Apple, like a number of companies right now, may be grappling with what role the newest advances in AI are playing, and should play, in its business. But one thing Apple is confident about is the fact that it wants to bring more generative AI talent into its business.

The Cupertino company has posted at least a dozen job ads on its career page seeking experts in generative AI. Specifically, it’s looking for machine learning specialists “passionate about building extraordinary autonomous systems” in the field. The job ads (some of which seem to cover the same role, or are calling for multiple applicants) first started appearing April 27, with the most recent of them getting published earlier this week.

The job postings are coming amid some mixed signals from the company around generative AI. During its Q2 earnings call earlier this month, CEO Tim Cook dodged giving specific answers to questions about what the company is doing in the area — but also didn’t dismiss it. While generative AI was “very interesting,” he said, Apple would be “deliberate and thoughtful” in its approach. Then yesterday, the WSJ reported that the company had started restricting use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other external generative AI tools for some employees over concerns of proprietary data leaking out through the platforms.

• Explore the specific opportunities that AI offers your industry. This will help you weigh up the potential benefits and how you can leverage them to your advantage. Many AI solutions to specific needs are already available, simplifying and speeding up their implementation.

• Start with small projects that allow you to try out technologies and evaluate their effectiveness. For instance, supervised AI only serves as an assistant and does not independently carry out a specific function. ChatGPT can be used to describe a work-related problem, allowing you to see what AI advises. Describe a decision that you’re about to make and ask what you could improve or add, or ask them to generate an answer to a question from a question, which will give your great perspective. ChatGPT and similar solutions can help small businesses in their everyday operations without major investments.

AI integration in e-commerce holds immense potential for small businesses to streamline operations, personalize customer experiences and gain a competitive edge. By starting with small projects and gradually incorporating AI, SMEs can unlock new opportunities and drive their businesses toward greater success.

Last week, around 4,000 IBM employees, customers, and partners attended IBM Think, the company’s annual conference, to hear the latest innovations, updates, and news from IBM. This year’s event came with many announcements, but with AI in focus, its announcement of watsonx drew significant attention—with the market zeroing in on the substantial opportunities around AI.

After attending the event, and hearing from IBM executives as well as following the broad swath of recent AI and generative AI announcements, I believe that IBM’s announcement of watsonx is a significant milestone in the advancement of enterprise AI. Built on top of the Red Hat OpenShift platform, watsonx offers a full tech stack for training, deploying, and supporting AI capabilities across any cloud environment This move by IBM is indicative of the growing importance of supporting generative AI, and the potential for businesses to benefit from the ease and reliability of this technology. As I see it, this announcement is one of the more important announcements tying together much of the exciting generative AI news and analysis with the more practical connective tissues that will drive meaningful adoption in the enterprise.

Watsonx features three different components: watsonx.ai, watsonx.data, and watsonx.governance. The first component, watsonx.ai, is a design studio for base models, machine learning, and generative AI. It can be used to train, tune, and deploy AI models including IBM supplied models, open-source models, and client provided models, and is currently in preview with select IBM clients and partners, and is expected to be available to the general public in July.

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Ever since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, AI has grabbed the attention of people and businesses around the world. This technology was previously understood as highly promising but a topic for the future. Today, it has loudly announced itself, catching businesses off-guard as they mobilize to make sense of its exciting potential to automate processes and supercharge efficiencies.

One important aspect to examine is where investors are currently focusing their attention. This latest wave of AI has focused early attention on those startups and businesses already using AI in their products and services (loosely termed AI adopters). Other factors to consider are whether investors are pausing their investments and causing illiquidity in the market. In this, investors consider likely consequences and disruptions across industries and update their commercial and technical due diligence approaches as they look to side-step hazards and seize opportunities.