Graham Gillen
Forget Summarizing, We Used AI to Decode MongoDB.local’s Keynote
Move over, event recap blogs! This year, we’re taking a futuristic approach to dissecting the keynote from MongoDB.local NYC, the first stop on their 23-city global tour. Instead of the usual play-by-play, we’re putting generative AI (GenAI) through its paces.
We’ll leverage Microsoft Copilot, a real-world GenAI tool used by millions, to summarize the hour-long presentation. This is your chance to witness GenAI in action, unlocking the latest developments at MongoDB for 2024. But this is just the beginning. We’ll also share our insights on Copilot’s effectiveness for content summarization and explore its potential to revolutionize the future of content creation.
Pureinsights Honored as MongoDB’s Services AI Partner of the Year!
First, some big news. MongoDB named Pureinsights as their Services AI Partner of the Year for 2024. The blog on MongoDB’s Partners of the Year describes the recognition as follows:
“Pureinsights, MongoDB’s premier services partner for search and AI, has built one of the best RAG architectures for a large European car manufacturer using MongoDB’s tech stack and by leveraging our comprehensive ecosystem for AI. Once deployed in production, the GAI solution will help this manufacturer save millions of dollars in their after sales division.”
In addition, Pureinsights is one of only a handful of companies named to the MongoDB AI Application Program (MAAP), a new program to help enterprises build modern applications with advanced generative AI capabilities.
We will share more about our exciting AI projects with MongoDB and the MAAP program as that information becomes available.
Keynote Theme: The Crucible Moment
The MongoDB.local NYC event offered a smorgasbord of technical sessions for developers, but the crown jewel undoubtedly resided in the keynote address delivered by CEO Dev Ittycheria and Chief Product Officer Sahir Azam.
Ittycheria, in his address, invoked the concept of a “crucible moment” – a transformative experience that shapes one’s path. He used this analogy to describe his own decision to join MongoDB a decade ago. Interestingly, he then extended this concept to the current state of AI, suggesting we are all at a critical “crucible moment” when it comes to leveraging AI in modern business applications.
The prospect of diving into the full 75-minute keynote (or the 60-minute version at 1.25x) might not be for everyone. But fear not! We’ve harnessed the power of generative AI to create a concise yet informative summary for you. Keep reading to unlock the key takeaways…
MongoDB.local NYC 2024 Keynote
Video Content Summarization: Is the Transcript Available?
One of the most important things you need for video content summarization is a transcript. Without this, you would need some specialized audio software to extract the text from the video. Thankfully, YouTube provides this capability to content publishers, should they choose to make that information available to their audience. By clicking “more…” in the video details section, you can find a link to the transcript.
By clicking “Show Transcript,” you will see it appear to the right of the video. Google actually has already used some text extraction capability to provide you with a time-stamped text version of what was said in the keynote (you can toggle the time stamp on/off).
You could read the text verbatim, but that is hardly more efficient than watching the video. So how can you get a better summary of the content of the keynote?
If you are already using Google Gemini or ChatGPT (or some other GenAI tool), you could certainly cut and paste the transcript and ask for a summarization. But if you are a Microsoft Windows user who is privy to the preview of Copilot, you can click on the Copilot icon in your Edge browser and simply ask the AI assistant to “summarize the transcript of the video on this page.”
What’s remarkable is that since Copilot is integrated into the Edge browser, it not only understands your query but looks for the portion of the webpage were the transcript is located (in a frame on the right). So how good a job did Microsoft Copilot do?
Keynote Summary Using Microsoft Copilot
Below is the succinct summary of the 75-minute keynote as extracted and generated by Microsoft Copilot, which was embedded into the Edge browser. The prompt was “Can you summarize the key points of this transcript?” Copilot also has a handy feature that lets you export the result to a Word file, a PDF, or as just text.
Video summary [00:01:23] – [01:15:56]
The MongoDB.local NYC 2024 Keynote, led by MongoDB CEO Dev Ittycheria, highlights MongoDB’s global community outreach, technological advancements, and strategic partnerships. Ittycheria reflects on MongoDB’s growth over the past decade, emphasizing the company’s evolution amidst New York’s burgeoning tech scene and the open-source 2.0 movement. The keynote also addresses the transformative potential of AI, the patterns of tech adoption, and MongoDB’s role in supporting AI applications through the MongoDB AI Applications Program (MAP). Additionally, the introduction of Search and Vector Search to MongoDB Community edition is announced, democratizing access to key features for developers.
Highlights:
- [00:01:23] MongoDB’s Global Reach
- CEO Dev Ittycheria discusses MongoDB’s worldwide events
- Emphasizes the company’s commitment to its global community
- Highlights the importance of bringing technology to users everywhere
- [00:05:08] Decade of Growth
- Ittycheria reflects on MongoDB’s 10-year journey since 2014
- Credits the success to employees, customers, and partners
- Shares his personal ‘crucible moment’ decision to join MongoDB
- [00:06:02] AI’s Crucible Moment
- Discusses the pivotal role of AI in business transformation
- Compares AI adoption to historical tech trends
- Introduces the MongoDB AI Applications Program (MAP)
- [00:27:40] Empowering Developers
- Announces bringing Search and Vector Search to MongoDB Community edition
- Aims to level the playing field for the broader community
- Focuses on making MongoDB more attractive for various applications
- [00:33:59] MongoDB 8.0 Innovations
- Chief Product Officer Sahir Azam presents MongoDB 8.0 features
- Discusses improvements in resilience, scalability, and performance
- Highlights Queryable Encryption expansion to range queries
- [01:12:07] Legacy Modernization
- Addresses the challenges and costs of modernizing legacy systems
- Introduces new tools and programs for application modernization
- Emphasizes the necessity of modernization for leveraging AI
How Did Microsoft Copilot GenAI Do?
