MS Teases AI Tool to Make Lifelike Avatars
Researchers at Microsoft have introduced an artificial intelligence tool capable of crafting lifelike human avatars. Dubbed VASA-1, short for “visual affective skills,” this AI model can generate animated videos featuring synchronized lip movements and natural head motions using just a single image and an audio clip. However, Microsoft has refrained from providing a release date for VASA-1 to the public. Citing concerns over the proliferation of deep fake content, the tech giant has opted for caution in its rollout strategy. “We are opposed to any behavior to create misleading or harmful contents of real persons,” wrote the authors of the VASA-1 report, released by Microsoft Research Asia. “We are dedicated to developing AI responsibly, with the goal of advancing human well-being,” they said. “We have no plans to release an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings until we are certain that the technology will be used responsibly and in accordance with proper regulations.” Beyond its ability to create convincing avatars, VASA-1 technology can capture a diverse array of facial nuances, adapt to non-English speech, and even work with artistic photos and songs.
India preferred digital services destination globally in GenAI era
India continues to be the preferred destination for global businesses aiming to build and expand their digital services portfolio, according to a recent study by industry body Nasscom-Avasant. Over 50% companies in the travel and transportation, telecom, media and entertainment, and construction and engineering sectors said they would choose India for outsourcing their digital services’ needs, it said. The report, ‘Digital Enterprise Maturity 5.0: Digital Readiness in the Era of AI’, also highlighted nearshoring trends, where around 45% of high-tech, travel and transportation companies, along with 41% to 43% of telecom, discrete manufacturing, and construction firms, opted to nearshore to India in 2023. Nearshoring is a business practice that involves outsourcing tasks to neighbouring or nearby countries rather than distant offshore locations. The report also pointed towards interesting trends in investments in digital services by global firms. According to the report, around 90% of global companies had plans to boost investments in key digital technology areas in 2024, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), big data analytics, cloud computing, cyber security, and intelligent automation. Further, around 71% enterprises spent over 20 % of their tech spends on digital solutions in the calendar year 2023.
‘AI girlfriends’ may be a ‘problem’ for Tinder & Bumble
Last year, Facebook parent company Meta entered the AI development race by launching Llama 2. Meta has launched an updated Llama — Llama 3 — and added its latest large language model to its budding AI assistant Meta AI. Meta’s release of Llama 3 and its integration into Meta AI represents a significant leap in AI-driven functionalities across its social media platforms, notably Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Facebook. This update enhances user engagement by enabling more interactive and personalized content creation, such as image generation and AI assistance directly within the platforms’ interfaces. For marketers, this development opens new avenues for innovative content strategies that leverage AI to create engaging visuals and responsive communication tools. Meta launched Llama 3 as two open-source variations, the Llama 3 8B and 70B models. The models feature improved pre-training and training. Meta claims that the new improvements lead to more accurate responses and a broader knowledge base to query within the large language model. Meta didn’t waste the opportunity to establish its place among the AI giants with its latest advancements, with particularly a veiled shot at OpenAI’s ChatGPT: “Thanks to our latest advances with Meta Llama 3,” Meta officials wrote in its April 18 blog, “we believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant you can use for free – and it’s available in more countries across our apps to help you plan dinner based on what’s in your fridge, study for your test and so much more.”
India: Pioneering Global Consumer Growth
Rising markets across Latin America, Africa, and Asia offer substantial growth opportunities. In 2024, 109 million people worldwide will join the consumer class — and 70% will come from these regions, according to the World Data Lab. India in Asia has around 34 MN in 2024, China has 29 MN & the rest of Asia 25 MN. Digitization is disrupting key industries in these economies, unlocking previously priced-out consumers and bringing access and economic growth. This has leveled the playing field between rising markets and developed economies as tremendous opportunities for digital businesses. Digital payments are at the center of this transformation, used by over half of the population and unlocking opportunities for both local and global players. The uptake: For global companies, these hypergrowth markets represent an unparalleled growth opportunity, especially for digital businesses. There is a clear demographic reason for this trend: rising economies have a young and growing population (in contrast with developed regions). Africa will be home to the largest adult population worldwide by 2030, with over 1 billion working-age people. India is expected to reach the same threshold by 2025, surpassing China. The effect of rising income should not be forgotten, as well: in Latin America, for example, the higher income level will be twice as important as the number of new consumers through 2030, per the World Data Lab. This means that most of the new spending in the region will come from actual consumers, who are seeing their economic status improving gradually over time. as internet access becomes more widespread, consumers and businesses get digitized, disrupting traditional industries and lowering entry barriers both for companies and users. India at 37% now will reach an internet penetration by 2027. In 10 years, digital commerce will grow by 6X in rising markets. India will have about 30% online sales (276 BN) of the digital commerce market. $16.4 BN was the cross-border ecommerce volume in India in 2023. In digital payments, India followed a similar path with its UPI (Unified Payment Interface), the instant, mobile-based payment system launched in 2016 — which now accounts for over 70% of the country’s digital transactions. A 2023 study found that UPI adoption helped to increase levels of income and business activities across India, especially “in financially less developed regions of the country.”
