Stay Ahead on AI.

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Welcome to the first edition of our newly updated Tech newsletter! Here, you’ll find what’s new and next in the tech world – from Big Tech to startups and everything in between – all delivered in our signature rundown style.

If you’re receiving this, you signed up when joining our flagship AI newsletter, or you’ve been subscribed for over a year before our hiatus of this newsletter (but we’re back!). If you’re no longer interested, you can simply unsubscribe.

Be on the lookout for our Tech newsletter bi-weekly on Tuesday and Friday at around 7 AM PST!

In today’s tech rundown:

Apple’s newest family member
Meta spends billions on undersea cable
X blocks links to Signal
SpaceX to overhaul air traffic control
Quick hits on other major news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE

📱Apple’s newest family member

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: At a major launch event tomorrow, Apple is expected to unveil a long-awaited upgrade to the iPhone SE, the brand’s most affordable iPhone model ever, as well as refreshed MacBook and iPad Air models.

The details:

Coming after a wait of three years, the new SE model could include an iPhone 14-like design along, with an upgraded camera, Face ID, and Apple Intelligence.
It is also likely to be the first iPhone to feature Apple’s in-house cellular modem, replacing Qualcomm's technology.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects Apple to ship 12 million units of the new iPhone in the first half of 2025, followed by another 10 million in the second half.
Apple is also expected to launch new iPad Air and MacBook Air models, with a faster, more efficient M4 chip and 32GB of RAM.

Why it matters: The event marks Apple’s first major launch of 2025, with speculation swirling over whether we’ll see an SE update with iPhone 16-style features or something toned down. Yes, this isn’t as high frills as Apple’s flagship releases, but that lower price point will be key to the company’s growth in key markets like India.

🌊 Meta spends billions on undersea cable

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: Meta has confirmed an ambitious plan to build an underwater cable spanning 50,000 kilometers, or longer than the Earth’s circumference, to provide the high-speed connectivity needed to drive global digital and AI innovation.

The details:

The multibillion-dollar Project Waterworth is Meta’s first undersea cable project that it is developing on its own, without partners.
Under this, it will deploy the longest subsea cable of 24 fiber pairs and use novel routing and burial techniques to cover deep waters and high-risk areas.
The network will connect five continents, with points in the U.S., India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions.
Key reasons for investing in the network are Meta’s interest in expanding its digital services in growing markets like India and rolling out AI services globally.

Why it matters: More than 95% of the world's internet traffic is transferred through undersea cables, so it’s no surprise that big tech firms are sinking billions into building their subsea infrastructure. While the scale of Meta’s project is by far the largest, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft also have partnerships of their own.

SIGNAL

👀 X blocks links to Signal

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: X is reportedly preventing users from posting links to the popular encrypted messaging app Signal, which is notably used by journalists to receive confidential information from sources.

The details:

Journalist Matt Binder first spotted the block, which applies to posts, direct messages, and profile descriptions.
Users attempting to add their Signal.me URL are met with error messages, including warnings about spam, malicious activity, or automated requests.
Previously posted Signal.me links on X are still clickable but now display a warning about potential safety issues.
In the past, X has also briefly blocked links to Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, as well as Substack after the release of its Twitter-like Notes.

Why it matters: X’s reported action is raising concerns about free speech and platform control, and Binder flagged Signal’s relevance in recent weeks as federal whistleblowers have relied on the service to report DOGE activity to the press. So far, X has not provided an official explanation for blocking Signal’s links.

SPACEX

🚀 SpaceX to overhaul air traffic control

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: In the wake of the deadly crash last month in D.C, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been called into Virginia’s Air Traffic Control Command Center to assess and help overhaul the current ATC system.

The details:

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said that SpaceX will “get a firsthand look” at the current tech and envision a “new, better, modern and safer system.”
Duffy had also said earlier that Musk’s DOGE team would “plug in” to the FAA to help upgrade the aviation system.
The FAA has been under scrutiny since the crash last month, with the SpaceX visit coming after the FAA reportedly fired hundreds of probational employees.
Critics argue that Musk’s White House status and his government contracts, mostly through SpaceX, are a glaring conflict of interest.

Why it matters: SpaceX has secured some $13 billion in government contracts over the past five years, making it one of the largest government contractors – with Musk’s sway only growing. Musk had played a role in firing the last FAA administrator after the FAA fined SpaceX for failing to submit safety data.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in tech today

Lyft announced plans to launch a fleet of self-driving robotaxis in Dallas “as soon as 2026,” in an apparent attempt to keep pace with rival Uber.

President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum threatened to sue Google if the company continued to show the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America’.

Amazon is soon removing a useful feature from its site that lets users download purchased books to a computer and then copy them to Kindle.

South Korea has blocked DeepSeek, with the Chinese AI app no longer available on local app stores, after acknowledging it failed to meet data protection laws.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed that the company is planning to implement paywalls on exclusive content later this year.

South Korean President Choi Sang-mok said the country aims to stockpile 10,000 GPUs this year for its advancements in AI, citing geopolitics as a key motivator.

Meta exec Joel Kaplan told the EU that they “won’t shy away” from getting President Donald Trump involved if Meta products continue to face legal crackdowns in the EU.

