Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

Search all 95 Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

🗞️ AI news

Here’s what happened in AI this week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3.6-27B, a cost-efficient 27B model that outperforms much larger ones on agentic coding tasks.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Connectors expanded to 200+ everyday apps, letting Claude pull in relevant data mid-chat and chain multiple services together.

   2. Cowork can now build Live Artifacts: dashboards and trackers connected to your data sources that auto-refresh when opened.

3. DeepSeek open-sourced DeepSeek-V4, a reasoning model with a 1M-token context window that approaches the performance of top-tier closed models.

4. Google news:

   1. AI Studio now gives Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers higher usage limits and new models for prototyping and vibe-coding projects.

   2. Deep Research and Deep Research Max can perform autonomous research across your files or specialized data sources using MCP connections.

   3. Gemini for Home added a Continued Conversation feature that lets your smart speaker retain context after a response and handle follow-up questions.

5. Microsoft added Copilot’s agentic capabilities to Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, letting it perform multi-step actions directly in your documents.

6. Moonshot AI open-sourced Kimi K2.6, a coding model that can coordinate 300 simultaneous sub-agents for complex, long-horizon programming projects.

7. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT for Clinicians helps verified US physicians, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists with medical research and documentation work.

   2. ChatGPT Images 2.0 is a SOTA image-generation model with thinking capabilities that can reason through your prompts.

   3. Codex Chronicle builds context from your screen activity, so Codex knows what you’re working on automatically. (Opt-in preview for Pro subscribers.)

   4. GPT-5.5 is a flagship model for complex coding, research, and data analysis that is also more token-efficient than competing models.

   5. Workspace Agents let teams build shared AI agents for long-running tasks in the cloud. (For ChatGPT for Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans.)

8. TwelveLabs launched Pegasus 1.5, which extracts structured, timestamped metadata from videos up to two hours long so you can better analyze them.

9. X launched Custom Timelines that lets you pin up to 75+ AI-curated topics to your home tab. (In early access for Premium subscribers.)

🔬 AI research

1. Alibaba announced Qwen3.6-Max-Preview, with improved agentic coding, world knowledge, and instruction following for real-world tasks.

📖 AI resources

1. “GPT 5.5, DeepSeek V4, and the Compute War” [VIDEO]: great level-headed deep-dive by AI Explained.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Well, at least you’re aware of your own limitations, Gemini.

📹 Live & Learn #3: AI Slide Deck Makers

The “Live & Learn” format is really coming into its own, thanks to great feedback from everyone who responded to my surveys. Keep your suggestions coming!

From now on, there’s more structure to my live tests and the scoring.

Future “Live & Learn” sessions will:

• Focus on 3-5 tools in the same category for an apples-to-apples comparison

• Have 3-5 specific dimensions we rate them on

• Wrap-up with a leaderboard we fill out together during the session

This week, we tested five AI slide deck makers and ended with a two-way tie for first place:

Watch "Live & Learn #3"

Next time, we’ll be testing AI tools that automatically create helpful visuals like charts and diagrams out of text. It’s happening on Friday, May 1, at 2:00 PM CET.

Join "Live & Learn" - May 1, 2:00 PM CET

Please let me know what you want to get out of this particular session and “Live & Learn” in general:

Help shape "Live & Learn"

(It’s just two open-ended questions with a few AI-assisted follow-ups.)

Thanks!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

Search all 95 Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

🗞️ AI news

Here’s what happened in AI this week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3.6-35B, a sparse coding agent that matches larger models on agentic tasks. (Try for free on Hugging Face.)

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code “Routines” let you schedule automated workflows that run in the cloud without relying on your computer being awake.

   2. Claude Desktop app was redesigned for better Claude Code workflows with parallel coding agents, built-in terminal, in-app editing, and more

   3. Claude Opus 4.7 is the newest frontier model with improved reasoning and complex agentic coding, as well as better vision capabilities.

   4. Claude Design turns prompts into polished prototypes, slides, and visuals with built-in collaboration and design elements.

3. Blackmagic Design released DaVinci Resolve 21 with a dedicated Photo page and expanded AI editing tools for video and image workflows.

4. Character.ai news:

   1. PipSqueak 2 is a faster and smarter chat model paired with an upgraded Memory, so your characters remember more details across conversations.

   2. c.ai Books lets you “step inside” classic novels like Alice in Wonderland and role-play through the plot as different characters.

5. Google news:

   1. AI Studio added a Tab Tab Tab prompt autocomplete feature to its vibe-coding environment, so Gemini can intelligently supplement your ideas.

