may experience atrophy in their ability to retain accuracy and context throughout their own workflow. Then there's privacy and security issues – I'm always wary about tools that have unmitigated access into what I'm doing.
  • Jonny: In the colossal war between the major business suite providers, Microsoft and Google, these integrated AI agents could be the game changing differentiator. If Microsoft Copilot can beat the competition in providing value to users, that could be a reason for G-Suite users to switch over. The risk is, the opposite scenario could also play out.
• Future Outlook:
  
  • We’re likely to see Copilot keep improving as Microsoft leverages its vast experience in building high-quality, user-focused products. With their deep integration into widely used tools like Office and Teams, and their access to advanced AI resources, Copilot is positioned to become the daily AI tool for users around the world.