Top 10 AI Assistants for business

Important news about AI Assistants for business

2024. Gmail users on Android can now chat with Gemini about their emails



Google introduced a new functionality called Gmail Q&A, enabling Gmail users on Android devices to chat directly with Gemini about their emails. For instance, you can request Gemini to summarize emails by saying phrases like, “Update me on the emails about quarterly planning.” Additionally, you can utilize the feature to search for particular details, such as asking Gemini, “What was the company’s expenditure on the last marketing event?”. Gmail Q&A is rolled out to users who pay for Gemini $20 a month It’s improbable that Gmail Q&A will be available to free Gmail users in the near future. Instead, Google is promoting features like Gmail Q&A to persuade users that the steep monthly subscription fees for Gemini are justified. The company is also integrating Gemini into all its existing products, including Google Docs, Google Calendar and more — though it all comes at a cost.


2024. Google makes its Gemini chatbot faster and more widely available



In a bid to keep pace with its rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI, Google has decided it’s high time to turbocharge the free version of Gemini, its plucky AI-powered chatbot. Enter the Gemini 1.5 Flash, a sprightly, slimmed-down, multimodal marvel, now scampering across web and mobile devices in 40 languages, no less, spanning a modest 230 countries. Google, with all the gravitas of someone who’s just figured out how to make tea in zero gravity, assures us that Gemini 1.5 Flash is a real whiz at reasoning and image comprehension, with impressive gains in quality and speed. It’s the “distilled” and nimble younger sibling of Gemini 1.5 Pro, engineered to tackle all those frequent, narrow tasks generative AI loves so much. And, naturally, while Google is embracing the chance to cut costs, it’s doing so with the kind of flair that makes its chatbots even better at what they do best—answering questions like they’ve seen the answer at the back of the universe’s notebook.

2024. Apple is bringing ChatGPT to Siri



In a move that would make Zaphod Beeblebrox grin, Apple and OpenAI have teamed up to inject Siri with a shot of ChatGPT magic, courtesy of the ever-brilliant GPT-4o. Now, instead of simply setting timers or asking for weather updates, Siri can whip up recipe suggestions, offer backyard landscaping advice using image recognition and even craft bedtime stories complete with charming illustrations. This isn’t just Apple showing off—it's a cunning maneuver in their ongoing showdown with Google and Samsung, while also letting OpenAI spread its wings to millions of iPhones. The best part? ChatGPT will be free and your precious data won’t be logged, because Apple, in all its privacy-obsessed glory, will make sure you’re asked before any off-device information goes anywhere. Oh and just to keep things spicy, Apple’s already planning a rendezvous with Google’s Gemini in the near future.


2024. Microsoft unveiled a Copilot for teams



In a move that seemed almost too sensible for reality, Microsoft unveiled Team Copilot, a rather clever AI chatbot that, in typical AI fashion, pretends to be your colleague, but without the need for coffee breaks or awkward small talk. This little digital assistant, which sounds suspiciously like Copilot’s big sibling from Microsoft 365, doesn’t just lurk in the background—it can rally entire teams, departments, or even companies, which is, of course, a perfectly normal thing for a chatbot to do. Picture this: it’s taking notes, keeping time, summarizing endless Teams chats (so you don’t have to) and answering those group questions no one quite wants to address. It’s not just a single-entity operation, mind you—it juggles info from multiple humans at once, handling conversations with more finesse than most of us manage at parties.


2024. Google rolls out Gemini in Android Studio for coding assistance



In a move that might make even the most cynical developer raise an eyebrow (and then quickly lower it again), Google is steadily weaving its Gemini magic into all manner of things, this time gracing Android Studio with the newly christened "Gemini Pro." This rather clever little bot has taken up residence in the IDE like an enthusiastic intern, fielding coding questions with an alarming eagerness to assist. Google, ever the charmer, insists that Gemini Pro is now even better at code completions, debugging, resource-hunting and writing the kind of documentation that might, for once, not induce mild panic. Privacy, of course, remains sacrosanct—or at least as sacrosanct as things get in this day and age—requiring developers to log in and specifically say, "Yes, I want the bot." And if that weren't enough android Studio thoughtfully hands developers a ready-to-go Gemini API starter template, as if to say, "Go on, then—get cracking with this generative AI wizardry in your apps!"