Tesla confirmed the launch of its Full Self-Driving in Mexico while reportedly being stalled in China over the trade war between China and the U.S.

Auto supplier ZF Lifetec has developed a heel airbag for automobiles to protect the feet of front-seat occupants in the event of a crash.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop on Wednesday at 3 PM EST and learn how to create custom AI soundtracks for your business content with Udio’s Andrew Sanchez, CEO/Co-founder and Ian Braunstein, Head of Product.

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

See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team

Meta joins the robotics race

Talk to Parallaxis and download the Data Maturity Framework here.

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 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.

TOGETHER WITH CODELINK

💡Building AI is tough

The Rundown: CodeLink tackles the complexity of implementing AI head-on. Where most projects fail due to talent shortages and strategy gaps – yours doesn't have to.

With CodeLink, you’ll experience:

Proven Track Record: From MVPs to enterprise AI, CodeLink helps companies turn AI ambition into real-world success.
Talent & Expertise: CodeLink’s skilled engineers ensure AI delivers measurable impact.

Ready to gain an edge? Book a call with CodeLink today.

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:

Head to Perplexity, toggle the Pro option, and select Reasoning with R1 (5 free searches for new users).
Ask it to analyze content gaps and trending topics in your field of interest.
Request to research audience preferences and successful formats.
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.

PRESENTED BY PARALLAXIS

🛠️ Build a strong AI data foundation

The Rundown: Parallaxis helps companies navigate the shifting AI/ML landscape with a proprietary evaluation framework that helps transform complex data operations into structured, mature systems that drive AI success.

The Parallaxis Data Maturity Framework helps you:

Identify gaps & risks in your data strategy
Optimize for AI & ML adoption
Get a clear roadmap to success

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

🎥 Join our next live workshop

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

🤝 Share The Rundown, get rewards

We’ll always keep this newsletter 100% free. To support our work, consider sharing The Rundown with your friends, and we’ll send you more free goodies.

See you soon,

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

Robotics

Humanoid maker Figure eyes $1.5B

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Welcome to the first edition of our new Robotics newsletter! If you’re receiving this, you signed up when joining our flagship AI newsletter, and you can simply unsubscribe if you’re no longer interested.

We believe Robotics is on the verge of its ‘ChatGPT moment‘ in 2025—so it’s our mission to make sure you’re far ahead of the curve before that moment happens.

Be on the lookout for our Robotics newsletter bi-weekly on Monday and Thursday at around 7 AM PST!

In today’s robotics rundown:

Figure AI eyes $39.5B valuation
Meta joins the humanoid race
Apptronik raises $350M for Apollo bot
3D-printed swarm bots to the rescue
Quick hits on other major news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

FIGURE

💰 Figure AI eyes $39.5B valuation

Image source: Figure

The Rundown: Silicon Valley-based Figure AI, which is developing general-purpose humanoids for warehouses, factories, and homes, is negotiating a $1.5B funding round at a $39.5B valuation, according to Bloomberg.

The details:

The round is expected to be led by Align Ventures and Parkway Venture Capital, with potential participation from other investors.
The interesting bit here is the valuation. It represents a whopping 15-fold increase from Figure's previous valuation of $2.6B.
Backed by OpenAI and Microsoft, Figure makes commercial and residential humanoids and has already signed two customers, including BMW.
Initially, the company used OpenAI’s models, but CEO Brett Adcock recently stated they ended the collaboration for in-house end-to-end robot AI.

Why it matters: Figure is riding high with interest and investments coming from giants like Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and even Jeff Bezos. Humanoids are a hot ticket, and the potential new valuation, combined with the upcoming technological breakthroughs teased by CEO Brett Adcock, is keeping the entire space on its toes.

🤖 Meta joins the humanoid race

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: Meta is jumping into the red-hot humanoid market by forming a new team within its Reality Labs unit, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg. But, the Facebook owner is going a bit differently about it.

The details:

Instead of a branded robot, Meta reportedly aims to build the underlying AI, sensors, and software for robots.
The company is already in talks with humanoid developers like Unitree Robotics and Figure AI, focusing on developing hardware for a household robot.
The new team will be led by Marc Whitten, former CEO of GM’s now-dropped robotaxi company Cruise.
Meta has already invested $65 billion into AI and is ramping up plans to sell its Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses.

Why it matters: The move will expand Meta’s investments in AI and maximize the applications of its Llama AI models. The company certainly has the resources to compete against Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla, but its focus on building the foundational hardware and software layer will separate it from the pack.

APPTRONIK

🦿 Apptronik scores $350M for Apollo bot

Image source: Apptronik

The Rundown: Austin-based humanoid startup Apptronik raised $350M in a Series A round, with backing from Google, to scale its Apollo robot, designed specifically for physically demanding warehouse jobs.

The details:

Apptronik has been working with Google’s DeepMind to build robot behavioral models, similar to Boston Dynamics’s deal with Robotics and AI Institute.
The company has raised $378M since it was founded in 2016 at the University of Texas at Austin’s robotics lab.
Apollo features linear actuators for joints such as the elbows and knees, which are lower-cost and easier to scale compared to rotary motors and gear trains.
Apptronik also has pilot agreements with Mercedes-Benz and GXO Logistics and has teamed up with NASA to advance humanoids.

