o3 is here

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OpenAI saved the best for last. On its “shipmas” finale, we didn’t get GPT-5 — which is reportedly still falling short of expectations — but something even better. Find out why some believe the startup’s new reasoning model o3 leaves us within arm’s reach of AGI. And: Learn how to generate video podcasts with AI.

Today’s Insights

• Today in AI: OpenAI’s o3, a new way to search, AI-powered encyclopedias, and teacher-less schools

• Tutorial: How to generate video podcasts with HeyGen

• Delving into o3’s specs

• Everything else you should know today

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

TODAY IN AI

1. OpenAI drops new o3 reasoning model, pushing us closer to AGI: OpenAI didn’t let an apparent trademark conflict get in the way of its latest release. It skipped right past o2 to announce o3, a model that it says achieves state-of-the-art performance across coding, math, science, and more. Plus, OpenAI’s giving “all plus users unlimited Sora access via the relaxed queue over the holidays.” Read on for an in-depth look at o3’s mind-boggling specs.

2. An easier way to use Gemini: Alphabet plans to introduce a new “AI Mode” to Search in a bid to keep up with Perplexity and OpenAI Search. The tab sounds similar to Gemini’s current interface, except you’d be able to reach it without having to visit a separate webpage.

3. Encyclopedia Britannica is thriving in the AI age: You’d think an encyclopedia publisher founded in 1768 would have a hard time surviving the rise of Wikipedia, let alone today’s quick-thinking LLMs. Instead, Britannica is reportedly considering going public with a valuation of $1B. What’s behind its surprise success? The Chicago-based company is incorporating AI into its own products, including a chatbot and personalized lesson plans trained on its vast knowledge base.

4. Would you send your kid to a school taught almost entirely by AI? Arizona has approved a controversial online charter school, Unbound Academy, that will use AI to give lessons in a densely packed two-hour window, with the rest of the day reserved for open-ended workshops. The school says its model adapts to each student’s needs — for example, throwing them more challenging problems if they’re breezing through the current lesson.

PRESENTED BY TAPLIO

How Our Co-Founder Uses AI To Create Trending Posts on LinkedIn

Superhuman co-founder Awais has 200k+ followers on LinkedIn, partly because he uses a tool called Taplio to create high-performing posts.

To create viral content on LinkedIn, you first need to find which content is performing:

1. Go to the Taplio website and sign up for a free trial

2. Once you're logged in, click on “Viral Content” on the left sidebar

3. Browse trending posts and apply filters to spark your own ideas

Then, it’s time to write + enhance your post with Taplio’s AI assistant:

1. Click “Write A Post” on the left sidebar

2. Write the whole post–or just a line–and click on the purple bolt icon

3. Select from the drop-down menu to automatically generate the rest of the post, improve your writing, and more

Finally, click “Add To Queue” to schedule, and you're done!

(P.S. - Get Taplio for one month for just $1, with the code SH1 at checkout. Valid only for 72h)

THE AI ACADEMY

How to generate video podcasts with HeyGen

• Go to HeyGen's website and sign up to get credits.

• Go to your dashboard and click on Labs.

• Now click on ’Video Podcasts’ and upload your data file.

• Select two different avatars, video ratio, and time duration for the podcast.

• Wait for it to generate and share once done!

FROM THE FRONTIER

Why OpenAI’s o3 reveal is such a big deal

OpenAI silenced the critics — and then some: The Sam Altman-led startup unveiled two new LLMs — o3 and o3-mini — that easily outpace o1 while beating other leading models by a mile.

Consider these stats:

• It surpasses o1 on a top coding benchmark by over 20 points

• When firing on all cylinders, it scores a 2727 on an especially tricky coding contest called Codeforeces (To put that into perspective, someone who earns a 2400 is in the 99.2nd percentile of all programmers, according to TechCrunch)

• o3 scores 87.7% on PhD-level science questions, nearly 10 points higher than its predecessor (consider that human PhD-holders score 70% on average)

• On Epoch AI’s math benchmark — thought to be the toughest one available because it includes unpublished and novel math problems — it scores over 25% (the next-best model can’t get above 2%)

• o3 is better at solving problems that never appeared in its training data, and for the first time, it scored better than the average human on the Arc AGI test

When can we try it? Safety testers can sign up to conduct early evaluations as soon as today. The rest of us will have to wait until early January for o3-mini, while the full version of o3 will come soon after.

PRESENTED BY YOU. COM

Zain tutorial: All your favorite AI models in one app

Zain just demonstrated how you can access 20+ AI models in one centralized AI chat platform with You.com.

