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OpenAI's mini Dev Day upgrades
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
OpenAI has plenty of presents for consumers this holiday season, but the latest release is all about the builders.
With the o1 reasoning model now available via API and a toolbox of powerful new features, AI applications are about to level up in a big way. Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
OpenAI releases o1 for API, new developer tools
Nvidia’s cheap, palm-sized AI supercomputer
Run CLI commands from your prompts
New DeepMind benchmark tests LLM factuality
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
⚙️ OpenAI releases o1 for API, new developer tools
Image source: OpenAI on YouTube
The Rundown: OpenAI just rolled out a series of updates for developers on Day 9 of its live stream event, including API access to its advanced o1 reasoning model, major upgrades to the Realtime API, and a new preference fine-tuning method.
The details:
o1 comes out of preview with new API capabilities like function calling, structured outputs, vision, and reasoning effort to control thinking time.
o1 API costs come in at $15 per ~750k words analyzed and $60 per ~750k words generated — roughly 3-4x more than GPT-4o.
Realtime API costs drop 60% for GPT-4o audio, with a new 4o mini available at 1/10 the price and WebRTC integration for easier voice app development.
New Preference Fine-Tuning enables customizing models using comparative examples vs fixed training data, improving tasks like writing and summarization.
The company also launched beta SDKs for Go and Java programming languages, expanding development options.
Why it matters: These releases mark a big day for AI builders. Access to the o1 reasoning model and new features opens up a new world of building and integrations. Developers just got a powerful new set of tools to create more customizable, capable, and sophisticated applications.
TOGETHER WITH STAIRCASE AI
🧠 Separate signal from noise with AI
The Rundown: Staircase AI by Gainsight analyzes millions of customer interactions like emails, tickets, and chats to surface risks and growth opportunities you can actually take action on.
With Staircase, you can:
Automate data capture for insights without the hassle
Uncover unbiased customer sentiment and health with AI
Correlate effort to outcomes and optimize resources
NVIDIA
🎁 Nvidia’s cheap, palm-sized AI supercomputer
Image source: Nvidia
The Rundown: Nvidia just introduced the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, a $249 compact generative AI supercomputer that delivers significant performance gains at half the previous model's price.
The details:
The palm-sized device delivers 1.7x the performance, 70% more processing power, and a 50% boost in memory compared to the previous model.
The Nano can handle multiple AI tasks simultaneously, from powering chatbots to controlling robots and processing visual data from multiple cameras.
The platform supports popular AI frameworks and tools through NVIDIA's software ecosystem, including Isaac for robotics and Metropolis for vision AI.
Existing Jetson Orin Nano owners can access the same 1.7x generative AI performance gains through a free software update.
Why it matters: Just as the Raspberry Pi revolutionized DIY computing projects, NVIDIA's affordable AI supercomputer could birth a new generation of developers building everything from smart robots to creative AI tools in their garages and dorm rooms. The barriers to advanced AI tools have never been lower.
PRESENTED BY PROJECT IDX
✨ Run CLI commands from your prompts
The Rundown: Project IDX is your AI-enabled development environment in the cloud with code assistance from Gemini.
Step-by-step:
Log into Project IDX with your Google account.
Create a project from the templates dashboard.
Click the Gemini icon at the bottom of the workspace or press Cmd+Shift+Space (Ctrl+Shift+Space on ChromeOS, Windows, or Linux).
Select “Interactive Chat with Gemini” and pass it a prompt to update your project configuration files and code.
Pro tip: Project IDX offers a streamlined development experience by allowing you to execute terminal commands directly from the user interface.
AI RESEARCH
🧐 New DeepMind benchmark tests LLM factuality
Image source: Google DeepMind
The Rundown: Google DeepMind just launched FACTS Grounding, a new benchmark designed to evaluate how well LLMs can generate factually accurate and comprehensive responses based on provided documents while avoiding hallucinations.
The details:
FACTS uses 1,719 examples, each with a document, a system instruction, and a user request, to test the ability to produce grounded long-form answers.
Three AI models (Gemini 1.5 Pro, GPT-4o, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet) serve as judges, evaluating responses for accuracy and handling user requests.
Scores are aggregated across all judges and examples, with results published on a public Kaggle leaderboard that will be updated as new models emerge.
Google's Gemini models currently top the leaderboard, with Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental achieving the highest score, 83.6%, for factual grounding.
Why it matters: Hallucinations continue to plague even the most advanced LLMs, limiting reliability and real-world use cases. FACTS Grounding provides a more nuanced way to measure progress in an extremely important developmental area for AI by focusing on grounded responses and using a multi-LLM judging approach.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
📸 Google Imagen 3 - Google’s highest-quality text-to-image model, capable of generating images with even better detail, lighting, and fewer artifacts
🎨 Google Whisk - Generate images by using other images as prompts for a subject, scene, and style to create personalized visuals
☎️ NewOaks AI Phone Agent - AI phone agent that can listen, understand, and speak in real-time to automate inbound and outbound calls
🧠 Findr- Unlock infinite digital memory with your AI second brain
📫 MagicMail - AI email generator that turns text prompts into fully styled and ready-to-send HTML emails
New AI Job Opportunities
🎨 Captions - Graphics Software Engineer
🗄️ Pinecone - Staff Database Engineer
⚖️ xAI - Employment Counsel
📊 Character AI - Data Scientist, Post Training
🧪 Together AI - Summer 2025 Research Intern
QUICK HITS
Free event on Jan 7: Join Section for a discussion on how AI is redefining how we work, hire, and advance in the workplace. RSVP for free.*
Midjourney released Moodboards, a new feature that allows users to create personalized AI generation styles and profiles by uploading or adding images.
Google launched Gemini Code Assist tools, enabling developers to access external services and data directly within their IDE.
YouTube is partnering with talent agency giant CAA to develop AI detection tools to help celebrities and athletes identify and manage AI-generated content featuring their likenesses across the platform.
UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute released Falcon 3, a new open-source family of language models designed to run on lightweight hardware, with the 7B and 10B versions outperforming competitors like Llama and Qwen in key benchmarks.
OpenAI’s Romain Huet revealed during a community AMA that there are currently no plans to release an API for the company’s Sora video generation model.
Databricks secured a new $10B funding round at a $62B valuation, with the data analytics company planning AI product expansion and potential acquisitions.
*Sponsored listing
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Google's new AI video generator rivals Sora
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
While Sora was supposed to be the highlight of the holiday season, Google may have just left some coal in OpenAI’s stocking.
