Game On! Huawei MateXT 📱 takes on Apple iPhone 16: the start of the AI phone war

In today’s newsletter:

• ABA Podcast EP3: Interview with WorkMate Managing Director

• Insights: How to power enterprise AI transformation with Microsoft Copilot

• OpenAI to release Strawberry model within the next 2 weeks

• 4 AI tools in the spotlight

Read time: 4-5 mins

🎙️ ABA Podcast #EP3: WorkMate MD on building the Uber of workforce management, journey to support 1 million workers with AI

In this episode, Leo interviews Andrew Senduk, Managing Director of WorkMate, a Singapore-based startup that connects over 600,000 blue-collar workers with over 800 enterprise clients across Asia.

Andrew is tasked with accelerating growth for Workmate's key staffing business in target industries and realizing the company's vision to organize the informal workforce in Indonesia. Workmate has been making significant strides in the region:

• Total raised funding of $13M+ and led to a recent acquisition by PERSOL Holdings;

• Recognized as the fastest-growing company in Singapore by The Straits Times and Statista in 2022; and

• In April 2022, Workmate was ranked 4th in the Financial Times' list of fastest-growing companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some key questions discussed:

1. How to build and grow successful startups in Indonesia?

2. How can companies adapt to the challenges of hyperlocalization?

3. What’s the biggest AI use case in workforce management?

4. How to align and balance building a healthy business and working with VCs?

Make sure you’re subscribed to get notifications → Youtube | Spotify | Apple  | RSS 

AI Apex Asia Capital Connect Forum 2024 will taking place at the stylish Edition Singapore during the exhilarating F1 season at the end of September!

Sign up for this forum → https://lu.ma/evogvc1m

This forum, themed "Navigating AI Capital", will be a pivotal gathering for entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts. As we face significant policy shifts — including the anticipated first interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve in years — it's the perfect moment to explore the evolving landscape of funding strategies and listing options for AI startups.

Join as they delve into the implications of recent U.S. Treasury regulations on outbound investments, and how these changes could reshape funding avenues for AI companies. Our expert panels will feature seasoned investors and regulators sharing invaluable insights on discerning genuine AI opportunities amidst the noise of hype.

It's a chance to connect, collaborate, and craft strategies that will enhance Asia's position in the global AI ecosystem. Don't miss out on this opportunity to navigate the complexities of AI capital in a rapidly changing world.

Mark your calendars for September 23, 2024, and get ready to engage with the brightest minds in AI at the Edition Singapore!

What would generative AI in the workspace look like?

Before delving into how to implement AI transformations, one must address the challenges that enterprises will face during their AI transformation journey.

Check out this article → here.

This is Part 1 of a series by Adeel Khan, a Senior Technical Specialist at Microsoft, on how can enterprises leverage Microsoft Copilot to power their AI transformations.

News from Asia:

• Huawei vs. Apple: Huawei launched Mate XT, 5 years in the making, leading the next wave of AI phone transformation.

• Chinese AI tiger Minimax launches video-01, a text-to-video generating model, to rival OpenAI’s Sora.

• China opts out on “blueprint on action” to govern responsible use of AI in the military domain.

• TSMC’s August revenue climbs 33% as AI chip demand holds up.

• Sony Research and AI Singapore to collaborate on SEA-LION LLMs.

News from the West:

• OpenAI to release Strawberry AI within 2 weeks, ahead of initial plan.

• iPhone 16’s AI features won’t be available until next month; disappointing users with the slow rollout.

• Reflection 70B launch mired in controversy as third-party benchmark disappoints with underperformance.

• Facebook admits to scraping public photos and posts of Australian adults with no way opting out

• Amazon makes £8 billion UK investment to build cloud and AI infrastructure

• Glean, AI-power work assistant startup, doubles valuation to $4.6 billion in less than 7 months.

• Finally, a US-based AI bookkeeping startup raised a $200 million Series B round in equity and debt.

Trending Tools & Apps

1. video-01 is MiniMax’s answer to Sora. A text-to-video AI generation tool that has garnered much excitement from the creator and viewer communities.

2. LightEval by Hugging Face is a new lightweight evaluation suite designed to help companies and researchers assess large language models (LLMs).

3. Replit Agent is an AI-powered tool designed to assist users in building software projects. It can understand natural language prompts and help create applications from scratch, making software development more accessible to users of all skill levels.

4. Smartcat is a translation platform to help you localize content into multiple languages.