This allows you to pivot between models in the same thread, choosing the right AI for the right task without switching tabs or pasting prompts.

Superhuman readers get access to 6 months of Pro at no cost ($120 value). Just visit the special offer page, and enter your email address to get your 1-time coupon.

AI & TECH NEWS

Everything else you need to know today

🏡 Home Base: Smart home platform Home Assistant released an open-source voice assistant that lets you control your home’s lights, doors, and electronics without an internet connection.

🍎 Home Security: Speaking of home assistants, Bloomberg reports that Apple is developing a doorbell camera with Face ID capabilities that could automatically unlock doors.

🤝 Better Together: Palantir and Anduril Industries are reportedly organizing a consortium with major tech companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI to bid on U.S. government defense contracts, with potential agreements to be announced as early as January.

🧠 Aligned Minds: With backing from a16z, the ex-CEO of streaming platform Twitch is launching a new AI company called Stem that will build software that “understands, cooperates with, and aligns with human behavior.”

🏆 Training Triumph: A new technical report reveals how quality training data helped catapult Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 to the top of the open-source charts.

⌚ Time-Out: A pair of senators urged the Biden Administration to give TikTok 90 more days to sell its US division after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the platform’s case in early Jan.

📈 Markets: AI stocks finished the week strong thanks to an optimistic report from Morgan Stanley. It argued that Nvidia and other chipmakers still have plenty of room to grow, helping the Jensen Huang-led company jump up 3.08%. Reddit had a good day, too, finishing up 4.27% as it continues to lean into new AI initiatives.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

✅ Eapy: A music-focused workspace that allows creators to visually organize their ideas, share their workflow with others, and co-create original songs with AI.

✅ IdeAI: Find inspiration, validate concepts, and track trends with an AI-powered search platform for ideas.

✅ Vanta*: Building in the age of AI. Join Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, and Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and Founder of LTSE, as they discuss startup lessons for early-stage growth. Register here.

✅ Tempo Labs: Combine the speed of AI prototyping with the creative control of a visual design tool, all while working directly with your production codebase.

✅ Sonetz: An AI-powered business partner that simplifies sales, so you can focus on growing your business.

^{* indicates a promoted tool, if any}

PROMPT OF THE DAY

E-mail Marketing

Prompt: Step into the shoes of a marketing legend for this task. You’re working for [NAME OF BRAND] who has developed a new line of [DESCRIBE KEY FEATURE] products, [DESCRIBE THE OFFERING]. We need an email sequence that connects emotionally with our existing audience, focusing on [DESCRIBE A KEY BENEFIT] for these products. 

_{Source: Foundation Inc}

💡 SUPER-READER SPOTLIGHT

How AI helps Louis Criscuolo optimize his health

“While I'm a technical writer by trade, as a hobby I try to optimize for nutrition and health. So, I created a Daily Food Diary project that tracks macronutrients, dietary fiber, and calories for myself and some friends by taking a photo of each food or dish about to be eaten, then receiving email and tracking for that food's protein, fats, carbs, fiber, and calories each day and for the month.

Each day each person using the project receives an email whereby AI processes each person's intake, specifies the Glycemic Index (GI) of each food or dish, then recommends adjustments based on each user's diet type and lifestyle goals. The project provides recipes, supplements, and similar recommendations.

For example, one person may be an omnivore who is gluten-free and is trying to lose weight; another person on the Mediterranean diet may be striving for brain optimization and anxiety reduction.“

Tools used: “I use MindStudio AI mostly for AI, since it's an "AI orchestration layer" for multiple foundation AI models (ranging from OpenAI and Anthropic to Google Vision and Ideogram, to Eleven Labs). It's my go-to no-code AI Worker building platform.

I use Make[dot]com for the "general orchestration layer" that stores each user's data, sends emails, and any other integrations I need that Make[dot]com supports.”

💡 Share your genius: Tell us how you’re using AI to level up your work or play, and you could be featured in our new Super-Reader Spotlight—submit your story today.

AI-GENERATED IMAGES

DIY Christmas Cards

Midjourney Prompt: A simple line drawing of an elegant Christmas card with town square with the big Christmas tree with Christmas decorations and Christmas lights, the tree is shining colored, falling snow, two people in warm clothes and a dog , words "Merry Christmas!!" , in a clip art style, on a [insert color here] background, a minimalistic illustration [insert colors here], --ar 2:3 --stylize 50

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Until next time!

Zain & the Superhuman AI team