Who uses AI, and how are they using it?
Generative AI has business potential, but many companies are figuring out how to use it or waiting for new tools. Here are some companies that already use the technology.
ChatGPT came out in 2022, illuminating the possibilities of AI.
Many AI tools and content generators quickly followed. Many organizations questioned the ethics and efficacy of the technology as well. For example, the Authors Guild signed a letter calling AI industry leaders to protect writers after several found AI tools copied their work.
Several companies have also been negatively affected by the use of AI. For example, Sports Illustrated faced backlash for publishing articles written by AI. CNET also produced articles written by generative AI (GenAI) and had to revamp their AI policy after some controversy. Lawyer Steven Schwartz also used ChatGPT to fabricate supporting cases in a legal brief for a case in Federal District Court, causing him to receive a $5,000 fine.
Despite these blunders, there are many ways companies are using AI to advance the organization's goals, either by generating new content, translating between communication mediums or expediating time-consuming administrative tasks.
Who's using generative AI, and how?
Generative AI has had a year to mature in the public eye. While the tech is still relatively new, scores of organizations across several industry sectors use it to improve and develop new ways of working. Below are some ways companies are using AI to achieve their goals.
Baptist Health
The healthcare provider uses generative AI to transcribe doctor's meetings with patients and create a physician summary formatted for an electronic health record. The doctor records the conversation, then Dax from Nuance software automatically compiles it into a report-ready document. The application filters through the interaction for health information and leaves out irrelevant information. It saves the doctors time on administrative tasks and manual data entry to allow them to focus more on the patient during the interaction.
Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is a mobile app that uses AI to assist visually impaired people. Its "Be My AI" feature lets users take a picture with a smartphone and receive a detailed description of the image generated by AI. The app uses OpenAI's GPT-4 language model to translate submitted pictures into text.
Boston Dynamics
The robotics company developed a robot tour guide that can navigate through the Boston Dynamics campus. It uses a visual question-answering model to describe objects in its path and a large language model (LLM) to provide more detailed descriptions and field visitor questions. The robot uses ChatGPT's API, honed with prompt engineering techniques. The prompts can tell the robot tour guide to make up stories about what it sees, plot a route through the facility, and show some "personality" in its tone.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola launched an AI-powered ad campaign called "Masterpiece," which mixes live action and AI-generated images in a video advertisement. Coca-Cola partnered with OpenAI to create the advertisement.
Dropbox
The cloud file hosting service uses Nvidia NeMo Retriever -- a framework for building, customizing and deploying generative AI models. Retriever helps Box enhance its in-house tool with enterprise-grade retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). RAG makes LLMs more accurate, up to date and specific to a given industry or organization. Dropbox will provide better search accuracy, organization and simpler workflows for its customers using Nvidia's AI tools. Dropbox AI can also provide document summaries.
Formula 1
F1 racing employs generative AI in several ways. One is generative design for the development of car components. Generative design can propose novel designs that improve performance and create a wider pool of design possibilities than a human could.
The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), F1's governing body, also said that it will employ computer vision technology to help officials more efficiently review rule violations in the motorsport -- such as determining if a racer is out of bounds.
Genentech
The biotechnology company uses generative AI to develop and discover new therapeutics, as well as treat patients more efficiently. Genentech uses Nvidia DGX Cloud and Nvidia BioNemo to optimize its proprietary machine learning models and workflows for generative drug discovery.
LinkedIn, the social job site, incorporates generative AI into its platform. The tool is designed to analyze a job listing, tell a job candidate how qualified they are for the job, how competitive they will be for the job and give suggestions for educational resources that will fill skills gaps to make them more competitive. The feature will also suggest valuable people in the candidate's network and helps the candidate draft messages to those people.
Orangetheory Fitness
Orangetheory, a fitness company, uses Ironclad, a contract management company with AI tools, to standardize and consolidate user agreements across its franchise, which allowed Orangetheory to complete the project in half the time and reduce the time to review each contract by 80%, according to Ironclad.
