Meta large language model workers depart due to lack of resources, Zoom includes AI companion in paid services and other notable stories from this week
Welcome to “#SocialStocks,” The Fly’s weekly recap of Wall Street’s reactions to social media stock news.
TIME IS MONEY:
Shareholders of shell company Digital World Acquisition (DWAC) approved a proposal to give the firm 12 additional months to complete its long-delayed merger with former President Donald Trump’s social media firm, the New York Times’ Matthew Goldstein reported, citing the vote. The move increases the chance that Trump Media & Technology Group will get access to at least $300M in cash to operate Truth Social.
SPREAD THIN:
Many of the scientists and engineers who worked on Llama and Llama 2, Meta Platforms’ (META) large-language models, have quit the project, embittered by a previously unreported internal battle over computing resources with another Meta research team working on a rival model that the company later abandoned, The Information’s Kalley Huang and Sylvia Varnham O’Regan wrote, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter. Many of the researchers have left Meta for rival companies or other AI startups, the authors note.
REINED IN:
Meta told CNBC that its return-to-office requirement became effective on Tuesday, which mandates that staff return to work from the social media giant’s physical locations no fewer than three days a week. “We believe that distributed work will continue to be important in the future, particularly as our technology improves,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC Tuesday in a statement. “In the near-term, our in-person focus is designed to support a strong, valuable experience for our people who have chosen to work from the office, and we’re being thoughtful and intentional about where we invest in remote work.”
AI COMPANION:
Zoom Video (ZM) announced that Zoom AI Companion – formerly Zoom IQ -, the company’s generative AI digital assistant, is now included at no additional cost for customers with the paid services in their Zoom user accounts. Zoom IQ for Sales, its conversational intelligence software, will be renamed Zoom Revenue Accelerator. Zoom provides admins and users control and visibility when AI features are being used or activated. Planned for spring 2024, users will also have the ability to receive real-time feedback on their presence in meetings, as well as coaching on their conversational and presentation skills. In the coming weeks, users will be able to catch up on long chat threads through generative AI summarization, and by early 2024, users will have the ability to auto-complete chat sentences and schedule meetings from a chat. By spring 2024, users will be able to add meeting summaries to Zoom Notes and summarize SMS threads and calls with Zoom Phone. In spring 2024, users will be able to interact with AI Companion through a conversational interface that will be able to understand the context of questions and support users with their content across the Zoom platform, such as prior meetings, chats, and select connected third-party apps, even initiating actions on their behalf.
POTENTIAL PIVOT IN EUROPE:
Meta Platforms is considering paid versions of Facebook and Instagram that would have no advertising for users in the European Union, Mike Isaac and Adam Satariano of New York Times reported, citing three people with knowledge of the company’s plans. The move is in response to regulatory scrutiny and a sign that how people experience technology in the United States and Europe may diverge because of government policy, according to the Times. Those who pay for Facebook and Instagram subscriptions would not see ads in the apps, said the sources. This could help Meta fend off privacy concerns and other scrutiny from E.U. regulators by giving users an alternative to the company’s ad-based services, which rely on analyzing people’s data, the people added.
ADDRESSING AI IMAGES:
Community Notes on X, formerly known as Twitter (TWTR), said: Notes on images automatically show on posts that contain a matching image — a superpower for addressing AI-generated images, edited photos, and more. It’s common for these notes to match on dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of posts. Now, you can see how many posts an image note is matching on, right in note details.
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Originally Posted September 6, 2023 – #SocialStocks: Trump social media firm given more time to complete merger
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