Cisco today unveiled AI-powered enhancements across its Webex suite, promising to deliver hybrid work experiences with automation, while protecting customers’ confidentiality and privacy. 

The updates span workspace, collaboration and customer experience categories, built on the Webex platform, and join a long list of AI and machine learning (ML) features already embedded in Cisco products.

The next step forward for such collaboration is video intelligence, which Webex is expanding throughout the conference room operating system RoomOS.

With cinematic meeting experiences, cameras follow individuals through voice and facial recognition to capture the best angle of the active speaker. This ensures focus on the speaker, while making certain that  hybrid workers not physically present in the room can still feel included, according to Cisco.

Once in a generation platform shift

RoomOS uses facial detection, information about where people are sitting in a room and voice location to direct the meeting and provide the best view. The feature individually frames and levels participants at eye height, and in speaker mode, uses audio triangulation from devices and an intelligent beam-forming table microphone to quickly and accurately identify the position of the active speaker. 

Cinematic meetings support a range of camera intelligence features, including speaker mode, frames, presenter and audience tracking and meeting zones.

“AI is fundamentally transforming the way we work and live,” Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM for security and collaboration at Cisco, told VentureBeat. “It has the potential to make collaboration radically more immersive, personalized and efficient.”

Cisco studied what he described as a “once-in-a-generation platform shift” that AI could support. The company’s efforts center around re-imagining hybrid work. 

Targeting hybrid work experiences

With the rise of hybrid work, it’s essential that organizations provide employees with the flexibility to work in different locations and in different ways. To address this, Cisco has introduced three new AI-based features into its Webex suite.

This includes a super resolution function that ensures crystal-clear video in Webex meetings, even in low-bandwidth conditions. This is achieved through deep neural network video recovery that hides choppiness, removes blocking artifacts and reconstructs the face and body to render in high-resolution images and videos.

Another new AI capability is smart re-lighting, which automatically enhances lighting in Webex meetings to ensure that people look their best in any environment. This is particularly useful when working in poor lighting conditions. The algorithm is trained to recognize different scenarios with people in different lighting, and automatically enhances the light on the facial foreground.

The third new capability is a “be right back” update, which automatically puts up a BRB message, blurs the background, and mutes audio when a user steps away from a Webex meeting. This feature saves time and is simple to use. By leveraging a 3D face mesh algorithm, Webex can detect when a user has stepped away and replace their video feed with a BRB indicator until they return. Users can turn their audio and video back on when they are back in front of the screen.

AI-powered chat summaries

As customer expectations continue to rise and organizations handle billions of daily customer interactions, it has become challenging for agents and legacy systems to keep up with the volume and personalization required. To this end, Cisco ​​is introducing new AI capabilities for its customer experience solutions, including Webex Contact Center and Webex Connect.

One of the new capabilities, topic analysis in Webex Contact Center, provides actionable insights to business analysts by surfacing key reasons customers are calling in. This feature is built using an AI large language model (LLM) that aggregates call transcripts and highlights trends for business analysts.

Another capability, agent answers, acts as a real-time coach for human agents by listening and instantly surfacing knowledge-based articles and helpful information for the customer. This capability uses learnings from self-service and automated customer interactions and applies AI to ensure that the highest match probability options are identified first.

Meanwhile, AI-powered chat summaries eliminate the need for agents to read lengthy digital chat histories and provide key takeaways in a quickly digestible format. Lastly, Webex Connect users can now describe the function they want to perform, and AI will generate and return the appropriate code instantly, making it easier to create and iterate customer journeys quickly.

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On Sunday night, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted a shocking claim about ChatGPT — that the model “taught itself” to do advanced chemistry — and AI researchers immediately pushed back in frustration: “Your description of ChatGPT is dangerously misinformed,” Melanie Mitchell, an AI researcher and professor at the Santa Fe Institute, wrote in a tweet. “Every sentence is incorrect. I hope you will learn more about how this system actually works, how it was trained, and what its limitations are.”

Suresh Venkatasubramanian, former White House AI policy advisor to the Biden Administration from 2021-2022 (where he helped develop The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights) and professor of computer science at Brown University, said Murphy’s tweets are “perpetuating fear-mongering around generative AI.” Venkatasubramanian recently shared his thoughts with VentureBeat in a phone interview. He talked about the dangers of perpetuating discussions about “sentient” AI that does not exist, as well as what he considers to be an organized campaign around AI disinformation. (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

VentureBeat: What were your thoughts on Christopher Murphy’s tweets? 

