The week's developments on automation & the workplace, explained | 15.07.24

If you’re enjoying this briefing, sign up here — and share it with a friend. Reading time: ~5 minutes

This week, we dive into why a startup's AI-powered "Consulting 2.0" model is turning heads (and wallets) in Chicago, unpack the surprising reason your dream vacation might be making you sick, and explore why manufacturers are pumping the brakes on GenAI adoption. Plus, we break down the lucrative world of AI salaries for those eyeing a career change in this field.

Also in today's issue:

• AI taking over consulting jobs?

• Being a ‘night owl’ is good for work

• The odd cause of leisure sickness

• AI is changing worker's relationship with data

• Top 3 productivity tools of the week

P.S You are now able to sign up for the super early bird offer (75% off) to the CogX AI Summit in London on October 7th here.

Top Stories

🤖 AI taking over consulting jobs? Why shell out for someone to tell you how to integrate AI and automate workflows when you can just get an AI to do it instead? That's the pitch from Chicago's Quantum Rise, a startup redefining consulting with its "Consulting 2.0" model. They just snagged a $15 million seed round to supercharge their growth.

🤒 The odd cause of leisure sickness: Ever pack your bags for a relaxing vacation, only to end up sniffling and coughing the whole time? You're not alone. This strange phenomenon, sometimes called ‘leisure sickness’, might be due to people’s work habits, experts say.

🦉 Being a ‘night owl’ is good for work: Researchers at Imperial College London found that ‘night owls’ scored higher on tests measuring memory, reasoning, and information processing compared to their ‘early bird’ counterparts. So next time someone calls you lazy for sleeping in hit them with some science.

Prompt of the Day

Get AI to write your out-of-office email

Example:

Provide me a funny out-of-office response to let people know I’m on vacation in the Bahamas and am happily ignoring emails until I get back. Provide a subject line and email body.

AI & Automation

👨🏻‍💻 Thinking about a career in AI? A new report by eWeek breaks down the salaries in this hot field depending on your specific AI skills.

🤔 AI is changing worker's relationship with data: Companies are scrambling to gather data to train their shiny new AI models - but the real differentiator will be the unique data they can access. While everyone's chasing after public customer information, the smartest companies are looking inward.

💻 Move over Python and JavaScript, there's a new sheriff in town: Zig, a young but ambitious programming language, has rocketed to the top of the Stack Overflow developer salary charts with a median pay of $103k per year.

📉 Gen AI being rolled more slowly than expected: New research shows manufacturers are hitting the brakes on GenAI use due to worries about its accuracy.  While these AI tools can be helpful for employees, some manufacturers fear unreliable outputs could cause big problems

Productivity Boosters

Check out this week's top AI tools to supercharge your productivity

	Nailedit.ai is a comparison platform that enables users to evaluate outputs from multiple large language models simultaneously.   Key Features: Side-by-side comparison of multiple LLM outputs Supports various models  Single prompt input for all models
	Uiino is a text-based story mapping tool that simplifies user story creation and management, offering AI assistance to streamline the design process.   Key Features: Text-based user story mapping AI-powered Storymapper for automated assistance Manual or AI-assisted story creation
	Prompt Mixer is an AI Development Studio that streamlines the creation, testing, and evaluation of AI solutions through collaborative prompt management   Key Features: Comprehensive AI development workspace Collaborative environment for diverse team roles Prompt generation and management tools

In case you missed it

As robots take over the jobs, what if money became a right, not earned but shared by all?

✍️ Enjoying this newsletter?  Subscribe to our free weekly briefings on Preparing for AI, Cinema & AI, The Race to Net Zero, AI & DeepTech and The Future of Work.

You can relive CogX Festival 2023 on our YouTube Channel now. And make sure you join us in person next year - get your super early bird tickets for Festival 2024 now!