Why it matters: Apptronik is another big player to watch, with nearly a decade of experience compared to relative newcomers Figure, 1X, and Tesla. While the company has yet to move out of the pilot phase with any of its partnerships, we may soon see Apollo handling new jobs, such as in homes or on space missions.

RESEARCH

🔥 3D-printed swarm bots to the rescue

Image source: Tufts University/Nitin Sanket

The Rundown: U.S. researchers have designed tiny 3D-printed swarm robots about the size of the palm of your hand that can spread out to investigate wildfire-ravaged areas, conduct search and rescue missions, or clear minefields.

The details:

A Tufts University research team published a paper in Nature Communications on the rescue capacities of soft-jointed tiny robots built with 3D printers.
The robots can be printed on a 3D printer in just a few hours, meaning a bank of printers could produce hundreds of bots on demand at low cost.
They are sturdy enough to be dropped out of a helicopter or run over by a car, plus they can climb up steep inclines and over sand and rocks.
Their soft joints have a more fluid pattern of motion, making them more adaptable to varied terrain compared to rigid robots.

Why it matters: This opens the door to use cases for 3D printed robots, with the scientists adding that the printers can apply materials of different strengths to create a harder or softer skeletal structure based on need. Plus, tiny swarm bots can take on other jobs like transporting food or relief supplies or tracking biological pests.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Quasi Robotics unveiled Version 2.2 of its Model C2 software, enhancing security, navigation, and performance for autonomous mobile robots.

Australian robotics company FBR’s stocks crashed 49% following a disappointing update related to its U.S. launch plans for the Hadrian X bricklaying robot.

Anthropic is collaborating with the UK government to integrate AI into public services, aiming to improve accessibility and efficiency.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo cites that Apple is focused on developing a humanoid assistant while Apple researchers are developing a tabletop bot.

MIT researchers are helping drones fly in the dark using millimeter waves, paving the way for autonomous drones to shuttle inventory between large warehouses.

Japanese researchers have developed the largest-ever biohybrid hand combining robotics with living human tissues, which holds promise for more advanced prosthetics.

London-based Humanoid offered a first look at its next-gen HMND 01 robot in action, demonstrating its mechanical design, AI integrations, and motion control.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

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

See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, Joey —The Rundown’s editorial team

Anthropic's hybrid AI model is coming

Click here to get early access to Tanka.

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. While other AI labs have been rushing out model after model, Anthropic has been eerily quiet since the launch of 3.5 Sonnet in June of 2024.

But the startup’s long silence is reportedly about to be broken — with a new hybrid reasoning system launching in the ‘coming weeks’ that could be right on time for the industry’s shifting model meta.

In today’s AI rundown:

Anthropic prepares next major Claude model
YouTube brings AI video generator to Shorts
Using ChatGPT as your thesis-writing assistant
Gemini Flash 2.0 leads new AI agent leaderboard
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ANTHROPIC

🧠 Anthropic prepares next major Claude model

Image source: Anthropic

The Rundown: Anthropic is set to release a new AI model in the coming weeks, according to a new report from The Information — which will combine traditional language capabilities with advanced reasoning features, excel at coding, and offer developers more control over balancing speed and compute.

The details:

The hybrid approach will allow the new model to function as either a standard LLM or a deep reasoning engine, adapting to different use cases on demand.
The model will also introduce a sliding scale system that lets developers precisely control how much reasoning power to allocate to each query.
At maximum reasoning, the model reportedly shows particular strength in real-world programming tasks and can handle large-scale codebases.
Recent rumors had suggested that Anthropic already internally had a model better than OpenAI’s o3, but it hadn’t been released due to safety concerns.

Why it matters: While OpenAI, Google, and others have continued rolling out models, Anthropic has been eerily quiet since Sonnet 3.5. A major upgrade could thrust the company right back into the spotlight — and with ChatGPT now shifting to a more hybrid model approach, Anthropic could be well prepared for a potential AI ‘meta’ shift.

TOGETHER WITH TANKA

🧠 Where collaboration meets long-term memory

The Rundown: Tanka is the world's first B2B universal chat app with AI long-term memory, inspired by decade-long neuroscience research and built on proprietary memory knowledge graph — saving you hours of writing messages and emails with context-aware AI smart replies.

With Tanka, you’ll get:

A unified communication hub integrated with tools like WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Telegram, and more
An AI work assistant for context-rich smart replies, reminders, and actionable insights
A personalized memory bank that remembers key discussions, achievements, and todos

YOUTUBE

🎬 YouTube brings AI video generator to Shorts

Image source: YouTube

The Rundown: YouTube announced that it is rolling out Veo 2, Google DeepMind's latest video generation model, into its Shorts platform — allowing creators to generate custom video clips and backgrounds directly from text descriptions.

The details:

Creators can generate video clips or dynamic backgrounds for Shorts with text prompts and can specify styles, camera effects, and cinematic looks.
The update enhances the existing Dream Screen feature with faster generation times and improved physics for more realistic movement and scenes.
All AI-generated content will include Google’s SynthID watermarks and clear labeling to maintain transparency about artificial content.
The feature is launching first in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand through the Shorts camera interface.

