Baidu's GPT-4.5 killer

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Welcome back, Superhuman. The world’s top model was just toppled — but not by Anthropic, Alphabet, or anyone else you expect. Nope, this time, China’s search giant Baidu has come seemingly out of nowhere with an LLM that supposedly beats GPT-4.5 at just 1% of the cost.

Today’s Insights

• Baidu’s new models and a peak into AI’s future

• Tutorial: How to create transition videos with Pika 2.2

• New updates from Anthropic and OpenAI

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• News, memes, what’s trending on socials, and more

TODAY IN AI

1. Another DeepSeek moment? Chinese tech giant Baidu just unveiled the multimodal ERNIE 4.5, which it says “outperforms GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks while priced at just 1% of GPT-4.5.” If that wasn’t enough, a new reasoning model called X1 rivals DeepSeek’s R1 but is only half the price. Plus, a chatbot featuring both models will be available at no cost starting April 1 — meaning DeepSeek and OpenAI only have a couple weeks to respond. The cost of intelligence is trending closer to zero by the day.

2. Y Combinator’s latest batch hints at the future of AI: A new group of bright-eyed startups unveiled their latest products — 80% of them powered by LLMs — at Y Combinator’s demo day last week. Some have even hit $10M in annual revenue rate with fewer than 10 employees — something that’s “never happened before,” according to YC CEO Garry Tan.

Here are some we’re keeping our eye on:

• Revise Robotics is cutting down on e-waste by using an AI-powered robot to “refurbish hundreds of laptops a day without any human intervention.”

• Browser Use lets AI take control of your browser autonomously, and China’s Manus even used it to build its own agent, which went viral last week.

• Miyagi Labs uses AI to help you turn ordinary how-to videos into interactive courses that you can monetize.

• Artificial Societies tries to “simulate entire human societies” with AI, letting you do things like see whether your post is likely to go viral ahead of time.

• Here’s the full list, if you want to explore more.

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THE AI ACADEMY

How to create transition videos with Pika 2.2

• Go to Pika AI’s website and sign up.

• Now click on ‘Get started with Pikaframes’ and make sure to select ‘Pika 2.2’ as your model.

• Upload your ‘first frame’ and ‘last frame’ for transition. Select video duration, enter your prompt, and press enter.

Sample prompt: smooth seamless transition, [describe first scene] turns into [describe second scene]

• You’ll get a seamless transition video within seconds that can be downloaded.

AI & TECH NEWS

Everything else you need to know today

🤔 Contemplative Code: Anthropic is bringing its extended thinking mode, which lets you ask Claude to “think harder” before coming up with a response, to Claude Code, helping developers tackle more in-depth coding tasks.

🧪 Testing Grounds: OpenAI’s newly-renamed Prompts Playground just got a major overhaul to “help you better test, compare, and iterate on prompts,” including starter prompts shared by other users.

🎮 Level Up: Microsoft is bringing its Copilot chatbot to the Xbox app, letting users ask for gaming advice, tips and recommendations. Here’s a demo video if you want to see it in action.

📽️ Passing the Torch: The Russo brothers, who directed top Marvel movies like “Avengers: Endgame,” say they’re building a new film and gaming studio that will use AI to cut down on production costs, helping up-and-coming filmmakers realize their visions.

💰 Funding: SoftBank is buying an old LCD panel factory in Japan for $676M. The tech giant plans to turn it into a massive AI data center that will be used to supercharge its new partnership with OpenAI.

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PROMPT OF THE DAY

Identifying New Business Opportunities

Prompt: Develop a forward-thinking strategy to help a well-established [enter business details] uncover and capitalize on new opportunities for growth. Focus on analyzing market trends, emerging technologies, evolving consumer needs, and untapped niches. Outline clear, actionable steps to identify, assess, and prioritize these opportunities, ensuring long-term innovation, competitive advantage, and sustainable success.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

✅ WonderCraft: Create realistic audio content like ads, podcasts and meditations, without recording.

✅ Dextra: An AI-powered sales assistant that streamlines your workflow and helps you close more deals faster.

✅ Nurix AI*: Talk to next-gen human-like AI voice agents that handle customer queries and sales conversations.

✅ Framer: Build responsive websites within minutes without writing any code.

✅ ClipDrop: Suite of visual editing and creation tools to generate stunning visuals in seconds.

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SOCIAL SIGNALS

What’s trending on socials today

📱 Drastic Measures: Developer Rhys Kentish just released an app that forces you to literally touch grass in order to keep using your phone.

✍️ Story Sculptor: AI researcher Thariq Shihipar built a “vibe writing” platform that lets you generate stories “like a DJ might make music, adjusting knobs and dials” to incorporate different narrative elements in real-time. You can try it out here.

🧑‍💻 Interface Express: X user Cj Z shares his workflow for creating a UI design in under 15 minutes using Claude and other AI tools.

🧠 Mind Games: AI researcher Iván Arcuschin’s new study shows for the first time that chain-of-thought models sometimes pretend to think one thing, while in reality thinking something entirely different.

🏆 Stamp of Approval: Wharton professor Ethan Mollick explains why he thinks Gemini’s Deep Research feature, which is now available to all Google users, “casts the widest net” of any AI-powered research tool.

AI-GENERATED IMAGES

Sushi construction

Midjourney Prompt: Ultra-realistic macro photography of a giant, freshly prepared sushi roll, with tiny, highly detailed Japanese chefs in traditional white uniforms and headbands meticulously assembling it. Some chefs stand on bamboo scaffolding, carefully slicing and arranging vibrant, fresh salmon, while others spread glossy soy sauce with delicate brushes. One chef is rolling the sushi with an oversized bamboo mat, while another sprinkles sesame seeds from a miniature wooden bowl. The deep black seaweed contrasts with the bright white rice, avocado, and crisp cucumber. Dramatic cinematic lighting enhances textures and colors, with steam rising slightly to emphasize freshness. Photorealistic, 8K resolution, volumetric lighting, shallow depth of field. --quality 2 --stylize 450 --profile g2snl5m

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🧞 Your wish is my command

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Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Zain & the Superhuman AI team