Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has unveiled a groundbreaking AI model that can work independently for nearly seven hours straight—almost an entire workday. This advancement signals a shift toward AI handling longer, more complex tasks, potentially transforming how businesses use AI on the job.

Unlike traditional AI tools designed for single tasks, Anthropic’s new model, named Opus 4, is capable of managing bigger projects without constant human input. This marks a step closer to AI functioning like a human employee or coworker, taking on broader objectives rather than simple requests.

From Task Assistant to Autonomous Worker

Anthropic, backed by tech giants like Amazon and Google, introduced Opus 4 alongside another model called Claude Sonnet 4, designed for general use. Opus 4 stands out because it can stay “on task” for about seven hours, handling work independently without needing frequent prompts.

While it doesn’t fully mimic the multitasking nature of a human workday, where tasks and projects switch frequently, this is a significant leap forward. It means AI can now tackle sustained, detailed work autonomously—handling the repetitive or mundane parts of jobs that often take up a big chunk of the day.

Scott White, product lead for Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude.ai, explains: “It’s like automating 30% of your day—those necessary but not necessarily fulfilling tasks that get in the way of your bigger goals.”

Practical Use: From Marketing to Strategy

White gave an example of how Opus 4 could help a marketer: Instead of manually digging through data, the AI could analyze past advertising campaigns across platforms like Facebook and Google, compare their results, and offer insights on why one campaign performed better.

“It’s about Claude thinking deeply over a long time about your goal,” White said. “It uses tools and reasoning to look at problems from new angles and keep pushing the task forward.”

AI Investment Booms Amid Growing Enterprise Demand

Anthropic’s release comes as interest and spending on AI skyrocket. A recent survey from venture capital firm Menlo Ventures—also an Anthropic investor—found enterprise spending on generative AI grew sixfold in 2024 compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, Anthropic is expanding its market share, challenging OpenAI’s dominance in business AI services.

Industry leaders like Google and Microsoft are also rolling out advanced AI tools. Google recently made its autonomous coding tool, Jules, publicly available, and Microsoft launched a sophisticated coding assistant for its GitHub platform. Apple is reportedly partnering with Anthropic on a new AI that can write and test code.

The Workforce Impact: Opportunity and Challenge

While AI’s rise promises productivity boosts and career growth opportunities, it also raises concerns about job losses. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report warned that 41% of employers plan layoffs as AI takes on more work-related tasks. LinkedIn’s chief economic officer recently highlighted risks to entry-level jobs in a New York Times opinion piece.

Scott White acknowledges these concerns but sees AI as a tool that could empower workers to learn new skills and take on roles beyond their formal education—for example, an engineer creating visual designs without prior training.

“This isn’t just Anthropic’s responsibility,” White said. “Governments, policymakers, and companies need to collaborate to understand how AI will shape the future workforce.”

Source: CNN – Anthropic says its new AI model can work almost an entire workday straight

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I’ve been using a beta version of Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 16 Pro for over a month now, and honestly, I haven’t noticed many changes since its features were introduced.

If you haven’t tried the public beta yet, you’ll soon get the chance. Apple is finally launching its highly anticipated artificial intelligence features with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. These updates are now being rolled out for select iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Apple Intelligence, powered by the company’s large language models, has been marketed as one of the main reasons to purchase the new iPhone 16, iPad Mini, or iMac. At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this past June, Tim Cook claimed it would elevate the user experience of Apple products to “new heights.” However, the reality is that the current experience feels somewhat flat.

An Unusual Rollout

The rollout of Apple Intelligence is different from what we usually see from Apple. Typically, the company releases all its flagship features in one major update alongside new devices. In this case, iOS 18.1 arrives just a month after iOS 18 and the iPhone 16 series. After you install iOS 18.1, you’ll need to join a waitlist to access Apple Intelligence—provided your device is compatible. This waitlist approval usually takes only a few hours. However, many of the most exciting features won’t be available until the upcoming iOS 18.2 update.

