Becoming A Better Salesperson And Securing More Deals | The Startup Magazine

September 6, 2024September 5, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In the sales industry, staying ahead is not just a strategy; it’s a necessity. With the constant competition, it’s crucial to keep evolving. Even if you have years of experience, you might find it challenging without a new set of selling tips. But remember, it’s all about staying ahead of the game.

Here, you can discover all of the top-selling tips and advice to become a better salesperson and complete more deals.

Use AI to receive instant recommendations

In sales, it is good to move fast with sales. While you need to ensure the decision you are making is wise, it is good to move fast. Otherwise, you might lose the opportunity to someone else. Hence, it is savvy to receive instant recommendations from AI.

Using ZoomInfo Copilot, salespeople can use AI to receive instant prospect recommendations to speed up ideas and get on with making sales quicker. Instead of waiting around for company listings and other calls, you can receive instant help to get on with your sales.

Microsoft is turning to AI to make its workplace more inclusive | BBC News

September 5, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft’s chief diversity officer says diversity and investment in the workforce can help fix AI’s bias problems.

At the beginning of 2023, Microsoft found itself in a PR firestorm. The company was working to demonstrate its progress in artificial intelligence following a multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. It added an AI powered chatbot into its Bing search engine, which placed it among the first legacy tech companies to fold AI into its flagship products, but almost as soon as people started using it, things went sideways.

A New York Times journalist sparked international intrigue over a conversation he had with Bing that left him “deeply unsettled”. Soon, users began sharing screenshots that appeared to show the tool using racial slurs and announcing plans for world domination. Microsoft quickly announced a fix, limiting the AI’s responses and capabilities. In the following months, the company replaced its Bing chatbot with Copilot, which is now available as part of its Microsoft 365 software and Windows operating system.

Google just dropped a new AI camera update — and you don’t need a new Pixel 9 for it | Mashable

August 15, 2024August 14, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google has an AI update for its Magnifier app that’s geared towards people with low vision. And the best part is you don’t need a new Pixel 9 to use it.

Magnifier is an app was released last year as an accessibility tool that works with Pixel cameras to magnify text, details, and zoom in on distant objects. As of Tuesday, it has been updated with AI-powered capabilities to make gathering visual information easier.

The Made by Google event mostly focused on hardware, unveiling the Pixel 9 series, the Pixel Watch 3, and the Pixel Buds Pro 2, with a deep integration of AI-powered features for the new devices. However, not everything Google launched yesterday required a new gadget. Magnifier is available for Pixel 5 and newer.

Everything AI allows you to do in Windows 11 that saves you time | Mashable

June 12, 2024June 11, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

AI is becoming a major part of our digital lives, and Microsoft has adopted the new tech with open arms. So much so that Microsoft now offers a huge range of AI tools straight from Windows 11, led by Microsoft’s new digital assistant, Copilot.

The real advantage of AI is that it can help you do your work faster. AI tools, at least right now, are excellent at helping users save time, so they can spend that time on other tasks. And, many more AI tools that can help you save time are on the way – so expect to be able to save more and more time over the next few months and years.

Curious about how you can save time in Windows 11 using AI? Here are the best features right now.

Apple needs to make the iPhone cool again. Today is its chance | CNN Business

June 11, 2024June 10, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Apple hasn’t given users a significant reason to buy an upgraded iPhone for four years, since it rolled out 5G connectivity with the iPhone 12 — a worrying trend for the tech giant’s core business. That could change this week.

The iPhone brought in more than half of the company’s total revenue last year, but sales growth has lagged as customers have been slower to upgrade to new models. Longer upgrade cycles — the time between users’ new phone purchases — currently plague many device companies. But they’ve been especially painful for Apple as it grapples with compounding challenges that also include steep competition in the key China market and a landmark antitrust lawsuit.

Apple is expected to announce new artificial intelligence features at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, which could supercharge its products and bring Apple back into competition with much of the rest of the tech world that has already gone full steam ahead on AI. And no product is more important to Apple than the iPhone.

OpenAI unveils huge upgrade to ChatGPT that makes it more eerily human than ever | Live Science

May 15, 2024May 14, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A new version of ChatGPT can read facial expressions, mimic human voice patterns and have near real-time conversations, its creators have revealed.

OpenAI demonstrated the upcoming version of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, called GPT-4o, in an apparently real-time presentation on Monday (May 13). The chatbot, which spoke out loud with presenters through a phone, appeared to have an eerie command of human conversation and its subtle emotional cues — switching between robotic and singing voices upon command, adapting to interruptions and visually processing the facial expressions and surroundings of its conversational partners. During the demonstration, the AI voice assistant showcased its skills by completing tasks such as real-time language translation, solving a math equation written on a piece of paper and guiding a blind person around London’s streets.

How the computer games industry is embracing AI | BBC News

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Andrew Maximov has been working in the computer games industry for 12 years, but despite all that experience he still marvels at the amount of money spent on building the biggest titles.

“I used to work for PlayStation and the last game that I worked on, just production alone cost us $220 [£176m], and then you double that for marketing, and you are in half a billion dollars for every game that you put out there, which is a bit unsustainable for most companies.”

He believes that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a crucial role in keeping the soaring costs of game production down, and save video game designers vital time by automating repetitive tasks.

After raising $1.3B, Inflection is eaten alive by its biggest investor, Microsoft | TechCrunch

March 20, 2024March 19, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In June 2023, Inflection announced it had raised $1.3 billion to build what it called “more personal AI.” The lead investor was Microsoft.

Today, less than a year later, Microsoft announced that it was essentially eating Inflection alive (though I think they phrased it differently).

Co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan will go to Microsoft, where the former will head up the newly formed Microsoft AI division, along with “several members” of their team as Microsoft put it — or “most of the staff,” as Bloomberg reports it. Reid Hoffman will stay behind with new CEO Sean White to try to salvage what’s left of the company, which, I feel I have to repeat, raised $1.3 billion dollars 9 months ago and $225 million in mid-2022.

Aescape’s AI robot massaged my back and butt: 5 reasons I’m quitting human masseuses | Mashable

March 18, 2024March 17, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Human masseuses, beware! AI massage robots are here — and they have untiring arms and hands that no human can compete with.

Aescape, a lifestyle robotics company, invited Mashable to check out an AI-assisted massage robot in New York City. “Sign me up!” I said. “Who am I to turn down a free massage?”

Now, when I pictured “AI massage robot,” I was thinking I’d be shown some sort of handheld gadget — or something like the viral TikTok neck-and-back massager. Little did I know I’d be laying down on a full-sized massage bed with gigantic, gnarly robot arms.

Your company knows you’re reading this story at work | CNN Business

March 7, 2024March 4, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Last month, news surfaced that major companies like Walmart, Starbucks, Delta and Chevron were using AI to monitor employee communications. The reaction online was swift, with employees and workplace advocates worrying about a loss of privacy.

But experts say that while AI tools might be new, watching, reading and tracking employee conversations is far from novel. AI might be more efficient at it — and the technology might raise some new ethical and legal challenges, as well as risk alienating employees — but the fact is workplace conversations have never really been private anyway.

“Monitoring employee communications isn’t new, but the growing sophistication of the analysis that’s possible with ongoing advances in AI is,” said David Johnson, a principal analyst at Forrester Research.