The tech giant’s new Veo 2 video model appears to leave Sora in the dust, with 4K capabilities, realism, and physics that will make you question reality. Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
Google launches next-gen video, image models
ChatGPT Search goes free for everyone
Create a customer support AI voice agent for your website
AI agents make 10+ minute videos from text
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
Friendly reminder: We’re moving to a new email sending address. Make sure to add news@daily.therundown.ai to your contacts to ensure you keep receiving our emails.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
🚀 Google launches next-gen video, image models
Image source: Google
The Rundown: Google just announced the release of Veo 2, a state-of-the-art video generation model that creates high-resolution outputs with stunning realism and detail — along with Imagen 3, an upgraded image model also offering state-of-the-art quality.
Veo 2:
Veo 2 can generate 8-second clips at 4K resolution (720p at launch), and it has received significant upgrades in cinematic control quality.
The model also shows massive improvements in physics simulation and reduced hallucinations, leading to more realistic movement and detail.
Veo 2 outperformed all competitors in head-to-head human evaluations and prompt adherence, including OpenAI’s recently released Sora.
The model is rolling out gradually through the VideoFX waitlist, with YouTube Shorts integration planned for 2025.
Imagen 3:
The upgraded model delivers enhanced color vibrancy and composition across artistic styles, with better handling of fine details, textures, and text rendering.
New capabilities include more accurate prompt interpretation and better rendering of complex scenes that match user intentions.
Imagen 3 outperformed all models, including Midjourney, Flux, and Ideogram, in human evaluations for preference, visual quality, and prompt adherence.
The model is now available through Google Labs’ ImageFX and is rolling out to over 100 countries.
Why it matters: Google is having an absolutely massive end to 2024 — first with Gemini 2.0 and now Veo 2 and Imagen 3. These models appear to up the bar in both categories, giving Google state-of-the-art type performance across nearly every area of AI. OpenAI may have the hype this holiday season, but Google is showing the results.
TOGETHER WITH HUBSPOT
📖 Your prompt engineering quickstart guide
The Rundown: HubSpot's AI Prompt Engineering QuickStart Guide, developed with expert Tina Huang, provides a structured approach to crafting effective AI prompts — helping bridge the gap between basic AI interactions and professional-level results.
With this guide, you'll learn:
A simplified, powerful framework to craft effective prompts for any AI task
Practical strategies to identify and solve common prompt engineering challenges
Professional techniques for optimizing AI responses across platforms and apps
OPENAI
🔎 ChatGPT Search goes free for everyone
Image source: OpenAI on YouTube
The Rundown: OpenAI just announced a major expansion of its ChatGPT Search feature on Day 8 of the company’s livestream event, making it freely available to all users alongside added voice search capabilities and improved mobile features.
The details:
The previously premium search feature now extends to all logged-in users, with faster responses, and is now available through a globe icon on the platform.
Search has also been added to Advanced Voice Mode for premium users, allowing them to conduct searches through natural spoken prompts.
The Search mobile experience has been revamped, with enhanced visual layouts for local businesses and native integration with Google and Apple Maps.
Users can also set ChatGPT Search as a default search engine, with results displaying relevant links before ChatGPT text responses for faster access.
OpenAI also teased a ‘mini Dev Day’ for tomorrow.
Why it matters: ChatGPT’s ability to access the web and up-to-date information is an important step towards an agentic future, particularly within Advanced Voice Mode — turning the tool into a much more intelligent and capable version of Siri (and maybe powering it eventually). Search is about to change in a big way in the AI era.
AI TRAINING
🎙️ Create a customer support AI voice agent for your website
The Rundown: ElevenLabs’ new Conversational AI Agents let you incorporate an AI-powered voice agent that can interact naturally with your visitors.
Step-by-step:
Create an ElevenLabs account and navigate to the Agents section.
Configure your AI agent's personality and initial message.
Choose or create a custom voice for natural interactions.
Customize the widget's appearance and embed it on your site.
Pro tip: Use the "Test AI agent" button to test your agent thoroughly before deploying. This helps ensure responses align with your expectations and brand voice.
PRESENTED BY SECTION
🎓 Learn AI at your own pace
The Rundown: Section provides continuous AI education through a curated curriculum of courses, refreshed every 30 days — with users able to watch 3 free courses every month across a range of topics and skill levels.
Some of the most popular on-demand courses include:
Building a Custom GPT
AI for Marketers
AI for Product Marketers
HIGGSFIELD AI
🎬 AI agents make 10+ minute videos from text
Image source: Higgsfield AI
The Rundown: AI startup Higgsfield just introduced ReelMagic, a multi-agent platform that transforms story concepts into complete 10-minute videos, claiming to streamline the entire production process into a single workflow.
The details:
The tool uses specialized AI agents for production roles like scriptwriting and editing, creating cohesive long-form outputs in under 10 minutes.
ReelMagic starts with a short synopsis, and then AI agents handle script refinement, virtual actor casting, filming, sound/music, and editing.
ReelMagic's smart reasoning engine automatically selects optimal AI models for each shot, and it has partnerships with Kling, Minimax, ElevenLabs, and more.
The platform is already being tested by leading Hollywood studios, and Higgsfield is also planning to launch Hera, an AI video streaming platform.
Access is available to Project Odyssey participants via a waitlist, with no info on a broader release.
Why it matters: There has been a disconnect between AI video generators and the ability to craft cohesive, longer-form content—with heavy manual editing needed. While not available publicly yet, ReelMagic looks to be a workflow that combines AI’s limitless creative power to unlock broader storytelling capabilities.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
🗂️ ChatGPT Projects - Group files, chats, and custom instructions in one place for better organization and streamlined interactions
🎥 Pika 2.0 - New video generation model with ‘ingredients’ to incorporate user’s own images into outputs with improved motion and animation
💬 Eden - AI-powered social plugin to reply on any webpage in one click to generate tailored comments
✍️ Draft Alpha - AI writing assistant to produce quality content across distribution channels with a consistent brand voice
📝 Steer 2.0 - Intelligently fix and improve writing in any application with a lightning-fast native assistant
New AI Job Opportunities
🔍 Synthesia - SEO Manager
🤝 Hebbia - Sales Engineer
🛠 Superannotate - Technical Support Engineer
🧩 Databricks - Solutions Engineer
⚙️ Kumo - Distributed Systems Engineer
QUICK HITS
Meta rolled out an update for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, introducing live AI assistance, real-time language translation, and Shazam integration for hands-free music recognition.
YouTube launched new controls allowing content creators to explicitly authorize specific AI companies to train models on their videos, with an initial list of 18 major tech companies, including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta.
Google Labs debuted a new experiment called Whisk, a creative AI tool that combines Imagen 3 and Gemini to help users remix and transform visuals through image-to-image capabilities.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned about AI’s increasing capabilities in an interview with ABC, saying ‘pulling the plug’ may be necessary when self-improving systems arrive.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son pledged a $100B investment in U.S. AI in a meeting with incoming president Donald Trump, aiming to create 100,000 jobs over the next four years.
Defense giant Lockheed Martin established a new subsidiary called Astris AI, hoping to accelerate AI adoption across the defense industry and commercial applications.