Hybrid multi-cloud is shaping up to be the dominant model among enterprises: Nutanix’ Faiz Shakir
India’s hybrid multi-cloud usage has grown exponentially, surpassing the global average growth rate, according to Nutanix’s latest Enterprise Cloud Index report. Faiz Shakir, the Managing Director of Sales for India and SAARC at Nutanix, shared insights into the factors driving this adoption, the challenges faced by CIO/CTOs. Nutanix surveyed nearly 100 large enterprises in India and found that 44% utilize hybrid multi-cloud, making it the most popular deployment model in the country. Data security and protection against ransomware were identified as top priorities, with plans to implement AI strategies by 2024. India is expected to double its usage of hosted private IT services in the next one to three years, while on-premises infrastructure usage is projected to decrease. Indian businesses recognize the benefits of multiple cloud environments and are actively integrating hybrid multi-cloud architectures into their operations. Several factors are driving this trend, with customers and end users recognizing that one size does not fit all. Different applications have unique requirements. In the past, the choice was between a private cloud and a public cloud. However, it has become evident that a single path is not sufficient, and options are needed to run specific use cases and applications on a private cloud while handling more unpredictable cases on the public cloud. This realization has led to the emergence of truly hybrid cloud solutions, bridging the gap between public and private clouds that allows the flexibility to move applications and data as needed. Despite the momentum, in 2024, concerns surrounding the effective management of a hybrid multi-cloud environment persist. Historically, decisions had to be made between different options, and the challenge was managing multiple silos in a unified manner. However, advancements in technology have enabled companies to efficiently manage operations through a single interface, improving operational efficiency significantly. Collaboration between private and public cloud providers has also improved, with a focus on meeting customer needs rather than competition. Companies like Nutanix have established partnerships with major cloud providers like Microsoft and AWS to deliver comprehensive solutions that cater to customer preferences. Nutanix and other companies are offering comprehensive training programs to bridge the skill gap. AI has become a focal point in discussions about the future of organizations. Many companies are exploring AI strategies, with a focus on enhancing operations while maintaining manual processes. Organizations like Nutanix are simplifying AI implementation through solutions like GPT in a box, combining software, hardware, and learning models to facilitate AI adoption. While AI is expected to streamline operations, manual intervention will still be necessary, as we are in the early stages of AI development. There’s a need to have enough generalists to manage and utilize various offerings. CIOs are developing strategies to streamline business processes, particularly product launches, by identifying the most efficient and cost-effective approaches. They are prioritizing effectiveness over speed, understanding that the quickest route may not always be the most cost-efficient and could potentially impede productivity. CIOs are evaluating which workloads are best suited for different platforms. India is leading globally in adoption compared to other surveyed countries. The majority of customers and end-users are seeking solutions that meet their specific needs. The primary drivers for IT modernization are AI, security, and sustainability.
Did Meta Just Top ChatGPT With Its Release of Llama 3?
Last year, Facebook parent company Meta entered the AI development race by launching Llama 2. This week, Meta launched an updated Llama — Llama 3 — and added its latest large language model to its budding AI assistant Meta AI. Meta’s release of Llama 3 and its integration into Meta AI represents a significant leap in AI-driven functionalities across its social media platforms, notably Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Facebook. This update enhances user engagement by enabling more interactive and personalized content creation, such as image generation and AI assistance directly within the platforms’ interfaces. For marketers, this development opens new avenues for innovative content strategies that leverage AI to create engaging visuals and responsive communication tools. Meta launched Llama 3 as two open-source variations, the Llama 3 8B and 70B models. The models feature improved pre-training and training. Meta claims that the new improvements lead to more accurate responses and a broader knowledge base to query within the large language model. Meta didn’t waste the opportunity to establish its place among the AI giants with its latest advancements, with particularly a veiled shot at OpenAI’s ChatGPT: “Thanks to our latest advances with Meta Llama 3,” Meta officials wrote in its April 18 blog, “we believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant you can use for free – and it’s available in more countries across our apps to help you plan dinner based on what’s in your fridge, study for your test and so much more.”