Why it matters: This update injects state-of-the-art AI video directly into the workflows of content creators across YouTube, taking a giant leap from just backgrounds to full clips and scenes. While this unlocks new creative possibilities, it will likely blur the already fuzzy lines between real and AI content even further.

AI TRAINING

📚 Using ChatGPT as your thesis-writing assistant

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use ChatGPT's new Deep Research feature to analyze hundreds of academic sources to create comprehensive literature reviews at a doctoral level.

Step-by-step:

Access ChatGPT's Deep Research feature by selecting the “Deep Research” button.
Write your query using this template: "Provide a literature survey on [Topic] from [Year], including [Requirements]."
Wait 5-30 minutes while it analyzes hundreds of sources and creates citations.
Review your report with clickable citations and verified academic sources.

Pro tip: We did an extensive workshop showing prompting tips for Deep Research, open-source alternatives that do not require a subscription, and how to create your own for free here.

PRESENTED BY ARCEE

💘 Fall for agentic AI that just works

The Rundown: Arcee Orchestra provides a seamless, turn-key platform that simplifies agentic enterprise AI — with purpose-built SLMs to do exactly what users need.

Join Arcee AI for a webinar on Feb. 26th to:

Discover the impact of our SLMs that power Arcee Orchestra
Create production-ready AI agents in minutes with our no-code interface
Explore the benefits of an all-in-one agentic AI solution
Learn how our intelligent routing delivers precise results for any task

AI LEADERBOARDS

🏆 Gemini Flash 2.0 leads new AI agent leaderboard

Image source: Galileo

The Rundown: Galileo Labs just launched a new AI agent leaderboard to rank how effectively models can handle real-world tool interactions, with Google’s Gemini 2.0 and OpenAI’s GPT-4o debuting at the top spots in the evaluation.

The details:

The leaderboard evaluated 17 top LLMs on 14 benchmarks, including tests on tool usage and selection, long context, complex interactions, and more.
Flash 2.0 led with a 0.938 score, outperforming more expensive competitors while excelling across the board on benchmarks.
Open-source models are closing the gap, with Mistral's latest Small release achieving scores comparable to some premium offerings at lower price points.
DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 models were absent from the testing due to a lack of function calling support but will be included if the capabilities are added.

Why it matters: Agents are still in the early stages, but the sector is a key focus in 2025, and measuring these capabilities will likely be a major scoreboard going forward. With a range of different strengths and agentic areas, the tests show that choosing an agent may come down to a user’s specific use case over brand names or pricing tiers.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

🎥 Firefly Video Model - Adobe’s IP-safe AI video generation tool
❤️ Loveable Visual Edits - Fast, precise AI app building with a Figma-like experience
🎶 Beatoven AI - AI composer for crafting the perfect background music
📚 Alice.tech - Turn generic course materials into personalized learning and exam prep

💼 AI Job Opportunities

🎯 Scale AI - SEAL Research Scientist, Agent Robustness
⚙️ LabelBox - Technical Program Manager
🔥 Celestial AI - Thermal Engineer
🤝 UiPath - Customer Success Manager

📰 Everything else in AI today

IMAGINE AI LIVE '25 connects business leaders with AI innovators for three days of enterprise AI strategies at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas May 28-30. Apply today to save 25%.*

Elon Musk revealed that xAI’s Grok 3 would be released in a week or two during a conversation at the 2025 World Governments Summit, saying the model surpasses all others in reasoning capabilities.

Over a dozen major news publishers filed a lawsuit against Cohere, alleging copyright infringement and trademark violations for using their content to train AI models and generating articles that mimicked their brands.

Baidu plans to make its Ernie chatbot and advanced search freely available starting April 1, aiming to boost adoption in the wake of growing competition from DeepSeek.

Apptronik announced a $350M Series A funding round, with plans to scale production of its Apollo robot and expand into healthcare and consumer markets.

Elon Musk’s letter of intent to acquire OpenAI was revealed, with a deadline of May 10, an all-cash offer of $97.4B, and requirements like full access to company records.

*Sponsored Listing

COMMUNITY

🎥 Watch our last exclusive workshop

We just did a full workshop on building your own AI-powered personal assistant to streamline your daily tasks with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor.

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

🤝 Share The Rundown, get rewards

We’ll always keep this newsletter 100% free. To support our work, consider sharing The Rundown with your friends, and we’ll send you more free goodies.

See you soon,

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

OpenAI's new GPT-5 roadmap

Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Sam Altman just dropped OpenAI’s new model roadmap and scrapped the standalone release of o3 — but something much bigger is taking its place.

With a new plan to unify the company’s tools and models under an upcoming GPT-5 umbrella, could the days of the fragmented AI ecosystem finally end?

Reminder: Our next workshop is today at 4 PM EST, where you’ll learn how to build your own AI-powered personal assistant to streamline your daily tasks! RSVP here.

