Latest news with #EddyCue
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says, smartphones are not going anywhere, not for next …
Google CEO Sundar Pichai emphasises that smartphones will remain the primary consumer device for at least the next two to three years, even as the company heavily invests in augmented reality glasses technology. Speaking during Alphabet's Q2 2025 earnings call, Pichai acknowledged excitement about AR glasses while tempering expectations about their immediate impact on mobile dominance. "I think it will be an exciting new emerging category, but I still expect phones to be at the center of the [consumer] experience... for the next two to three years, at least," Pichai stated, positioning Google's approach as measured rather than revolutionary. Google continues its investment in AR The comments come as Google develops Android XR , partnering with fashion brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to create stylish smart glasses . The company is also collaborating with Samsung to build a software and reference hardware platform that will enable broader ecosystem development for AR glasses. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Libas Purple Days Sale Libas Undo Google's approach appears more measured than competitors rushing to replace smartphones entirely. The company is first focusing on Android XR headsets before expanding to glasses, with developer tools expected later this year. This strategy acknowledges current technological limitations while building toward future possibilities when AR glasses might eventually challenge smartphone dominance . Despite his phone-centric outlook, Pichai expressed enthusiasm for Google's AR glasses investments, calling himself "super excited about our investment in glasses." His cautious timeline contrasts sharply with more aggressive predictions from other tech leaders about smartphones becoming obsolete, suggesting Google views AR glasses as complementary technology rather than an immediate smartphone killer. Apple's Eddy Cue gives iPhones a decade The CEO's stance puts Google at odds with some industry voices predicting smartphones' rapid decline. Apple's Eddy Cue recently warned that "you may not need an iPhone 10 years from now" due to AI's transformative potential, comparing the situation to Apple's decision to discontinue the iPod. However, Apple is backing up those predictions with aggressive hardware development. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is developing at least seven head-mounted devices across two product lines through 2028, including Ray-Ban-style smart glasses launching in 2027 and advanced XR glasses with full-color displays by 2028. The company's roadmap suggests it may launch more Vision Pro-like headsets than iPhones within the next three years. Google seems content to let phones reign for a few more years, Apple is quietly building an army of head-mounted devices that could flood the market sooner than expected. Meanwhile, developers will get their hands on Google's AR platform tools later this year, setting the stage for what could be an interesting few years of experimentation before anyone knows which approach wins out.
Techday NZ
14-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Goodbye SEO, hello GEO: How AI is reshaping brand discovery
As language models replace traditional search, brands must master generative engine optimisation to stay visible In May, news emerged that sent ripples through the tech world: Google searches in Apple's Safari had apparently dropped for the first time in 22 years, according to testimony made by Apple's Eddy Cue during Google's antitrust trial. While later Google countered that "query growth" is up, the contradiction itself reveals a shift that's already underway. Whether the reality is declining searches or changing search patterns, the trend points in one direction: people are increasingly turning to LLMs for answers. Ask ChatGPT about the best car brands for families, and you'll get a curated list. Search for laptop recommendations, and the AI serves up specific models with reasoning. But notice which brands make those lists and which don't. This represents more than a technological preference. The rapid transition from traditional search engines to AI-powered language models represents a complete restructuring of the discovery layer between brands and customers. And many businesses haven't noticed they're already losing. This trend has given rise to what is being called generative engine optimisation (GEO), the new discipline of optimising content for AI-powered responses rather than traditional search rankings. The visibility challenge The shift from traditional search engines to AI-powered language models represents a complete reshaping of how consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. Those that fail to recognise and respond to this shift risk becoming invisible at the moment of decision. Brands that are not surfaced in LLM-generated responses will see a significant decline in visibility, resulting in downstream impacts on customer acquisition, brand relevance, and market competitiveness. Importantly, this isn't a reflection of product quality, but of digital discoverability: if a brand isn't mentioned, trusted, or properly structured in the sources LLMs rely on, it may simply not exist in the eyes of the AI, or the customer. This transition marks a new brand-customer dynamic, where visibility is no longer about search engine rankings alone, but about being contextually relevant, credibly cited, and machine-readable. Brands that embrace this reality early by adapting content, enhancing structured data, and embedding themselves in trusted digital ecosystems, will establish a lasting competitive edge. Those that delay will not merely fall behind, they risk being excluded from the AI-powered discovery layer entirely. Who wins and who loses While the shift toward AI-mediated discovery poses challenges