2024. Microsoft acquires conversational AI startup Inflection



Microsoft, in a move that will undoubtedly raise eyebrows across the cosmos, has swooped in and acquired Inflection, a conversational AI startup that had once confidently waltzed onto the scene with a staggering $1.3 billion in funding, largely thanks to Microsoft's own checkbook. The grand vision? To craft a more "personal" AI, one that could chat across platforms with a memory sharper than your best friend's about that one embarrassing incident you thought everyone had forgotten. But alas, their AI, Pi, didn't quite deliver the goods. Even with all that cash, Inflection found themselves in a footrace with rivals like OpenAI (conveniently also bankrolled by Microsoft), Google's search-powered Gemini and Anthropic, who was busy making AI practical, leaving Inflection gasping for relevance in a whirlwind of innovation.


2023. Google Bard can now watch YouTube videos for you



With the latest update, Google Bard now possesses the almost bewildering ability to grasp the inner workings of YouTube videos, leaving users in a position to fire off questions about specific content without even having to endure the tiresome burden of pressing play. One can now dive into the murky depths of intricate follow-up questions, demanding summaries and nitpicky details from Bard's AI brain, which presumably has more time on its circuits than we mere mortals. Of course, this thrilling leap forward has also sent shivers through online communities, where some are already fretting that video educators could soon find themselves out of a job, victims of this overly clever chatbot. To add to the delightful sense of impending doom, the update has also rekindled the usual anxieties about privacy and content ownership, as Bard stretches its virtual fingers towards ever more tasks, making some wonder if there's anything it can’t do.


2023. Microsoft brings Copilot to Windows 10



In the not-so-distant future, a peculiar thing was about to happen to the world of Windows 10—a thing that could only be described as Copilot-y. As Microsoft prepared to release Windows 10 version 22H2, eager participants in the Windows Insider program were about to witness a cosmic convergence of sorts. Windows 10 would now receive Copilot, a virtual entity suspiciously similar to the one already roaming Windows 11. Users could now ask Copilot a multitude of questions, seek suggestions and generally badger it with inquiries about anything from mundane tasks to the meaning of life. All they'd need to do was click the shiny Copilot icon on the taskbar, type or speak and voilà—answers! Well, almost. There was just one small hitch: Copilot on Windows 10, while helpful, wasn’t quite as capable as its Windows 11 counterpart. It wouldn’t, for example, adjust settings, open apps, or rearrange the cosmic furniture of your desktop. Microsoft, however, hinted (in a very nonchalant, "perhaps in another galaxy" way) that those features might show up in a future update—possibly when the universe felt like it.


2023. Microsoft rebrands Bing Chat to Copilot



Earlier this year, in an act of boldness that would surely have impressed even the most jaded intergalactic tech enthusiast, Microsoft decided to unleash a mighty AI beast within its Bing search engine, casually plopping in a ChatGPT-like interface as if it had always been there. Fast forward a few months—barely the blink of an eye in the cosmos of rebranding—and Bing Chat has quietly shed its old skin, now emerging as Microsoft Copilot, a name that one can only assume suggests it’ll steer you through the digital ether with all the grace of a well-read starship. This new Copilot is now found lurking in the recesses of Bing, Microsoft Edge and even Windows 11, nudging Google’s AI ambitions aside like a distant memory. And while Microsoft once flaunted its rivalry with Google, the real game seems to be about ChatGPT, as OpenAI casually mentions that a mere 100 million humans are chatting with their AI creation weekly. Microsoft and OpenAI, despite their cosmic alliance (rumored to be worth billions in Earth dollars), are now awkwardly elbowing each other out of the way, both eager to convince the same users that their AI assistant is the digital companion of choice for both cubicles and living rooms alike.


2023. Google Assistant is getting AI capabilities of Bard



Imagine, if you will, that the Google Assistant has somehow evolved into an entity of mildly alarming brilliance, now backed by a rather cerebral companion named Bard, gifted in all things generative AI. The two, working together like a digital odd couple, can now tackle everything from peculiar inquiries to the deeply philosophical and mundane. Fancy a rummage through your Gmail for unread missives of the past week? Fear not! This dashing duo can do just that—provided you’ve given them permission to rummage, of course. But they won’t stop there; no, they’re up for all manner of personal pursuits: planning epic voyages, crafting grocery lists and even composing delightful little snippets for your social media feed. This, however, is a mere flirtation with the future, as Google intends to gently observe how users engage with this digital symphony of assistance before making it a universal upgrade for Android and iOS alike.