Hi there,

Welcome back to Beyond the Prompt!

The sun is shining, everybody is a little bit more relax. I hope you are too...

📜 From the blog

• We published Arnaud's "Origin story"; forget Superman, this is our version of a summer blockbuster.

🎙️ From the podcast

This month, Gautier talks about Data Engineering [in french]

🧪 From the lab: What we're cooking

• N8N as an automation alternative. We investigated N8N as a potential alternative to our current automation stack.
• RAG Performance: Closing the Perplexity gap. We conducted a detailed analysis comparing Perplexity Enterprise against our DIFY-based workflows.
• European AI Sovereignty: Viable alternatives. We explored European-hosted ChatGPT alternatives, demonstrating that sovereign AI solutions are not only possible but increasingly cost-effective.
• LibreChat: A path to AI independence. We're very bullish on LibreChat. We start from the basics, with a view to testing its more advanced features progressively.

🌐 From everywhere else

For all the chatter about Apple "losing the AI battle," Apple's decision to open on-device models to developers might very well be one of the most significant yet understated announcements from this year's developers conference. For their models to be useful, they don't have to be the best. They have to be good enough. Offline access and on-device compute will be a major draw for developers to incorporate free AI features in their apps — no ChatGPT subscription required.

Of course, a couple of articles pouring cold water on the AI-overhype:

• Brain activity lower when using AI chatbots [MIT research]
• Not So Fast: AI Coding Tools Can Actually Reduce Productivity

Brazil has launched the "dWallet" initiative that will allow citizens to monetize their personal data—the first such nationwide program in the world. The state-run project aims to correct "the historical imbalance of the digital economy" by giving users a share of the global data market. Whether this is a net positive or a potential disaster in a country where three in ten people are functionally illiterate remains to be seen.

A16 explores how AI is transforming market research, shifting from traditional slow, expensive methods to AI-powered tools that offer faster insights at lower costs. Market research was never a perfect science; it feels logical for the sector to find ways to optimize through the imperfection.

Memvid got me intrigued with their compression idea of encoding text into videos, enabling fast semantic search.

Anthropic's attempt at an AI-generated blog didn't last long. Of all people...

A Chinese experiment showed that avatars generated by AI are now able to sell more than real people can. Is this a bad thing, though?

A woman who was wrongly accused of shoplifting due to an apparent mix-up with a facial recognition system was left "fuming" after being ejected from two stores. It's funny now because we're talking about €15 worth of toilet paper, but it might not be that funny in other circumstances.

Last but not least: taste is the new intelligence. "Curation, discernment, and restraint matter more than ever". It's the reason I curate those article for you, dear subscriber.

👋 Parting thoughts

No Beyond the Prompt next month — I'm taking a long-ish summer break.

So let me wish you a happy, serene, and insightful summer!

All the best,

Julien

Science gathers knowledge

faster than society gathers wisdom.

― Isaac Asimov.

_

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