process

GenAI agents: The Future of Automated Business Operations – Tektonic AI Secures $10 Million in Funding

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Only a few years ago, one of the hottest topics in enterprise software was ‘robotic process automation’ (RPA). The rise of generative AI, however, may just be the missing key to building these kinds of systems. “Last year, generative AI happened and I realized that it unlocks some software scenarios that were impossible before,” Surpatanu said. You have to combine it with more traditional software if you want to squeeze the best out of it,” he said. Generative AI, Surpatanu argues, can bring a degree of adaptability to context and an understanding of the user’s intent to these systems that wasn’t really possible before and something that RPA often struggles with.

The Role of Women in Artificial Intelligence: An Interview with Allison Cohen, Developer of Ethical AI Initiatives

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Allison Cohen is the senior applied AI projects manager at Mila, a Quebec-based community of more than 1,200 researchers specializing in AI and machine learning. One of the projects I managed involved building a dataset containing instances of subtle and overt expressions of bias against women. I learned firsthand why this process is fundamental to building responsible applications, and also why it’s not done enough — it’s hard work! What advice would you give to women seeking to enter the AI field? How can investors better push for responsible AI?

From Robotics Consuming Themselves to Revamping Heavy Industry: The Transformation of Found Energy

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The aluminum used to make the spacecraft held more than 10 times the energy of any cutting-edge battery. To release the energy embodied in refined aluminum, Godart had to figure out how to get past the metal’s defenses, so to speak. “One of the hardest elements of heavy industry to decarbonize is the heat,” Godart said. Aluminum is slightly heavier than diesel or bunker fuel, but its energy density could be game changing for those industries. One could imagine future ships powered by aluminum dropping their waste powder off at a smelter to be refueled for a return voyage.

“Elon Musk’s X: Tesla’s $200,000 Advertising Investment”

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We now know how much Tesla paid as it released its annual proxy statement on Wednesday morning, which includes a section on “related person transactions” the company has made. Tesla has also paid X around $50,000 in 2023 and $30,000 through February 2024 for “commercial, consulting and support agreements.” Likewise, X paid Tesla $1 million in 2023 and around $20,000 through February 2024 for the same unspecified work. Tesla paid Musk’s tunneling effort, The Boring Company, $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million through February 2024. “The Committee and its counsel are aware of the media narrative regarding Musk, Tesla, and its Board,” the committee writes in the proxy. “And the Committee’s work was conducted against a backdrop of unrelenting public interest in whether Tesla would reincorporate and in Musk’s compensation.

AI Agents Take Center Stage: Betaworks’ Bold Investment in ‘Camp’ Program

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The investor’s latest “Camp” incubator trained up and funded 9 AI agent startups they hope will take on today’s more tedious tasks. The use cases for many of these companies sound promising, but AI tends to have trouble keeping its promises. But are AI agents at that stage? And it’s well within the capabilities of today’s AI agents, which would primarily be tasked with understanding natural language rather than forms. A framework for web-based AI agents with a pay-as-you-go model so if your company’s experiment craters, you only owe a few bucks.

Revolutionizing Agriculture’s HR Issues: Seso’s Innovative Software for Farm Workforces

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Seso was founded five years ago to help streamline that process and now looks to expand into a one-stop-shop HR platform for the agriculture industry. Michael Guirguis co-founded the startup after his cousin asked for his advice on whether or not her organic farm should expand. Once he started talking to potential farm customers, he realized that farms could use a lot more help with their HR beyond just finding workers. “When it comes to the back office, every farm we visited had thousands of filing cabinets,” Guirguis said. “Your HR team is in the back office doing traditional HR work,” Guirguis said.

Effortless Interview Note-Taking with Metaview’s Tool for Hiring Managers

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So they launched Metaview, an AI-powered note-taking app for recruiters and hiring managers that records, analyzes and summarizes job interviews. “Metaview is an AI note-taker built specifically for the hiring process,” Magos said. “It helps recruiters and hiring managers focus more on getting to know candidates and less on extracting data from the conversations. “Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet all have transcription built in, which is a possible alternative to Metaview,” Magos said. I’m skeptical and a bit wary, too, of Metaview’s approach to how it handles speech data.

“Accelerate Troubleshooting and Code Correction with Sentry’s Advanced AI Autofix for Developers”

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Sentry has long helped developers monitor and debug their production code. While it’s called Autofix, this isn’t a completely automated system, something very few developers would be comfortable with. In the process, Autofix will provide developers with a diff that explains the changes and then, if everything looks good, create a pull request to merge those changes. Autofix supports all major languages, though Elser acknowledged that the team did most of its testing with JavaScript and Python code. That also means that users must opt in to send their data to these third-party services to use Autofix.

Ingrid Secures $23 Million Investment to Enhance E-Commerce Delivery Platform by Eliminating ‘Free Shipping’

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Among the many stress points in e-commerce machine, delivery has long been seen as one of the more painful ones. “Delivery is the biggest unsolved puzzle is delivery part,” Piotr Zaleski, Ingrid’s co-founder and CEO said in an interview. And in case you are at all curious: Ingrid the business was not named to ensure coverage in TechCrunch by me, Ingrid. Ingrid has identified a very obvious problem that most certainly can use fixing, but it also faces a few challenges. “The only way is to build a hell of a platform that retailers want to use to take a volume position,” Zaleski said.

“Game-Changing Kilns: Furno’s Bet on Revolutionizing the Cement Industry”

Furno Kiln Prototype
The goal was straightforward but ambitious: upend the cement industry. Furno’s smaller kilns fly in the face of trends in the cement industry today, which has been chasing ever larger equipment. By building smaller kilns, Furno is hoping to lower capital expenditures through mass production and lower operating expenses through energy efficiency. And because Furno’s kilns are smaller, they could allow cement to be remade right on a construction site. Already, Furno has captured the attention of ready-mix concrete companies, which have to buy cement from vertically integrated companies.