Features Available Now

So, what can you do with Apple Intelligence right now? One of the standout tools is the Writing Tools feature. This tool helps you rewrite, proofread, or summarize text throughout the operating system. For instance, the Rewrite function can adjust a sentence’s tone from casual to professional, while the Proofread feature corrects typos and improves grammar.

Unfortunately, this feature can be hard to remember since it only appears when you highlight text. It might be more useful if it were integrated as a button on the virtual keyboard.

You can also now type commands to Siri, although this isn’t entirely new. Previously, this was an accessibility feature, but Apple has now made it a default capability, catching up to Alexa and Google Assistant, which have offered this for years. Siri also has a new design, featuring a glowing effect around the screen and improved understanding of questions, even if you stumble while asking. Despite these updates, using Siri still feels familiar and somewhat underwhelming.

In the Messages and Mail apps, you can send Smart Replies—quick, AI-generated responses based on the context of your conversation, like “Thank you” or “Sounds good.” While this feature is convenient, it’s hard to feel excited about something Gmail has offered since 2017.

Summarizing content is another key feature of Apple Intelligence. You can get quick overviews of web pages and notifications. For example, if you have multiple messages in a group chat, the summary will highlight the important points, allowing you to click through for full details. However, I’ve found this feature can be unreliable; my summaries often come out as a jumbled mess. Once, it mentioned a “medical emergency” in my work emails, prompting me to check my inbox unnecessarily.

More Practical Features

Some of the most useful features of Apple Intelligence are the Clean Up tool and real-time transcription capabilities in the Phone, Notes, and Voice Memo apps. The Clean Up tool allows you to erase unwanted objects in photos, similar to a feature Google introduced on its Pixel phones in 2021. Simply select the photo, hit Edit, and choose Clean Up to remove selected items seamlessly.

The transcription feature is particularly handy for me as a journalist. It allows you to record in Notes, Voice Memo, or during phone calls and saves the transcription automatically.

A lesser-known but valuable feature is the enhanced search function in Apple Photos. Now, when you search for a photo, you have more flexibility. For instance, you can type “at the park with [your spouse’s name],” and it will pull up all relevant images in your library. This functionality relies on features like labeling people and pets, similar to Google Photos.

Looking Ahead

The few features available in this initial Apple Intelligence update are largely things we’ve seen from competitors for years. While it doesn’t matter if Apple is playing catch-up, it’s worth noting that these capabilities are now available to users in a more private and secure manner thanks to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute.

However, Apple should have waited to launch Apple Intelligence until all key features were ready to go. Siri’s reputation has been shaky for some time, and while Apple Intelligence promises improvement, Siri still feels largely the same in iOS 18.1. Most queries return the standard response: “Here’s what I found on the web.” The more advanced features will come with iOS 18.2, which includes integration with ChatGPT, allowing for more open-ended questions and detailed responses.

The upcoming update will also enhance Siri’s functionality, enabling it to understand the context of your screen. For example, if someone texts you an address, you can ask Siri to save it to their contact card. Siri will also be able to access your emails and messages, providing personalized responses based on your context. You might ask, “When do I need to leave for the airport to pick up my sister?” and Siri will respond by considering flight information and traffic estimates.

The most exciting features, which might truly elevate the iPhone experience, will arrive with iOS 18.2. These include Image Playground, which generates images from text; Genmoji, which creates custom emojis from text; and Visual Intelligence, which identifies objects in your environment and provides contextual information (like the name of an actor on a poster). I anticipate that Genmoji will become quite popular, as who wouldn’t want to create their own emojis?

I’ve downloaded the developer beta of iOS 18.2, which was released recently. So far, I’ve only accessed Visual Intelligence, but it’s more engaging than many of the current Apple Intelligence features. To use it, press and hold the Camera Control button and point your camera at something in the real world you want to learn more about. You can then “Ask” through ChatGPT or “Search” through Google. Is this similar to Google Lens, which has been around for seven years? Yes, but I’ve found myself using this feature more in the past week than any other Apple Intelligence functions.

