Welcome to Wednesday’s Newsletter

In today’s scoop 🍨 

• 🍪 Oreo’s Secret Ingredient Is… AI?

• 🤖 Salesforce's Needs More Humans for its AI

• 🎁 OpenAI's Day 9 Gift: A Devs Paradise

• 🔧 3 Trending AI Tools

🍪 Oreo’s Secret Ingredient Is… AI?

In a plot twist that sounds like a Black Mirror episode about snacks, Mondelez (the company behind Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and other pantry favorites) has been quietly letting AI take a bite out of its recipe development process since 2019. But before you picture robots stress-eating cookies, here's what's actually cooking: 👨‍🍳

The AI Cookbook 📖

Mondelez's custom-built machine learning tool is basically a food scientist's dream assistant, helping to:

• 🚀 Speed up recipe development 4-5x faster than traditional methods

• 🧈 Fine-tune everything from "buttery-ness" to "in-mouth saltiness" (yes, that's a real metric)

• 💲 Balance costs, nutrition, and environmental impact

• ✨ Maintain the core "essence" of beloved snacks (whatever that means for a Double Stuf)

Early Days Were... Interesting 😅 

Like any rookie baker, the AI had some questionable ideas at first. Its initial suggestion? Loading up cookies with baking soda because it was cheap. Turns out, even artificial intelligence needs a taste test or two.

The Human Touch Remains 🤝 

Don't worry – actual humans are still doing the taste testing (pour one out for Kevin Wallenstein, the health nut who has to sample cookies 4-5 times a week for his job). The AI is more sous chef than master baker, helping streamline the process rather than replace the human creativity behind your favorite munchies.

While your Oreos aren't being fully made by robots (yet), AI is helping Mondelez churn out new flavors and variations faster than ever. The company has already used the technology in over 70 projects, from developing gluten-free Oreos to tweaking classic Chips Ahoy recipes. Just don't expect the AI to reveal the secret behind how they get the cream in the middle – some mysteries are better left unsolved.

🤖 Salesforce Needs More Humans for Its AI

If you thought the AI hype was cooling down, Salesforce just cranked up the thermostat. The CRM giant is going all-in on artificial intelligence, and they're bringing both silicon and human reinforcements to the party.

The Hiring Spree:

• 📈 Salesforce is adding 2,000 new salespeople (double their original plan) just to push AI products

• 👋 This comes after laying off 7,000 employees two years ago

• 🥊 They've already got 9,000 people fighting for these 2,000 spots (talk about hot jobs)

The Robot Revolution: Salesforce's "Agentforce" platform (think digital employees, but without the coffee breaks) is making waves:

• 💰1,000+ paid deals already closed

• 💬 Their AI agents are handling 32,000 customer convos weekly

• 🙋🏻‍♂️ Only 5,000 cases need human backup (down from 10,000)

CEO and cofounder Marc Benioff couldn't resist throwing shade at Microsoft's Copilot, claiming their customer support automation was MIA. Microsoft's CMO clapped back with receipts: their Copilot is boosting sales revenue by 9.4% per seller and solving customer cases 11.5% faster.

Coming Soon: Agentforce 2.0 drops in February 2025, featuring:

• 🎯 AI agents that can mix and match skills (like a digital Swiss Army knife)

• 👌 Enhanced Slack integration for smoother workflows

• 🛝 A new testing playground to make sure these digital workers don't go rogue

Salesforce is betting big on AI being the future of enterprise work – and they're putting their money (and headcount) where their mouth is. Whether this hybrid workforce of humans and AI agents becomes the new normal or just another tech experiment, one thing's clear: The corporate world is about to get a lot more interesting in 2025.

🎁 OpenAI's Day 9 Gift: A Devs Paradise

On day 9 of 12 days, OpenAI gave to devs... quite a lot, actually. They just dropped their o1 "reasoning" model into the API. Let's break down what's under the tree 🎄

🧠 o1 The Slow-but-Steady Brainiac

Think of o1 as the friend who double-checks everything before speaking. This AI model fact-checks itself, which means fewer facepalm moments but longer wait times🤦‍♂️ The price tag? A cool $15 per 750,000 words analyzed and $60 for the same amount generated – about 6x pricier than its cousin GPT-4o. But hey, quality doesn't come cheap.

What's in the Box:

• ⏳ A "reasoning effort" parameter (basically a "how long should I think about this?" knob)

• 🖼️ Image analysis capabilities (it can spot mistakes in tax forms – fun!)

• 📊 Function calling for connecting to external data

• 💬 Developer messages for controlling tone and style

• 🪙 60% more efficient token usage than the preview version

🛠️ OpenAI's Realtime API just got an upgrade with WebRTC – the tech that powers your video calls – making voice interactions smoother than your oat milk latte (and they hired the person who invented it, because of course they did). They're also launching developer toolkits for Go and Java, making it easier for more developers to build with OpenAI's tech.

The Fine Print: 

Before you rush to try o1, know that it's currently exclusive to OpenAI's "tier 5" club – developers who've spent at least $1,000 and have been around for more than 30 days. Think of it as the AI world's version of a fancy members-only club. 🌟

Day 9 of OpenAI's festive rollout is clearly aimed at developers, and they're not skimping on the presents. With o1's self-checking capabilities and new dev tools, it looks like OpenAI is setting the stage for more reliable and versatile AI applications – even if it means paying a premium for that peace of mind. However, there's one present staying wrapped under the tree: during their dev team AMA, OpenAI confirmed they have no immediate plans for a Sora API, potentially giving competitors like Google's Veo 2 and AWS's Nova Reel a head start in the video generation API race. But given how OpenAI had to pause Sora access due to overwhelming demand, maybe that's not such a bad gift to save for next year 🎁 

🔧3 Trending AI Tools

• 🎯 Aimfox - Launch AI-personalized outbound campaigns and streamline lead management on LinkedIn.

• 🧠 Findr - Unlock any memory with your (AI) second brain.

• 📲 NewOaks AI  - Never miss another call - automate inbound and outbound phone calls using Al that sounds human.

Thank you for reading today’s Scoop!

We hope you enjoyed today’s insights and stories. If there’s an topic, trend, or tool you’d like us to cover, drop us an email – we’d love to hear your ideas.

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Until tomorrow—stay curious! 👋