across all industries, the impact won't be uniform. The degree to which brands face existential risk from this transition depends largely on the nature of their products, customer relationships, and purchase drivers. Understanding these differences is critical for prioritising response strategies and resource allocation. Some purchases are driven by emotion or identity rather than logic, price, or features. Luxury fashion and high-end cars fall into this category, and as a result, are less likely to be impacted by shifts in consumer decision-making. In contrast, products like utilities are essential, broadly interchangeable, and often chosen based on price or promotional offers rather than brand loyalty. This divide will deepen as AI agents begin to play larger roles in decision-making and action pathways. When decision-making occurs without humans in the loop, brand presence such as mental availability becomes less relevant. Instead, the agent's choices will be driven primarily by product attributes, features, and consumer reviews. Consider a future where your AI assistant automatically switches your energy provider based on quarterly rate comparisons, or books travel based on optimal price-to-convenience ratios. As the way people search and discover products changes, brands that adapt to this new environment will be best placed to succeed. This means actively engaging with how AI systems interpret and present information. Mastery of tools like prompt engineering, investment in training partnerships, or the development of custom GPTs can all help confirm products and services are accurately and favourably surfaced in AI-mediated environments. Brands that fail to understand how their audiences now phrase questions, conduct research, or engage with offerings will miss opportunities to evolve. Without these insights, businesses won't be able to redesign digital experiences, particularly websites, to support discovery and decision-making in an AI-driven Brands Must Do Where they once poured much marketing effort into search engine optimisation (SEO), brands must now rethink their digital presence for GEO, optimising not just for humans, but for the machines mediating those interactions. A brand's digital presence and content need to be more conversational and context-rich, rather than just keyword-dense. At BRX, we specialise in AI-driven marketing and have developed strategies to help drive GEO success: Audit your brand's presence across trusted sources. Are you mentioned on CHOICE, Canstar, Reddit, Whirlpool? If not, why not? Update your structured data. Use schema markup and keep pricing, availability, and product specifications always accurate. Drive positive reviews. Be a part of brand dialogue that matters to your category like Trustpilot, Google, TripAdvisor. Optimise for natural language. Rewrite content to reflect how people actually ask questions in LLMs, not keyword-stuffing. Format your language for skim readers and scanners with a "too long; didn't read." Create content that simplifies decisions. Think comparison tables, FAQs, expert explainers, and product fit guides. These steps form the foundation of AI-ready brand presence, but success requires more than checking boxes. The brands that will really thrive in this environment will also share some common characteristics. At BRX, we think brands that win will be those who: Sit outside the dynamic of price and features Create conversational content that answers real questions Prioritise structured clarity in product and service info Maintain consistency across official and third-party sources Earn trust through verified experiences, not just promises Provide highly specific answers to hyper-individual questions In this new environment, the marketer's job is no longer just to shape consumer perception but to influence the AI's perception of their brand. To "win" in AI-generated conversations, content flooding is no longer just a visibility tactic, it's a visibility imperative. Brands that dominate the content space are disproportionately represented in LLM outputs. Flooding without a customer-centric lens, however, risks damaging the post-click experience. The challenge is balancing volume with quality. The emerging reality is that websites are increasingly serving LLMs first, customers second. This creates a tension: you may be designing an experience that LLMs find useful, but human users do not. Time to act AI systems now influence how customers discover brands, and brands need to get out ahead of this. As AI and AI agents will be increasingly making decisions without human input, brands need to audit their AI visibility, create conversational content, and balance quantity with quality in their digital presence. The first step is simple but critical: audit what AI systems currently say about your brand. Ask multiple LLMs about your product category and see if you appear. If you don't, investigate the sources they cite and understand what ecosystems are influencing their responses. Modern LLMs with research functions provide sources that serve as helpful research starting points. Use this intelligence to understand where you need to appear to start showing up in LLM results. Given the complexity and rapid evolution of AI systems, partnering with specialists who understand this landscape can accelerate your progress. BRX helps brands navigate GEO with AI-native strategies that deliver measurable improvements in AI visibility and engagement. The brands that recognise this shift early and master GEO won't just maintain their market position; they'll capture market share from competitors who remain focused on traditional search optimisation. In a world where AI increasingly mediates brand discovery, being invisible to artificial intelligence means being invisible to customers." This emphasises the value proposition of working with experts who understand the complexity and fast-moving nature of AI, rather than trying to figure it out alone.
