Issue #015: Chatbots are out... AI agents & assistants are in.
PLUS news summaries re: Set Active x Parke collab PR crisis, 23&Me bankruptcy, & other AI updates.
EDITOR’S NOTE <3
With a little over one week before the election, I’ve put my marketing for the Spooky Szn Sale / Nightmare Series on pause. A lot of people are facing economic uncertainty and fear around the election, rightfully so. I don’t want to take away from the attention that I believe people should put into our political system right now (and there’s only so much legal topics one can handle, amiright?) That said, my annual 11/11 sale will start on 11/11, rather than end on 11/11 (like it has in years prior, after the spooky szn series). All contract templates in my shop will be available for 50% off, and legal consults will be available for quarterly package deals. Stay tuned!
PS If you are new, you can learn more about my business story by clicking here.
👀 WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THIS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER »
Extra, extra, read all about it! The ScrollSavvy Newsletter features the latest in business, law & the creator economy… pulling back the curtains showing BTS of my business… sharing savvy tips to help you not get screwed… & creating community thru common personal interests.
🎧 PLAYLIST THIS WEEK »
The autumn edition has finally arrived (with more songs added each week):
💭 MOOD THIS WEEK »
Daily affirmation
This week was filled with lots of coffee & yummy postres
Obligatory post-pilates selfie
Happy Halloween :)
HEADLINES »
Just the tip… (of the iceberg, get your head out of the gutter)
💸 IN BUSINESS & PARTNERSHIPS »
By next year, there will be “more AI Agents than people” in the world. (Venture Beat)
AI Startup You.Com raises $50M as it grows to create a workforce of AI agents (AKA assistants) for people around the world. The founder of You.Com, Richard Socher, is the former chief scientist for Salesforce. “’We started you.com to do more than search. We saw an opportunity to reinvent the gateway to everyone’s online journey,’ Socher told VentureBeat. ‘We now help millions of knowledge workers be more productive, whether it’s through research and analysis, problem-solving, or content creation.’” (Id.)
These AI Agents will be powered with “Python code and chain-of-thought reasoning to solve complex problems,” so you can prioritize reliability over speed to get your research project, case brief, or memo done. (Id.)
Sequoia Capital explores the evolution of Generative AI. (Sequoia)
Again, reiterating that AI is evolving from “thinking fast” to “thinking slow.”
“This leap from pre-trained instinctual responses (”System 1”) to deeper, deliberate reasoning (“System 2”) is the next frontier for AI. It’s not enough for models to simply know things—they need to pause, evaluate and reason through decisions in real time.” (Id.)
This cements the place of AI Agents in our world: “As the LLM market structure stabilizes, the next frontier is now emerging. The focus is shifting to the development and scaling of the reasoning layer, where “System 2” thinking takes precedence… this layer aims to endow AI systems with deliberate reasoning, problem-solving and cognitive operations at inference time that go beyond rapid pattern matching.” (Id.)
Claude AI company, Anthropic, creates AI agent to do computer tasks for you. (The Guardian)
Claude’s AI agent can fill out spreadsheets, book your trip, etc… but it still takes breaks & gets distracted by looking at random photos online. (Morning Brew Daily)
📜 IN LAW & POLITICS »
Speaking of AI Agents… AI Lawyer “Harvey” helps law firms with assistants, vaults, research etc. (Harvey)
I like the idea of AI lawyers being available to law firms to “vet” the information, keep the data secure, protect confidentiality, and to make things more efficient (AKA cheaper) for clients. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: hourly law firms are a thing of the past… because BigLaw (and other firms) are going to be shaken up when they realize how much $$ they will lose when they save so much time with AI agents.
Perplexity AI accused of plagiarism in copyright lawsuit. (Business Insider)
Perplexity AI is a search-engine, meaning it can pull answers from the web (unlike many popular AI chat bots). But it came under fire for allegedly copying articles from News Corp. companies, New York Post and Wall Street Journal, in its responses. Essentially, the lawsuit claims that Perplexity “poaches” hits from these companies by providing the articles in its AI-generated responses, taking away from clicks (aka monetization) that the news outlets rely on. (The Verge)
23 & Me is declaring bankruptcy… what does this mean for the genetic data of its 14 million+ users? (Yahoo! Finance)
“‘If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction,’ the company notes in its privacy statement, ‘and this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity.”’ (Id.)
