Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
October 21-27, 2024:
• Hinting at how to improve shopping for jobs: TechCrunch lists investments in AI shopping bots;
• Linking AI to tragedy: Florida mother sues AI company over allegedly causing death of teen son;
• Taking charge of their careers: Tech talent say they’re job hunting amid concerns about layoffs;
• Staying strong against IP theft: Penguin Random House protects its books from AI training use;
• Giving ordinary workers an agent: Phai™ Sapia.ai’s mobile AI career coach now available via API.
PLUS
• The TAtech Leadership Summit on Recruitment Marketing, February 26-27, 2025 in Tampa, Florida. For senior execs at enterprise employers and TA solution providers.
• TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum, June 3-5, 2025 in Oceanside just north of San Diego, California. For job board and talent technology company CEOs, senior execs and rising stars.
Seating is limited at both events, so register today!
Shop Till Your AI Bot Drops
Most of us spend quite a bit of time shopping. Depending on the circumstances, it can be either a chore, a pastime, or some combination of the two. Online retailers get this, which is why they offer both addictively scrollable listings and very fast checkout. You can get what you want quickly, or, if you prefer, spend time browsing. With the rise of generative AI, both types of shoppers look poised to see new tools that make the experience more enjoyable or efficient. In the startup sphere, this includes apps that understand detailed shopping requests, bots to scour secondhand offerings, and tools that simplify building custom products. Using Crunchbase data, we identified more than a dozen companies funded in recent quarters with offerings tied to both AI and shopping. Collectively, companies on our list below have raised more than $280 million.Talent Acquisition.
Florida mother sues AI company over allegedly causing death of teen son
A Florida mother is suing the artificial intelligence company Character.AI for allegedly causing the suicide of her 14-year-old son. The mother filed a lawsuit against the company claiming her son was addicted to the company’s service and the chatbot created by it. Megan Garcia says Character.AI targeted her son, Sewell Setzer, with "anthropomorphic, hypersexualized, and frighteningly realistic experiences". Setzer began having conversations with various chatbots on Character.AI starting in April 2023, according to the lawsuit. The conversations were often text-based romantic and sexual interactions. Garcia claims in the lawsuit that the chatbot "misrepresented itself as a real person, a licensed psychotherapist, and an adult lover, ultimately resulting in Sewell's desire to no longer live outside" of the world created by the service.
Tech talent say they’re job hunting amid concerns about layoffs
More than a third of tech workers surveyed said they’re concerned about layoffs in the next year, and 40% said they’ll likely be affected if their company implements layoffs, according to an Oct. 17 report from Indeed. In addition, 34% of tech talent said they’re actively looking for work now, and 70% said they’re likely to start looking for work if layoffs occur at their current company but they’re not impacted. “The tech workforce is rapidly evolving, with a growing demand for highly skilled professionals to meet the industry’s needs,” the Indeed report said. “Employers continue to face challenges in recruiting technology employees, especially as tech job openings have shifted post-pandemic.”
Penguin Random House protects its books from AI training use
Penguin Random House (PRH) has taken a significant step in response to rising concerns about the use of intellectual property to train AI systems. The publisher has introduced a new statement to the copyright pages of both new and reprinted books, stating, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.” This change is supplemented by a section that excludes PRH’s works from the European Union’s text and data mining exception, in accordance with applicable copyright laws. As one of the first major publishers to address the issue of AI training explicitly, PRH is responding to the broader debate about how tech companies use copyrighted content to train large language models (LLMs), like those used in chatbots and other AI tools. Publishers have become increasingly concerned about the possible misuse of their intellectual property in recent years, especially after reports arose that copyrighted books were utilised by AI firms to enhance these technologies.
Phai™ by Sapia.ai: Mobile AI Career Coach Now Available via API
Sapia.ai, the world’s only Smart Interviewer™ platform powered by AI, today introduced Phai™, a revolutionary AI-driven career coach that fits in your pocket. Phai™ combines cutting-edge conversational AI with Sapia’s proprietary dataset to empower job seekers and employees. Leveraging the advanced capabilities of Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 and Sapia.ai’s own proprietary algorithms, Phai™ is built on insights from over 20 million question-and-answer pairs from 5 million global candidates. Its conversational API, similar to today’s leading generative AI chatbots, offers personalized career guidance at scale. “Phai’s goal is simple: to help job seekers and employees discover their potential and match them to the right opportunities,” said Barb Hyman, Founder & CEO of Sapia.ai. “For years, we’ve championed AI that empowers candidates, and Phai™ continues that mission. Phai™ identifies over 140 skills in a 20-minute session, giving employees and organizations tools to unlock growth.”
One-of-a-Kind Conferences for TA Solutions Business Success
• The TAtech Leadership Summit on Recruitment Marketing, February 26-27, 2025 in Tampa, Florida. For senior execs at enterprise employers and TA solution providers.
• TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum, June 3-5, 2025 in Oceanside just north of San Diego, California. For job board and talent technology company CEOs, senior execs and rising stars.
Seating is limited at both events, so register today!