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Apple makes multi-million dollar offer for F1 rights
Encouraged with the box-office success of ' F1: The Movie, ' Apple is now in talks to buy Formula One's US media rights, sources familiar with the matter told the Financial Times . Apple senior VP of services Eddy Cue is believed to have offered something around $180 million annually to F1s parent company, Liberty Media, for the US media rights, Sportico has reported . That's about double what ESPN/ABC currently pays. ESPN/ABC holds those rights through the remainder of the 2025 season. But as sources previously told Reuters in February, ESPN's opportunity to exclusively negotiate with the open-wheel racing circuit has expired, allowing rival bidders to enter the media auction. Daily Mail has reached out to both Apple and F1 for comment. Apple is aiming to capitalize on the sport's growing popularity in the U.S. which was also driven by the success of Netflix 's hit docuseries 'Formula 1: Drive to Survive' that provided an engaging behind-the-scenes look at the sport. Netflix is also among the contenders for the F1 U.S. broadcasting rights from the 2026 season, according to media reports in February. Apple TV+, known for original shows such as ' Ted Lasso ', 'The Morning Show', 'Shrinking' and 'Severance', has been trailing behind competitors like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video in subscriber numbers, and acquiring F1 rights could help boost its sports content offering. Streaming platforms are investing heavily in exclusive rights to dominate the lucrative live sports market to drive subscriber growth and increase ad dollars in an increasingly competitive landscape. Netflix paid more than $5 billion to be the exclusive home of World Wrestling Entertainment's 'Raw' in several territories in January, and previously drew an estimated 60 million households for the 2024 Mike Tyson-Jake Paul bout. But it's the success of F1: The Movie that may have convinced Apple to go after US media rights. Brad Pitt's latest film earned the top spot in its opening weekend by drawing $140 million globally. That includes $55.6 million in the United States, with $25 million of that coming on the movie's opening day Friday, according to The Numbers. The movie, which stars Pitt and was executive-produced by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, was filmed at F1 racetracks through the 2024 season. Pitt plays an F1 driver who comes out of retirement to help a struggling team while also mentoring an up-and-coming young driver.
Forbes
03-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Apple's Big AI Bet: Could Perplexity Be A Game Changer?