   2. Chrome added Skills that let you save and trigger custom Gemini prompts with one click directly from the browser.

   3. Gemini app is now available on Mac as a native desktop experience.

   4. Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS is the latest text-to-speech model with audio tags that let developers build AI voice apps with more natural, expressive speech.

   5. Google desktop app for Windows has built-in AI Mode search and lets you share your screen to ask questions about its contents.

   6. Personal Intelligence uses Nano banana to generate AI visuals from your Google Photos library.

6. Microsoft launched MAI-Image-2-Efficient, an image model that’s 22% faster and 41% cheaper than its bigger cousin.

7. Midjourney launched V8.1 Alpha, which generates native 2K HD images three times faster and cheaper than V8 and features an overhauled “Describe” tool.

8. Mozilla released Thunderbolt, an open-source, self-hosted AI client that keeps your conversations local and private.

9. OpenAI updated Codex with computer use, a built-in browser, 90+ plugins, image generation, and memory, turning it into a full-on desktop agent.

10. Opera launched a Browser Connector MCP that lets Claude and ChatGPT read your open tabs and take screenshots directly in the browser.

11. Perplexity released Personal Computer for Mac that can manage local files, apps, and web actions in a secure sandbox environment. (Max subscribers only.)

🔬 AI research

1. Adobe previewed Firefly AI Assistant, a tool that automates multi-step tasks across Creative Cloud apps in response to plan-language prompts.

2. Canva announced AI 2.0, a major platform overhaul with prompt-based editing, persistent brand memory, and HTML import.

3. Microsoft is testing OpenClaw-style always-on AI agents inside Microsoft 365 Copilot that proactively handle business tasks across apps.

📖 AI resources

1. “2026 AI Index” [REPORT]: Stanford HAI’s annual deep-dive on the state of AI with key takeways on adoption trends, economic impact, etc.

2. “Automated Alignment Researchers” [REPORT]: Anthropic’s study on using Claude to automate scalable AI oversight research.

3. “Half of Americans Use AI Services” [POLL]: Ipsos/Epoch poll of Americans’ AI usage and workflows.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

When Gemini thinks you’re the epitome of classic beauty…

📹 Live & Learn #2: Four AI app builders

Last session, I tested four no-code AI app builders with the same app request. The contenders came in different flavors and had their own spin on the task.

Watch "Live & Learn" #2

During the next “Live & Learn,” I’ll be test-driving several AI slide deck makers.

The session will be on Friday, April 24, at 2:00 PM CET:

Join Live & Learn - April 24, 2PM CET

To help me make the session more useful and relevant, share your thoughts:

Take The Survey

(The survey is just one open-ended question with AI-assisted follow-ups.)

Thanks!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

Search all 95 Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

I was away during Easter, so we have two weeks’ worth of AI developments to catch up on. Let’s get to it!

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba news:

   1. HappyHorse-1.0 is a SOTA video model that anonymously topped global video leaderboards before being claimed by the company.

   2. Qwen3.5-Omni is a family of natively omnimodal models that can simultaneously process and generate text, images, audio, and video.

   3. Qwen3.6-Plus is the upgraded flagship model with stronger reasoning and coding capabilities that can reliably handle complex real-world tasks.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Cowork is now generally available with admin controls like role-based access, spend limits, and analytics for company-wide deployment.

   2. Computer Use now runs directly in Claude Code CLI, so it can visually verify and fix what it builds by interacting with the screen.

   3. Microsoft 365 Connectors rolled out for all Claude plans, so you can link Claude to your OneDrive, Outlook, and SharePoint directly.

3. Arcee AI open-sourced Trinity-Large-Thinking, a reasoning model scoring #2 after Cladude Opus-4.6 on PinchBench while being 96% cheaper. (Try for free.)

4. Cursor now lets you launch coding agents from your phone and run and control them remotely on any machine.

5. GitHub added a focused review agent called “Rubber Duck” to Copilot CLI that uses a second model to review code and catch errors before they compound.

6. Google news:

   1. Gemini app added interactive simulations that showcase concepts right in the chat. (I previously compared ChatGPT and Claude versions.)

   2. Gemini added Notebooks for organizing chats, files, and custom instructions per project, with built-in syncing to NotebookLM.

   3. Gemma 4 is a family of open models for advanced reasoning and complex multi-step tasks that is faster and cheaper to run on edge devices.

   4. Google AI Edge Eloquent is a free offline dictation app for iOS that transcribes speech and removes filler words automatically. (Download it here.)

