Top 5 Stories of the Week: Generative AI Improvements, AIops, Web3, and Tech Expenses

Generative AI continues to be a focus in all sectors. With advancements turning simple text prompts into images, video, and even 3D animation, the technology is opening up huge creative potential.

Some of the excitement surrounding generative AI is even surprising to Dave Rogenmoser, CEO of Jasper, one of several companies now in the text-to space. He is convinced that generative AI will “affect every tool out there” as its use continues to grow.

While many players are entering the generative AI race, they all have one thing in common: the use of diffusion models – which can enhance the creative output of the technology.

At the other end of the AI ​​spectrum came news from Red Hat and IBM. The two announced plans for further automation and AIops this week through an open source project. The companies claim that this is the first project to create an intelligent NLP capability for Ansible and IT automation.

Another collaboration also emerged in the tech zeitgeist this week – one between Equifax and Oasis Labs. The two are teaming up to use blockchain technology to verify Web3 identities, which some say could boost the credibility of the Web3 ecosystem in general.

All of this week’s news is underlined by a recent survey by Battery Ventures, which found that despite the economic downturn, 54% of C-suite executives say they still plan to expand tech budgets for the coming year.

Here’s more of our top 5 tech stories of the week:

1. Red Hat and IBM team up to improve AIops with an open source projectRed Hat has new plans for Ansible with its other initiative, Project Wisdom. The company wants to take automation to the next level with IBM Research. IBM-owned Red Hat refers to Project Wisdom as the first community project to create an intelligent natural language processing (NLP) feature for Ansible and the IT automation industry.

   Tom Anderson, VP and GM for Red Hat’s Ansible Business Unit, said the future of Project Wisdom is what he sees as “true AIops, where decisions are made and decisions about content and automation are made in real time using AI.”

2. Generative AI will ‘affect every tool,’ says Jasper CEO

   For Dave Rogenmoser, CEO of AI content platform Jasper – which raised $125 million last week – the enthusiasm for generative AI was unexpected. Jasper’s announcement came just a day after Stability AI, which developed its text-to-image generator Stable Diffusion and announced it had raised $101 million.

   “I didn’t realize Stability was going to announce Monday — and when ours piled on it, it sure created a buzz around the market,” he said.

   But Rogenmoser says hype aside, generative AI — which describes artificial intelligence using unsupervised learning algorithms to create new digital images, video, audio, text or code — isn’t a flash in the pan.

3. Oasis Labs and Equifax Switch to Blockchain to Verify the Identity of Web3 Users

   This week, privacy blockchain provider Oasis Labs announced a partnership with Equifax to co-develop a Web3 ‘know your customer’ (KYC) solution, which will provide a blockchain-powered identity management and authentication solution for companies using this new iteration of adopting the world Wide web.

   The partnership between Oasis and a prominent legacy financial services company such as Equifax has the potential to add new credibility to the Web3 ecosystem and this new identity verification service.

   “We are working not only to build a better, more efficient decentralized identity and on-chain KYC solution, but also to accelerate Web3 adoption and bring more confidence to the industry,” said Dawn Song, Founder of Oasis Labs .

4. How diffusion models unlock new possibilities for generative creativity
   
   Generative models for artificial intelligence (AI) continue to gain popularity and recognition. The rise of text-to-architectures is fueling this adoption further, with generative AI models such as Google’s Imagen Video, Meta’s Make-A-Video, and others such as DALL-E, MidJourney, and Stable Diffusion.

   A common denominator of all generative AI architectures is the use of a method known as the diffusion model. Using diffusion models for generative AI can help exploit several unique capabilities, including creating diverse images and text rendering in different artistic styles, 3D comprehension, and animation.

5. Report: Tech spend holds strong, though priorities shift
   
   A recent Battery Ventures survey of 100 technology buyers across industries found that while companies are changing their technology buying behavior, their overall budget will not shrink. In fact, most budgets are expanding or will continue to grow over the next year and beyond.

   Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, the majority of CXOs – 54% – plan to increase their overall technology budget next year.