How to Mitigate your AI Risk

This Week

This week, we’ve got an AI update from Canva, Section’s review of Gemini Workspace, tips on mitigating AI risk, how to avoid startup failure, and the latest report on genAI spending.

Read on!

Canva Launches New AI Features

Canva unveiled its latest platform upgrade last week and performed a Hamiltonesque rap (that went viral for all the wrong reasons). The update included new editing features and AI functionality, making it easier to move between projects, access team resources, locate and apply brand guidelines, and share and collaborate on designs with teammates.

CUOnline’s Christina summarizes all the updates in eight minutes. 

She covers:

• Magic grab

• Magic media

• Blend 

• Auto trim

• Voice enhance

There are a ton more new updates. You can find them all on the Canva blog. 

4 Types of GenAI Risk and How to Mitigate Them

IMD researchers recently published a framework for mitigating AI risk. 

They point out that many companies are reluctant to implement AI—like Apple and Samsung, who have banned employees from using ChatGPT—due to privacy, security, and ethical concerns.

Banning AI tools altogether seems like a good way to fall behind your competition, so if you’re looking for a safe way to integrate AI into your company, here are the six suggested guardrails:

1. Align organizational values with your AI principles

2. Require the use of a “watermark” for genAI outputs and content 

3. Create a controlled genAI environment within the company

4. Provide gen AI awareness training

5. Set up a crisis plan for unaccounted-for situations

You can read the full article at Harvard Business Review.

How to Avoid Startup Failure

Startup death is not uncommon — especially in challenging macroeconomic conditions. CB Insights notes that funding (the lifeblood of startups) has dropped dramatically since 2021, leaving private companies strapped for cash and more prone to collapse. 

But economic trends aren’t the only factors at play. CB Insights analyzed emails, memos, and interview transcripts from founders, investors, and journalists and compiled post-mortems of some of the most notable startup failures, providing a detailed look at why they failed (and how you can avoid the same fate.

You’ll find them at CB Insights. 

Is Gemini for Google Workspaces Worth It?

Section created a handy guide to help you determine if Gemini for Google Workspace is worth the investment.

Gemini is the AI-powered assistant integrated into Google Workspace applications like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet. Once you’ve bought into Gemini for Google Workspace (for $20/month per user), it offers to help you enhance everyday tasks – from writing, generating images, organizing, and meetings – when using any of their tools. 

What they like: Gemini’s ability to generate human-like content. Plus, the seamless integration with the Google Suite. 

What they don’t like: Some integrations are lacking, and other features are only available in Google Labs.

The bottom line: You can safely hold off on Gemini for Google Workspace, but don’t write it off yet. 

Gemini for Google Workspace is not yet a complete solution, but given Google's track record of continuous improvement, we can expect better versions soon.

Read the full Google Gemini review here. 

How Much Should You Spend on GenAI?

According to a new report from PYMNTS, companies are still figuring out how much to spend on generative AI each year.

Nearly half of the companies that spend less than $1 million a year on AI plan to increase their budget over the next year. Among firms spending more than $5 million, almost three-quarters plan to reduce their budget.

If there is one thing that CFOs agree on, it’s GenAI’s positive impact on business: 60% of CFOs agree that generative AI is the greatest innovation of our time.

The PYMNTS report says that more GenAI applications lead to a positive return on investment and that companies using more GenAI applications also tend to use them strategically.

For the full report, head over to PYMNTS.

AI Still Sucks, But We Love it Anyway

Ashley Hamer, managing editor at Descript, spends a lot of time experimenting with AI. She admits that AI as a creative force “is pretty useless.” 

While the AI tools we’re using have come a long way since they first arrived, they still can’t create the quality of content humans can produce. 

The “stuff that reinterprets a universal experience, expresses a strong point of view, or makes us see our place in the world differently,” as Hamer says. “AI can’t do any of that. In fact, more than a year after generative AI hit the scene, without skilled human guidance, it still can’t produce anything better than generic slop.”

Ouch. 

Hamer claims most of us want tools to speed up the process and do the tasks we find tedious or don’t want to do at all. As she says, it won’t replace you, the human, in the creative process—and it shouldn’t. Nobody wants that. It’s just a hidden superpower that can help you create your best work faster, more efficiently, and with a little more joy.

Want to read her editorial? Head over to the Descript blog.