In today’s AI rundown:

Sam Altman details GPT-5 roadmap, scraps o3 launch
Adobe launches IP-safe AI video generator
Repurpose video transcripts across platforms
OpenAI expands Model Spec with focus on intellectual freedom
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

🗺️ Sam Altman details GPT-5 roadmap, scraps o3 launch

Image source: Sam Altman (@sama) on X

The Rundown: CEO Sam Altman just posted a roadmap update for OpenAI’s upcoming models, canceling its anticipated o3 release in favor of an integrated GPT-5 system that will unify and simplify the companies’ AI offerings.

The details:

GPT-5 will incorporate o3's capabilities alongside other OpenAI tech, with a tiered system offering different intelligence levels for free, Plus, and Pro users.
Before GPT-5, the company will release GPT-4.5 (codenamed "Orion") as its final non-chain-of-thought model in the coming weeks.
Free users will have unlimited access to GPT-5 at "standard intelligence," while paid tiers unlock higher performance and advanced tools.
Altman provided an ETA of ‘weeks’ for 4.5 and ‘months’ for 5, with o3 no longer being released as a standalone model.

Why it matters: The model landscape (and naming conventions) have become increasingly difficult to follow, making for a poor user experience. This new unified structure sounds like GPT-5 will automatically select the best models and tools for a specific task, potentially reshaping how intelligence is packaged and delivered to users.

TOGETHER WITH UNSTRUCTURED

🥋 Master your unstructured GenAI data

The Rundown: We’re all building our GenAI stacks on the fly. Join Unstructured & Elastic for a live session to accelerate your learning curve and learn the latest techniques for fueling your apps and pipelines with all your document data.

Join the live webinar on Jan. 22 to learn how to:

Build streamlined ETL pipelines for your unstructured GenAI data
Balance good/fast/affordable parsing for your most complex documents
Parse and search everything once your data is within Elastic
Unlock internal business data with a live code demo of actionable steps

Click here to register and receive the recording, even if you can’t attend live.

ADOBE

🎨 Adobe launches IP-safe AI video generator

Image source: Adobe

The Rundown: Adobe just released its Firefly Video Model in public beta, positioning it as the industry's ‘first commercially safe AI video generation tool’ — along with new pricing tiers starting at $9.99 for its expanded Firefly creative application suite.

The details:

The new system can generate 1080p video clips from text or images, with precise camera control, shot framing, and motion graphics capabilities.
The model is trained on licensed Adobe Stock and public domain content, and the company emphasizes that it will never be trained on customer generations.
Adobe is launching two new subscription tiers: Standard ($9.99/month for 20 videos) and Pro ($29.99/month for 70 videos).
Other upgrades include Translate and Lip Sync for audio, Scene to Image for 3D structure references, and broader integrations with other Adobe platforms.

Why it matters: There is no shortage of competition for the AI creative suite, but few companies have focused directly on being commercially safe — a differentiator that could make Firefly the go-to choice for brands and agencies that need legally safe AI-generated content at scale.

AI TRAINING

📝 Repurpose video transcripts across platforms

The Rundown: Claude can transform your video transcripts into multiple content pieces while maintaining your unique voice and style.

Step-by-step:

Gather your transcript and 2-3 samples of your best content.
Train Claude with your detailed style-matching prompt by instructing it to analyze your examples.
Request to transform your transcript into focused, voice-matched content for one or multiple social media platforms.

Pro tip: Save time by creating a custom Claude Project trained specifically on your voice and style. The Rundown University member can access the top prompts here.

PRESENTED BY INNOVATING WITH AI

💼 Start your career as an AI Consultant

The Rundown: Innovating with AI’s new program, AI Consultancy Project, equips AI enthusiasts with all the resources to capitalize on the rapidly growing AI consulting market – which is set to 8x to $54.7B by 2032.

The program offers:

Tools and framework to find clients and deliver top-notch services
A 6-month roadmap to build a 6-figure AI consulting business
Student landing their first AI client in as little as 3 days

OPENAI

📋 OpenAI expands Model Spec with focus on intellectual freedom

Image source: OpenAI

The Rundown: OpenAI just released an expanded Model Spec that outlines how models should handle controversial topics, emphasizing truth, user customization and intellectual freedom while maintaining key safety guardrails.

The details:

The 63-page specification introduces a "chain of command" where platform rules precede developer and user preferences.
After feedback requesting a "grown-up mode," OpenAI is exploring ways to allow types of adult content while maintaining strict bans on harmful material.
The company is combatting ‘AI sycophancy’ by training models to give honest feedback instead of empty praise and avoiding agenda-seeking responses.
The Model Spec is released under a CC0 license, allowing other AI companies to adopt and modify these guidelines for their own systems.

Why it matters: Another common critique of OpenAI is the frequent restrictions around controversial topics or conversations. With open source and unfiltered models like Grok gaining in popularity, it appears ChatGPT is going down the less restrictive, ‘truth-seeking’ route — a move even Elon Musk should ideologically approve of.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

⚡Deepgram - Introducing Nova-3, the first voice AI model with real-time multilingual speech-to-text*
🧠 Perplexity Sonar - New upgraded model with 10x faster response speed
🧮 DeepScaleR - Open-source 1.5B model with exceptional math reasoning
🧊 3D AI Studio V3 - Generate, organize, and edit 3D models
*Sponsored Listing

💼 AI Job Opportunities

🎯 The Rundown - Marketing/Media Buyer
📦 Coreweave - Warehouse Associate
🛠️ Shield AI - Staff Engineer, DevOps
💼 Databricks - Startup Account Executive

📰 Everything else in AI today

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Apple is exploring humanoid and non-humanoid robots for its smart home ecosystem, though mass production isn't expected before 2028.