THAT’S A WRAP
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Microsoft’s new AI with big math skills
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
While OpenAI and Google place giant presents under the AI tree, Microsoft’s Phi AI model family just proved that good things can come in small packages too.
The new Phi-4 is outperforming the industry's giants with just a fraction of the parameters — hinting at a bright future for small, specialized models. Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
Microsoft releases small, powerful Phi-4
ChatGPT gains ‘Projects’ for chat organization
Practice job interviews with ChatGPT
Pika drops major 2.0 video upgrade
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
MICROSOFT
🦾 Microsoft releases small, powerful Phi-4
Image source: Microsoft
The Rundown: Microsoft just released Phi-4, a 14B parameter small language model that outperforms massive competitors like GPT-4o and Gemini Pro 1.5 in areas like mathematical reasoning despite a drastic size difference.
The details:
Phi-4 outperforms models like Gemini Pro 1.5 on several math and complex reasoning benchmarks despite being a fraction of the size.
Phi-4 even surpasses its teacher model, GPT-4o, on graduate-level STEM Q&A and math competition problems.
Microsoft trained Phi-4 primarily on synthetic data, using AI to generate and validate approximately 400B tokens of high-quality training material.
The model also features an upgraded mechanism that can process longer inputs of up to 4,000 tokens, double the capacity of Phi-3.
Phi-4 is available in a limited research preview on Azure AI Foundry, and a wider release is planned for Hugging Face.
Why it matters: Microsoft’s Phi models continue to challenge the ‘bigger is better’ trend in AI, showing that smaller models can match or exceed the capabilities of larger ones — particularly in specialized areas. The AI future may not be about raw size but smarter architecture and training approaches that do more with less.
TOGETHER WITH RABBIT
🐰 One orange gift that’s fit for all
The Rundown: Bring the best gift to your holiday festivities this year with the rabbit r1 — an AI companion designed to grow more delightful over time thanks to continuous updates and new features that keep it fresh and engaging.
Whether young, young at heart, or in-between, gift r1 to:
Feed curiosity with unlimited answers to any questions at a moment’s notice
Elevate travels with bi-directional translation in 100+ languages and personalized itineraries
Nerd out with a fully customizable UI, the ability to create custom agents, and a playground of out-of-the-box AI features
Take advantage of the only discount of the year and secure r1s for everyone this holiday season.
OPENAI
🗂️ ChatGPT gains ‘Projects’ for chat organization
Image source: OpenAI
The Rundown: OpenAI launched Projects for ChatGPT on Day 7 of its ‘12 Days of OpenAI’ event, a new organizational system that lets users group conversations, files, and custom instructions into individual workspaces with shared context.
The details:
The feature introduces project-specific folders where users can bundle related chats, documents, and custom AI instructions across conversations.
Each Project automatically leverages GPT-4o while maintaining access to core features like Canvas, DALL-E, and web search capabilities.
The system is rolling out first to Plus, Pro, and Teams subscribers, with Enterprise and Education users gaining access in January.
Projects can be created and managed through the web interface and Windows app, while mobile and Mac users can view and chat with existing Projects.
Why it matters: While this isn’t the most groundbreaking feature (Anthropic released Projects for Claude in June), it's important for user workflows — avoiding the dreaded need to refresh entire context and instruction prompts when starting new chats.
AI TRAINING
💼 Practice job interviews with ChatGPT
The Rundown: ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode can be turned into a personalized interview coach, conducting mock interviews and providing real-time feedback.
Step-by-step:
Open ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode on your mobile device.
Set up your specific interview scenario and industry context.
Engage in a realistic mock interview with industry-focused questions.
Get immediate feedback on your responses and presentation.
Pro tip: If you need more time to formulate your responses, you can customize how the AI responds in Custom Instructions.
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
Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.
PIKA LABS
🎬 Pika drops major 2.0 video upgrade
Image source: Pika Labs
The Rundown: Pika Labs just released version 2.0 of its AI video generator, introducing a new ‘Ingredients’ tool that lets users incorporate their own images into AI-generated videos — alongside improved motion, prompting, and animation features.
The details:
A new 'Scene Ingredients' system allows users to upload and mix characters, objects, and backgrounds that the AI automatically recognizes and animates.
Pika’s updated model shows impressive realism, smooth movement, and prompt/image adherence, giving users more control over outputs.
The new video generator also features a significant update to text alignment, showcasing the ability to craft realistic branded scenes and advertising content.
Pika has already attracted over 11M users and secured $80M in funding, and the new version follows its viral ‘effects’ launch in October.
Why it matters: Pika’s new upgrades are wild, continuing to move video outputs out of the ‘slot machine’ luck phase into a more customizable, personalized experience. While we patiently waited for Sora, the AI video scene leveled up in a major way — with Pika, Luma, Runway, Kling, Hailuo, and others dulling the impact of OpenAI’s latest release.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
🔎 Reddit Answers - AI-powered search tool that lets you find human perspectives, recommendations, and info powered by Reddit communities
😷 Doctronic AI - Instant, accurate care from home with an AI consultation followed by video visits with licensed doctors
✍️ Paperguide AI writer - Easily write well-researched articles and academic papers with AI
👕 iMerch AI - Next-gen AI e-commerce tool offering intelligent product recommendations and personalized product lists
⚙️ Depth AI - Answer complex questions on large and messy codebases, onboard new engineers quickly, and ship code faster
New AI Job Opportunities
📋 Findem - Technical Program Manager
📞 Cresta - SDR Manager, East
🗣 Palantir Technologies - Communications Strategist
🤖 Meta - Partnerships Operations Lead, AI
💊 Hippocratic AI - Business Development Executive, Pharma
QUICK HITS
xAI rolled out an upgraded version of Grok-2 to all X platform users, featuring tripled speed, improved multilingual capabilities, and integration of web search and advanced image generation features.
Meta’s FAIR released a suite of new AI research projects including Meta Motivo for embodied agent control and Meta Video Seal for video watermarking, alongside improved models for memory scaling and social intelligence.
OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever warned that AI has reached 'peak data’ during the NeurIPS conference, predicting a shift from current training methods to more autonomous, reasoning-based systems that will become increasingly unpredictable.
Google unveiled NotebookLM Plus with interactive audio features and Gemini 2.0 Flash integration, allowing users to verbally engage with AI hosts during Audio Overviews and access expanded enterprise capabilities.
OpenAI published new email correspondences and a timeline of events with Elon Musk, claiming that Musk initially wanted the company to be a for-profit entity despite active lawsuits.
DeepSeek released VL2, a new vision-language model family leveraging MoE architecture that performs similarly to rival models despite smaller sizes.
Anonymous-chatbot has returned to the LM Arena, which was previously used to test GPT 4o, sparking rumors of a potential GPT 4.5 or upgraded OpenAI model coming soon.
