27th issue: Is Character.ai the new king in town? 👑

🌯 Wrap for the week

A close look at all the main headlines in AI

Top news for the week

Watch out ChatGPT, Character.ai is taking your place!

After learning about Falcon 180B, ChatGPT’s place seems to find itself in another tough battle for the top place.

In the bustling AI arena, Character.ai, a creation platform for designing AI characters, has been substantially closing the gap with the well-established ChatGPT in terms of mobile app usage.

A study by market analyst Similarweb reveals that Character.ai, supported by venture capital firm a16z, has rocketed to 4.2 million active monthly users in the U.S. since its inception in May 2023. However, ChatGPT maintains a sizeable lead with nearly 6 million American enthusiasts engaging monthly on its mobile apps.

1. Youth Magnet: Character.ai has successfully captured the attention of the younger demographic (18-24 years), with nearly 60% of its audience coming from this age group, outperforming ChatGPT and other rivals.

2. Mobile App Surge: Since its launch in May 2023, Character.ai has seen a substantial rise in mobile app usage, now boasting 4.2 million monthly active users in the U.S., progressively closing in on ChatGPT's 6 million.

3. ChatGPT Resilience: Despite a summer dip, ChatGPT is bouncing back with a slight increase in U.S. website visits as the school year begins, exhibiting resilience and maintaining a considerable global lead in mobile app usage.

Will Character.ai’s youthful vigour sustain the marathon, or is it just another meteor set to dazzle briefly in the AI cosmos? Only time will tell. But one thing we know is that ChatGPT is in for one hell of a battle.

Main news credit:

AI app Character.ai is catching up to ChatGPT in the US from TechCrunch

Other top AI headlines for the week

That battle for the supreme LLM is going to heat up soon. It looks like Google’s Gemini is going to be released soon: Google Nears Release of Gemini AI to Challenge OpenAI from TheInformation

Although not the highlight of the Apple event, there is still some AI added there subtly: The iPhone 15 Opts for Intuitive AI, Not Generative AI from Wired

Dr.ChatGPT, the newer and better WebMD?: A boy saw 17 doctors over 3 years for chronic pain. ChatGPT found the diagnosis from Today

More companies are embracing the concept of responsible AI: More companies commit to the White House AI safety accord from TheVerge

🎬️ Guess that movie

Adding a bit of fun to your weekend reading, let’s guess the famous movie from the 10-emoji description created by ChatGPT:

⚔️🤴🏰👑🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🐎🛡️👸🏽💫🌌

If it is a bit hard to figure out, you can find the answer with some explanation from ChatGPT at the end of this newsletter.

🧰 Toolbox

Check out this week’s tools and resources that give you more superpowers with prompt crafting!

1. 📺️ HubSpot Spotlight: Dharmesh Shah | INBOUND 2023: Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, a big enthusiast of technology and AI, discusses the potential of generative AI and its impact on business. Have a listen!

2. 📚️ How Are Consumers Using Generative AI?: Another great report from A16z. As a data nerd, I am always excited to see some awesome stats and this report has certainly got that covered.

3. 🔧 instagraph: This awesome learning tool allows you to visually map out the knowledge graph of any text or URL. And it is brought to you by the creator of babyagi, Yohei!

👋 Your next XTwitter friend

Connect with great people in the industry to supercharge your growth

🖼️ Image of the week

Apparently this image has taken the internet by the storm. I tried the technique shared this week but it is a bit hard to recreate this. I guess stable diffusion with controlnet is still the way to go for images like this.

🎬️ Guess that movie - answer

The answer is "King Arthur" (the 2004 film) 🥳 

Did you guess that right? Here is ChatGPT’s explanation:

⚔️🤴🏰👑🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🐎🛡️👸🏽💫🌌

This series of emojis aims to encapsulate the key elements and themes of the film: warfare and battles (⚔️), the central figure, King Arthur (🤴), a castle setting possibly representing Camelot (🏰), the significant symbol of the crown (👑), the setting in England (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿), horse-riding scenes which were significant in the film (🐎), the importance of shields and defense in battles (🛡️), the presence of a powerful female character, Guinevere (👸🏽), the mystical and somewhat fantastical elements (💫), and the overarching, almost cosmic narrative depicting Arthur's legendary story (🌌).