Sam Altman said that OpenAI is planning to extend access to its Deep Research tool to all ChatGPT tiers, with 2 uses per month for free users and 10 for Plus users to start.

Thomson Reuters secured a landmark AI copyright legal victory, with a judge ruling that Ross Intelligence’s use of copyrighted content for AI training constituted infringement.

Midjourney founder David Holz teased that the company has two hardware projects currently in development, with ‘one that goes on you’ and ‘one that you go inside of.’

AI infrastructure startup fal secured a $49M Series B to expand its video-focused generative media platform, which already processes over 100M daily inference requests for enterprise customers including Quora and Canva.

Glean launched Glean Agents, a new platform allowing enterprises to build and deploy custom assistants with access to company and internet data.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our workshop today at 4 PM EST to learn how to build your own AI-powered personal assistant to streamline your daily tasks with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor.

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

🤝 Share The Rundown, get rewards

We’ll always keep this newsletter 100% free. To support our work, consider sharing The Rundown with your friends, and we’ll send you more free goodies.

See you soon,

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

AI tensions rise on global stage

Click here to get your free copy.

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. While tech giants race to build more powerful AI, world leaders clash over who gets to write the rules.

The AI Action Summit just wrapped up in Paris, exposing some deep new fractures between allies — with billions in funding and global dominance at stake.

In today’s AI rundown:

Global tensions rise at Paris AI summit
Perplexity drops blazing new Sonar model
Master pre-market analysis with AI insights
YouTube supercharges creators with AI expansion
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

AI ACTION SUMMIT

🌍 Global tensions rise at Paris AI summit

Image source: BBC

The Rundown: The AI Action Summit in Paris concluded on Tuesday, raising global tensions as the U.S. and UK refused to sign a multinational declaration and European leaders announced ambitious investment plans to compete with American dominance.

The details:

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance warned against AI overregulation, saying that the U.S. would dominate AI development by controlling chips, software, and rules.
The UK and the U.S. declined to sign a declaration for open, ethical AI, citing national security concerns and disagreements over governance.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called the summit a ‘missed opportunity,’ highlighting concerns over accelerating AI progress and security risks.
EC President von der Leyen announced a €200B AI investment initiative, positioning Europe as an open-source alternative to U.S. AI development.

Why it matters: The AI summit revealed a widening rift in approaches to AI governance. With the U.S. and the previously safety-focused UK not committing to the summit’s pledge and China now part of the group of signees, AI is becoming a massive global policy issue — with the ability to reshape power balances and alliances quickly.

TOGETHER WITH H COMPANY

🤖 What’s new in the world of AI agents?

The Rundown: H Company’s Runner H, backed by a historic $220M pre-seed investment, is your new go-to AI agent for automating tasks that usually take hours in just a few clicks.

With Runner H, you can:

Automate complex workflows without writing any code
Create web automations seamlessly
Leverage AI agents for competitor research, pricing, website building and more
Transform text instructions into real business operations

Watch this video and follow H Studio on X to be among the first to test an AI agent that transforms the way you work.

PERPLEXITY

💨 Perplexity drops blazing new Sonar model

Image source: Perplexity

The Rundown: Perplexity just launched a new version of its in-house AI model Sonar, built on Llama 3.3 70B and delivering responses at 1,200 tokens per second while still matching or exceeding top models in accuracy at a fraction of the price.

The details:

Sonar achieves 10x faster responses than competitors like Gemini 2.0 Flash, with Cerebras inference infrastructure enabling near-instant answer generation.
In tests, Sonar outperformed GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet in user satisfaction, factuality, world knowledge, and other benchmarks.
All Perplexity Pro subscribers now have access to Sonar as their default model, with API access coming soon using the same architecture.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas also teased Voice Mode, saying it will be ‘the only product’ that reliably gives real-time voice answers and information for free.

Why it matters: Perplexity continues to pump out major updates — rolling out this speedy new model just 3 weeks after Sonar’s reveal. With ultra-fast response speeds combined with reliable and factual performance topping some of the best models in the industry, Perplexity is making a serious push for a broader chunk of the AI market.

AI TRAINING

📈 Master pre-market analysis with AI insights

The Rundown: ChatGPT's Tasks feature can automate your morning market research by delivering a comprehensive analysis of market sentiment and technical indicators before the market opens.

Step-by-step:

Head to ChatGPT and select “GPT-4o with Scheduled Tasks” in the model dropdown menu.
Prompt it to set up a core market performance analysis for 6:30 AM EST.
Request news and event impact analysis to understand market drivers.
Ask for a risk assessment and specific trade opportunities.

Pro tip: Always validate AI-generated trade ideas with your own technical analysis since it might hallucinate. The Rundown University members can access the top prompts here.

