After decades of subdued interest in lithium, rapidly rising demand and prices have made “white gold” one of the hottest sectors in the mining world.

Batteries are a foundational technology in the transition away from fossil fuels. And in order for automakers to electrify their fleets and renewable energy developers to meet their aggressive goals, the world will have to make a lot more of them.

• At least for now, lithium is in almost every EV battery, and that means demand for the metal likely isn’t going to slow any time soon.

Zoom in: So just how big is the appetite for lithium, and how much of this mineral is available to make the journey from extraction to a battery cell? Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the size of lithium demand as EV adoption accelerates and what it will take to scale the battery industry. Click here to read it.—GD

The word “chatbot” holds something of a…negative connotation for many retail shoppers today. Interacting with a bot on a website is notoriously frustrating, slow, and unhelpful.

But the world of chatbots is changing, and fast. The scripted bots of just a few years ago are out, and there’s a new sheriff robot in town.

• Today’s chatbots are software systems that use a branch of AI called Natural Language Processing to understand and respond to everyday human language. (If your mind went straight to ChatGPT, you’re on the right track!)

Big picture: The widespread adoption of conversational AI could bring efficiency and improved customer experience to the retail world, addressing everything from supply-chain woes to onboarding issues. But despite the large number of AI offerings out there, the rapid evolution of retail chatbots hasn’t come without challenges. Keep reading the story from Retail Brew here.—MA

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Emerging Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. Click here if you'd like a chance to be featured.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in tech?

As a chief technology innovation officer (CTIO) at Everyday Digital, I develop ideas, strategies, and digital products that help businesses pivot, optimize, and scale up in the technology landscape. My role cross-sections across multiple companies from product to commercial. I work with startups to enterprise-level customers to help them digitally scale up and transform.

What’s your favorite emerging tech project you’ve worked on?

I recently developed a “no code/low code” solution for building and deploying apps in our stack ecosystem. Seeing non-tech users building their own apps with a few clicks without developer intervention has been a joy to observe.

What emerging tech are you most optimistic about? Least? And why?

AI is becoming exciting but requires careful, responsible, and observable use. We are starting to use AI in our own tech stacks as automation, generative, and assistive tools with “wow” outcomes. We are definitely in the decade of useful AI, and I see it benefiting and enhancing human creativity.

Least? I’ve worked a lot in digital learning. I find this part of the tech industry to be steering in the wrong direction (at times) and can be an echo chamber of sorts. Innovations in this space underestimate the crucial element of human connection that is paramount to learning being effective and driving higher engagement.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile?

I am learning to play the drums.

Stat: GitHub claims that its code-generating AI Copilot “is behind an average of 46% of a developers’ code across all programming languages,” up from 27% in June 2022.

Quote: “Car companies—meaning Tesla and others—are marketing this as a hands-free technology. That is a nightmare.”—Missy Cummings, a former NHTSA safety advisor and engineering professor, to the the New York Times

Read: How supermarkets are collecting troves of consumer data—and what they’re using it for.

Personalizing care: LetsGetChecked’s pharmacogenomics solution, myPGx, rounds out their full life cycle of care from home. Learn more about how this game changer is making precision medicine accessible in our interview with their experts.*

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Catch up on the top Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• VC funding in January was down year over year, but up from December
• Why the vertical farming industry wilted in late 2022
• Meet the exec behind Walmart’s answer to AWS