Apple and Artificial Intelligence Apple's stock is down nearly 20% so far in 2025, making it the only Magnificent Seven member in the red. Acquiring Perplexity AI, a leading AI search engine, could immediately boost investor confidence and give Apple a chance to seize AI leadership. The stakes are clear: On June 28, 2025, Bloomberg revealed that Apple's M&A chief, Adrian Perica, had discussed acquiring Perplexity with services head Eddy Cue. Analysts estimate such a deal could cost between $25 and $30 billion, roughly twice Perplexity's last funding round valuation, and consistent with recent acquisition premiums paid for strategic AI properties. Days later, reports emerged that Apple is also weighing partnerships with Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT to power a new Siri. Apple is racing to close its AI gap through whatever means necessary. Industry experts and Wall Street analysts believe a Perplexity deal could recast Apple as an AI orchestration leader, extend its high-margin services through renewed hardware demand, and potentially trigger a valuation rerating. Disclaimer: This article is based solely on publicly available information, market reports, and the author's independent research and analysis. The author has no insider contacts at Apple, Perplexity, Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Samsung, or any other company mentioned, and no direct knowledge of their internal strategies, acquisition decisions, or future plans. All strategic interpretations are speculative and intended for informational purposes only. The Revolutionary Vision: Invisible AI Orchestration Apple is reportedly considering acquiring Perplexity AI not just to buy another chatbot, but to build what could become the world's first consumer AI orchestration platform. Instead of forcing users to choose between ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Search, its system would automatically call upon the best model for each task. This embodies Apple's 'it just works' philosophy, delivering seamless, intelligent experiences that are intuitive, invisible, and effortlessly powerful. This isn't just about catching up in AI. It's about redefining how humans interact with it. Using intent recognition (understanding what the user wants—like checking the weather vs drafting an email) and query analysis (figuring out the best way to answer—like searching real-time data vs explaining a concept), the system routes requests in milliseconds. Here's how it could work: For example, ask, 'Should I invest in Apple stock?' Perplexity pulls the latest market data and analyst commentary, with citations. ChatGPT explains investing principles and risk factors in conversational language. Apple Intelligence then combines everything into one smart, personalized response. Whether you're asking Siri a question, pointing your camera at a landmark, or drafting an email, each AI model contributes its unique strength, fused into one unified experience. Daily examples of this ambient intelligence include: "What's the weather?" → Apple Intelligence delivers local results on-device; "Cancel my meeting politely." → ChatGPT drafts the diplomatic email; "Any new research on quantum computing?" → Perplexity surfaces the latest studies; "Set a timer for 10 minutes." → Apple Intelligence handles it privately, on-device. Personal data remains protected on-device, with only anonymized queries sent to external services when necessary. Users retain override control, but most interactions become ambient and invisible. Strategic Rationale: Why Perplexity Fits Apple's Ecosystem If Apple pursues an orchestration strategy, it would likely rely on each AI partner playing a specialized role. ChatGPT excels at conversation, Claude at reasoning, and Perplexity at real-time, citation-backed search. Unlike general LLMs, Perplexity is an AI-native search engine specialized for real-time, citation-backed answers atop these models. Think of Perplexity as Google Search reimagined for the AI era. Instead of giving you a list of blue links to sift through, it delivers direct, citation-backed answers in clear, conversational language, summarizing multiple sources so you can decide intelligently what to explore further. It also provides cues on related topics worth investigating. For example, when you ask 'Should I buy Coinbase stock?', Perplexity doesn't just list articles. It offers a structured, conversational analysis including current price, valuation ratios, Morningstar fair value, fundamental risks, technical ratings, and professional opinions—all in one place—followed by suggested related questions like options strategies, historical comparisons, and upcoming catalysts. The acquisition logic becomes clear when comparing alternatives. ChatGPT's $300 billion valuation makes acquisition prohibitive, while partnerships suffice for conversational needs. Claude, valued at $61.5 billion, could cost $80–90 billion with market premiums, unjustifiable when licensing suffices. At a $14 billion last funding round valuation, Perplexity is the attainable target, with specialized search capabilities and an orchestration-ready architecture that appears well-suited to Apple's potential orchestration approach. Apple and Perplexity The Revenue Multiplier Effect: How Perplexity Pays for Itself Currently, Perplexity generates just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), doubling from ~$50 million in late 2024—a fraction of its potential under Apple's vast distribution and financial moat. With more than 2.2 billion active devices, a premium user base, and seamless payment infrastructure, its revenue baseline could expand dramatically. Even at a 30% conversion rate among more than 2.2 billion devices, priced at $15 to $20 per