Create pitch decks in five minutes with Beemer

🗞️ The Latest in AI: How AI is already impacting the 2024 election

Generative AI is booming and it's already playing a huge role in the race for the Republican nomination in the 2024 election. The campaigns of both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have used AI to produce high-quality videos and photos.

Almost immediately after DeSantis announced his campaign, Trump posted a deepfake video parodying the announcement on Truth Social. He has additionally posted AI images of himself, while his son Donald Trump Jr. posted a deepfake video of DeSantis edited into a scene from “The Office.”

DeSantis’s campaign responded last week with an ad that featured AI-produced images of Trump embracing Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The video criticized the former president for refusing to fire Fauci when he was still in office. The AI-generated images show Trump hugging and seemingly kissing Fauci on the head. The photos are completely fake.

DeSantis hopes to appeal to Republicans who criticized Fauci during the pandemic for recommending lockdowns. Trump supporters are attacking DeSantis for dishonesty, as the video did not disclose the use of AI technology. People close to DeSantis’s campaign are calling out Trump’s team for using the same tactics.

Generative AI has turned into a battleground between Trump and DeSantis. Only time will tell if other Republican campaigns follow suit. For voters, it’s becoming increasingly important to be able to identify AI-generated images and videos to avoid deceptive content.

Check out these two articles by The Hill and Forbes. (For those interested, there’s a lot of information that I couldn’t fit into this segment)

🤖 AI Tool of the Day: Create pitch decks in five minutes with Beemer

Beemer is one of the most impressive AI tools I’ve come across to date. It enables you to create outstanding pitch decks in five minutes or less. It’s free to use and the draft of your pitch deck is sent straight to your email inbox.

Note that Beemer is designed to create the first draft of your pitch. You will have to go through it to add your own images and customize the theme. All pitch decks are created via Google Slides. Beemer also intentionally includes an excessive amount of written content in your first draft. I actually found this to be a useful feature because it allows users to pick and choose the best content to include in the final pitch.

I used Beemer to create a showcase pitch for The Daily Update. You can check out the full draft here. I have not edited this example at all except for removing two promotional slides at the start of the presentation.

📸 Business Spotlight: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist backs AI in investigative journalism

Journalist Emilia Diaz-Struck acknowledged the benefits of AI in investigative reporting but called for efforts to ensure credible coverage at an event on Sunday. Diaz-Struck was involved with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama Papers, a leak of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records that exposed crime and corruption by offshore companies.

Diaz-Struck downplayed fears that generative AI could lead to the end of journalism and journalists. Instead, she embraced AI as “the beginning of new things.” She additionally emphasized that human factors remain central to journalism, and the principle and ethical standards of journalism remain unchanged.

Platforms like ChatGPT are already revolutionizing written communication by generating text at unparalleled speed. AI models tailored to the needs of reporting are also in development, including WELLS, the world’s first AI newsroom set to launch in 2024. Check out June 7’s newsletter for more on WELLS.

Click here for more on Diaz-Struck’s speech at an event on artificial intelligence and investigative journalism.