Win-back subscriptionsApple will let developers reach out to customers who have subscribed to the app to win them back with new offers.
Developers can configure which customers they want to reach out to, and based on that, Apple surfaces win-back offers in the App Store.
“Eligible customers can discover win-back offers across the App Store, including on your product page and in editorial selections on the Today, Games and Apps tabs, as well as within your app,” according to Apple.
Image Credits: AppleImproved search suggestionsApple said that it is adding Focus State to the App Store later this year for improved search.
It gave examples of content creator apps offering subscriptions, apps with large catalogs of content (maybe apps that offer sachet subscriptions to different content), and digital content that spans across different apps managed by one developer.
Traffic is down, newsrooms are undergoing layoffs, and publishers fear that AI technologies will only make matters worse.
Entering the fray, news reader startup Particle is teaming up with publishers to seek out a new business model for the AI era, where AI summaries of news don’t have to mean lost revenues.
Now, the company is bringing its first publishing partners into the mix to help it guide its next steps.
As a start, Particle now subscribes to Reuters newswire to help it deliver information about current events in the news.
What Particle isn’t yet ready to reveal is its business model.
Today, Meta announced AI-powered features for WhatsApp Business apps, such as helping with the creation of click-to-WhatsApp ads and generating responses to frequent customer messages.
WhatsApp Business users will be able to leverage AI to create Facebook and Instagram ads that can start a WhatsApp chat with a business.
The company said it is testing AI-powered customer support, which will automatically answer customer queries related to catalog or frequently asked questions.
Meta noted that it plans to denote AI-generated messages clearly so customers know that they are not talking to a representative of a company.
While Meta is offering these tools without a cost, its primary driver for revenue on the WhatsApp Business platform is businesses having more conversations with customers.
Chasing after other popular services in the market such as those from OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg claimed today that Meta AI is possibly the “most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use.”Meta first rolled out Meta AI in the U.S. last year.
Meta said that it plans to keep Meta AI in test mode in India.
New featuresUsers could already ask Meta AI for writing or recipe suggestions.
Plus, they can ask Meta AI to animate an image or turn an image into a GIF.
All AI things everywhere at onceMeta is adopting the approach of having Meta AI available in as many places as it can.
OpenAI is expanding to Japan, with the opening of a new Tokyo office and plans for a GPT-4 model optimized specifically for the Japanese language.
Japan is the current G7 chair and President of the G7’s Hiroshima AI Process, an initiative to promote AI safety, including stronger AI governance.
EnterprisingAs president of OpenAI Japan, Nagasaki will be tasked with building a local team on the ground to double down on OpenAI’s business in the country.
OpenAI says ChatGPT is also being used by local governments to “improve the efficiency of public services in Japan.”ChatGPT has long been conversant in multiple languages, including Japanese.
For now, OpenAI is giving early access to the GPT-4 custom model to some local businesses, with access gradually opened up via the OpenAI API “in the coming months.”
If the decisions made by corporate boards of directors can indicate where a company wants to be focusing, Amazon’s board just made an interesting move.
The company announced on Thursday that Andrew Ng, known for building AI at large tech companies, is joining its board of directors.
And given the AI whiplash that every big tech company is currently dealing with, it feels timely that McGrath is stepping away from the board now.
To stay at the forefront of the tech industry, Amazon will be looking for better thought leadership on the next steps in its artificial intelligence strategy.
It’s worth remembering that Amazon has been a leading player in AI for a long time.
EBay on Tuesday launched a new generative AI-powered feature to appeal to fashion enthusiasts: a “shop the look” section within its iOS mobile app that will suggest a carousel of images and ideas, based on the customer’s shopping history.
The idea is to introduce how other fashion items may complement their current wardrobe.
“Shop the look” will appear to any eBay shopper who has viewed at least 10 fashion items over the past 180 days, the company notes.
Google last summer introduced a way for consumers to virtually try on clothes using a new AI shopping feature, for example.
“Shop the look” will initially be available on iOS in the U.S. and U.K., with support for Android coming later this year.
X, formerly Twitter, is rolling out support for passkeys, a new and more secure login method compared with traditional passwords, to all iOS users globally.
In an update to the X @Safety account on Monday, the company shared that passkeys are now available as a login option for global iOS users.
Update: Passkeys is now available as a login option for everyone globally on iOS!
Try it out.https://t.co/v1LyN0l8wF — Safety (@Safety) April 8, 2024Passkey technology was initiated by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the FIDO Alliance, alongside the World Wide Web Consortium.
Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was also hacked to post a fake message saying that Donald Trump had passed away.
Caller ID app Truecaller today blocks between 38 and 40 billion spam calls annually for its 374 million+ users.
The update is Android-only: Apple does not allow Truecaller (or other caller ID services) to check callers’ spammer status to block calls automatically on iOS.
But to get the best out of the app, users have to engage and tweak their own lists.
This isn’t the first AI feature at Truecaller: it provides an AI assistant that screens calls to identify why the caller has dialled the user.
After updating the Truecaller app to v13.58 or later, users can find the new spam-blocking feature by going through Settings > Block.
Earlier this year, Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor launched a new company, Sierra with the goal of building these flexible AI agents.
“We believe that somewhere between 70% and 90% of interactions are going to be through AI agents in the future.
And Ultimate has done a really nice job solving up to 80% of interactions via their AI agents,” Eggemeier told TechCrunch.
He says that while the plan is to incorporate Ultimate technology into the Zendesk platform, they will continue to offer stand-alone products to other companies.
Ultimate launched in 2017 and raised $27 million, per Crunchbase.