Over 60% followers of 2/3rds of Indian influencers on Instagram are fake
India’s influencer marketing industry, which is over Rs 1,800 crore in size, loses a significant amount of money due to fake follower fraud, which is affecting many legitimate creators, who are in a race to amplify reach and get the attention of brands.Nearly two out of three (58.5%) Instagram profiles in India have spurious or fake followers in excess of 60%, an analysis by influencer marketing platform KlugKlug has revealed.”This alarming trend is especially prevalent in the beauty and fashion industry. These industries grapple with influencers resorting to deceptive practices, potentially leading to significant financial losses for brands investing in influencer marketing campaigns,” said Kalyan Kumar, Co-Founder, Klug Klug India. Only 2.48 MN profiles out of the eight million audited exhibited are credible and high-quality followers, the platform said. A lot of the fake follower farming is happening in India, then Brazil and Indonesia. Suppliers of synthetic followers (humanly managed profiles of dubious quality, sold as real followers) are largely from Russia and Turkey,” said Kumar. “A lot of the fake follower buying is happening in the Middle East as well. The UAE has 40-50% incidence of fake followers among the top influencers, just like India. In Indonesia, 19% of followers are dubious on Instagram, which is 59% in India, as Indonesia sells more fake followers than it buys.” The cost of buying fake followers can be as low as Rs 8 to Rs 10 for 1,000 followers and can go up to Rs 50 per 1,000 followers on Instagram, Kumar said. Kumar said that as the industry is growing, more categories of influencers in India are buying fake followers. “The micro and nano influencers have started buying fake followers and the problem is that brands and (influencer marketing) agencies decide an influencer on the basis of following. Creators buy followers to increase their reach, which can help them charge more from brands.” Influencers are categorized into five types based on their social media following. Nano influencers are those with 100 to 10,000 followers, while micro influencers command a following of 10,000 to a lakh. Macro and mega influencers have a following of 1 lakh to 1 MN and over 1 MN, respectively. “In India, fake followers and bots are widespread, making it challenging for brands to identify and partner with truly influential content creators for their influencer marketing campaigns. This situation adds extra complexity and cost to the process, said Sahil Chopra, Founder & CEO- iCubesWire, an ad tech platform. Brands lose 30-50% of their money on every campaign due to fake followers, Kumar said. “Let’s take the example of the brand Sugar Cosmetics. In the last one year, 11,000 female profiles tagged the brand. However, only 3,000 profiles had a credible following. If today a brand picks 100 influencers, at least 30 of them are not going to be worth their money,” Kumar said. Out of the total size of India’s Rs 1,800 crore influencer marketing industry, at least 25%, which is over Rs 400 Cr, has gone down the drain, he added.”For brands, it’s like paying for gold and not getting the worth of it as they invest resources in partnerships that yield superficial reach but lack genuine engagement,” said Ramya Ramachandran, CEO & Founder of Whoppl, an influencer marketing platform.” Because influencer marketing is gaining a lot of momentum, a lot of influencers invest in followers and fake bots to grow the followers faster, which results in poor engagement rates. This complicates efforts to measure true impact and ROI (return on investment).” While fake followers are being bought by all types and size of influencers, a smaller fraction, who are larger influencers, also buy comments and likes, in what is known as engagement buying . “The big creators who monetise their content can afford to buy likes and comments, because with likes and comments one has to do it for every post unlike with fake followers,” said Kumar. “Also, they buy likes and comments because they have to show higher engagement to brands. Most brands we have met do not know that influencers can buy fake likes and comments.” But it is not just brands who face the side-effects of fake followers; some influencers, too, are losing opportunities.”There are many legitimate creators available yet brands are working with the top 500 creators and they are so overused. This is becoming a roadblock in the industry. It is very hard to make space for new creators,” said Kumar. “Why should an influencer with one million followers of which 70 percent are fake win the battle against a creator who has half a million followers that are all legit?” Despite the menace of fake followers affecting the influencer industry, there are some red flags that brands and influencer marketing agencies have started to look out for. “If someone has 100,000 followers and doesn’t get even 10,000 views, we know for certain that they are not worth investing in. We follow certain benchmarking practices to ensure we avoid working with people with a higher number of fake followers. For example, we do not work with creators below a 2-3 percent engagement rate. Looking at comments is also a great way to know whether their following is genuine or not,” said Shivam Agarwal, Co-founder of Kromium, an influencer marketing firm. For agencies, it is second nature to understand which profile has bots, said Viraj Sheth, co-founder and CEO of influencer marketing platform Monk Entertainment. However, he said that while celebrities with upwards of 10 million followers have a high percentage of fake followers, the impact is not much because of the large number. “These accounts (big influencer accounts) have 100,000-200,000 likes on average, and because of this, brands don’t evaluate how many fake followers potentially are there and whether or not they should be paying the amount they are. What they (brands) are evaluating is how many likes and comments they are getting, on average,” he added. Kumar expects the ratio of fake followers to come down among the bigger influencers as he thinks big accounts will be under the lens due to more awareness among brands. “Awareness has increased and today even audiences can spot a bot. If a micro creator with 20,000 followers buys 50,000 bots, then the ratio will be off and the creator will be called out. This education among brands and audiences is positive for the influencer marketing ecosystem,” said Sheth.
