Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Silicon Valley's robotics race just got a surprising new player — and Meta's not playing by the usual rules.

While other tech giants rush to build their own machines, Zuck and co. are betting on becoming the foundational layer that powers them all.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Meta sets sights on humanoid robotics development

• Perplexity launches freemium Deep Research feature

• How to develop data-driven content strategies

• NBA showcases AI and robotics at 2025 All-Star Weekend

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

META

🦾 Meta sets sights on humanoid robotics development

Image source: Grok / The Rundown

The Rundown: Meta is launching a new initiative to develop AI, hardware, and software platforms for humanoid robots, aiming to become the foundational tech provider for the industry rather than building consumer products.

The details:

• A new team within Meta’s Reality Labs division, led by former Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, will focus on robot hardware, AI systems, and safety standards.

• Meta plans to leverage its existing AI and sensor tech from AR/VR development to create a software platform on which other manufacturers can build.

• Meta has reportedly discussed potential partnerships with robotics companies like Unitree and Figure AI, focusing initially on household robots.

• While not planning its own branded robot, the company aims to provide an underlying platform similar to how Android powers smartphones.

Why it matters: Everyone seems to be getting into the robotics game, with reports of Apple and OpenAI also exploring the hyper-competitive sector. While Meta has the infrastructure and resources to compete, its rumored focus on building a foundational layer could mark a unique path from other competitors creating their own robots.

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PERPLEXITY

🧠 Perplexity launches freemium Deep Research feature

Image source: Perplexity

The Rundown: Perplexity just launched its own Deep Research tool, an AI-powered research agent designed to provide in-depth reports in minutes — directly competing with similar (and identically named) offerings from OpenAI and Google.

The details:

• Deep Research autonomously conducts dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and synthesizes findings into a structured report in 2-4 minutes.

• The tool excelled on Humanity’s Last Exam, scoring 21.1%, surpassing Gemini Thinking (6.2%) and Grok-2 (3.8%) — but falling short of OpenAI’s 26.6%.

• Unlike OpenAI’s current $200/month paywall on its Deep Research, Perplexity’s tool is free (5 per day) for casual users, with Pro users getting more usage.

• Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas threw a jab at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X, saying he ‘mogged’ him with the company’s latest release.

Why it matters: The time it takes to go from premium features to free alternatives continues to get shorter, with Perplexity undercutting OpenAI directly (though early reviews have been mixed). But with AI leaders all pushing these tools, the question isn't if AI will reshape research workflows — it’s how soon it will become the norm.

AI TRAINING

📝 How to develop data-driven content strategies

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Perplexity with DeepSeek to identify high-potential content opportunities and optimize your content strategy based on market gaps and audience demand.

Step-by-step: 

1. Head to Perplexity, toggle the Pro option, and select Reasoning with R1 (5 free searches for new users).

2. Ask it to analyze content gaps and trending topics in your field of interest.

3. Request to research audience preferences and successful formats.

4. Create your 30-day content strategy by asking for an actionable plan.  

Pro tip: Before running your analysis, gather your current content performance metrics to compare against Perplexity's recommendations. The Rundown University members can access the top prompts here.

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NBA

🏀 NBA showcases AI and robotics at 2025 All-Star Weekend

Image source: National Basketball Association (@NBA) on X

The Rundown: The NBA showed off several new AI and robotics innovations being implemented for teams like the Golden State Warriors as part of its 2025 All-Star Technology Summit, including robots for rebounding, coaching, wellness, and more.

The details:

• A.B.E. (Automated Basketball Engine) rebounds and passes during shooting practice, with Stephen Curry already incorporating it into his training routine.

• M.I.M.I.C. robots run offensive and defensive plays under a coach’s direction, providing consistent practice that can execute opponent’s formations.

• K.I.T. (Kinematic Interface Tool) focuses on player wellbeing, offering companionship and motivation in the locker room and during workouts.

• B.E.B.E. (Bot-Enhanced Basics & Equipment) helps organize equipment and repetitive tasks like inflating basketballs.

Why it matters: The robotics revolution has come to professional sports, with the NBA providing an interesting look into the potential for specialized robots that can make major impacts for pro teams looking for any edge possible. While seeing these robots in action is still jarring for now, it won’t be long before the tech is absolutely everywhere.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🎬 Animate Anyone 2 - Alibaba’s open-source character animation model

• 💻 OmniParser V2 - Turn any LLM into a Computer Use Agent

• 👩🏻‍💻 UI2Code - Instantly convert UI designs into production-ready frontend code

• 🤖 SAP Joule Agents - Business process-driven AI automation

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🏗️ Anyscale - Software Engineer, Infrastructure

• 🏅 Findem - Senior Customer Support Lead

• 🎨 OpenAI - Content Designer

• 🔬 Dataiku - Sales Engineer

📰 Everything else in AI today

Elon Musk revealed that xAI’s Grok 3 would be released later tonight, calling it ‘the smartest AI on Earth.’

OpenAI released a new version of its 4o model, bringing upgraded performance in creative writing, coding, instruction following, and more.

Robotics startup Figure AI is reportedly discussing a new $1.5B funding round that would vault the company’s valuation to a whopping $39.5B.

Google rolled out new memory upgrades to Gemini Advanced, allowing the model to remember and reference past chats in its responses.

Apple is reportedly planning to bring Apple Intelligence features to its Vision Pro headsets in April, including features like Writing Tools, Genmoji, and Image Playground.

OpenAI’s board of directors unanimously voted to reject Elon Musk’s 97.4B offer to purchase the company, saying it was “not in the best interests of OAI’s mission.”

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

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