month, consumer revenue alone could reach $2.4 to $3.2 billion annually. Enterprise markets offer additional upside, as AI tools command premium pricing: Microsoft Copilot starts at $30 per user monthly, Lexis+ runs around $300–400 per attorney per month, Westlaw starts near $133 and rises for advanced tiers, and Bloomberg Law costs roughly $6,000 per lawyer annually. Law firms spend up to $21,000 per attorney on specialized research tools, while major universities allocate up to $12.5 million annually to digital resources. Pre-installed across Apple's ecosystem, Perplexity would gain instant reach unmatched by competitors, transforming it from a standalone service into a defensible, multibillion-dollar AI search powerhouse. Combined consumer and enterprise potential creates a clear path to recovering the estimated $30 billion acquisition cost within a decade or sooner, and could catapult Apple onto offense rather than leaving it on the defensive. Financial Analysis: Acquisition Beats Partnership Apple's current partnership with ChatGPT illustrates the limitations of relying on external AI providers. Each query requires user permission, incurs per-request costs, and faces security restrictions and delays due to routing through external providers. More importantly, these models cannot fully leverage Apple's Neural Engine architecture to deliver optimal performance. The Microsoft–OpenAI relationship offers a cautionary parallel. Despite Microsoft's $13 billion investment, strategic tensions have emerged as it now competes directly with OpenAI in search, coding, and enterprise AI services. OpenAI has even considered filing antitrust complaints against Microsoft, and ongoing governance disputes continue to hinder both companies' strategic goals. Acquiring Perplexity AI could avoid these partnership pitfalls while delivering four key advantages. Seamless integration could eliminate permission prompts for factual queries, remove external API dependencies, and reduce latency through direct local processing. Hardware optimization could allow Perplexity's search models to run natively on Apple's M4 Neural Engine, minimizing network delays while maintaining privacy through unified memory architecture. The deal could also provide immediate talent acquisition—Apple would instantly gain proven AI experts who've already built a successful search-AI hybrid at scale. This specialized expertise could become crucial as Siri improvements remain delayed until at least 2026. Moreover, top talent attracts top talent: having Perplexity's team in-house could significantly enhance Apple's ability to recruit other leading AI researchers. Finally, cost efficiency could emerge from owning the highest-volume use case—factual queries—allowing Apple to avoid per-API-call expenses while continuing to license specialized conversational models only where necessary. Competitive Implications: The Platform Differentiation Play This orchestration approach creates multiple competitive advantages: For users: No more wondering which AI tool to download or try, or AI app hopping. Just ask and get the best answer from whichever AI knows best. For Apple: It could deliver the unified experiences users expect from Apple and create true platform differentiation. While Android users juggle separate apps, iPhone users could get everything integrated intelligently. For competitors: In the face of Apple's seamless AI orchestration, their offerings may quickly feel outdated and like disjointed point solutions. Microsoft's Copilot could seem bolted-on, Google's AI Overviews might remain limited to a single Gemini-driven perspective, and Meta could continue focusing mainly on social features. Just as the iPhone transformed how we used phones, Apple's orchestration could transform how we use AI. On the other hand, if rivals like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon were to acquire Perplexity instead, they could embed it deeply at the OS level, leaving Apple to continue developing such solutions in-house, where it has seen only limited success so far. Acquiring Perplexity could put Apple on a fast track to deliver the premium 'wow' experiences it is known for, securing advantages that could be extremely costly for competitors to counter. Samsung's reported partnership discussions with Perplexity this year add immediate pressure. Preferential Android access could not only weaken Apple's differentiation but also drive Perplexity's acquisition cost even higher. While Apple is late to AI, monetization remains largely unproven across the industry, giving it a rare chance to leapfrog competitors by executing orchestration better than anyone else. Execution Risks The challenges are significant. Bringing together multiple AI systems at Apple's scale will be an enormous engineering lift. Orchestrating requests in milliseconds without glitches demands flawless backend architecture. Apple's brand is built on privacy: even anonymized external queries could trigger user concerns if transparency isn't crystal clear. With Siri upgrades delayed to 2026, a 12 to 18-month Perplexity integration risks missing the AI wave entirely if rivals move faster. The estimated $30 billion price tag could rise further if other bidders enter the fray. These risks are real, but with AI becoming the next battleground, Apple may have no choice but to tackle them head-on if it wants to become a leader. The $30 Billion Question The stakes are high. This move could trigger a valuation rerating and preserve Apple's leadership in the next tech battleground. However, delay or indecision risks ceding ground to rivals and forfeiting a valuable strategic edge. This orchestration bet could redefine human-AI interaction, but only if Apple acts decisively before the window closes.
