NVIDIA’s new local LLM chatbot seems tailor made to corporate office/knowledge workers

Those with compatible hardware can now install Chat With RTX, an AI chatbot that turns local files into its dataset.

At its core, Chat With RTX is a personal assistant that digs through your documents and notes. It saves you the trouble of manually searching through files you’ve written, downloaded, or received from others.

can also pull transcripts from YouTube videos.

a matter-of-fact tone

No offsite data transfer.
“Chat” with local files.
At the very least, employee onboarding could become easier.


Soft landing? More like slow landing.

CNN spoke with the Atlanta Fed President, who:

is anticipating the nation’s inflation rate — which currently stands at around 3% — will be near “the lower twos” by the end of 2024.

& said

With that outlook, I really see the first move coming sometime in the summertime

Thing is, according to Fed data our current rate environment is more the norm compared to the 0 rate exception the market got used to.

A chart of historic Federal Reserve rates since the 60s showing a much longer period of volatile (and higher rates) than the post-Great Recession 0% rate environment that modern Silicon Valley and stock marketism was built on

Earlier this month I asked if Google was now Microsoft.

Magic 8 ball says “Signs point to yes” 🎱

via Inside:

A U.S. federal judge has scheduled an antitrust trial against Google for Sept. 9, 2024. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit targets the search giant’s alleged monopoly over online advertising.

If, like Microsoft, Big G limits/unwinds development to avoid more antitrust actions, we may have seen the last of Google as portal to the Internet.

& yes, it’s an existing trend that is accelerating.

& yes, Microsoft pulled a phoenix so it’s not necessarily The End.


Nearly 90% of consumers no longer trust influencers

Consumers are becoming fed up with influencer marketing and are starting to seek out user-generated content (UGC), or brand-related content created by customers instead

This is people’s natural preference for something that feels more like word-of-mouth than paid advertising. Influencers are part of “the system” now.

TikTok’s Shop push isn’t likely to help this either.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was more about mega-influencers and obviously paid promo material either.


An important caveat to the Stanley Drops.

They were the fuel, not the fire or the fire starter.

The frenzy is “something that was, and still is, actually driven by women content creators”

Most brands won’t be able to start trends. It’s about knowing what to do when you find one.

via Garbage Day


Drops: the key to Stanley Mania™️

Stanley hired Terence Reilly, the marketer credited for reinventing Crocs. Reading between the lines of what Reilly has said about his work at Stanley, it seems like his main strategy for both Crocs and the Quencher was capitalizing on internet buzz and growing it into otaku product worship. Or as Inc. phrased it in their feature on him, he uses a “scarcity model” to whip up interest. Cut to three years later, now we’re seeing mini-riots over limited edition Stanleys at Target.

via Garbage Day


Some thoughts on the Vision Pro from Benedict Evans:

  • Any use case that doesn’t land on the pinnacle of current tech—watching sports, gaming, whatever—probably isn’t going to happen ever.
  • With AirPods and the Watch, Apple is already an augmented reality company, just not in a glasses form factor.

“The buying of time or space is not the taking out of a hunting license on someone’s private preserve, but it is the renting of a stage on which we may perform.”

-Howard Luck Gossage

&

“Advertising builds brands best when it is entertaining, popular, and memorable, when it is not just a pitch, but a performance.”

-Paul Feldwick

via Westwood One


Podcast consumers prefer funny and entertaining ads but say they currently hear more ads that communicate dry features/benefits

Appealing to consumers on an emotional basis is what podcast hosts do best and they should extend that method to their ad reads.

via Westwood One

Podcast ads are well suited for brand discovery, a stage that should be focused more on creating an emotional connection and less on reading your spec sheet.

Of course, if you have an offer you know works, you can use that too.

Have a personality, show it off.


the most powerful institutions, brands and people are the ones who are in alignment with their audience.

-Seth Godin