THAT’S A WRAP
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ChatGPT sees the world
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
On the sixth day of Shipmas, OpenAI gave ChatGPT eyes.
Voice Mode’s long-awaited vision upgrade is here, countering Google’s big Gemini release — drastically changing the future of AI interactions. Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode gains vision capabilities
Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Haiku is now generally available
Turn your screenshots into working prototypes
Anthropic analyzes real-world AI use with Clio
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
Friendly reminder: We’re moving to a new email sending address. Make sure to add news@daily.therundown.ai to your contacts to ensure you keep receiving our emails.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
👁️ ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode gains vision capabilities
Image source: OpenAI on YouTube
The Rundown: OpenAI just launched a major upgrade to ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode on Day 6 of its live stream event, enabling the AI to analyze and respond to live video input and screen sharing during conversations.
The details:
Users can show live videos or share their screens while using Advanced Voice Mode, and ChatGPT can understand and discuss the visual context in real time.
The feature works through a new video icon in the mobile app, with screen sharing available through a separate menu option.
The updates are available to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team subscribers, with Enterprise and Edu users gaining access in January.
OpenAI also introduced a festive new voice option, allowing users to chat with Santa as a limited-time seasonal addition through early January.
Why it matters: Seven months after its initial demo, OpenAI is finally delivering on the promise of visual understanding in conversational AI — moving ChatGPT beyond text and voice into true multimodal interaction. It’s been a big week for vision, with Gemini and ChatGPT Advanced Voice gaining some extremely powerful new capabilities.
TOGETHER WITH METAVIEW
✍️ Meet the world’s leading AI recruiting scribe
The Rundown: Metaview is a specialized AI tool that captures, structures, and summarizes recruiting conversations, enabling teams to focus on candidate interactions rather than note-taking.
Leading companies like Deel, Deliveroo, Sony and HelloFresh trust Metaview for:
Flawless interview documentation without the manual work
Significant time savings (10 hours per week on average for recruiters)
Effortless integration with existing recruiting tools
Get started with Metaview and try 10 calls for free, exclusive to Rundown AI readers.
ANTHROPIC
⚡ Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Haiku is now generally available
Image source: Anthropic
The Rundown: Anthropic quietly rolled out its fastest AI model, Claude 3.5 Haiku, to all Claude users on web and mobile platforms, expanding from its previous API-only availability — though no official announcement has been made.
The details:
Haiku 3.5 was released in November along with Claude’s computer use feature — beating the previous top model 3 Opus on key benchmarks.
The model excels at coding tasks and data processing, offering impressive speed and performance with high accuracy.
Haiku features a 200K context window, which is larger than competing models, while also integrating with Artifacts for a real-time content workspace.
The initial release drew criticism for Haiku’s API pricing, which was increased 4x over 3 Haiku to $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens.
Free users can now access Haiku with daily message limits, while Pro subscribers ($20/month) get expanded usage and priority access.
Why it matters: It’s been a relatively quiet holiday season of releases for Anthropic compared to rivals. Although Haiku is impressive compared to previous generations, it doesn’t feel like a huge needle mover during a big week of AI releases — and it might take a launch of a top-tier 3.5 Opus to steal the spotlight from Google and OpenAI.
AI TRAINING
💻 Turn your screenshots into working prototypes
The Rundown: Claude Artifacts lets you create functional prototypes directly from screenshots or photos, bringing your ideas to life in minutes.
Step-by-step:
Access Claude through your browser or mobile app.
Take a clear screenshot or photo of your design.
Upload it with a detailed prompt requesting a React prototype with specific features and styling.
Enhance your prototype by requesting additional functionality and refinements.
Pro tip: Use high-contrast images and break down complex interfaces into smaller components for better results.
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
Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.
ANTHROPIC
🔍 Anthropic analyzes real-world AI use with Clio
Image source: Anthropic
The Rundown: Anthropic introduced Clio, a new system that reveals patterns in how people actually use AI assistants worldwide, providing detailed insights into real-world AI adoption while maintaining user privacy.
The details:
Clio analyzes millions of conversations by summarizing and clustering them while removing identifying information in a secure environment.
The system then organizes these clusters into hierarchies, allowing researchers to explore patterns in usage without needing access to sensitive data.
Analysis of 1M Claude conversations showed that coding and business use cases dominate, with web development representing over 10% of interactions.
The system also uncovered unexpected use cases like dream interpretation, soccer match analysis, and tabletop gaming assistance.
Usage patterns vary significantly by language and region, such as a higher prevalence of economic and social issue chats in non-English conversations.
Why it matters: AI assistants are becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives, but each person leverages them in a different way — making this a fascinating window into how the tech is being used. Understanding the dominant real-world use cases can both help improve user experience and align development with actual user needs.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
👁️ Gemini Stream Realtime - Interact with Gemini in real-time using text, voice, video, or screen sharing.
🎅 AI Santa by Tavus - Video chat with Santa in real-time across 30 languages
🌊 Detasurf - A browser, file manager, and AI assistant in one clean app
🧠 Rememberall - Open-source solution to give Custom GPTs persistent memory across conversations
📆 Clarity AI - Turn schedule screenshots into calendar events and tasks
New AI Job Opportunities
QUICK HITS
Google announced Android XR, a new Gemini-powered operating system for mixed reality systems, with Samsung set to launch the first compatible headset codenamed ‘Project Moohan’ in 2025.
ChatGPT head of product Nick Turley discussed the platform's future in an interview with The Verge, saying that chat-based interactions may soon feel as “outdated as ‘90s instant messaging.”
Amazon Prime Video launched a new ‘AI Topics’ beta feature, using machine learning to group and recommend content based on viewers' interests and watching habits.
Character.AI instituted a new safety overhaul featuring a separate AI model for users under 18, alongside upcoming parental controls and enhanced content filtering — following two lawsuits saying the platform contributed to self-harm.
Nvidia has expanded its hiring in China, adding over 1,000 employees in 2024, including 200 new Beijing-based researchers focused on autonomous driving tech.
Stanford researchers proposed a global initiative to create an AI-powered virtual human cell to revolutionize biological understanding and drug development through computational modeling.
THAT’S A WRAP
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Google's Gemini 2.0 holiday surprise
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Gemini 2.0 is here, and it's a massive leap forward for AI agents — with new multimodal capabilities, deep research tools, and seriously impressive projects.
The ‘12 Days of OpenAI’ has been hogging the holiday spotlight, but Google just crashed the party in a BIG way. Let’s get into it...
In today’s AI rundown:
Google releases Gemini 2.0 with AI agent capabilities
ChatGPT comes to Apple Intelligence
Transform AI into your personal code tutor
Apple Intelligence gets a big upgrade with iOS 18.2
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
✨ Google releases Gemini 2.0 with AI agent capabilities
Image source: Google
The Rundown: Google just launched Gemini 2.0, marking a major leap into AI agents with enhanced multimodal abilities, native tool integration, deep research generation, and several experimental projects.