Suresh Venkatasubramanian: Overall, I think the senator’s comments are disappointing because they are perpetuating fear-mongering around generative AI systems that are not very constructive and are preventing us from actually engaging with the real issues with AI systems that are not generative. And to the extent there’s an issue, it is with the generative part and not the AI part. And no alien intelligence is not coming for us, in spite of what you’ve all heard. Sorry, I’m trying to be polite, but I’m struggling a little bit.

VB: What did you think of his response to the response, where he still maintained something is coming and we’re not ready for it?

Venkatasubramanian: I would say something is already here and we haven’t been ready for it and we should do something about that, rather than worrying about a hypothetical that might be coming that hasn’t done anything yet. Focus on the harms that are already seen with AI, then worry about the potential takeover of the universe by generative AI.

VB: This made me think of our chat from last week or the week before where you talked about miscommunication between the policy people and the tech people. Do you feel like this falls under that context?

Venkatasubramanian: This is worse. It’s not misinformation, it’s disinformation. In other words, it’s overt and organized. It’s an organized campaign of fear-mongering. I have to figure out to what end but I feel like the goal, if anything, is to push a reaction against sentient AI that doesn’t exist so that we can ignore all the real problems of AI that do exist. I think it’s terrible. I think it’s really corrupting our policy discourse around the real impacts that AI is having — you know, when Black taxpayers are being audited at three times the rates of white taxpayers, that is not a sentient AI problem. That is an automated decision system problem. We need to fix that problem.

VB: Do you think Sen. Murphy just doesn’t understand, or do you think he’s actually trying to promote disinformation?

Venkatasubramanian: I don’t think the Senator is trying to promote disinformation. I think he’s just genuinely concerned. I think everyone is generally concerned. ChatGPT has heralded a new democratization of fear. Those of us who have been fearful and terrified for the last decade or so are now being joined by everyone in the country because of ChatGPT. So they are seeing now what we’ve been concerned about for a long time. I think it’s good to have that level of elevation of the concerns around AI. I just wish the Senator was not falling into the trap laid by the rhetoric around alien intelligence that frankly has forced people who are otherwise thoughtful to succumb to it. When you get New York Times op-eds by people who should know better, then you have a problem.

VB: Others pointed out on Twitter that anthropomorphizing ChatGPT in this way is also a problem. Do you think that’s a concern?

Venkatasubramanian: This is a deliberate design choice, by ChatGPT in particular. You know, Google Bard doesn’t do this. Google Bard is a system for making queries and getting answers. ChatGPT puts little three dots [as if it’s] “thinking” just like your text message does. ChatGPT puts out words one at a time as if it’s typing. The system is designed to make it look like there’s a person at the other end of it. That is deceptive. And that is not right, frankly.

VB: Do you think Senator Murphy’s comments are an example of what’s going to come from other leaders with the same sources of information about generative AI?

Venkatasubramanian: I think there’s again, a concerted campaign to send only that message to the folks at the highest levels of power. I don’t know by who. But when you have a show-and-tell in D.C. and San Francisco with deep fakes, and when you have op-eds being written talking about sentience, either it’s a collective mass freakout or it’s a collective loss freakout driven by the same group of people.

I will also say that this is a reflection of my own frustration with the discourse, where I feel like we were heading in a good direction at some point and I think we still are among the people who are more thoughtful and are thinking about this in government and in policy circles. But ChatGPT has changed the discourse, which I think is appropriate because it has changed things.

But it has also changed things in ways that are not helpful. Because the hypotheticals around generative AI are not as critical as the real harms. If ChatGPT is going to be used, as is being claimed, in a suicide hotline, people are gonna get hurt. We can wait till then, or we can start saying that any system that gets used as a suicide hotline needs to be under strict guidance. And it doesn’t matter if it’s ChatGPT or not. That’s my point.

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Premium lifestyle brand Tommy Hilfiger today launched a cross-metaverse virtual hub in partnership with 3D technology and virtual reality (VR) platform provider Emperia. As part of the launch, the retailer is simultaneously unveiling several virtual experiences across various platforms, including Decentraland, Roblox, Spatial, DressX and Ready Player Me. 

