'This is just the beginning of a revolution': DeepMind cofounder says personal AI assistants will make us better at basically everything
DeepMind's cofounder said personal AIs will evolve to become a "chief of staff for your life," helping you schedule, organize, and improve your life.
DeepMind
- Personal AI assistants will help make humans more efficient, the cofounder of DeepMind said.
- These systems will "make you much better at everything you want to do," Mustafa Suleyman said.
- Personal AI assistants will also change how people search for information.
Personal AI assistants that can do everything from shop and negotiate on your behalf are the future of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, the cofounder of DeepMind and CEO of Inflection AI, said Tuesday during an interview with CNBC.
Suleyman, who sold the AI company DeepMind to Google in 2014, said that these types of personalized AI systems will dramatically transform how we work and live.
"This is just the beginning of a revolution. Everybody is going to have AIs: businesses, brands, organizations," Suleyman said. "AIs are going to be representing their values trying to sell you things, persuade you of things, and be super useful to you in certain ways."
"I think everybody's going to want their own personal intelligence that's on your side, aligned with your interests, that can advocate on your behalf, and negotiate, find you great deals," he said, adding that "most of the time your AI is going to be talking to other AIs to find you the best possible way to solve the problems you care about."
Suleyman, of course, has a vested interest in personal AI assistants.
Suleyman's company Inflection AI is behind the generative AI chatbot Pi, which aims to help users make decisions and offer support. The name, Pi, stands for "personal intelligence." Similar to ChatGPT, Pi is trained using large language models.
Suleyman said that Pi can be used for a number of different things, but it's especially useful in helping people make decisions and as a companion that engages with you.
"People are using it to weigh up difficult problems. They're making a tough decision in their life and they want to think through both sides of a problem. People are using it to pursue their passions and hobbies. Like sometimes your partner isn't as interested in your golf hobby as you might be" Suleyman said. "But Pi is always there to be interested in your passion."
In the future, though, he said Pi will gain new capabilities for helping users manage their daily tasks. He said he is focused on building an AI system that will "make you much better at everything you want to do."
"I definitely see it evolving to be chief of staff for your life. Imagine a scheduler, an organizer, an advocate, a buyer, a booker. So it's gonna take all those actions for you on your behalf and make things much, much easier," he said.
Suleyman isn't the only tech leader that thinks personal AI assistants will mark a profound change in how we use technology.
In May, Bill Gates said at a Goldman Sachs and SV Angel event that personal digital AI agents could destroy the need to use search engines and productivity websites. He said these AI agents could fundamentally change human behavior because they will do tasks for us that require some level of research. There's signs the world's biggest search giant had the same thought: When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, Google management reportedly issued a "code red" amid worry that it could eat into the company's search business. Google has since rushed out a competitor, Bard.
Suleyman said that he expects search engines to be impacted by this kind of transformation sooner than later.
"I think this is going to happen within months... Today, we have access to information distilled in succinct and precise answers. You don't go to use the websites on 10 blue links anymore. You go and ask your favorite AI for access to information," Suleyman said. "Over the next 12 to 18 months. That AI is going to use it to interact with other AIs, make bookings, plans, and schedules ... I think we're just on the corner of this."