Gemini 2.0
Gemini 2.0 Flash debuts as a faster, more capable model that outperforms the larger 1.5 Pro on several benchmarks while maintaining similar speeds.
The model now generates images and multilingual audio directly and processes text, code, images, and video.
Gemini 2.0 Stream Realtime is available for free (as opposed to the $200/mo ChatGPT Pro) and allows for text, voice, video, or screen-sharing interactions.
Project Highlights (not publicly available yet):
Project Astra brings multimodal conversation abilities with 10-minute memory, native integration with Google apps, and near-human response latency.
Project Astra is also being tested on prototype glasses, and it plans to eventually be used in products like the Gemini app.
Project Mariner introduces browser-based agentic AI assistance through Chrome, achieving 83.5% accuracy on web navigation tasks.
Jules, a new coding assistant, integrates directly with GitHub to help developers plan and execute tasks under supervision.
New gaming-focused agents can now analyze gameplay in real time and provide strategic advice across various game types.
Deep Research:
Deep Research is a new agentic feature that acts as an AI research assistant, now available in Gemini Advanced ($20/mo) on desktop and mobile web.
Abilities include creating multi-step research plans, analyzing info from across the web, and generating comprehensive reports with links to sources.
Why it matters: OpenAI had the holiday momentum, but Google stole the show. Gemini 2.0 brings some extremely powerful upgrades, including one of the biggest steps towards useful, consumer-facing agentic AI that we’ve seen yet. Projects like Astra could also set a new standard for how we interact with AI heading into 2025.
ICYMI: We sat down with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis to discuss the massive day of launches. Watch the full discussion on YouTube.
TOGETHER WITH RABBIT
🐰 Unlimited AI agents in one orange package
The Rundown: The rabbit r1 AI companion consolidates your digital experience into a single device, featuring an innovative operating system that learns from interactions and keeps improving through continuous updates and enhanced LAM technology.
Customize your AI agent experience with:
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Teach mode beta for no-code agent customization
Generative UI for personalized interfaces in any style with natural language prompts
Take advantage of the only discount of the year and secure your r1 this holiday season.
OPENAI & APPLE
📱 ChatGPT comes to Apple Intelligence
Image source: OpenAI on YouTube
The Rundown: OpenAI just announced the integration of ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence during Day 5 of the company’s live stream event, allowing Siri to leverage the AI assistant for new writing, reasoning, and visual tasks.
The details:
ChatGPT now seamlessly integrates with Siri on iPhone 16 and 15 Pro, automatically triggering when queries would benefit from advanced AI reasoning.
Visual Intelligence on iPhone 16 models can use ChatGPT to analyze and provide insights on images, as demonstrated in a Christmas sweater contest.
The integration also extends to systemwide Writing Tools, allowing users to generate content and images with ChatGPT directly within Apple apps
Users can access ChatGPT's capabilities without an account, with built-in privacy protections preventing data storage and IP tracking.
Why it matters: While this is a powerhouse collaboration between Apple and OpenAI, the buzz was certainly louder in the summer. But given Apple Intelligence's lackluster start, this could be a catalyst to drive excitement and new use cases while giving Siri a needed boost to compete with other quickly advancing voice assistants.
AI TRAINING
🎓 Transform AI into your personal code tutor
The Rundown: Google’s newly released Gemini 2.0 ‘Stream Realtime’ feature allows you to get real-time coding guidance like a personal tutor looking over your shoulder.
Step-by-step:
Visit Google AI Studio or find ‘Stream Realtime’ in the sidebar menu.
Click "Share your screen" to let AI see your coding environment.
Start coding and ask questions naturally through voice, like talking to a real tutor.
Get immediate feedback and guidance as you write code.
Pro tip: Start with simple programming concepts and gradually increase complexity. You can also provide System Instructions for the model.
PRESENTED BY TURING
📶 Optimize your LLM strategy
The Rundown: Turing provides comprehensive post-training services for leading AI labs, specializing in model evaluation, SFT, RLHF, and DPO to enhance models' reasoning, coding, and multimodal capabilities.
Use their free, 5-minute assessment to:
Identify your position in the GenAI journey
Get personalized recommendations for advancement
Align your strategy with business objectives
APPLE
🍎 Apple Intelligence gets a big upgrade with iOS 18.2
Image source: Apple
The Rundown: Apple just rolled out its biggest Apple Intelligence update yet, AI-powered emoji creation, image generation capabilities, Visual Intelligence with camera control, and more — alongside the broader integration of ChatGPT.
The details:
Genmoji is now live and allows users to create custom AI-generated emojis from text descriptions or photos with options to add accessories and themes.
Image Playground adds AI image creation across the system, with dedicated app access and integration into apps like Messages and Keynote.
Visual Intelligence debuts as an iPhone 16-exclusive feature, using Camera Control to analyze surroundings and provide info through Google or ChatGPT.
Apple Intelligence also expands to new regions with localized English support, including the UK, Australia, Canada, and others.
As revealed in the Day 5 livestream, Siri gains ChatGPT integration, letting users tap OpenAI's capabilities directly without switching apps.
Why it matters: Apple Intelligence has been underwhelming so far, to say the least, but the ChatGPT integration brings the system closer to what users likely envisioned when upgrading their iPhones for the new AI tools. However, we’ll have to wait until 2025 for agentic Siri capabilities that can handle more complex actions.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
🧊 AISmartCube - A low-code platform to build, automate, and enhance AI tools and assistants
📣 Remention - Place your product in billions of online discussions with AI with product keyword tracking and natural replies
⚙️ SmythOS - Build, debug, and deploy AI agents in minutes
🗣️ Shortcut - AI Assistant to ask questions, organize ideas, or roleplay conversations all through natural dialogue
📊 Bricks - AI spreadsheet that does the work for you via natural language prompts with no formulas or data cleanup
New AI Job Opportunities
🔎 Writer - Director of GTM Recruiting
⚖️ Synthesia - Commercial Counsel (DACH)
🤖 Captions - Research Engineer, Machine Learning
📜 OpenAI - Paralegal
👥 Twelve Labs - People Operations Manager
QUICK HITS
Midjourney founder David Holz unveiled 'Patchwork'’ a collaborative multiplayer worldbuilding tool, alongside plans for multiple model personalization and video generation capabilities coming in 2024.
Google Cloud launched its Trillium TPUs, which feature 4x faster AI training and 3x higher processing speed than the previous generation — powering Gemini 2.0 and now available for customers.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman is putting together a new London-based consumer health division, recruiting key ex-DeepMind health experts including former unit head Dominic King.
Apple is reportedly developing its own custom AI server chip with Broadcom, hoping to reduce its dependency on Nvidia like other tech giants.
