Would you vote for an AI Prime Minister?

Hi Non-Techies,

You’re getting two newsletters this week, because I missed one last week. It’s like Christmas has come early, if Christmas means an abundance of AI news geared towards Non-Techies.

I’ll be talking about Claude today. What’s new? I’ll also be discussing Replit’s fancy new agent, inviting you to a Zoom call and sharing some political news from Albania. Obviously.

If a weekly email just isn’t enough AIFNT for you, you’re probably the sort that would enjoy our AI Academy. It’s £25/pm, but you can try it for free if you click the button below:

“Claude, turn this section into a PowerPoint presentation”

You know when Season 2 takes so long to come out that you have to watch a recap of Season 1 just to remember what happened? Well, that’s what I’m about to give you.

So, a quick recap if you’re new around here: Claude is an AI Chatbot made by Anthropic. It’s the best tool for writing (in my opinion, at least), and it’s super Non-Techie friendly, a bit like ChatGPT.

But unlike ChatGPT, it lacked some of the fancier functionality that would’ve made it a real game-changer. Like, up until about a month ago, it didn’t have a memory, which meant it couldn’t reference previous chats.

It’s having a good summer (is it still summer?) though, because it’s just had another big update: now it can create and edit Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents.

So if you want to, I dunno, shove a load of messy data in there and tell it to create a spreadsheet, it can do that. Or maybe you want to turn meeting notes into a PowerPoint? It’ll do that too.

You can watch the announcement video here if you’re that way inclined.

The mega agent.

Sorry, but this section isn’t actually about a mega agent. As far as I know, the mega agent doesn’t exist yet.

But if there’s one thing that really sucks about the AI space, it’s the lack of excellent names. You create an agent that can create other agents, and what do you call it? Agent 3. This is a waste of near-Promptinator proportions.

First, some context. Replit is a tool that helps you create apps and websites using nothing more than AI and your ideas. Don’t worry, you’re safe: it’s designed for us Non-Techies, so much so that they actually have the words “No coding or technical skills required” underlined on their homepage. Phew.

They’ve just released a new agent called Agent 3, which tests and fixes your code. It’s apparently 10x more autonomous than their last agent (presumably called Agent 2?).

Bla bla, whateather Heather - give me the meaty bit.

I’m mentioning it here because Agent 3 might be the future of AI agents. It can:

• Understand your goals with natural language prompts.

• Work for 200 minutes on its own.

• Build other agents and automations.

That third one is the one that has my eyebrows scaling the steep incline of my forehead. An agent that can build other agents and automations is really powerful.

In real terms, let’s say I want to build a little app that gives me an update on everything happening in the AI industry on Monday mornings. Replit’s Agent 3 (i.e. the mega agent) can do that, building the automations needed to make it happen.

If this is a sign of things to come where agentic AI is concerned, we’re in for a real treat.

When your MP needs an update…

The Algerian government has appointed the world’s first AI minister. Not someone who looks after the government’s AI policy, but a minister created by AI.

Her name is Diella. She looks after the government’s procurement, and honestly, the more I read about it, the more I quite like the sound of her.

Regular readers will know that my enthusiasm for AI is, in part, fuelled by an unshakable belief that it will champion and accelerate the power of the human brain.

But the logic behind creating Diella makes total sense. As Algeria’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, explained, Diella will ensure government procurement is “100% incorruptible, where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100% legible.”

Obviously, she’ll need some human help. But don’t we all sometimes?

Zoom’s New Agentic AI Features

I’m off to Zoomtopia tomorrow (Sep 18th for EMEA folks) to find out about a few of good old Zoom’s interesting new AI tools:

• Automatically scheduling meetings you mention in calls

• Drafting follow-up emails based on conversation context

• Identifying tasks from meetings without you having to ask

They're also demoing their new AI contact centre features - voice and chat agents that sound genuinely useful.

The event is completely free and virtual, specifically designed for small businesses.

Come join me:

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Right, I’m off. If I don’t see you on Zoom tomorrow, I’ll see you next week right here.

Heather and the AIFNT team.