Hindustan Times
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Apple Music at 10, India's 5G trajectory, Canva's AI tools, and Adobe's camera
Time has indeed flown by. Apple Music has completed 10 years, and I wouldn't have realised if Apple hadn't told us. They're taking this moment to announce a new creative ecosystem built for artists', that includes a 15,000-square foot studio space in Los Angeles with 4,000-square-foot soundstage for live performances or multi-cam shoots, and a dedicated Spatial Audio mixing room outfitted with a 9.2.4 PMC speaker system. I'd like to focus more on our journey of music consumption, one would assume the final chapter having been written by streaming as it is, and why Apple Music plays a pivotal role for the tech giant as a revenue driver. Though Apple doesn't release subscriber numbers for this service specifically, research firms estimate that Apple Music has around 110 million subscribers by 2025. All of these, mind you, would be paying subscribers — Apple Music does not have a free tier. Spotify still leads though, with an estimated 237 million premium users. Apple Music It can be argued that Spotify has had as big a bearing on shaping music streaming, as perhaps Apple Music. There is some weight to that argument. But what's undeniable is Apple's role in the shift from physical albums and CDs to digital music — the often much-criticised iTunes Store, set the tone for Apple Music when it arrived in 2015. The way we listened to music found its shift back in 2001, though little many of us may have realised at that moment in time. All of a sudden, instead of having to buy every single album in physical format, downloading from dodgy websites and 'burning a CD' or having to pay a sticker price to own it in digital format, a single subscription opening up a buffet of tunes was in vogue. Music streaming is convenient. If you play your cards right, music streaming can be affordable too. I remember Eddy Cue, then Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services saying, 'All the ways people love enjoying music come together in one app — a revolutionary streaming service, live worldwide radio and an exciting way for fans to connect with artists.' Think about it — the core tenets for Apple Music haven't changed till date. Whilst many rival streaming apps have pivoted ever so slightly in either direction and with new experiments, Apple hasn't really changed the basics. An Apple Music user in 2015, wouldn't have much trouble navigating the platform, in 2025. That is longevity, at its best. True as it is, addition of Lossless audio formats (including upgrading most of the existing library too) helped Apple Music keep pace with the time. Albeit, also find more appeal with a user base that's perhaps more discerning, whilst unlocking close to true potential of those high quality speakers or headphones you splurged a lot of money on. Spotify still hasn't played that card, perplexingly so — and that's one reason I don't pay for that subscription. Things that the next generation takes for granted (tailored suggestions, lyrics, the gorgeous album art), were exactly a given back in the day. Some of you may remember that era. Last week in Wired Wisdom: Decoding the very best tech of 2025, thus far VELOCITY There is no stopping this momentum, and neither is there a reason for it. At the end of 2025, India's active 5G subscriptions were 290 million strong. It translates to about 24% of the total mobile subscriber base, at that point. The latest mobility report by Ericsson, folks who have a big stake in India's telecom journey, estimates that 5G subscriptions in India are expected to reach 980 million by 2030. At that time, they'd have a 75% share of total mobile subscriptions. There's more data to go with, beyond just subscriptions. The latest Ericsson Mobility Report estimates that India is the global leader with mobile data usage, clocking in with an average of 32 GB per month per smartphone — and that's projected to reach 62 GB by 2030. The reason is, as they point out, 5G mid-band now covers 95% of the population. Mobile network data traffic has already increased 19 percent in Q1 2025, compared with the same period in 2024. It is interesting that even though new subscriber additions have slowed, telecom service providers must shift focus to significant increase in data traffic. INTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENCE CANVA Through the last year and a bit more, we have charted creative platform