Byte-sized AI: A llama with AI and an admission!

I’m back for another Byte-sized AI issue, and as promised here are my three things:

Something techy from the news
Something that made me laugh
Something that you can do to improve how you work

Byte-sized Ai: IT consultancy in Kent at its best

The one item of news:

Llama!

Meta are doing something very interesting. They have a set of AI models collectively called “Llama” which anyone can download and use in their products for free.

That makes it possible for businesses to add AI capabilities to their processes, or to innovate wholly new ways of working, at a much lower cost than before.

Call me cynical, but the old adage “if you’re not paying, you’re not the customer – you’re the product” has been Meta/Facebook’s business model for nearly 20 years, so I would want to understand a lot more about what they do with the data before deploying it in production, but I am going to be watching where it takes us.

Something you shouldn’t admit

I recently found myself admitting that from earlier days in my career I still have a mental map of the Burger Kings of Europe. Frankfurt Airport is a particularly good one, and I also enjoyed Stockholm. On a recent trip to Manchester I had a BK on the way back to the station, much to the customer’s horror!

I mention this because this will be going out while I am on holiday in Los Cristianos, Tenerife. The weather is obviously the draw at this time of year, and we go to a hotel we know and like. And it’s also walking distance from Burger King! Last year they had a Mediterranean Whopper with Halloumi and rocket. I’ll let you know what this year’s menu has to offer on my return!

The best thing you can do in Spain (not really!)

The one thing you can do next week:

Conversations that make sense

Do you use Conversation View? I’m aware that not everyone does, and I know that not everyone likes it. But I have been using it for decades and can’t imagine going back.

For the uninitiated, Conversation View in Outlook will group related emails together. If I email you and your colleague and you each reply, I can see a single view of the whole thread. And if I have separate folders for the two of you, I can see the whole thread in both.

Personally, I find it much easier to control and understand, but I will concede it does one thing that some people don’t like: because it’s grouping them, the emails are all positioned with the time stamp of the most recent. That means knowing I emailed you on Tuesday last week is useless if you replied on Thursday. But for me, it’s still much more sensible than a pile of apparently unrelated conversations in date order.

To try it, in New Outlook, click the gear at the top right, then go here:

If you’re using old Outlook you can find Conversation View under File, Options.

Change how the message list is displayed in Outlook.

If you are interested to find out how AI, automation and all things clever can help your organisation why not take a look at Future Workplace, our super special IT consultancy service that can supercharge productivity, business efficiency and so much more.