Table of Contents

• This Week

• Business Use Cases

• Things to Pay Attention to

This Week

Bottom Line Up Front

• Baidu plans to make its Ernie generative AI large language model open source, a significant move in the AI race that could impact the industry globally.

• The decision may put pressure on closed providers like OpenAI and

• to justify their pricing, as open-source models can offer lower costs and better performance.

• Industry experts, including Sean Ren and Alec Strasmore, believe Baidu's move could disrupt the AI market, particularly in terms of pricing, and may force other companies to reconsider their business models.

• The lack of accountability in AI models is a serious issue, with Ren warning that if it is not addressed, there is a risk of scaling systems that quietly extract value from millions of people without consent, credit, or compensation.

Business Use Cases

Why is this important

• Marc Benioff, CEO and founder of Salesforce, is betting big on the AI boom with a new product called AI agents, a digital workforce to autonomously complete tasks, with a goal of having a billion agents on Salesforce before the end of the year.

• The company's AI strategy is a key focus, with Marc Benioff stating that AI is doing 30 to 50% of the work at Salesforce, and that this will continue to increase, allowing humans to do higher-value work.

• Marc Benioff has said that he won't hire any more coders at Salesforce, and that today's CEOs will be the last to manage all human workforces, as AI takes over more tasks.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Hollywood's adoption of AI-generated video is being driven by the idea that it could revolutionize filmmaking, but the technology's current output is often of poor quality.

• Filmmaker Bryn Mooser's production house, Asteria, is trying to change this by using "ethical" AI models trained on properly licensed material, and giving filmmakers more control over the output.

• Mooser believes that generative AI can be a "democratizing" tool, making it easier for filmmakers to produce high-quality content with smaller teams and lower costs, but this also raises concerns about job losses in the entertainment industry.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Microsoft is considering evaluating employee performance based on their use of AI tools at work, with managers being told to include this in performance reviews.

• Julia Liuson, Microsoft's president of the developer division, stated that using AI is now a core part of every role and level at the company.

• Other companies, such as Salesforce, are also increasingly using AI, with CEO Marc Benioff saying it handles around 30-50% of the work at his company.

Bottom Line Up Front

• ChatGPT and other AI tools are being used by teachers to help with lesson planning, grading, and communicating with parents, freeing up time and increasing student engagement.

• A Gallup poll found that 6 in 10 US teachers used AI tools in the past school year, with many estimating they save around 6 hours a week, which could help alleviate teacher burnout.

• Teachers like Ana Sepúlveda, Mary McCarthy, and Lindsay Johnson believe AI tools are best used sparingly and with guidelines, to avoid replacing teacher judgment and to ensure students are not overusing the technology, and to teach them how to navigate its use.

Things to Pay Attention to

Bottom Line Up Front

• The AI industry is betting on AI getting smarter, with a focus on reasoning models that can think and show their work, but new research is casting doubt on the hype.

• Companies are spending billions on AI, with around $2 billion spent currently and 600 actual in-use cases, but the number of use cases is expected to double or triple next year.

• The AI industry is built on the idea that scale works, with bigger models and more data leading to smarter AI, but if reasoning models don't scale, it could break the momentum and make investors question their return on AI spend.

Bottom Line Up Front

• The author, Elsie McDowell, argues that the increased use of AI by students is not solely due to laziness, but rather a result of the uncertainty and changes in the university system following the Covid pandemic.

• The pandemic led to disruptions in education, including cancelled exams, online assessments, and inconsistent exam formats, which have continued to affect students even after returning to in-person learning.

• Students are turning to AI as a time-saving tool due to financial precarity, lack of time, and the need to adapt to changing exam formats, highlighting the need for universities to establish clear guidelines on AI usage and stick to a consistent exam format.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Mayo Clinic researchers have developed an AI tool called StateViewer that can identify 9 types of dementia, including Alzheimer's, using a single brain scan.

• The tool was trained on over 3,600 scans and can identify dementia type in 88% of cases, with nearly twice the speed and up to three times the accuracy of standard workflows.

• StateViewer was developed by Dr. David Jones, a Mayo Clinic neurologist, and Leland Barnard, a data scientist, with the goal of providing earlier and more precise diagnosis to match patients with appropriate care.

• Mayo Clinic researchers plan to expand the use of StateViewer and will continue evaluating its performance in a variety of clinical settings, with the goal of providing earlier understanding, more precise treatment, and potentially changing the course of these diseases.

Bottom Line Up Front

• A German data protection official, Meike Kamp, has reported the Chinese AI app DeepSeek to Apple and Google due to illegal data transfers to China.

• Kamp claims DeepSeek did not provide sufficient evidence that users' data is protected as required by EU laws, citing China's far-reaching access rights to personal data.

• Apple and Google must now review the report and decide whether to remove the DeepSeek app from their stores, following a similar ban in Italy earlier this year.