MobileViews Podcast 613: Bean counters creating the AI divide

About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities of AI ecosystems, focusing on tools like Google Labs' Dream Beans and Microsoft Copilot's credit system.

In MobileViews 6136, Jon Westfall and I tackled the increasingly complex world of AI ecosystems. I shared my early impressions of Google Labs’ "Dream Beans," an interesting daily briefing tool that uses AI to generate an illustrated summary of topics it thinks you'll find interesting based on your activity. While the illustrations are very nice looking and the content relevant, the app is currently very phone-centric, lacking the landscape orientation optimization I’d expect for a tablet experience. I also noted that Google AI Pro remains a solid value for me at $20 a month. A major portion of the episode was dedicated to my "credit crunch" rant regarding Microsoft Copilot. I discovered that Microsoft’s 365 family plan only provides 60 AI credits per month, and the "intentional use" policy is aggressive. According to Copilot itself, credits can be consumed simply by opening the app, syncing handwriting from an e-ink tablet to OneNote, or even having the AI suggest a grammar fix you don't actually use. This led me to explore Obsidian as a OneNote alternative, as it offers free handwriting plugins without the credit overhead. Jon suggested a sustainable path forward: using AI to…

People in this episode

Host: Jon Westfall

Topics covered

• AI ecosystems
• Google Labs
• Microsoft Copilot
• Obsidian
• AI credits
• hardware announcements

Keywords

• AI
• Google Labs
• Microsoft Copilot
• Obsidian
• AI credits
• Project Solera
• Nvidia RTX Spark

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Nvidia

Products: Dream Beans, Google AI Pro, Microsoft Copilot, Obsidian, Project Solera, RTX Spark PCs

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