🤳🏽 IN SOCIAL MEDIA & THE CREATOR ECONOMY »
Kajabi launches new campaign called “Reality Check,” where it provides data on the realities of the creator economy. (Kajabi)
This comes days after Kajabi suddenly rebranded overnight, allegedly copying another creator’s IG graphics.
Here’s a few of the stats they discovered:
However, Kajabi isn’t doing this out of the kindness of their heart… it’s a sales campaign to try & get creators to build digital products using Kajabi, where creators get to keep “100%” of revenue (which they contrast in a graphic against YouTube, 55% and Instagram, 0%). Nevertheless, it’s a good message: you don’t “own” your audience on these social platforms. And as Kajabi discovered… if TikTok disappeared tomorrow, 37% of “high-earning” creators would lose at least $50k+ in revenue each year. (Id.)
OMG - what’s the opposite of a jump-scare? A jump-for-joy? I was minding my business, doing research for ScrollSavvy, when I noticed this full-fold feature of Jess Hawks as one of the featured creators. Congrats, Jess! (And to Jackie Sterna, who took the gorgeous photos that were featured not only on the Kajabi site, but also on a BILLBOARD IN TIMES SQUARE).
Kajabi launches Newsletter platform to compete with Substack, Beehiiv. (Kajabi)
This is part of their “own your audience” strategy, discussed above.
Daze, a new AI-powered messaging app catered to GenZ, launches waitlist with over 150,000 sign-ups. (Tech Crunch)
Apparently its a replacement for iMessage or WhatsApp, but you can “draw’ your message (almost like an IG story or Snapchat screen). It looks pretty cool. But with texting like this… will people ever pick up the phone to make a call again? (I bet they’ll have a cool video call feature down the line).
Set Active x Parke pre-launch was such a success that it was a PR flop. (TikTok)
To sum up the drama: Set Active x Parke collaborated on a capsule launch. They opened up the sale for pre-order, but the website crashed for many customers due to demand. Also, there was some messaging confusion about whether the collection was sold out (bc they supposedly ordered a limited # of pieces a while back) or if it was pre-order. A loyal Set Active customer took to TikTok to complain, and supposedly the Set Active founder (Lindsey) doxxed this customer on her personal IG’s broadcast channel. Lindsey responded to the hate here. Yikes, a bit messy. I get both sides.
Tarte hosts giveaway to send 4 winners (teachers, nurses, first responders) to Eras Tour. (TikTok)
Finally, they are listening by not only hosting out-of-touch brand trips, but also giving back to their loyal customers.
FEATURE »
📸 The Pros & Cons of AI Agents Replacing Entry-Level Jobs
Let’s use AI in the work-force so we can have more free time to f*ck around with AI for fun.
👀 THE LATEST NEWS »
By next year, there will be “more AI Agents than people” in the world. (Venture Beat)
AI Startup You.Com raises $50M as it grows to create a workforce of AI agents (AKA assistants) for people around the world. These AI Agents will be powered with “Python code and chain-of-thought reasoning to solve complex problems,” so you can prioritize reliability over speed to get your research project, case brief, or memo done. (Id.)
👀 THE POTENTIAL PRO’S & CON’S »
CON:
I sense this has potential to replace a lot of entry level legal jobs or internships, because unless you’re the one inputting the info into these AI Agent platforms, there’s really no need for you anymore. Law school doesn’t prepare you for the realities of law firm tasks, and it can be time-consuming and expensive to train future lawyers… except when you teach them the area of law via their research and memo-writing.
PRO:
But take this as a sign to really add AI conversational skills and prompt-making to your resume, because that’s how you build value in a knowledge-based profession: “Very few jobs will be completely replaced with Gen AI, but people that use Gen AI will be 20%, 30%, 60% more productive and get stuff done. And that’s still very, very meaningful to a lot of people.” (Id.)
