Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Apple’s flagship event of the year is just a week away, but the tech giant’s AI ambitions might be temporarily hitting the snooze button.

With insiders revealing the upcoming WWDC will be a “gap year” event that pushes more impactful AI reveals to 2026, the gap between Apple and the AI competition has never looked wider.

In today’s AI rundown:

• AI letdown expected at Apple’s WWDC

• Record giants, music AI startups eye licensing deals

• Transform deep research into visual infographics

• AI beats humans on emotional intelligence tests

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE

🍎 AI letdown expected at Apple’s WWDC

Image source: Apple

The Rundown: Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference may disappoint on the AI front, according to Bloomberg insider Mark Gurman — with reported plans for a less hyped event as a “gap year” to push for a stronger AI reveal in 2026.

The details:

• Apple will open its 3B parameter models to developers, enabling custom AI features in third-party apps but with limited capabilities compared to rivals.

• The company reportedly plans to rebrand existing features as "AI-powered" and introduce a new naming system for its OS to shift perception.

• Major AI projects remain in limbo, including an LLM-powered Siri overhaul, health-focused Project Mulberry, and a ChatGPT competitor with web search.

• Gurman added that Apple’s 150B model is nearing ChatGPT quality in testing, but accuracy concerns and exec disagreements have kept it under wraps.

Why it matters: Apple finds itself in a difficult position — with sky-high expectations and accelerating competition paired with a serious lack of progress on the AI front. While a “gap year” might be needed to prepare a product that can give what users expect, the AI leaders certainly won’t be slowing down during that time.

TOGETHER WITH VANTA

📖 The new playbook for building AI-era startups

The Rundown: Speed alone isn't enough anymore — today's startups need sharper, smarter strategies from day one. Learn from Vanta's Christina Cacioppo and The Generalist's Mario Gabriele in this tactical discussion for founders navigating the rapidly shifting startup landscape.

This live session covers:

• Strategies for accelerating product-market fit in the AI era

• Frameworks for choosing tools that 10x your business impact

• Tactics for building competitive moats without funding or brand recognition

Save your spot and discover hard-earned lessons you won’t find in traditional playbooks.

AI & MUSIC

🎵 Record giants, music AI startups eye licensing deals

Image source: Reve / The Rundown

The Rundown: Music giants Universal, Warner, and Sony are reportedly in talks with AI music leaders Udio and Suno to negotiate licensing deals that could resolve billion-dollar lawsuits and establish standards for how artists are compensated by AI firms.

The details:

• The labels are seeking licensing fees and equity stakes in the startups, creating a framework for compensating artists whose work is used in training.

• The companies sued both Udio and Suno in 2024 for copyright infringement, seeking up to $150k per work infringed, potentially totaling billions in damages.

• A deal would reportedly put an end to the lawsuits, with the negotiations happening “in parallel” and creating a race between firms to strike the first deal.

Why it matters: This showdown echoes the music industry's past fights with Napster and streaming services — but this time, labels seem ready to negotiate rather than fight to the death. Just like we’ve seen in journalism and social media platforms, AI licensing is becoming a lucrative revenue stream and alternative to pricey court battles.

AI TRAINING

📊 Transform deep research into visual infographics

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Google Gemini's deep research feature to analyze complex topics and automatically generate visual infographics from research findings using its new visualization capabilities.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Google’s Gemini website and click “Deep Research” at the bottom of the chat interface

2. Enter your research topic and review the plan Gemini creates, then click “Edit plan” to modify or “Start research” to proceed

3. Once your comprehensive report is ready, click the “Create” button and select “Infographic” to turn your report into an interactive HTML visualization

4. Toggle between Code and Preview views in Canvas to see and customize your infographic.

Pro tip: The more specific your initial query, the better your results. Instead of broad topics, include specific aspects, timeframes, or comparisons you want in your report.

PRESENTED BY RETOOL

🏗️ Build AI that works for your business

The Rundown: While most AI tools are just chatbots, Retool Agents perform real work by directly integrating with your business systems, delivering measurable efficiency and cost savings through hands-on tasks, not just conversation.

What makes Retool different:

• Model flexibility that works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, or custom implementations

• True integration with your existing tech stack, including databases, APIs, and business tools

• An intuitive visual builder combined with code flexibility for a balance of speed and control

• Enterprise-ready security with built-in permissions and role-based access control

Try Retool today and experience AI agents that actually work for your business.

AI RESEARCH

🧠 AI beats humans on emotional intelligence tests

Image source: o3 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Researchers from the University of Geneva and the University of Bern found that ChatGPT and other AI systems beat humans on emotional intelligence tests, indicating AI may be better at reading emotions and responding than people.

The details:

• Six AI models were tested on standard emotional intelligence assessments, tasked with selecting emotionally appropriate responses to complex scenarios.

• GPT-4, o1, Gemini 1.5 Flash, Copilot 365, Claude 3.5 Haiku, and DeepSeek V3 scored an 81% average in testing, compared to 56% for human participants.

• Beyond just test-taking, GPT-4 also proved capable of quickly creating entirely new and valid emotional intelligence assessments.

• The researchers believe the results show AI's grasp of emotional concepts and reasoning, not just pattern regurgitation from training data.

Why it matters: While AI can't actually “feel” emotions like humans do, its ability to mimic and display optimal emotional intelligence in difficult situations might be just as valuable — and shows the massive promise for integrating LLMs into fields like mental health support, customer service, and education.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 📸 Kontext - BFL’s new advanced image editing model

• 🔎 Perplexity Labs - Build reports and dashboards with multi-tool use

• 📋 Manus Slides - Create tailored slide decks with agentic AI

• 🗣️ EVI 3 - Create custom voices through speech-to-speech interactions

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🤝 The Rundown - Partnerships Manager

• 📝 Mistral AI - Content Marketing Lead, US

• 🛠️ Hebbia - Platform Engineer, Staff

• 📱 Perplexity AI - Mobile Product Manager

📰 Everything else in AI today

BoxWorks 2025 – San Francisco & virtual on Sept. 11-12. Use AI to thrive in business and bring order to unstructured data, explore Intelligent Content Management, and more. (Sponsored)

ElevenLabs launched Conversational AI 2.0, featuring new advanced turn-taking, multilingual detection, and enterprise-grade features, including HIPAA compliance.

OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said in an interview that the hardware devices OpenAI is building will be “ambient” systems designed for more personal real-world experiences.

Anthropic reportedly reached $3B in annualized revenue, tripling from $1B in December 2024, driven by enterprise demand from its code generation capabilities.

Meta is reportedly in the process of automating up to 90% of its privacy and internal safety risk assessments using AI, replacing human reviewers.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis revealed that “millions of videos” were generated with Veo 3 in the last week, following an expansion to over 71 new countries.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Watch our last live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to use AI coding agents to improve your development workflow.

Watch here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team