Is AI In Your Budget?

Box's unique AI pricing strategy; creating custom illustrations with DALLE-3 and Bing Chat

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The AI Exchange
October 12, 2023

Welcome to another edition of the best damn newsletter in AI.

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Here's what we're covering today:

  • Why there arenā€™t easy to follow blueprints for AI-powered businesses (at least not yet)

  • 4 actionable steps to go from one-off ChatGPT uses to working AI-first

  • A soft announcement for you šŸ¤«Ā 

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TODAY'S PERSPECTIVE

Is AI a line item in your budget?

AI is no longer a novelty. It's becoming a staple in many companies' budgets, and as such, cost management is becoming increasingly important. And this latest move by Box, a cloud content management platform, caught our eye.

How Box is pricing AI

Box has AI features that let you summarize and chat with your Box documents. And they just unveiled their new pricing plan for business.

Hereā€™s how it works:

  1. Users get a certain amount of ā€œcreditsā€ per month

  2. If they use those, they can use ā€œrolloverā€ credits paid for by their organization.

It kind of sounds like cell phone minutes, and feels like a unique approach to recovering the high cost of operating large language models.

ā€¦

Now obviously, software products like Box, which have AI usage and rack up hefty OpenAI bills, are thinking ahead.

But it's not just them.

Companies and businesses across the board are starting to see AI as its own line item in their budgets.

Just last week, we started discussing having a distinct budget for AI in our operations. Previously, we had bundled it into software costs, but as AI becomes more prevalent, it's clear that it needs its own category.

4 trends in AI ā€œcosts vs pricing vs valueā€ we are watching:

  1. As AI becomes more integrated into our operations, the cost of using it is becoming more apparent.

  2. Yes, $1000 a month on a piece of software might seem insane. But if that AI can save you about 30 hours per month of a $35 employee's time, it more than pays for itself.

  3. As AI becomes more prevalent, companies need to start planning for its costs. This means creating a distinct budget for AI and ensuring that it's cost-effective.

  4. Companies like Box are coming up with unique pricing strategies to recover the high cost of operating AI. This could set a precedent for other companies in the future.

ā€¦

As AI continues to become more integrated into our operations, it's clear that we need to start thinking about its costs. It's no longer just a part of software costs; it's a line item in its own right.

And itā€™s clear that AI product providers are thinking about this too.

USE CASE

Using DALLE-3 and Bing Chat to get custom illustrations

Custom art and illustrations are getting easier and easier for non-artists.

We loved Alvaroā€™s share on how to get DALLE-3 to make an illustration that looks like something hand-drawn.

Simply:

  1. Draw a logo or illustration by hand

  2. Go to Bing Chat and upload the image, and ask it to describe it in detail

  3. Then ask Bing Chat to generate an image based on that description

LINKS

For your reading list šŸ“š

Old tools are getting more upgradesā€¦

Copyright and transparency are still sticky issuesā€¦

And if you're really nerdy...

That's all!

We'll see you again on Tuesday. Thoughts, feedback and questions are much appreciated - respond here or shoot us a note at [email protected].

... and if someone forwarded this email to you, thank them šŸ˜‰, and subscribe here!

Cheers,

šŸŖ„ The AI Exchange Team