Welcome back!

Lots of news from Amazon today and we’ll also take a look at why government agencies are scrambling to hire chief AI officers.

Let’s jump in.

In today’s Daily Update:

• 🗞️ Amazon launches business chatbot

• 🤖 D.C. scrambles to hire chief AI officers

• 📸 Amazon is using AI to deliver holiday packages faster than ever

• 🚨 AI Roundup: Three quick hits

Read time: 2 minutes

TOP STORY

🗞️ Amazon launches business chatbot

Amazon just announced that it will launch a business chatbot powered by generative AI called Q. 

The details:

• Q is Amazon’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

• Amazon says Q can synthesize content, streamline day-to-day communications and help employees with tasks like generating blog posts. 

• The company recently said it would invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, which is the San Francisco-based company behind Claude. 

• Amazon hopes that Q will help it catch up as a leader in AI research. 

The relevance: Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers AI and machine learning services to over 100,000 customers. It’ll be interesting to see if Amazon tailors custom versions of Q to meet clients’ varying AI demands. 

AI INSIGHT

🤖 D.C. scrambles to hire chief AI officers

Hundreds of federal government agencies are racing to find more than 400 chief AI officers (CAIOs) by the end of the year. 

What you should know:

• President Biden’s recent AI executive order requires every arm of government to have a top exec who is ready to deal with AI.  

• CAIOs are responsible for the “coordination, innovation, and risk management for their agency’s use of AI.”

• The position requires PhD level education with a maximum pay of $212,100.

• Private sector CAIOs earn between $223,184 and around $300,000 according to Glassdoor’s database. 

My thoughts: This is a promising initiative from U.S. government agencies that are in need of AI leadership. Still, it seems unlikely that agencies will attract top AI talent from the private sector. 

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT

📸 Amazon is using AI to deliver holiday packages faster than ever

Amazon is leveraging AI to prepare packages for dispatch within 11 minutes of an order placement at same-day facilities — the company’s quickest delivery time yet. 

Key points:

• Amazon uses AI to analyze and plot delivery routes, as well as to forecast daily demand for over 400 million products. 

• AI is enabling faster delivery as delivery stations go from handling 60,000 packages a day to 110,000 during the holiday season. 

• Amazon’s new Sequoia system helps the company identify and store inventory 75% faster while reducing order processing time by 25%. 

• The company says AI and automation have created 700 new robotics-related jobs.

The bottom line: Amazon has been using AI and machine learning for more than 25 years, so much of this technology isn’t new. This news highlights the often invisible ways in which AI optimizes workflows and streamlines operations. 

MORE TRENDING NEWS

🚨 AI Roundup: Three quick hits

• Job Displacement: New research by the European Central Bank suggests that AI could reduce wages but not destroy jobs. 

• Academic Dishonesty: Survey reveals that 56% of college students admit to using AI to complete assignments. 

• Under Fire: An international software development conference gets cancelled after high-profile attendees discover that at least one panelist was an AI-generated woman.

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Want to continue the conversation? Connect with me on LinkedIn and I’m happy to discuss any of today’s news. Thanks for reading The Daily Update!

Jack

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