   5. Google Colab introduced a Learn Mode and Custom Instructions, turning Gemini into a personalized coding tutor.

   6. Google Vids added Veo 3.1 video generation with 10 free monthly clips, plus AI avatars and custom music tools.

   7. Veo 3.1 Lite is a cost-efficient video model that’s more than 50% cheaper than Veo 3.1 Fast.

7. HeyGen news:

   1. Avatar V can capture and consistently recreate your likeness in any setting, from just a 15-second video recording.

   2. Topaz Labs is now integrated into the platform, letting you natively upscale videos to 4K.

8. Meta is rolling out a new flagship model called Muse Spark, capable of multimodal reasoning and visual understanding across all Meta AI touchpoints.

9. Microsoft news:

   1. MAI-Transcribe-1 turns speech into text across 25 languages, even in noisy environments, and is both faster and cheaper than existing offerings.

   2. MAI-Voice-1 generates expressive speech from just a few seconds of input and can produce a minute of audio in under a second.

10. OpenAI news:

    1. ChatGPT Pro now has a $100/month tier with 5x more Codex usage than Plus.

    2. Codex now offers pay-as-you-go seats for teams with reduced annual pricing for ChatGPT Business.

    3. Codex launched as a plugin for Claude Code, so you can use OpenAI’s coding models inside Claude Code workflows.

11. Perplexity news:

    1. Computer launched inside Slack to help teams run analysis, generate code, and trigger workflows directly from Slack channels and DMs.

    2. Computer for Taxes uses IRS materials to help US users prepare their federal returns through its AI agent.

    3. Plaid integration lets you securely link bank accounts, credit cards, and loans for a full view of your personal finances.

12. Pika launched a Video Chat Skill (in beta) powered by PikaStream 1.0 that gives any AI agent a face and voice for real-time video conversations.

13. Salesforce gave its Slackbot 30+ new features, including automated meeting notes, daily recaps, and AI-powered task management.

14. Softr launched a no-code platform with an AI co-builder that creates functioning business apps from plain-language descriptions.

15. Topaz Labs shipped a Precision update, making its video models faster and better at upscaling clips to 4K.

16. World Labs rolled out Marble 1.1 and Marble 1.1 Plus, with improved visual details and larger, more complex generated worlds.

17. X added a Grok-powered photo editor to the post composer, letting you ask for edits and tweaks to images before posting.

18. Z.ai open-sourced GLM-5.1, a coding model that can work autonomously for up to eight hours and tops several software engineering benchmarks.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview is a powerful ureleased frontier model capable of finding and exploiting previously hidden software vulnerabilities.

📖 AI resources

1. “Claude Mythos: Highlights from 244-page Release” [VIDEO]: An excellent deep dive by AI Explained.

2. “Emotion concepts and their function in a large language model” [RESEARCH]—study by Anthropic on distinct emotions that shape how a model behaves.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic accidentally leaked the Claude Code source files, exposing internal architecture and planned features and sparking security concerns.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

When a vectorized version of you ends up looking like knock-off Freddie Mercury.

📹 Live & Learn #1: Testing AI tools together

In the first-ever “Live & Learn” session, I learned a tiny bit about AI tools and a whole lot about Substack’s screen-sharing limitations and the importance of double-checking audience settings. (I explain more here.)

Watch the recording

I really want these “Live & Learn” sessions to become a fun way for us all to nerd out about AI together. They don’t have to be limited to the AI tools I prepare for testing.

So bring your own tool suggestions, questions, and other AI things to share with me and the audience. I’ll make sure the live chat is actually open to all subscribers next time. (Oops!)

Join "Live&Learn" - April 16, 2:30PM CET

Also, please let me know what you’d like to get out of these live sessions:

Help shape "Live & Learn"

(It’s just a single open-ended question with a few AI-assisted follow-ups.)

Thanks!

Heads up: I’m away for Easter, so the next Sunday Rundown is on April 12

Happy Sunday, friends!

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 90+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Ai2 open-sourced MolmoWeb, a browsing agent that navigates websites and reads the screen like a human to complete tasks. (Try the demo.)

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude mobile now lets you access tools like Amplitude, Canva, and Figma directly from your phone instead of relying on a laptop.

   2. Claude Code added Auto Mode that lets it run longer tasks with fewer interruptions by auto-approving safe actions while blocking risky ones.

3. ByteDance news:

   1. CapCut launched a Timeline-Free Video Studio that lets you create and edit AI video clips using plain language instead of traditional timeline editing.