To simplify the process of navigating among these virtual worlds, the Emperia platform will provide a central hub to easily move in and out of each experience.

The Tommy Hilfiger metaverse hub will be available online starting today.

Because today’s metaverse distribution requires placement on multiple non-integrating platforms, companies face special challenges in assuring consistent branding. Emperia’s interoperable approach, as in its collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger, bridges the gap and enables multi-world experiences to be integrated into brands’ Web3 and ecommerce strategies.

Emperia’s gateway connects fragmented environments, providing users with a seamless experience that enables them to enjoy each platform’s unique capabilities without having to choose among them. As a result, the hub creates a new, unique brand experience said to exceed physical retail alternatives. 

Streaming a cross-metaverse with style

The Emperia-created hub features DressX-powered digital fashion, Web3 artist collaborations with Vinnie Hagar, AR features, a photo booth, gamification and a community-focused competition to create AI fashion. Tommy Hilfiger’s well-known “TH” monogram will appear across all platforms, creating a unified digital brand story, while providing movement between the retailer’s website and the various metaverses, delivering an end-to-end shopping journey with a unique impact.

Emperia’s rendering capabilities standardize graphic quality across platforms, creating an easily accessible and high-performance experience without requiring users to download any special software. The experience is available on almost any device.

Some metaverse platforms limit payment options to cryptocurrency. By integrating with the retailer’s ecommerce platform, Emperia provides users with a wider range of payment options, reducing friction and increasing user confidence, resulting in higher online sales.

Overall, with the cross-metaverses hub, Emperia aims to introduce a new layer of interoperability, blurring the frontiers of Web3, and enabling connections between the metaverse, ecommerce, entertainment and direct performance, all backed by data. Meanwhile, Emperia’s dataset capabilities allow granular insights into the user journey and engagement across different metaverse experiences, enabling a cross-data approach that was never offered before.

Emperia and Tommy Hilfiger: Dressed for iconic success

The Tommy Hilfiger digital hub also aims to improve the product experience by offering four exclusive items, with the iconic Varsity Jacket taking the lead, presented in various aesthetic representations across all platforms.

Customers can purchase the jacket in two forms: physical, connected to Tommy’s ecommerce platform, and digital, connected to the DressX digital fashion platform. The Emperia hub provides access to the physical jacket for sale, while the Ready Player Me platform offers the digital version, which can be used across various games and environments, increasing the interoperability options.

“Emperia is continuing to change the face of virtual retail, pushing the envelope and supporting retailers along their ecommerce transition journey,” said Olga Dogadkina, co-founder and CEO of Emperia. She highlighted the industry’s movement towards collaboration, with each technology vendor leveraging its unique capabilities and traits under Emperia’s virtual environments.

The collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger and the PVH group is an example of this, creating a brand-new digital retail environment that enhances user experience and encourages brand engagement and shopper loyalty by consolidating the fragmented industry into a streamlined experience.

The ultimate goal is to increase ecommerce performance by centralizing the payment process and allowing users to freely navigate across the retailer’s online properties.

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Nvidia’s A100 GPU accelerator has enabled groundbreaking innovations in generative AI, powering cutting-edge research that is reshaping what artificial intelligence can achieve.

But in the fiercely competitive field of AI hardware, others are vying for a piece of the action. Intel is betting that its latest data center technologies — including a new Intel Xeon 4th generation Sapphire Rapids CPU and an AI-optimized Habana Gaudi2 GPU — can provide an alternative platform for machine learning training and inference.

On Tuesday, Hugging Face, an open-source machine learning organization, released a series of new reports showing that Intel’s hardware delivered substantial performance gains for training and running machine learning models. The results suggest that Intel’s chips could pose a serious challenge to Nvidia’s dominance in AI computing.

The Hugging Face data reported that the Intel Habana Gaudi2 was able to run inference 20% faster on the 176 billion-parameter BLOOMZ model than it could on the Nvidia A100-80G. BLOOMZ is a variant of BLOOM (an acronym for BigScience Large Open-science Open-access Multilingual Language Model), which had its first big release in 2022 providing support for 46 different human languages. Going a step further, Hugging Face reported that the smaller 7 billion-parameter version of BLOOMZ will run three times faster than the A100-80G, running on the Intel Habana Gaudi2.