Russia announced the formation of a BRICS AI Alliance Network to challenge Western dominance in artificial intelligence development, with initial partners including Brazil, China, India, and South Africa.
Former Snap AI lead Alan Bekker launched eSelf, a new platform for creating video-based AI agents with sub-2-second response times, emerging from stealth with $4.5M in seed funding.
THAT’S A WRAP
ChatGPT's new Canvas upgrade
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Sora may have gotten all the hype, but OpenAI’s ‘Twelve Days of Shipmas’ still has plenty of time to go — and the latest drop is a powerful new upgrade for ChatGPT.
Canvas is now available to all users, and its collaborative tools and interface could change how millions work with AI daily. Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
OpenAI’s Canvas goes public with new features
Cognition launches Devin AI developer assistant
Transform words into cinematic magic with Sora
Replit launches 'Assistant' for coding
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
Important: The Rundown is slowly being sent from a new email address. To ensure you get our newsletter, please add news@daily.therundown.ai to your contact list.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
🤖 OpenAI’s Canvas goes public with new features
Image source: OpenAI
The Rundown: OpenAI just made Canvas available to all users, with the collaborative split-screen writing and coding interface gaining new features like Python execution and usability inside custom GPTs.
The details:
Canvas now integrates natively with GPT-4o, allowing users to trigger the interface through prompts rather than manual model selection.
The tool features a split-screen layout with the chat on one side, a live editing workspace on the other, and inline feedback and revision tools.
New Python integration enables direct code execution within the interface, supporting real-time debugging and output visualization.
Custom GPTs can also now leverage Canvas capabilities by default, with options to enable the feature for existing custom assistants.
Other key features include enhanced editing tools for writing (reading level, length adjustments) and advanced coding tools (code reviews, debugging).
OpenAI previously introduced Canvas in October as an early beta to Plus and Teams users, with all accounts now gaining access with the full rollout.
Why it matters: While this Canvas release may not be as hyped as the Sora launch, it represents a powerful shift in how users interact with ChatGPT, bringing more nuanced collaboration into conversations. Canvas’ Custom GPT integration is also a welcome sight and could breathe life into the somewhat forgotten aspect of the platform.
TOGETHER WITH SAMBANOVA
💨 Break AI speed limits with SambaNova
The Rundown: SambaNova's custom RDU processors deliver AI inference speeds up to 10x faster than traditional GPUs — delivering breakthrough performance with native support for open-source models like 3.3 Llama.
Key capabilities include:
Purpose-built AI processors that outperform standard GPUs
400 tokens/second performance on models like Llama 3.3 70B
Open architecture supporting bring-your-own models
COGNITION LABS
💻 Cognition launches Devin AI developer assistant
Image source: Cognition Labs
The Rundown: Cognition Labs has officially launched Devin, its AI developer assistant, targeting engineering teams and offering capabilities ranging from bug fixes to automated PR creation.
The details:
Devin integrates directly with development workflows through Slack, GitHub, and IDE extensions (beta), starting at $500/month for unlimited team access.
Teams can assign work to Devin through simple Slack tags, with the AI handling testing and providing status updates upon completion.
The AI assistant can handle tasks like frontend bug fixes, backlog PR creation, and codebase refactoring, allowing engineers to focus on higher-priority work.
Devin's capabilities were demoed through open-source contributions, including bug fixes for Anthropic's MCP and feature additions to popular libraries.
Devin previously went viral in March after autonomously opening a support ticket and adjusting its code based on the information provided.
Why it matters: Devin’s early demos felt like the start of a new paradigm, but the AI coding competition has increased heavily since. It’s clear that the future of development will largely be a collaborative effort between humans and AI, and $500/m might be a small price to pay for enterprises offloading significant work.
AI TRAINING
🎥 Transform words into cinematic magic with Sora
The Rundown: OpenAI’s newly launched Sora AI video generator allows you to turn your text descriptions into realistic videos without cameras, actors, or editing software.
Step-by-step:
Access Sora (accessible via a paid ChatGPT account).
Write a detailed prompt describing your desired video (e.g., "A majestic albino jaguar drinks from a crystal-clear stream.")
Choose your settings: aspect ratio (16:9, 1:1, or 9:16), resolution (480p to 1080p), and duration (5-20s).
Generate and enhance your video using remix, re-cut, or blend features.
Pro tip: Test your concepts with shorter durations and lower resolutions first, then upgrade settings for your final version.
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
Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.
REPLIT
🤖 Replit launches 'Assistant' for coding
Image source: Replit
The Rundown: Replit just officially launched its upgraded AI development suite, removing its Agent from early access and introducing a new Assistant tool, alongside a slew of other major platform improvements.
The details:
A new Assistant tool focuses on improvements and quick fixes to existing projects, with streamlined editing through simple prompts.
Users can now attach images or paste URLs to guide the design process, and Agents can use React to produce more polished and flexible visual outputs.
Both tools integrate directly with Replit's infrastructure, providing access to databases and deployment tools without third-party services.
The platform also introduced unlimited usage with a subscription-based model, with built-in credits and Agent checkpoints for more transparent billing.
Why it matters: The competition in AI development has gotten intense, and tools like Replit continue to erase barriers, with builders able to create anything they can dream up. Both beginners and experienced devs now have no shortage of AI-fueled options to bring ideas to life and streamline existing projects.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
🎥 Sora - OpenAI’s video generation model, designed to take text, image, and video inputs and generate a new video as an output
📘 Remento - AI biographer with Speech-to-Story technology that turns recorded interviews into a hardcover book of polished stories
🦓 Zebracat 2.0 - Generate viral videos in seconds with AI
🙋♂️ Aftercare - AI-powered surveys for in-depth user feedback
🧠 Mentor AI - Productivity partner to help break down goals and tasks into simple steps, track progress, and stay accountable
New AI Job Opportunities
💁 Palantir Technologies - Support Specialist
👔 UiPath - Regional Vice President, Enterprise
💼 Dataiku - Business Development Manager
🔧 Abridge - Technical Solutions Consultant
🏝 Tempus - Leave and Accommodation Specialist
QUICK HITS
Meta FAIR researchers introduced COCONUT, a new AI reasoning approach allowing AI models to think more naturally rather than through rigid language steps, leading to better performance on complex problem-solving tasks.
AI language startup Speak raised $78M at a $1B valuation, with its learning platform already facilitating over a billion spoken sentences this year through its adaptive tutoring technology.
Time Magazine named AMD’s Lisa Su its ‘CEO of the Year’ after driving the company from near bankruptcy to a 50x increase in stock value and a leading force in AI over her decade as CEO.
Google announced a new $20B investment with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to develop industrial parks featuring data centers and clean energy facilities, aiming to streamline AI infrastructure growth and sustainable power generation.
Yelp released a series of new AI features, including LLM-powered Review Insights for sentiment analysis, AI-optimized advertising tools, and upgraded AI chatbot capabilities to connect users with services.