For example, my wife was curious about our neighbor’s flowers and wondered why they were still blooming beautifully. She pulled out Google Lens on her Pixel, while I used Visual Intelligence on my iPhone. We both snapped pictures of the flowers, and both technologies confirmed we were looking at daisies, noting that some varieties can bloom in the fall with proper care.

If you’re feeling underwhelmed by Apple Intelligence, especially with Siri, rest assured that the next update aims to enhance this long-standing assistant and bring it up to par with the competition. However, given Siri’s history, it’s reasonable to be skeptical about whether it will ever be useful for anything beyond checking the weather.

Source

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Neysa, an Indian startup led by seasoned tech entrepreneur Sharad Sanghi, aims to leverage this growth opportunity by offering its AI solutions to local and multinational businesses in the country.

The Mumbai-based startup provides AI and machine learning infrastructure and platform as a service to enterprise customers based on their requirements. It also includes dedicated machine learning operations and infrastructure consulting teams to help customers find the relevant size for their infrastructure, and to fine-tune or customize the models they choose.

Before founding Neysa with his former colleague Anindya Das in 2023, Sanghi spent over 27 years at his previous venture and data center provider, Netmagic, which Japan’s NTT Data acquired in 2016. He told TechCrunch that he intended to focus on cloud infrastructure and AI in 2022 but was unable to do so. He resigned as the managing director and CEO of Netmagic in June 2023 to start fresh with Neysa.

“I started at Neysa with a view of providing infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, inference as a service, the services layer around ML, as well as the platforms that we need for developers,” he said in an interview.

Neysa initially started as an infrastructure service provider and launched its flagship platform, Velocis, in July to provide on-demand access to computing infrastructure. However, it plans to expand the product lineup by launching its developer platform and inference-as-a-service before the year-end. The startup is also working on developing an “observability for better management” of its infrastructure and securing AI workloads, Sanghi said.

With its entire suite of offerings getting ready, Neysa is looking to compete with global hyperscalers, including the typical cloud service providers such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure, as well as the new-age contenders like CoreWeave and Lambda Labs. Sanghi asserted that the startup differentiates from the existing players by offering “flexibility” in its models.

“We can offer both public cloud and private clusters. It’s also the open-source nature of our offering. All our platforms are built on open-source platforms… so there’s no lock-in for clients,” he stated.

The startup’s consultation service also aims to attract local businesses, which often find it challenging to get the appropriate infrastructure without spending thousands of dollars.

“Very often, clients come to us and say that they want so many GPUs… and when we really look at the requirement, they don’t need half the amount they had asked,” Sanghi said.

Neysa has raised $30 million in an all-equity Series A round co-led by its existing investors NTTVC, Z47 (formerly called Matrix Partners India), and Nexus Venture Partners. This follows up the startup’s $20 million seed round earlier this year.

The fresh funding, Sanghi said, will augment Neysa’s infrastructure, enhance its R&D, and broaden go-to-market. The funds will also set the base for the startup to launch its integrated Gen AI acceleration cloud service.

The startup currently has a headcount of 55 people, which it will grow by adding more engineers and staff to expand direct and indirect sales.

Neysa currently has around 12 paying customers and runs about six large proof-of-concepts. As much as 70 percent of its entire customer base has opted for the private cluster, while the remaining 30 percent is on a public cloud, Sanghi said.

While Sanghi didn’t disclose the names of Neysa’s customers, he said the startup caters to broadly three categories: research institutes, AI-native startups, and enterprise customers, initially in the banking, manufacturing, and media sectors.

Neysa’s current customer base is in India, though Sanghi said the startup does plan to enter global markets with its next round of funding — talks for which have already started, and it is expected to close in the next six to nine months.

He did not reveal the exact amount Neysa seeks to raise in its next round, though he stated that it would be “in an order of magnitude more than what we’ve currently raised.” The startup also plans to raise debt to fulfil the growing GPU and other infrastructure requirements.

Source

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