Great UX unlocks insane user growth for Google and Open AI
This week, OpenAI raises big money that puts them at the same market cap as Uber, AT&T, and Goldman Sachs. Pika gets cake-fied. Coding copilot Poolside raises half a billy.
Great UX unlocks markets.
Seriously, it blows them wide open.
Good design is good business. Paired with strong engineering, design can turn new technology into products people actually want to use.
Take Google’s NotebookLM, a Gemini-powered RAG tool with a nifty podcast generator which has everyone buzzing, including Andrej Karpathy who created a 10-episode podcast series “Histories of Mysterious” after spending just two hours researching and curating Wikipedia posts.
Here’s the kicker: did you know NotebookLM was available to the public for a whole year before this?
Yet it only captured the public’s imagination once it added its podcast feature, which transformed dense papers and lengthy research docs into a very listenable conversation between two speakers.
This isn’t the first time design has catalyzed AI adoption.
When GPT-3 was released by OpenAI in June 2020, it was a technical milestone but largely flew under the radar. By mid-2021, almost 18 months after its release, the GPT-3 API was powering only around 300 apps.
It wasn’t until ChatGPT, a chat interface on top of GPT-3, launched in November 2022 that the public response exploded: 100 million users in two months. For context, TikTok hit that milestone in nine months, and Instagram took over two and a half years. Current estimates put ChatGPT’s userbase today at over 200 million.
This week, OpenaI made more strides in AI UX. They announced a real-time API for voice-to-voice interactions— so developers can create conversational AI that happens instantaneously. This unfolds a whole new UX paradigm. Imagine the possibilities:
Live Interpretation: Real-time language translation during conversations.
Voice-Driven Paperwork: Imagine ditching forms entirely—think Turbotax with voice, where navigating taxes becomes a conversation.
24/7 Support Lines: Scalable support helplines without downtime; people in need are never put on hold.
Speech Therapy & Speaking Coach: Interactive voice sessions to improve how you speak, with feedback on nuances and inflections.
Chief of Staff Agents: Virtual assistants not only taking notes but actively contributing to conversations and handling next steps.
Idea Brainstormer: A back-and-forth dialogue partner to test ideas, debate, and refine your thoughts in real time.
And then there’s Canvas, a new interface for working with ChatGPT beyond simple chat-based conversations.
Canvas opens in a separate window, allowing collaborative project work—whether writing or coding—alongside the AI. It’s a live workspace where you can refine ideas together, almost like having a real-time editor to iterate code or content side by side. This new format makes collaboration between model and human more seamless than ever.
The takeaway?
If you’re building an AI company and aren’t yet working with designers — get on it! Great design may just be the secret weapon you need.
p.s. or talk to me! I’m your friendly designer and VC all rolled into one sassy package yay.
The Latest
OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models: OpenAI just closed a historic funding round, taking in a $6.6 billion investment at a $157 billion valuation. This puts them in the same market cap territory as Goldman Sachs, Uber, and AT&T.
Microsoft gives Copilot a voice and vision in its biggest redesign yet: Microsoft is unveiling a big overhaul of its Copilot experience, adding voice and vision capabilities to transform it into a more personalized AI assistant. Copilot’s new capabilities include a virtual news presenter mode to read the headlines, the ability for Copilot to see what users are looking at, and a voice feature that lets users talk to Copilot in a natural way, much like OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode.
OpenAI’s DevDay 2024 – 4 major updates that will make AI more accessible and affordable: OpenAI unveiled four major innovations at its DevDay conference, including Vision Fine-Tuning, Realtime API, Model Distillation, and Prompt Caching.
Pika 1.5 launches with physics-defying AI special effects: Pika Labs has announced it is launching Pika 1.5, an updated version of its model that offers eye-popping, physics defying special effects or “Pikaffects” that can transform imagery subjects into bizarrely malleable versions of themselves.
AI coding startup Poolside raises $500M from eBay, Nvidia, and others: Poolside, the AI-powered software dev platform, has raised half a billion dollars in new capital. It brings Poolside’s total raised to $626 million. Poolside was founded last year by former CTO of GitHub, Jason Warner and Eiso Kant.
US AI chipmaker Cerebras officially filed for an IPO, with the Sam Altman-backed Nvidia competitor expected to be valued at between $7-8 billion.