Target launched 'Bullseye Gift Finder,' a new AI-powered tool that provides personalized toy recommendations based on children's ages, interests, and preferences, alongside an AI shopping assistant for product-specific inquiries
THAT’S A WRAP
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OpenAI's Sora is finally here
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
On the third day of Shipmas, Sama and OpenAI just brought us Sora — and Christmas came early for AI creators everywhere (except the UK and EU 😢).
After months of speculation, OpenAI's hotly anticipated video generator is ready for its public debut. But will it live up to the hype? Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
OpenAI releases Sora to the public
Google's Willow quantum chip shatters records
Generate professional decks in any language
AI mimics brain to 'watch' videos
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
🎬 OpenAI releases Sora to the public
Image source: OpenAI
The Rundown: OpenAI just officially launched Sora, the company’s long-awaited AI video generation model, which is now available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers through a dedicated platform with several new editing and creative features.
The details:
Sora can create up to 20-second outputs in various aspect ratios, and the new ‘Turbo’ model significantly reduces generation times compared to previous reports.
Sora’s web platform allows users to organize and view generated videos, as well as view other users’ prompts and featured content for inspiration.
Powerful creative tools include Remix for scene editing, Storyboard for stitching multiple outputs together, Blend, Loop, and Style presets.
Sora is available today to ChatGPT subscribers, with unlimited generations, higher resolution, and watermark removal available with the $200/m Pro plan.
OpenAI is restricting content with real people, minors, or copyrighted material, with only a ‘subset’ of users allowed to upload real people as input initially.
The rollout will also exclude the EU, UK, and several other territories due to regulatory concerns.
Why it matters: Sora is finally here, and while there will be arguments over its quality compared to rivals, OpenAI's reach and user base are unmatched for getting this type of tool into the public’s hands. Millions of AI ‘normies’ are about to have their first high-level video experience, opening a new world of creativity for the average user.
TOGETHER WITH IMAGINE AI LIVE
🌟 Your AI future starts here
The Rundown: IMAGINE AI LIVE '25 is a transformative three-day conference at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas where business leaders can connect with AI innovators and learn practical strategies for enterprise AI implementation.
Attend on May 28-30 and experience:
Enterprise AI strategies from world-class practitioners and thought leaders
Hands-on workshops covering practical applications of AI in business operations
Networking opportunities with executives actively transforming their organizations with AI
Register early and save $500 on VIP and General Passes with a holiday special.
🧠 Google's Willow quantum chip shatters records
Image source: Google
The Rundown: Google just revealed Willow, a new quantum computing chip that achieves major performance breakthroughs in error correction and computation speed, demonstrating the potential for future useful, large-scale quantum computers.
The details:
Willow achieved a milestone in reducing errors exponentially as more qubits were added — a critical issue that stumped researchers for three decades.
Willow also completed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today's fastest supercomputers 10 septillion (10^25) years.
Willow utilizes 105 qubits and can maintain the quantum state for nearly twice as long as previous designs — making it more reliable for complex calculations.
The chip was manufactured at Google's new quantum fabrication facility in Santa Barbara, one of only a handful of such specialized facilities worldwide.
Why it matters: Willow takes quantum computers a step toward the practical rather than just theoretical, proving we can overcome some of the field's biggest hurdles. The ability to harness quantum tech would revolutionize everything — but translating today's breakthrough into real-world applications will take time and further advances.
AI TRAINING
🌍 Generate professional decks in any language
The Rundown: Gamma lets you instantly generate your entire presentation into multiple languages while maintaining perfect formatting and visual consistency.
Step-by-step:
Sign up for a free Gamma account and log in to your dashboard.
Select “Create new,” choose “Presentation,” and pick the number of cards.
Click the language selector (globe icon) and choose from dozens of supported languages.
Review and export your presentation in your preferred format.
Pro tip: Use the "Regenerate" option on specific cards if you need to refine the translation.
PRESENTED BY SECTION
💼 How to survive in an AI-driven workforce
The Rundown: Join Section and Sania Khan, former Chief Economist and Head of Market Insights at Eightfold AI, to explore how AI is redefining how we work, hire, and advance in the workplace.
This free session on Jan. 7 explores:
Proven strategies to stay relevant as AI capabilities grow
Real insights on AI's role in replacing vs. augmenting jobs
The new blueprint for career advancement in 2025
AI RESEARCH
🧠 AI mimics brain to 'watch' videos
Image source: Midjourney
The Rundown: Researchers at Scripps Research just developed MovieNet, a new AI model that processes videos like the human brain — achieving higher accuracy and efficiency than current AI models in recognizing dynamic scenes.
The details:
The AI was trained on how tadpole neurons process visual info in sequences rather than static frames, leading to more efficient video analysis.
MovieNet achieved 82.3% accuracy in identifying complex patterns in test videos, outperforming both humans and popular AI models like Google's GoogLeNet.
The tech also uses significantly less data and processing power than conventional video AI systems, making it more environmentally sustainable.
Early applications show promise for medical diagnostics, such as detecting subtle movement changes that could indicate early signs of Parkinson's.
Why it matters: AI that can genuinely ‘understand’ video content will have massive implications for how the tech interacts with our world — and maybe mimicking biological visual systems is the key to unlocking it. It also shows that, in some cases, nature may still be the best teacher for models meant to thrive in the real world.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
😴 Remy AI - Charismatic AI sleep coach that takes care of tracking sleep metrics, circadian rhythms, evening routines, and sleep environment
🤖 Zoom AI Companion 2.0 - Advanced AI assistant that transforms work processes across the Zoom Workplace platform
🪄 Magic Clips - Turn long videos into viral shorts instantly with AI
⚙️ Peek AI - Build a professional, shareable online portfolio in seconds with AI
🧠 NotionFlashcard - Transform Notion notes into an interactive learning system with spaced repetition and active recall
New AI Job Opportunities
✍️ Grammarly - Software Engineer, Back-End
📈 Weights & Biases - Director, Product Management (Enterprise Platform)
🌐 UiPath - Regional Marketing Intern
🩺 Hippocratic AI - IT Systems Analyst
🧑💼 Notable - Recruiter
QUICK HITS
Live webinar: Learn to generate chunked, vectorized JSON from any document type and build accurate ETL pipelines for RAG using Unstructured + Ragas in minutes. Register to join or get the recording.*
xAI officially announced the launch of its new image generation model, Aurora, which will be rolling out to all X users within a week.
Amazon launched a new AGI San Francisco Lab, led by former Adept team members, focusing on developing AI agents capable of performing real-world actions.
Reddit introduced ‘Reddit Answers,’ a new AI-powered feature that enables conversational search across the platform with curated summaries and linked sources from relevant subreddits.
