(This column originally appeared in Forbes)
Here are five things in tech that happened this week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 – Elon Musk slams ‘cringe’ LinkedIn and hints at creating a competitor.
Tesla co-founder Elon Musk did not mince words about his feelings concerning LinkedIn. “The cringe level is so high I just can’t bring myself to use it…” Musk replied to a user on a Twitter/X post. In the post Musk also suggested that a LinkedIn competitor is in the works. The solidity of this statement is anyone’s guess but given Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X LinkedIn creators might want to keep watch. (Source: FOX Business)
Why this is important for your business:
LinkedIn is indeed cringeworthy and to me everyone seems artificially fabulous on the platform. But Musk will have a lot of work ahead of him if he wants to take on this social media site – it’s pretty well established and used by many in the business world. I don’t think there’s much to this threat.
2 – Banks are training AI as financial advisors.
In the banking industry Chatbots are currently being programmed to interact with customers in an advisory capacity – addressing their financial questions and concerns – with the accuracy and insight of a financial planner. One example: finance company SoFi who has integrated “Galileo,” an AI customer service system reported to have “an uncanny human touch.” (Source: PYMNTS)
Why this is important for your business:
AI will absolutely disrupt the wealth management industry – but in a good way I believe. Smart financial managers will use chatbots and Artificial General Intelligence to respond to common questions and execute certain transactions and while that’s being done they’ll have more time to provide a better and more personal human experience to their clients.
3 – AI’s share of U.S. startup funding doubled in 2023.
Joanna Glasner of Crunchbase reported on the significant increase in AI investments in just one year. By comparison, investments in US startups have dropped across sectors. Glasner noted that between 2018 and 2022 AI investments hovered at a certain level then suddenly spiked this year. The explanation appears to be the shrinking pool of investment dollars to new ventures – but primarily – AI’s universal application where companies are seeing an increase in their core competency by educating themselves and incorporating the technology into their operation. (Source: Crunchbase)
Why this is important for your business:
AI is the new hot area – but is it sustainable? My bet is that billions will be wasted in bad investments but there will be a handful of AI companies that will not only change the world but make enormous profits for their investors and create the next generation of Zuckerbergs, Musks and Andreessens.
4 – Synthetic identity fraud is at an all-time high.
According to recent report by TransUnion, “synthetic identity” fraud has reached peak levels. Synthetic identities are created by merging disparate pieces of unrelated data so that an unknown infiltrator can access then use sensitive information – such as a social security number – and then scan for other key data such as another person’s current residence, a different person’s driver’s license number – so that it can all be combined to create a fake identity. (Source: SDxCentral)
Why this is important for your business:
To counteract this parasitic presence, Jason Lord, VP of Product Marketing for fraud and identity solutions at TransUnion, said: “Organizations should always be testing new fraud prevention tools… having better signals on interactions helps not only prevent fraud but gets the best consumers through faster.”
5 – Twilio expands CustomerAI capabilities with generative and predictive AI.
Communications platform Twilio is the latest company taking great leaps in its customer service model. “CustomerAI” is the label for what the company has called “Customer-Aware Generative AI through new OpenAI integration.” (Source: VentureBeat)
Why this is important for your business:
Details include voice intelligence that will source key information from conversations and predictive analytics. “Most companies know that in order to understand their customers, they need to make use of their data,” the company stated on its website. The large language model that powers voice intelligence – a major part of the CustomerAI development – is calibrated to be able to not only understand customers’ needs but also to boost the quality of the customer experience with technology that’s engaging.