Canva's smart pivot to focused AI underlining their suite that still stands as a one-of-its-kind software. There has been a long-term partnership with OpenAI, the focus on in-house models, a thickening AI layer for the Magic Suite, the Leonardo acquisition to bring the Phoenix model into its fold, some pivotal moments. Canva's co-founder Cliff Obrecht told us earlier this year, ahead of the annual Create keynote, that coding is next. This past week, we can add another to that list. Actually, two. Canva became the first to launch its deep research connector with ChatGPT for end-to-end design and content workflows, and the Canva Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server that brings creative tools and content directly into AI agents from OpenAI and others. It shapes up at a time when the competitive landscape doesn't just include creative and workspace tools from the likes of Adobe, Google and Microsoft; but an increasing number of generative AI tools that rightly stake claim to creative prowess themselves. The Ghibli style smarts of the OpenAI's ChatGPT is an example with image generation, while Google's Gemini 2.5 stakes claim as the most proficient coding model. What does this mean? Designs and content created in Canva will now be directly accessible to users via their ChatGPT conversations, using OpenAI's latest models. This will include Canva Docs and presentations as well. The advantage? Analysing and summarising reports or documents, curating key pointers from a detailed text file, or asking AI to chart a growth trajectory based on the available data. The Canva MCP Server opens up the option for users to deploy any AI assistant (including, of course, ChatGPT) to access their Canva workspace within a conversation flow. This will include, the company tells us, design history as well as creative tools and templates, for a more contextual conversation. AI will be able to use these tools to create content depending on what a user asks. SHOOT-ON-SIGHT Adobe Project There are third-party camera apps for the iPhone (and many good ones around for Android too), and then there's this. The Adobe Indigo camera app is made by the folks who ensured the Google Pixel smartphone cameras set the benchmark over the years. Those credentials cannot be taken lightly. I have to admit, having used Adobe Indigo extensively during recent travels, the app is far from perfect. But that's on the packaging bit. As a camera, it makes a world of difference in many shooting scenarios, compared with the iPhone's default camera app. Adobe Indigo heats up the iPhone if you're in a sequence of shooting anything more than two photos at a time (even in the indoors, with almost-freezing air conditioning; it doesn't get much colder than taking photos of penguins in a curated environment), and that means you'll find battery drain is quicker than usual. And you'd also be worried about the overall well-being of the phone. Adobe notes the thermals aspect in the release log for an update that was rolled out a few days ago. Perhaps they'll fix it in subsequent versions. Nevertheless, back to the one thing that Project Indigo. This isn't a typical third-party camera app with some additional controls, a few filters and an excuse to put a subscription to unlock some of those (absolutely dislike that approach; have stuck with the default iPhone camera app for years now). Adobe's approach makes this free (at least for now) and their focus is on reworking the computational photography side of things. How's it any different? First, we under-expose more strongly than most cameras. Second, we capture, align, and combine more frames when producing each photo - up to 32 frames as in the example above. This means that our photos have fewer blown-out highlights and less noise in the shadows. Taking a photo with our app may require slightly more patience after pressing the shutter button than you're used to, but after a few seconds you'll be rewarded with a better picture. Comparative results tell me the approach is working. For indoor, outdoor and different lighting scenarios. The key is, Project Indigo works with the under-exposed foundation and adds layers of frames for detailing. This is great for a lot of subjects, without compromising the subject itself or the other parts of the photo. With its methodology that requires some patience while shooting a photo (hold the camera still for a couple of seconds longer), this doesn't exactly capture moving subjects very well. At least, for now.