PepsiCo
The soft drink company used generative AI in its Messi Messages advertising campaign. The campaign created custom advertisements featuring popular professional soccer player Lionel Messi. Using just a five-minute video of Messi as a template, PepsiCo's marketers were able to use Synthesia's AI video generation API to create millions of personalized variations of the same ad in multiple languages.
Poshmark
Poshmark, a social clothing marketplace, also used Ironclad for contract lifecycle management. The company was able to streamline management of non-negotiable, high-volume agreements and reduce contract turnaround times for enterprise users by 96%, according to Ironclad.
Salesforce
The CRM provider has Einstein Copilot, which allows users to interact with the Salesforce CRM through natural language prompts. Businesses can use Einstein Copilot to build a custom AI assistant in both inward- and consumer-facing channels. Some example uses of Einstein Copilot include generating personalized messaging discounts for customers or developing a competitor analysis based on current market data and sales figures.
Users can customize Einstein Copilot based on one of Salesforce's proprietary LLMs or integrate third-party models. Einstein will employ the user's chosen model and accompanying data. This is ideal for enterprise customers with proprietary AI models.
SAP
SAP, a German software company, will include Joule, a generative AI assistant, into SAP's cloud-based product suite, with products such as SuccessFactors. It will have the capability to interpret and respond to queries in plain language, using enterprise data. Additionally, Joule will offer recommendations for enhancements or resolutions.
Spotify
The music streaming platform has an AI feature that uses OpenAI's language models and an AI voice synthesis program to generate a virtual DJ. The virtual DJ curates playlists for users based on their music tastes, listening habits and other factors like the time of day. The AI DJ not only plays music but also includes commentary about the tracks and artists, offering insights and information about the user's listening habits such as recommending an artist they listened to previously.
The Clueless
The Clueless is a Spanish modeling agency that creates AI-generated influencers to engage with audiences. Aitana, one of its influencers, has over 200,000 followers and can earn up to $11,000 per month, according to the bot's creator. Her online presence is curated by The Clueless using a mixture of AI image generation and Photoshop.
UPMC
The Pittsburgh hospital -- and others including Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and the University of Kansas Health System -- is using generative AI to record and transcribe doctor-patient meetings into medical records. The doctors at these providers use Abridge AI to record and transcribe the meetings instead of taking additional time to create notes. This technology can save doctors up three hours a day in administrative tasks, according to Abridge AI.
Wayfair
Wayfair, the online furniture retailer, has incorporated generative AI into its consumer application Decorify, as well as in some internal sales operations. Decorify lets users upload an image of their living space and then shows the user a potential redesign of the room. Users can request different styles such as bohemian, industrial or mid-century modern, then the app redesigns the virtual room. Customers can then make purchases within the app.
Workday
The software provider will incorporate generative AI in a range of software offerings. Features include reading and summarizing contracts, generating content, creating employee growth plans and personalized knowledge resources.
WPP
WPP, the world's largest advertising agency, partnered with Nvidia to create an AI-content engine for digital advertising. The content engine is based on Nvidia Omniverse and will be available exclusively to WPP's clients.
WPP worked with Nestlé to create an AI-driven Cadbury campaign that allowed store owners to create custom ads featuring Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan inviting passers-by to shop at the store. Approximately 130,000 advertisements were created featuring 2,000 stores. The advertiser used machine learning to manipulate Shah Rukh Kahn's face and voice to speak about local stores in the custom ads. The advertiser could plug different stores into the same video advertisement.
YouTube
The video streaming service uses generative AI in several ways. One is AI-powered video summaries. Dream Screen is another, which will allow users to place AI-generated videos and photos in the background of YouTube Shorts. The YouTube Studio application will also include a new feature that suggests, drafts and outlines potential videos based on existing audience trends. The platform can also use AI-based music recommendation to suggest audio for a video.
Editor's note: This unranked list is based on web research and includes information from news stories and press releases that attribute AI use to the companies listed.
