A survey by The Manifest was less favorable: just 30% of employees said they were more productive at home while 45% said they got more done in the office. Hints for home-based productivity including having a designated workspace and business hours and taking frequent breaks.
You may recall from Friday’s newsletter that 95% of CIOs said their organizations have struggled to support remote workers. Our friends at Salesforce have seen the same problem and just invested about $100 million in Tanium, a firm with that helps to manage security for remote workers. They’re also announced a partnership to build a Tanium-based solution within the Salesforce platform.
Location is one of the most privacy-sensitive data types, but it’s also one that offers many customer benefits. Bluedot focuses on the advantages by providing real-time alerts that estimate accurately when customers are approaching a business location. Business has been booming during the pandemic as companies seek more efficient curb-side pickup and drive-through purchases. They just raised a $9.1 million Series B, bringing total funding to $20.4 million.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.