PRESENTED BY GALILEO

📖 The essential guide to mastering AI agents

The Rundown: Galileo’s latest eBook is a 100-page deep dive into the world of AI agents — offering practical strategies for selecting, optimizing, and scaling them with confidence.

This comprehensive guide covers:

How to select the right framework based on your goals
Best practices for tuning and evaluating agent performance
How to spot and fix failure points before they become major issues

YOUTUBE

🎥 YouTube supercharges creators with AI expansion

Image source: YouTube

The Rundown: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan just unveiled major AI upgrades across the platform, including automated dubbing, expanded creator tools, and a new age detection technology — marking its biggest push yet into AI-powered content creation and moderation.

The details:

YouTube is expanding its AI detection pilot, giving high-profile creators and artists new tools to ID and control AI content that uses their likeness or voice.
Auto-dubbing expands to all monetized creators, with YouTube reporting that translated videos generated over 40% of watch time from dubbed versions.
An AI age estimation system that uses machine learning to detect viewer age ranges and customize content preferences and safety features is rolling out.
Dream Screen and Dream Track, YouTube's AI generation tools for Shorts, will integrate Google’s Veo 2 for enhanced background and music generation.

Why it matters: YouTube is leveraging AI across all platform areas — which is a win for creators and consumers alike. Plus, with features like auto-dubbing and AI generation tools becoming more widely available, users can streamline the content creation process and get their videos in front of a wider global audience.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

🗣️ Zonos-v0.1 - Open-source, real-time TTS models with voice cloning
🎥 Luma Ray2 - New image-to-video with enhanced realism and motion
⚙️ Cursor - Coding agent with new custom tool integration and upgraded semantic search
⚒️ Readdy - Generate professional designs in seconds with ready-to-use code

💼 AI Job Opportunities

🎯 The Rundown - Marketing/Media Buyer
📦 Coreweave - Warehouse Associate
🛠️ Shield AI - Staff Engineer, DevOps
💼 Databricks - Startup Account Executive

📰 Everything else in AI today

UC Berkeley researchers unveiled DeepScaleR, a new open-source model that surpasses OpenAI's o1-Preview in mathematical reasoning despite its tiny 1.5B parameter size.

Sam Altman commented on Elon Musk’s offer at the AI Action Summit, calling Musk ‘insecure’ and ‘unhappy’ and saying the antics are to ‘slow us down.’

Apple is reportedly partnering with Alibaba to bring Apple Intelligence to China after previously exploring deals with DeepSeek, Baidu, and ByteDance.

A new study from the Center for AI Safety revealed that LLMs develop internal value systems as they scale, with implications like valuing certain human lives differently and showing resistance to value changes.

Alphabet, OpenAI, Roblox, and Discord launched ROOST, a $27M initiative to develop free, open-source AI tools to combat online child exploitation and promote digital safety.

New BBC research found that major AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini produced significant inaccuracies in over half of the news summaries tested.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Thursday at 4 PM EST to learn how to build your own AI-powered personal assistant to streamline your daily tasks with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor.

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

🤝 Share The Rundown, get rewards

We’ll always keep this newsletter 100% free. To support our work, consider sharing The Rundown with your friends, and we’ll send you more free goodies.

See you soon,

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

Elon's $97B OpenAI offer

Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The next chapter of the Elon vs OpenAI feud just arrived, with Musk offering $97B to control his former company.

With billions at stake and egos colliding, Silicon Valley's ultimate power struggle continues to create reality-TV-level drama.

In today’s AI rundown:

Musk launches $97B bid to retake OpenAI
AI joins Super Bowl prime time with major commercials
Transform your ideas into songs with AI
ByteDance unveils Goku AI image and video creation
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ELON MUSK & OPENAI

💰 Musk launches $97B bid to retake OpenAI

Image source: Grok / The Rundown

The Rundown: Elon Musk and a group of investors just made an unsolicited $97.4B offer to acquire control of OpenAI's nonprofit arm, escalating tensions once again with his former company and CEO Sam Altman.

The details:

The bid was submitted by Musk's attorney to OpenAI's board, with backers including xAI, Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, and other investment firms.
The offer comes as OpenAI attempts to transition from nonprofit to for-profit status, with a pending $40B investment from SoftBank at a $260B valuation.
Musk said he aims to return OpenAI to its open-source roots and promised to match or exceed any competing bids for control of the organization.
Altman responded dismissively on X, offering to "buy Twitter for $9.74B" instead, leading Musk to call the CEO a ‘swindler.’

Why it matters: The drama never ceases between two of the biggest figures in the tech world, but it's no surprise to see Altman rebuff the offer after Musk’s lawsuits and prodding. With both heavily involved in the U.S. government’s tech push, this likely isn’t the last we’ll see of Musk’s vendetta against the company he helped create.

TOGETHER WITH TURING

📘 The hidden costs of poor LLM strategy

The Rundown: Turing’s white paper breaks down why misaligned training, weak evaluation, and poor optimization create the biggest ROI hurdles for LLMs—not just the model itself.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

Avoid hidden costs from ineffective LLM training
Improve model accuracy and long-term efficiency
Build a scalable LLM strategy that delivers real business impact

Download the white paper now and learn how to get the most from your AI investments.