On the CPU side, Hugging Face is publishing data showing the increase in performance for the latest 4th Generation Intel Xeon CPU in comparison to the prior 3rd generation version. According to Hugging Face, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI model runs 3.8 times faster without any code changes. With some modification, including the use of the Intel Extension for PyTorch with Bfloat16, a custom format for machine learning, Hugging Face said it was able to get nearly a 6.5-times speed improvement. Hugging Face has posted an online demonstration tool to allow anyone to experience the speed difference.

“Over 200,000 people come to the Hugging Face Hub every day to try models, so being able to offer fast inference for all models is super important,” Hugging Face product director Jeff Boudier told VentureBeat. “Intel Xeon-based instances allow us to serve them efficiently and at scale.”

Of note, the new Hugging Face performance claims for Intel hardware did not do a comparison against the newer Nvidia H100 Hopper-based GPUs. The H100 has only recently become available to organizations like Hugging Face, which, Boudier said, has been able to do only limited testing thus far with it.

Intel’s strategy for generative AI is end-to-end

Intel has a focussed strategy for growing the use of its hardware in the generative AI space. It’s a strategy that involves both training and inference, not just for the biggest large language models (LLMs) but also for real use cases, from the cloud to the edge.

“If you look at this generative AI space, it’s still in the early stages and it has gained a lot of hype with ChatGPT in the last few months,” Kavitha Prasad, Intel’s VP and GM datacenter, AI and cloud, execution and strategy, told VentureBeat. “But the key thing is now taking that and translating it into business outcomes, which is still a journey that’s to be had.”

Prasad emphasized that an important part of Intel’s strategy for AI adoption is enabling a “build once and deploy everywhere” concept. The reality is that very few companies can actually build their own LLMs. Rather, typically an organization will need to fine-tune existing models, often with the use of transfer learning, an approach that Intel supports and encourages with its hardware and software.

With Intel Xeon-based servers deployed in all manner of environments including enterprises, edge, cloud and telcos, Prasad noted that Intel has big expectations for the wide deployment of AI models.

“Coopetition” with Nvidia will continue with more performance metrics to come

While Intel is clearly competing against Nvidia, Prasad said that in her view it’s a “coopetition” scenario, which is increasingly common across IT in general.

In fact, Nvidia is using the 4th Generation Intel Xeon in some of its own products, including the DGX100 that was announced in January.

“The world is going towards a ‘coopetition’ environment and we are just one of the participants in it,” Prasad said.

Looking forward, she hinted at additional performance metrics from Intel that will be “very positive.” In particular, the next round of MLcommons MLperf AI benchmarking results are due to be released in early April. She also hinted that more hardware is coming soon, including a Habana Guadi3 GPU accelerator, though she did not provide any details or timeline.

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MetaKing Studios announced today that it is partnering with Polygon Labs for the launch of Blocklords, its upcoming medieval strategy game, in the metaverse. The latter’s Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solutions will power the game’s player economy, where players can become rich rulers and warlords through tactical battles. MetaKing plans to launch the game sometime later this year.

Blocklords is a strategy game similar to Age of Empires or Crusader Kings. Players begin as characters of varying social backgrounds and build their fortunes via war with their neighbors or from collecting taxes. It also has a dynastic inheritance system where characters’ traits pass to their children. At the time of writing, it has 265,000 users registered to play.

David Johansson, Blocklords’ CEO, said in a statement, “We’re thrilled to announce our collaboration with Polygon Labs and the expansion of Blocklords’ in-game economy. It is truly remarkable to see what the Polygon Labs team has been doing for mainstream adoption, and we are thrilled and lucky to have them on board as we move toward game launch later this year.”

MetaKing raised $15 million last year for Blocklords, with funding from Makers Fund, Bitkraft Ventures and Animoca Brands among others.

Polygon’s scaling helps expand the in-game world and its in-game assets. Urvit Goel, Polygon Labs’ head of global business development, said, “Blocklords is unlocking the power of Web3 for gamers by allowing them to benefit from digital asset ownership and utility. Supported by Polygon’s scalable, low-cost solution, Blocklords has the potential to go stratospheric.

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