WhatsApp is testing Meta AI, its large language model-powered chatbot, with users in India and some other markets, signalling its intentions to tap the massive user base to scale its AI offerings.
The company recently began testing the AI chatbot, until now available in the U.S., with some users in India, many of them said.
India, home to more than 500 million WhatsApp users, is the instant messaging service’s largest market.
Meta unveiled Meta AI, its general-purpose assistant, in late September.
The AI chatbot is designed to answer user queries directly within chats as well as offer them the ability to generate photorealistic images from text prompts.
As Walmart works to remain competitive, it’s taking a more piecemeal approach to automation, through partnerships with a range of different robotics firms.
On Thursday, the mega-retailer announced a partnership with Fox Robotics, which brings 19 of the Austin-based startup’s robotic forklifts to its distribution centers.
Today’s news follows a 16-month pilot, which found Walmart trialing the technology in Distribution Center 6020.
DC 6020 is the place where Walmart began trials with Symbotic’s package sortation and retrieval technologies.
Following that successful trial, Walmart announced plans to roll out the technology to all 42 of its Regional Distribution Centers — that was nearly double the original target of 25.
A 2021 study found that if farmers didn’t use pesticides, they would lose 78% of fruit production, 54% of vegetable production, and 32% of cereal production.
At the same time, the way pesticides are delivered is not ideal: The only way to guarantee enough pesticide distribution is to spray too much.
By reducing foliar pesticide usage by 30% to 50%, AgZen’s technology might help mitigate these impacts, aligning with the critical need for improved spray efficiency highlighted in recent reports.
AgZen is preparing to launch RealCoverage commercially later this year through a lease-to-own program, which helps put the system into financial range for farmers.
The company suggests that by reducing the amount of chemicals used, the system pays for itself within a season.