We should preface the comments on this with the fact that this is a subjective assessment and not any methodical comparison against a human or other AI tool’s ability to summarize. But our first impression was that Copilot did a pretty impressive job summarizing the video using the transcript.
What worked well…
- Copilot wrote an introductory paragraph that captured the key themes of the keynote, as well as the key announcements.
- The summary then includes a list of bulleted and sub-bulleted highlights, including timestamps to help reference the original content.
- The summary includes key themes discussed including the idea of a “crucible moment” in how AI impacts the development of applications, and important announcements like the MongoDB AI Application Program and the inclusion of Search and Vector Search in the MongoDB Community Edition.
- As a whole, the summary takes about 5 minutes to read and gives the gist of the keynote. Not a bad tradeoff vs. watching a 75-minute video.
And not so well…
- An entire interview Dev Ittycheria and Anthropic VP of Product, Michael Gerstenhaber was left out entirely in the summary (from 17:02 to 25:43). You could argue that Copilot was wise in determining that an interview in the middle of the keynote was not relevant. But a comprehensive summary should have included some mention of it.
However, Copilot did consume the entirety of the transcript, so we simply gave it an additional prompt which yielded a detailed result.
“Can you summarize the interview with Michael Gerstenhaber of Anthropic by Dev Ittycheria in the transcript?”
Video summary [00:16:49] – [00:25:46]:
In the MongoDB.local NYC 2024 Keynote, Dev Ittycheria, CEO of MongoDB, introduces Michael Gerstenhaber, VP of Product at Anthropic, to discuss the company’s approach to AI. Anthropic, known for its work on the original GPT paper, focuses on creating reliable AI solutions with an emphasis on safety and interpretability. They introduced a range of models tailored to enterprise needs, addressing latency and intelligence sensitivities. Gerstenhaber highlights Anthropic’s unique character, Claude, designed to be warm and engaging, reducing the engineering burden, and representing businesses effectively. He also explains their Constitutional AI paradigm, which ensures safety by assessing content during data selection and training. The interview delves into the differentiation of Anthropic from other models and the future of AI applications.
Highlights:
- [00:16:49] Introduction of Michael Gerstenhaber
- Dev Ittycheria welcomes Michael to discuss Anthropic’s AI solutions
- Anthropic’s focus on reliability and safety in AI
- The introduction of enterprise-tailored AI models
- [00:17:31] Overview of Anthropic
- Gerstenhaber provides a brief on Anthropic’s foundation and goals
- Emphasis on reliability, reducing hallucinations, and transparency
- Introduction of models to meet diverse enterprise needs
- [00:18:21] Differentiation from Other Models
- Discussion on Anthropic’s unique character, Claude
- Importance of warmth and engagement in AI interactions
- The role of Constitutional AI in ensuring safety
- [00:22:11] Partnership with MongoDB
- Reasons behind Anthropic’s partnership with MongoDB
- The significance of the MongoDB Atlas platform for AI applications
- The future of sophisticated AI apps and their transformative potential
Limitations beyond control of GenAI
We noticed some minor limitations or errors in the summary due in part to the transcript being incorrect, or not identifying who was speaking during the interview portion.
- The transcript referred to the MongoDB AI Application Program as MAP when, in fact, the acronym MongoDB uses is MAAP.
- The interview summary between Dev Ittycheria and Michael Gerstenhaber seemed to leave some “holes” in the conversation, for example from 22:11 until the end.
Intangibles
While we were extremely impressed with the GenAI content summary capabilities of Copilot (powered by OpenAI), there are some intangibles that prevent this type of use case from totally replacing experiencing the content personally.
AI-generated content summaries can’t yet paint the whole picture: you can’t sense crowd reaction like laughter or excitement or facial expressions of the speakers. It’s like reading a movie critic’s summary instead of watching the movie. Sometimes, the full experience is worth the time invested.
In Summary
There were no big blockbuster announcements at MongoDB.local in New York City. But MongoDB is going “all in” on trying to be the central data platform for AI-powered applications. As a partner in the MongoDB AI Application Program (MAAP), Pureinsights embraces this strategy.
In our own AI application projects, we have concluded that while the LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Llama3 and Claude get all the press, developers in the trenches know that data management and processing, application logic and user interfaces, and vector data stores (like MongoDB) are central to all AI-driven business applications.
We are extremely excited to be in the middle of all this as MongoDB’s Services AI Partner of the Year for 2024 and look forward to working with you on your AI application project. Please reach out and CONTACT US to get started with a free consultation.
Related Resources
- local NYC | 2024 | MongoDB
- Building the Next Big Thing Together: MongoDB’s Partners of the Year 2024 | MongoDB
- A GenAI Shopping Guide for Business Leaders – Pureinsights
- LLM Inference Speed Revolutionized by New Architecture – Pureinsights
- Mintel and Pureinsights Transform Client Experience with Gen AI – Pureinsights