This is how I see the future of law firms:
Initial job creation thru hiring AI experts that can be the liaison between tech & law
Layoffs as the last of the Boomers in the workforce, Gen x, and elder Millennials figure out how to use the new programs implemented and taught to them
Creation of new divisions (or maybe as few as 1-2 people) that are “AI experts” (kinda like IT experts) in a company, keeping data banks updated & making sure they are available to answer any questions.
CON:
How does this help our future generations in the workforce, though? I know people don’t aspire to work. I know that with apps like Daze in existence, they’d rather spend their time drawing messages to their friends & exploring tech in an entertaining way (no shame, it’s cute).
But let’s be practical for a second… the entire reason I was even be given the opportunity to step foot into a law firm (like my first job in white collar crime at the DA’s office at 23 years old), was because I could spend a week researching topics & drafting memos to my supervisors… to learn the law.
If entry-level employees or interns are given the task of “hey, input these prompts / questions into AI & have it prepare a memo for me,” will they even learn the substantive law? Will they read the briefs that AI would write for them? Even if they did, would this enhance their learning in the same way that “writing it yourself” would? We are focusing so much on “language learning models,” that we are not studying the effects of human learning in this new short-form video, short-attention span, quick-answer society.
TBH, I bet they will they be just glad their job is done quickly so they can go back to drawing roads to ask their situationship if they wanna be their bf. (ending on a PRO <3)
The economy, like the back of my head or the comments in a viral video, is none of my business.
GOSSIP COLUMN <3
… AKA personal updates. Sit down with your favorite morning cup cuz I’ve got some tea ☕️
Speaking of AI … I’m so excited to join my friend Dulce’s workshop on how to train your own AI ChatBot for your business. If you want to be one of the people that increase their productivity by up to 60% (per the You.Com quote above) as opposed to being left behind, then you should check out her Instagram (TheSchoolOf_AI). Fun Fact, Dulce and I have known each other since 2016, back when we were both doing fitness meetups and workouts around NYC, back when Influencers were just becoming a thing, back when this crazy concept of a “social media business” was starting out. She was one of the first people I knew in NYC to turn her love for workout classes and cute cafes into a lifestyle brand. She has always been on the cutting edge, pivoting with the times. She’s one of the few coaches/mentors/consultants I trust in this space.
There’s nothing like stepping out of your home and into the action. I’m loving the city, but I’m craving the sun. I’ll be making a brief trip to the beach next month to get my vitamin D. First, I’ll be making a pit stop to NY to vote and get a new laptop (mine sounds like a helicopter right now). Even when I’m “grounded,” I’m still here & there.
Who else has been watching The Penguin?! That show is so well-done. Every episode is a cinematic masterpiece & the actors are phenomenal. I can’t help but think that Sofia Falcone looks a lot like Brianna ChickenFry.
The CDMX guide continues… favorite wellness spots in CDMX:
Hot pilates: The Mat
Yoga & meditation: Gita Studios
Contrast therapy: Koti Wellness
Weight training classes: Commando
OBITUARY »
We are no longer tolerating:
Not stretching!!! Just because I’ve done yoga for 15+ years doesn’t mean I automatically get all of the benefits if I’m not consistent.
Popcorn. I’ve simply been eating too much of it. (Luv it tho).
Not protecting yourself using contracts. Stay tuned for my annual 50% off sale, starting next week.
CLASSIFIEDS »
I’m looking to hire someone to help me with legal research. If you are a law student or recent law grad, please email nina@thecontractguru.com with your resume (& subject line “SCROLLSAVVY SECRET MESSAGE”).
PS… Got an opportunity you want to share? An event coming up? Looking to hire someone? Send a description & if it’s a fit for my audience, I will post it here in the classifieds section.
BRAIN FOREPLAY »
🍳 WEEKLY WORD SCRAMBLE »
LLWEEHAON
YDCNA
EUTMSOC
RKCIT
Last week’s answers: Dead, Skull, Marigold, Soul… Theme = Day of the dead
THAT’S IT FOR THIS WEEK <3 THANK YOU FOR READING!
See you next week!
xx Nina