NEWS
Sage Launches Accounting and HR Suites in the UK and Canada to Empower SMBs Sage for Accountants streamlines client management and boosts efficiency, allowing
Sage has launched two new suites in the UK and Canada, designed to transform the operations and growth of small and mid- sized businesses (SMBs) and accountancy practices. The new products, Sage for Accountants and Sage for Small Business bring together award-winning accounting, HR, and business management tools to create scalable solutions. The suites feature three customisable membership plans, Essentials, Standard, and Premium, that allow users to manage subscriptions with a single monthly invoice. Neal Watkins, EVP of Accounting and HR at Sage, said, “With these new suites, we are making it easier for data and work to flow between our products, helping accountants, bookkeepers, and SMBs to do more, easily and efficiently. Our goal is to eliminate complexity and enhance the value of human work.”
accountants to focus more on strategic advisory services. Sage for Small Business provides SMBs a one-stop solution for managing cash flow, payroll, and HR. It aims to simplify repetitive tasks and ensure compliance with tax and payroll regulations. Additionally, Sage announced Sage Copilot, a generative AI-powered productivity assistant designed to automate routine administrative tasks and offer real-time business insights. Sage Copilot will be available in the UK in 2024 and will expand to Canada. Sage’s new suites offer scalable, integrated solutions to help SMBs and accountancy practices work more efficiently and focus on what matters most.
Alibaba Cloud Unveils New Developments in Large Language Models
Alibaba Cloud, the technology arm of Alibaba Group, has announced significant advancements in its Qwen family of large language models (LLMs), which have had over 90,000 enterprise deployments since last June. The popular models, known as “Tongyi Qianwen” in China, are widely used across consumer electronics, automobiles, and gaming industries. In response to the growing demand for AI solutions, Alibaba Cloud has introduced Qwen2.5, a new model with enhanced reasoning, code comprehension, and textual understanding capabilities. This upgrade is part of Alibaba’s ongoing commitment to developing and sharing AI technology. Jingren Zhou, Alibaba Cloud’s CTO, expressed excitement over the Qwen family’s success, highlighting its innovative applications across industries. He added, “We will continue contributing a diverse array of AI models to the open-source communities.” Xiaomi, a leading consumer electronics company, has integrated Alibaba Cloud’s models into its AI assistant, Xiao Ai, providing unique features like voice-activated image
generation in smart electric vehicles. Perfect World Games, a Chinese gaming company, has also adopted Qwen for game development, enabling advanced plot, dialogue, and animation generation. Alibaba Cloud’s Model Studio, an AI development platform, has received a comprehensive update. The platform now offers a wider range of models and sophisticated tools to aid developers in creating AI-based applications. The platform features high-calibre third-party models and advanced developer tools like LlamaIndex, an open-source framework designed to improve LLMs for application development. Alibaba Cloud has released several Qwen models, including Qwen1.5-110B, with 110 billion parameters, and CodeQwen1.5-7B, optimised for coding tasks to support the open-source community. The company plans to share additional models in the coming months, including seven billion-parameter and 72 billion-parameter variants. These efforts underscore Alibaba Cloud’s commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration in the AI space.
Jingren Zhou CTO
alibabacloud.com
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