Welcome, humans.

Earlier today, we heard a scream echo from deep within a Big Tech co:

“The business people said ‘just use AI’ but they have no idea what that even meeaaaannnnsssss….”

We know that’s not any of you, ‘cause you read The Neuron!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

• We’ve updated our recommendations for when to use Bard.

• New details on what an AI-powered Siri looks like.

• Meta releases Code Llama 70B, which beats GPT-4 at programming.

• What’s coming after GPT-4?

Is Bard really the new #2 chatbot?

For most of 2023, Google Bard was the butt of jokes among AI chatbots: nonsense, incorrect, or otherwise useless responses.

Oh, how the turntables.

Powered by Google’s new Gemini Pro model, Google Bard claimed the 2nd spot in a leaderboard tracking AI chatbots. It’s still behind ChatGPT,-4, but it managed to leapfrog Claude, our (still) second favorite child.

*This is just one test (that you can participate in) and isn’t an end-all-be-all.

**And, sure, acing tests doesn't always translate to real-world smarts (think book-smart versus street-smart), so we dove deep to figure out where Bard excels and where ChatGPT still holds the crown.

The summary: We think Bard is great for knowledge, but ChatGPT-4 is better for work.

If your convos sound like…

• “what does [x] mean?”

• “what’s the difference between [x] and [y]?”

• “can you explain what’s going on with [x]?”

...then Bard is your go-to, probably cause it’s hooked up to Google.

But if your convos sound like…

• “read these notes, then do [x].”

• “take this transcript and write an [x]”.

… ChatGPT-4 is better at following your instructions. Bard can handle it, but it often does things that sound like what you asked, not the task itself.

That’s on top of our previous recommendation: using Bard to do stuff with YouTube (summarizing videos), Google Maps/Travel (finding places to eat), and Gmail (summarizing emails).

What about Perplexity, our fav AI search engine? We still love it. Do we think it’s better than Bard? We like Perplexity Collections for collecting research, but beyond that, we think you should experiment with both!

What if I wanna use ChatGPT for everything? No sweat. Just add “please research” to your prompt or “always research when I ask questions” to your ChatGPT custom instructions. This will get ChatGPT to search Bing like Bard searches Google.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

When 41% Of Your Work Day Is Lost To Admin, Use 👇

Paying attention?

We’re all too familiar with the headache of monotonous work tasks. Excel. Salesforce. Yawn!

The story is too familiar for sales folks: reviewing customer calls, writing follow-ups, battling with CRMs…a whopping 41% of your day swallowed by non-selling tasks! 

At The Neuron, we’ve already automated parts of our sales funnel. 

Attention is set to automate the rest. This AI wizard can:

1. Log crucial data in your CRM.

2. Write follow-up emails.

3. Track guidance.

Plus, they feed insights that have pulled in an extra $250k in ARR per rep. 

Start automating your CRM with Attention today!

Siri’s AI upgrade is starting with text messages.

What do big tech companies and music festivals have in common?

Obsessive fans stalk their every move.

Festivalgoers piece together tour schedules to see who’s headlining Coachella, while techies reverse engineer Apple’s code to find what’s coming to the next iPhone update.

Guess which group we’re in…

Here’s the latest tech-y find: the new Siri will be able to summarize text messages and answer questions, starting in Messages.

So say goodbye to awkward situations like this:

The proof: Apple’s latest iOS contains new code where Apple engineers are pitting their in-house AI against ChatGPT to perfect message summarization.

Hey Siri, set a reminder for June 2024 to meet the all-new you!

Around the Horn.

• Meta updated Code Llama 70B, a coding model that’s outperforming GPT-4.

• How music industry execs are making sense of AI.

• Midjourney is working on new tools that make it easier to “blend” images (watch on X / TikTok / Instagram)

• The Webby Awards is spotlighting the top AI innovations across 10+ categories—submit your work here!

Treat To Try.

SmarterChild was a wildly popular chatbot from the 2000s. Some developers brought it back with blazing-fast voice responses and a nostalgic Windows XP aesthetic.

Try the voice convo—it’s the fastest voice response we’ve seen yet, plus you can interrupt it like you (definitely never) do to your significant other…

We curated the top 27 tools you need for work in our “Top Tools For Business”!

This Should (Probably) Exist.

“Podcasters talking your ear off for 2 hours” is the new “recipe websites that tell you their family’s 1000-year history before giving you the recipe.”

Kudos to our fav Soren Iverson, who recently offered this “podcast mega TL;DR" idea…

(also, he’s not far off! Apple is gonna start including podcast transcripts soon).

A Cat's Commentary.