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- OpenAI's agent nears release
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OpenAI’s next model has allegedly hit a bit of a snag, reigniting a long-simmering debate about AGI. But it’s still full steam ahead for “Operator” — the startup’s new AI agent, which is set for a January release.
🎧️ On the podcast: From startup founder to managing billion-dollar teams, tech, and products. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube
Today’s Insights
Today in AI: OpenAI’s agent, Perplexity’s shakeup, and AI espionage
Tutorial: How to expand images with Freepik
Has AI progress hit a wall?
Everything else you should know today
5 new AI tools to boost your productivity
AI-Generated Images: Pie Problems
TODAY IN AI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Source: AFP
1. OpenAI’s agent nears release: The startup is putting the finishing touches on a tool that can navigate your internet browser on its own, tackling chores like booking flights and completing coding projects. A small group of developers will be able to try it out as soon as January, with a wider release coming further down the line. The move comes on the heels of similar efforts from Microsoft, Anthropic, and other major players.
2. Perplexity tests the waters with first sponsored ads: All good things must come to an end. The AI search platform Perplexity was one of the rare distraction-free places left online — until this week. It’s now experimenting with “sponsored follow-up questions” in a bid to bring in more revenue. With 50 million visits per month, the Aravind Srinivas-led startup is confident the changeup won’t scare away its user base.
3. AI companies are using stealthy recon teams to spy on each other: The Information revealed that a rival data center recently flew a plane over the site of xAI’s new Memphis supercomputer to get a sense of its size. That secret mission is part of a growing trend: As power sources and AI chips get harder to come by, AI startups are pulling out all the stops to figure out how their rivals are managing.
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THE AI ACADEMY
How to expand images with Freepik
Go to the Freepik Picasso website.
Choose the Expand option from the list.
Sign up with your account to get 3 uses each day.
Upload your image and place it according to the frame you want to expand.
Explain in the prompt box how you want the image to expand.
Click on the Expand button and wait for a few seconds.
Your image is now expanded
FROM THE FRONTIER
Is AI innovation really slowing down?
Source: Viso AI
The debate dividing the AI community this week: Are we finally hitting a wall when it comes to LLMs’ reasoning capabilities? Wharton’s Ethan Mollick, Meta’s Yann LeCun, and NYU’s Gary Marcus are just a few of the luminaries who’ve weighed in — and let’s just say it’s gotten a little heated.
What’s fueling the feud? Despite pouring record levels of compute into Orion, OpenAI is allegedly having trouble passing its own benchmarks. Apparently, it’s more or less the same situation at Anthropic and Alphabet, suggesting there’s something bigger going on.
What it means: AI companies might need to start exploring new ways to push their models — like coming up with alternative architectures and training strategies. Despite the supposed slowdown, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei remain optimistic, believing AGI is still just a few years away.
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🎧️ DECODING THE FUTURE
From startup founder to managing billion dollar teams, technologies, and products | Steve Woods (Inovia Capital)
Steve Woods is a General Partner and CTO at Inovia Capital, a Canadian venture capital firm managing over $2.2B. Previously, he built and sold multiple startups during the dot-com era, including Quack[dot]com. He's also worked closely with AI pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In our conversation, we discuss:
The journey from startup founder to executive to VC
Building and scaling teams from 10 to 2,000 people
The parallels between the dot-com era and today's AI boom
What VCs look for in AI companies
Creating delightful user experiences in tech products
AI & TECH NEWS
Everything else you need to know today
Source: Suno
🗣️ Word Wizard: AI-powered translation platform DeepL can now translate live conversations, audio, and videos in real-time, with support for 33 languages.
🎵 Sonic Leap: Music generation app Suno hinted that its next update, v4, is “coming soon.” Early testers are already sharing its impressive, realistic creations.
🎹 Change Your Tune: YouTube is experimenting with an AI tool that lets creators remix licensed songs with text prompts, including giving them a different genre or mood.
🤝 Better Together: Anysphere is joining forces with AI coding startup Supermaven to bring more features and speedier performance to its popular coding assistant Cursor.
🛒 Bargain Bin: Amazon is taking on the Chinese e-commerce giant Temu with a new storefront called “Haul” that features only items that cost $20 or less.
PRODUCTIVITY
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PROMPT OF THE DAY
Email Recaps
Prompt: I received an email from [name of the person or company] regarding [subject or main content of the email]. Can you pull out the key points from it and summarize it for me? I have a presentation on [specific date] and might need to include this information.Source: Weam
AI-GENERATED IMAGES
Pie Me a River
Source: Inspired by @moondog39 on Midjourney
Midjourney Prompt: a messy [enter type of pie], minimal photo, life style, knolling style, top down, dark blue table top, natural lighting
--ar 4:5 --v 6.1Acquire new customers and drive revenue by partnering with us
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