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November 13, 2024
 | Edition #
50

Stay Ahead in the Future of Work

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How Microsoft's Magentic-One Impact The Future Of Work (+10 AI Workflows To Boost Productivity)

In this edition: Microsoft’s Magentic-One, AI workflows and apps to boost productivity, OpenAI's slowdown, open roles at robotics companies, and more.

Welcome to Stay Ahead #50 from FlexOS!

Every Wednesday, we share the latest tools and tips to help you work smarter, not harder.

In this week’s edition:

  1. News of the Week: The latest AI updates that will directly impact your work.
  2. Productivity Tools: Apps and tools to boost your productivity.
  3. Must-read News: Lack of compute capacity is delaying the OpenAI’s products.
  4. Job Board: Future-forward remote roles.

Let’s dive in!

highlights of the week

Welcome to the era of Multi-Agent AI: Magentic-One

Microsoft has released Magentic-One, the generalist multi-agent system that can solve complex tasks. In short, when you input a multi-step task, such as “find and export missing citations of paper”, the lead agent named Orchestrator will break the task down into smaller tasks, coordinate other agents to work on it, and return what you ask for. 

I know, too many big words, what does it really mean?

There are two implications for this system. At the first layer, we are moving from “talking” with AI to getting tasks solved by AI. As you are conversing with ChatGPT, most of the time what it can do is to show you how to do the task. Then we have the agents, like GitHub Copilot or Claude’s Computer Use, who can actually DO the task for you.

At the second layer, each agent usually has a specific strength. One can code really well, the other specializes in surfing the web or analyzing data. This is where Magentic-One comes in: Several specialized agents, each of which can perform specific functions, coordinated by a “mastermind” called Orchestrator.

The role of each agent in Magentic-One is as below:

  • Orchestrator: The Orchestrator is the “leader” agent. It breaks down big tasks into smaller steps, assigns these steps to other agents, keeps track of progress, and makes corrections if something goes wrong.
  • WebSurfer: This agent is good at using a web browser. It can visit websites, search the web, click on links, type into forms, and read or summarize information on web pages. It uses special tools within the browser to understand and interact with web pages.
  • FileSurfer: This agent can explore and read files on a computer. It can open files, look inside folders, and navigate through directories, helping to organize and find information stored on the device.
  • Coder: This agent is trained to write and understand code. It can create new code, analyze data collected by the other agents, and make useful files or tools.
  • ComputerTerminal: The ComputerTerminal gives the team access to a command line (or console), which allows the Coder to run programs, test new code, and install extra software or libraries as needed.

With these agents working together, Magentic-One can help you gather and summarize information, collect data from various sources and analyze, or write and test codes. 

None of the agentic AI is perfect now, but it is a window for us to see the possibilities in the future, where AI can be capable of handling more complex tasks that we are working on daily. 

The open source implementation of Magentic-One is now available for developers and researchers to explore the potential of multi-agent AIs. 

10 suggested AI workflows to boost productivity

  1. Crafting a Business Proposal: NotebookLM to distill information from internal documents, ChatGPT for drafting sections, Gamma for slide design, Prome AI for visuals, Grammarly for edits. 
  2. Product Video Presentation: ChatGPT for script, Pictory AI for storyboard, Gamma for slides, Descript for narration, VideoLeap for editing.
  3. Investor Pitch Deck: Jasper AI for persuasive copy, Visme for deck layout and design, Napkin AI for charts, Grammarly for language polish.
  4. Research Report: Perplexity for gathering research and insights, ChatGPT for writing and summarizing sections, Prome AI or visuals, Datawrapper for generating charts and infographic. 
  5. Social Media Campaign Planning: Brandwatch for trend dection, ChatGPT/Copy.ai for content ideas and captions, Midjourney for visual design, OpusClip for generating short social videos, AdCreative.ai for generating ads.
  6. Employee Onboarding Presentation: ChatGPT for content outlining, Beautiful.ai for creating slides, Synthesia for interactive video walkthrough, Otter.ai for transcriptions. 
  7. Email Management and Prioritization: Superhuman for email organizing, ChatGPT for drafting long responses, Boomerang for follow-ups and reminders.
  8. Personal Knowledge Base: Notion AI for organizing notes, Readwise for saving highlights and insights, Zapier for importing and syncing with Notion.
  9. Health and Wellness Tracking: MyFitnessPal for calorie tracking and nutrition, Google Fit for activity tracking and goal setting, Headspace for guided meditations. 
  10. Daily Task Planning:  Motion for automatic schedule, dreamfora for goal setting, Forest for deep work sessions, RescueTime for focus patterns analysis. 

What's important is to find the app that works best for you. There's no need to feel pressured to try every option out there. Play around with our recommendations, and we hope you’ll be able to build your own 'AI team' to empower your work.

→ Read more news at the end.

Best Productivity Tools To Try Out This Week

mem - The AI Notes App that can help you organize and link related notes. 

Krisp - Filter background noises and take notes in meetings.

Timely - Automatically track your time spent in different apps to boost productivity.

Relay - Automate your workflow with one click.

More cool AI newsletters that I love:

Morning Brew—Quick and insightful updates about the business world every day of the week from Wall St. to Silicon Valley.

Innovating with AI—Courses, community, and coaching on AI.

Need more AI Tools? Check out

The best AI tools for Recruiting, Marketing, Accounting, and HR.

10 Tools Anyone Can Use (Writing, Powerpoints)

10 AI Productivity Tools (Meeting Notetaking, Writing, Brainstorming.)

Our full AI For Work Top 100

NEW Create better prompts with our GPT Prompt Generator

IN the news

Every week, we pick must-read articles about the future of work so you can stay ahead.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says lack of compute capacity is delaying the company’s products

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, reveals that limited computational resources are slowing down the development and deployment of new AI products.

Amazon may up its investment in Anthropic — on one condition

Amazon considers further investment in AI research company Anthropic, contingent on strategic alignment with its existing AI ambitions.

These 60 robotics companies are hiring

In case our talents pool is interested: Sixty robotics companies are currently expanding their teams, showcasing the industry's rapid growth and high demand for specialized talent.

OpenAI buys Chat.com and redirects it to ChatGPT

OpenAI has acquired the domain Chat.com, previously owned by HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, and redirected it to ChatGPT, though it is not yet rebranding its services to Chat.com.

Report: How Companies Roll Out AI Successfully

Asana’s report highlights the common challenges companies face when implementing AI and reveals strategies employed by successful, high-velocity organizations to overcome these barriers.

jobs to level up

JOBS TO LEVEL UP

We want you to thrive at work, and do it from wherever you want. Here are the this week’s remote and hybrid jobs that caught our attention:

Trending Companies Hiring Now

  1. Abridge remote jobs
  2. Parafin remote jobs
  3. Ambient AI remote jobs

More Exciting Remote Job Opportunities

  1. Software Engineering Jobs
  2. Marketing Jobs
  3. Business Development / Sales Jobs
  4. AI Jobs
  5. Human Resources Jobs
  6. Product Jobs

Need more options? RemoteOK, Jobgether, WeWorkRemotely, and FlexJobs are great places to get vetted remote-friendly roles.

Also, check out our guide on “How to Get a Remote Job Today.”

how did we do?

That’s it for this edition of Stay Ahead, the newsletter that keeps you ahead in the future of work. Reply and give us your feedback: what could we do better?​

We’re here for you, truly.

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