THE SUPER BOWL AND AI

🏈 AI joins Super Bowl prime time with major commercials

Image source: OpenAI

The Rundown: AI played a prominent role in Super Bowl LIX’s commercial lineup, with OpenAI, Google, Meta, and others shelling out for advertising slots during the big game with mixed audience results.

The details:

OpenAI made its SB debut with an artistic black-and-white spot that positioned ChatGPT alongside other historical innovations, such as electricity and space travel.
Google featured Gemini Live helping a father balance job hunting and parenting, with an earlier spot axed after backlash for incorrect cheese facts.
Meta showcased its AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses, with Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt utilizing features like video recording and its multimodal assistant.
Other AI products advertised included Salesforce’s Agentforce autonomous agent platform and GoDaddy’s new Airo website creation tool.

Why it matters: AI was everywhere during this year’s Super Bowl, with the usual big players all getting in on the action (with mixed results) on USA Today’s ad rankings. OpenAI’s presence was the biggest wildcard — with the company’s first major spot feeling like a key moment in its transition from a startup into a universally known brand.

AI TRAINING

🎵 Transform your ideas into songs with AI

The Rundown: Suno lets you create original music that matches your creative vision with AI (no musical experience needed).

Step-by-step:

Access Suno, select “Create” in the menu options, and enable custom mode.
Generate lyrics using either Classic (structured) or ReMi (creative) models.
For the style, start with genre tags and add specific instruments, effects, and moods.
Once your song is created, expand it using Cover, Persona, or Extend features.

Pro tip: We did an extensive workshop with Sara Adkins, machine learning engineer and artist in residence at Suno, which you can access here (alongside an exclusive Rundown University member free code for a 1-month Premier Plan).

PRESENTED BY INNOVATING WITH AI

🤝 Turn AI passion into a consulting career

The Rundown: Innovating with AI's new program, AI Consultancy Project, transforms AI enthusiasts into professional consultants — tapping into a market projected to reach $54.7B by 2032.

The 6-month program delivers:

Proven frameworks for client acquisition and service delivery
A step-by-step path to six-figure consulting income
Students who land their first AI client in as little as 3 days

AI RESEARCH

🎥 ByteDance unveils Goku AI image and video creation

Image source: ByteDance

The Rundown: ByteDance and the University of Hong Kong just introduced Goku and Goku+, a family of AI models that bridge image and video generation, showing top performance across multiple visual benchmarks and enabling hyperrealistic commercial content for advertising and marketing.

The details:

Goku achieves top performance on major benchmarks, setting records for both image and video quality with a unified architecture to handle both tasks.
An advanced "rectified flow" technique enables seamless transitions between images and videos, with the system trained on 160M images and 36M videos.
An enhanced Goku+ specifically targets advertising and marketing needs, with the ability to create photorealistic human avatars and product demos.
The + platform includes specialized tools for turning product photos into video clips and creating realistic human-product interactions for commercial content.

Why it matters: Goku’s ability to create extended, high-quality commercial content and product demos shows that AI video production is reaching a new level of sophistication. It is transforming how marketing content is created and consumed, but it is also making it harder than ever to distinguish AI generations from reality.

See Goku’s impressive demo generations here.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

💬 Krea Chat - Use natural language commands to create and edit images
🤖 Mistral Small 3 - Open-source, 24B model with enhanced speed and accuracy
🗣️ Talo - Real-time voice translator for video calls
📝 Tana - Put your notes to work with voice and AI

💼 AI Job Opportunities

🤖 The Rundown - Writer (Robotics/Tech)
📣 Databricks - Field Marketing Manager, Central Europe
💻 Coreweave - Data Center Technician
👔 Curai - Manager, Provider Operations

📰 Everything else in AI today

OpenAI will reportedly finalize the design for its first generation of in-house AI chips this year and plan to work with TSMC on the initial fabrication.

Zyphra launched Zonos-v0.1 beta, featuring two open-source text-to-speech models with real-time voice cloning capabilities and competitive pricing and quality to rivals.

Anthropic published its Economic Index, a new study tracking AI’s labor market impact — finding that AI usage primarily augments rather than automates work.

Luma AI launched new image-to-video capabilities for its next-gen Ray2 model, showcasing impressive realism and natural motion.

French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled plans for €109B in AI investments ahead of the Paris AI Action summit, including a massive UAE-backed datacenter campus and a €20B commitment from Brookfield to develop infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia pledged a new $1.5B investment into AI inference startup Groq, marking one of the largest single-country commitments to specialized AI chip development.

Sam Altman posted a blog detailing exponential cost reductions in AI computing, predicting widespread AI agent deployment that will reshape economic productivity over the next decade.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Thursday at 4 PM EST to learn how to build your own AI-powered personal assistant to streamline your daily tasks with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor.

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

🤝 Share The Rundown, get rewards

We’ll always keep this newsletter 100% free. To support our work, consider sharing The Rundown with your friends, and we’ll send you more free goodies.

See you soon,

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

DeepMind's AI math genius