Siri is getting perhaps its biggest makeover ever, courtesy of ChatGPT and other generative AI systems.

Babak Hodjat, the inventor behind the NLP tech that paved the way for Siri, said it’s about time. Hodjat contends that Siri had fallen behind some of its rivals like Alexa but that Apple’s recent rollout of its big AI play has improved its position.

Now the CTO of AI at IT and consulting firm Cognizant, Hodjat oversees a new San Francisco-based generative AI lab born out of the firm’s recent pledge to sink $1 billion in the budding technology. Hodjat said the lab aims to bridge the gap between academic research and practical enterprise use cases.

These days, Hodjat can’t stop talking about multi-agent architecture—that is, constellations of task-specific AI models that can coordinate as part of a bigger network. While LLM agents are having a moment right now, the general idea is not new; Siri itself was born out of a multi-agent architecture system, and Hodjat has been doing work around the concept for decades.

We spoke with Hodjat about what he thinks of Apple’s big AI play, why we’ve come full circle on agents, and whether we’re headed for an AI winter.

Keep reading here.—PK

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Much like Michael Scott, EV startup Fisker has declared bankruptcy (except Fisker did it the proper way, in court).

The move didn’t come as a surprise to auto industry observers: Signs of trouble had been mounting for months. The company’s flagship product, the Ocean SUV, has had numerous quality problems. It was running low on cash, prompting it to issue a going concern earlier this year about its ability to keep operating. It failed to find an investor or an automaker partner to help keep it going. And it recently laid off more than 15% of its workforce.

In a June 17 press release, Fisker acknowledged that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, pointing to “various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently.”

But while the filing comes during a challenging time for the EV sector—with automakers navigating cooling consumer demand and growing competition from China—experts and media reports largely say Fisker itself is to blame.

“It’s a significant feat to bring a product to market,” Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis at AutoPacific, told Tech Brew. “But there was a series of bad decisions happening in the background at the same time…It does highlight the fact that building vehicles for profit is one of the most difficult tasks to undertake.”

Keep reading here.—JG

Google and Microsoft are working together—and it’s not on a chatbot or new virtual reality glasses for cartoon paper clips.

The Biden administration announced on June 10 that the two tech giants have committed to making their cybersecurity services and training more easily available to rural hospitals—facilities that the executive branch noted can suffer greater disruptions from healthcare-related cyberattacks, in part because their remote locations make diverting care more difficult.

• Microsoft. According to a same-day announcement on its site, the company will give “nonprofit pricing and discounts for its security products optimized for smaller organizations, providing up to a 75% discount,” along with free cybersecurity training, assessments, and—for at least one year, the company says—Windows 10 security updates.
• Google. The White House said that Google will “provide endpoint security advice to rural hospitals and nonprofit organizations at no cost,” as well as a pilot program designed to help rural facilities “develop a packaging of security capabilities that fit these hospitals’ unique needs.”

Keep reading on Healthcare Brew.—BH

AIs on the prize. Notion AI can now reach beyond your Notion workspace and tap into Slack. What does this mean? Instead of searching through your apps or pinging teammates, Notion AI can find the info you’re looking for ASAP. That’s two incredibly valuable knowledge resources, now all the easier to navigate. Learn why this matters.