After launching its first avatar with AI in early 2023, Grupo Radio Formula decided to launch two new avatars that will also broadcast television news in Mexico. Max will be in charge of talking about economics and finance. Sofi will be in charge of political information. IBM launches $500 million fund for AI development and claims to have been committed to promoting AI for companies through its recent investments.
There are two pieces of news related to AI development initiatives. The first is that avatars with AI come to TV and already transmit news in Mexico, while the second is that IBM launches $500 million fund for AI development. More details below.
Avatars with AI will be used to transmit news in Mexico. Nat, Max and Sofi are the names of the first TV hosts created with Artificial Intelligence (AI). In March 2023, Mexican television officially welcomed avatars with AI with the arrival of Nat. Now the Radiofórmula Group decided to launch two new avatars that will also broadcast TV news in Mexico: these are Max and Sofi. AI is thus beginning to prevail in the field of live television in the Latin American country.
In other news, the technology company IBM has revealed that it will launch a fund of 500 million dollars to deepen the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in companies. This tool will cover both early-stage startups and hyper-growth startups. The focus will be on accelerating generative AI technology and research for the company. Among the benefits that the firm understands will arise from this implementation are numerous objectives.
Mexico: Would Avatars with AI Replace Journalists?
According to an interview conducted by Forbes with Héctor Aguilar Cuevas, executive director of Engineering and IT at Grupo Formula, the AI avatar project was divided into three phases. First the character was created, which required four AIs capable of generating the images, voices, intelligent text responses, and animation.
Then, the automation of all those tools was carried out, and an automated version of the character was generated. Finally, in a third phase, work was done so that the avatar could be available in real time through different platforms.
“The world is moving towards there [AI] and there is no way to stop it. So, you adopt it, you accept it and you get on, or you resist, knowing that you are going to lose.”
So far, the Radiofórmula Group has not referred to its intention to replace journalists with AI avatars. However, Aguilar Cuevas assured that the avatars still have opportunities for improvement. Among the main issues to work on are the lack of full body animation and greater expression of emotions.
IBM Encourages Companies to Use Generative AI
Hugging Face Co-Founder and CEO Clem Delangue expressed the company’s delight to “collaborate with IBM on the democratization of AI,” and he is convinced that they will be able to accelerate their impact in AI with the IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund.
Another recent experience was the Series A financing of HiddenLayer. It sought to expand its talent base, increase marketing efforts and invest more in its Machine Learning Security platform. The firm is a security provider for AI models and assets.
IBM announced the availability of the first examples of the Watsonx Granite model series. It is a collection of generative AI models to advance the technology’s incursion into business applications and workflows. IBM also confirmed that it will apply contractual intellectual property protections for its Watsonx AI models.
By Leonardo Perez
