Canva's AI-based "Magic Design" Tool

At a recent AI library integration workshop, attendees were introduced to Canva's "Magic Design" tool, which auto-generates presentations based on a user's topic description, combining draft text and stock images. While not perfect, this feature offers a promising start for those looking for quick presentation drafts, and users can easily customize the generated slides to better fit their needs.

Trying Google Docs "Help Me Write" AI

There are a lot of companies working on AI-based products and services right now.  In our AI workshops for public librarians, we primarily use tools from OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.  But we also stay up-to-date on the other players, including Google.

As of today, we still view OpenAI's GPT-4 as the most useful general AI model, whether proprietary or open source.  Lots of AI-based products and services, including our own PLAID training app, are built around OpenAI's models.  But Google has recently announced a push to integrate their "Duet AI" into their Google Workspace offerings.  These are presumably variations of the beta AI tools that have been in Workspace for a while, and they're intended to compete with Microsoft's Copilot offerings in Office.

In a live demo this week, we tried it out!