Football club Manchester City partnered with Puma for a new AI-powered kit design competition that allows fans to create the team’s 2026-27 alternate uniform using a text-to-image generator.
China launched a new antitrust probe into Nvidia over potential monopoly violations, escalating tech tensions just days after new US chip export restrictions.
Sakana AI introduced Neural Attention Memory Models (NAMMs), an evolved memory system for transformers that improves performance and efficiency across different AI models without retraining.
*Sponsored listing
THAT’S A WRAP
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Google Gemini reclaims #1 spot (again)
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Google DeepMind just revealed a new Gemini model that claimed the #1 spot on the Chatbot Arena leaderboard in all domains — while remaining completely free.
With OpenAI recently raising its top-tier AI pricing from $20 to $200/mo, it looks like Google is taking the complete opposite approach. Let's get into it...
In today’s AI rundown:
Google's new Gemini model reclaims #1 spot
Meta launches leaner, efficient Llama 3.3
Customize Claude to match your writing style
xAI debuts new Aurora image generator in Grok
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
🏆 Google's new Gemini model reclaims #1 spot
Image source: LM Arena
The Rundown: Google DeepMind's new gemini-exp-1206 model has reclaimed the top spot on the Chatbot Arena leaderboard, surpassing OpenAI across multiple benchmarks — while remaining completely free to use.
The details:
Released on Gemini's one-year anniversary, the model has climbed from second to first place overall on the Chatbot Arena.
The model can process and understand video content, unlike competitors such as ChatGPT and Claude, which can only take in images.
The model maintains its impressive 2M token context window, which allows it to process over an hour of video content.
Unlike many competing models, Gemini-exp-1206 is freely available through Google AI Studio and the Gemini API.
Why it matters: While OpenAI has raised its top-tier o1 pricing from $20 to $200 monthly, Google is taking the opposite approach by making its top AI free. Though the performance edge on the Chatbot Arena may be slim, the combination of competitive capabilities and zero cost is a game-changer for AI accessibility.
TOGETHER WITH PROJECT IDX
☁️ Cloud dev environment + AI
The Rundown Project IDX gives you a complete cloud development environment with Google's Gemini AI, right in your browser.
With Project IDX, you get:
Your laptop in the cloud: A Linux-based virtual machine
Native apps in browser: Build Flutter/React Native apps with a built-in Android Emulator
Pre-loaded environments: One click to start with popular frameworks
META
🦙 Meta launches leaner, efficient Llama 3.3
Image source: Meta
The Rundown: Meta just released Llama 3.3, a new 70B open text model that performs similarly to Llama 3.1 405B, despite being significantly faster and cheaper than its predecessor.
The details:
Llama 3.3 features a 128k token context window and outperforms competitors like GPT-4o, Gemini Pro 1.5, and Amazon's Nova Pro on several benchmarks.
The model is 10x cheaper than the 405B model, at $0.10 / million input tokens and $0.40 / million output tokens, and nearly 25x cheaper than GPT-4o.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta AI has nearly 600M active monthly users, and is “on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world.”
Zuckerberg also said the next stop is Llama 4 in 2025, with training happening at the company’s $10B, 2GW data center in Louisiana.
Why it matters: Open AI models aren’t just matching the performance of industry-leading systems — they’re also doing it while being much cheaper and more efficient. Meta’s Llama models are continuing to raise the bar, and as Zuckerberg’s adoption numbers show, they’re also being widely adopted across the industry over alternatives.
AI TRAINING
🧠 Customize Claude to match your writing style
The Rundown: Claude’s new Styles feature allows you to personalize AI responses by teaching it to match your unique writing voice and tone.
Step-by-step:
Find the "Choose style" dropdown next to Claude’s model selector.
Click "Create & Edit Styles" and select "Create Custom Style.”
Add a writing sample that represents your desired style.
Let AI analyze your writing and create your custom style.
Pro tip: Combine this with Web Search capabilities via Claude’s MCP feature to get the latest information explained in your unique writing style. Learn how to set it up 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
Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.
XAI
🚀 xAI debuts new Aurora image generator in Grok
Image source: DogeDesigner (@cb_doge on X)
The Rundown: X briefly rolled out Aurora, a new AI image generator integrated with Grok that appeared to produce more photorealistic images than the previous Flux model, though the feature was pulled after just a few hours of testing.
The details:
Aurora showed significant improvements compared to Grok’s integrated Flux model, particularly with landscapes, still-life images, and human photorealism.
The model also appeared to have minimal content restrictions, allowing the creation of copyrighted characters and public figures.
Elon Musk called the tease a "beta version" of Aurora that will improve quickly in a reply on X.
X Developer co-lead Chris Park also revealed that Grok 3 ‘is coming,’ taking aim at OpenAI and Sam Altman in the announcement on X.
xAI’s Grok became available across the X platform last week, allowing free-tier users up to 10 messages every two hours.
Why it matters: Although only live briefly, Aurora looked to be an extremely powerful new image model — with xAI seemingly deciding to create their own top-tier generator instead of relying on integrations like Flux long-term. It was also wild to see the lack of restrictions, which tracks with Elon’s vision but could enter some murky legal areas.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
🔎 Sharbo 01 - Effortlessly track and manage competitor intelligence with insights, multi-sourced reporting, and feature comparison tracking
🤝 ResumeUp AI - AI resume builder and checker to boost interview chances and create ATS-friendly resumes in minutes
🤖 Martin - AI personal assistant that manages your calendar, inbox, to-do-lists, and Slack
📊 Countless Dev - Discover, compare, choose, and calculate costs for every type of AI model
✍️ Agree - Securely send and sign any agreement with AI-powered workflows, free e-signature, automated invoicing, and integrated payments
New AI Job Opportunities
QUICK HITS
OpenAI creative specialist Chad Nelson showcased new Sora demo footage at the C21Media Keynote in London, featuring one-minute generations, plus text, image, and video prompting.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke at the NYT DealBook Summit, saying that 2025 may see a slowdown in AI development because ‘low hanging fruit is gone,’ with additional major breakthroughs needed before the next acceleration step.
OpenAI unveiled Reinforcement Fine-Tuning, which enables developers to customize AI models for specialized tasks with minimal training data.
Newly discovered code hints at OpenAI introducing a GPT-4.5 model as a limited preview feature for Teams subscribers, which coincides with hints of an upcoming large announcement from CEO Sam Altman.
Apollo Research conducted tests on OpenAI’s full o1, finding that the new model revealed some instances of alarming behaviour, including attempting to escape and lying about actions—though the scenarios were unrealistic for the real world.
Former PayPal exec and venture capitalist David Sacks was named the White House ‘AI & Crypto Czar’ for the incoming Trump administration.
OpenAI is reportedly considering removing its AGI exclusion clause with Microsoft, which would pave the way for billions in future investments as the company aims to transition away from its non-profit structure.
THAT’S A WRAP
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