   2. Seedance 2.0 video model finally rolled out to the wider public via CapCut.

4. Cohere open-sourced Transcribe, a SOTA model that accurately converts audio into text and offers multilingual support for real-world use cases.

5. Google news:

   1. Gemini now lets you import memory and chat history from other AI tools, making it easier to switch without losing your personalization.

   2. Gemini 3.1 Flash Live is a real-time voice model that delivers faster, more natural conversations and is especially well-suited for low-latency agents.

   3. Lyria 3 Pro can now generate full 3-minute tracks and parse structured elements like “verse,” “chorus,” and “bridge” prompts.

   4. Search Live expanded globally and is now powered by Gemini 3.1 Flash Live for more natural voice conversations directly inside Google Search.

6. Instagram added AI transitions to Stories that can turn a collection of still photos into an animated video clip.

7. Lovart launched a Move Object tool that lets you reposition any element in an image by selecting, dragging, and prompting for changes.

8. Luma Labs released its Uni-1 reasoning image model that thinks through your request before generating an image to ensure better prompt adherence.

9. Mistral AI launched Voxtral, a low-latency multilingual text-to-speech model that supports nine languages and lets you fine-tune the voices.

10. OpenAI upgraded ChatGPT shopping with visual browsing and side-by-side comparisons that help you find and evaluate products in seconds.

11. Smallest.ai launched Lightning V3, a text-to-speech model that supports 15 languages and lets you customize tone, pace, and style in natural language.

12. Suno released v5.5 with Voices, Custom Models, and My Taste features to create personalized music that better reflects your style and even uses your own voice.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic is rolling out Computer Use in Claude Cowork that lets Claude control your desktop to complete tasks (In research preview for paid accounts on macOS).

📖 AI resources

1. “ARC-AGI-3” [BENCHMARK]: new benchmark from the ARC Prize Foundation to test agent performance on previously unseen problems. (Try for yourself.)

🔀 AI random

1. OpenAI is shutting down Sora entirely to focus on its core business. (The Sora social media play was always a questionable decision in my book.)

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Gemini, exactly one second after reading my article critical of AI ass-kissing:

💰 Sunday Bonus #95: Create social posts from any article with the Content Repurposer skill

Today, I’m expanding the Claude Code Essentials page with yet another Claude skill.

Content Repurposer turns any article into social posts tailored to your platforms, voice, and audience.

You can grab the generic version with the default settings, but you’ll get better results by customizing the skill.

The configurator lets you select your platforms, describe your audience, paste in your voice guidelines, and one-click download a personalized skill file that’s ready to go.

Content Repurposer covers nine platforms out of the box, but you can always add your own. For visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, the skill also suggests visual concepts, image prompts, and captions to accompany them.

Grab and customize it here:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 90+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Adobe expanded access to Firefly Custom Models and video tools, letting you you train AI to generate images and videos in your own style.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code channels let you control Claude through third-party messaging MCPs, starting with Discord and Telegram.

   2. Cowork now incorporates the Projects feature, so you get to keep your related tasks and context in a single place.

3. Character.ai launched Imagine Gallery, an organized space to save and share AI-generated images from your chat sessions.

4. Cursor launched Composer 2, a coding model that can execute long multi-step tasks with better accuracy and at a lower cost.

5. Google news:

   1. AI Studio now incorporates Antigravity and Firebase to help you turn prompts into full-stack apps with backend, authentication, and APIs built in.

   2. Personal Intelligence rolled out to free users, so Gemini can remember your preferences, projects, and personal context across conversations.

   3. Stitch evolved into an AI-native design canvas in Google Labs that lets you create and edit full-fledged app interfaces from prompts.

6. Manus launched My Computer for your desktop that gives its AI agent direct access to your local files, apps, and tools.

7. Microsoft launched MAI-Image-2, a text-to-image model for design work that excels at photographic images and text. (Try it for free.)

8. MiniMax released M2.7, a competitive model for software engineering, productivity, and agentic tasks. (Try it for free.)

9. Mistral open-sourced Small 4, a cost-efficient model that combines reasoning, multimodality, and agentic coding in one.

10. OpenAI launched GPT-5.4 mini and GPT-5.4 nano for faster coding, tool use, and high-volume API work.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic is rolling out Dispatch that lets you send tasks to Claude Cowork from your phone. (Research preview for paid subscribers.)

2. Midjourney opened its V8 model for alpha testing with faster image generation and better text rendering.

3. NVIDIA is previewing NemoClaw that can one-click install always-on agents like OpenClaw with better built-in privacy and security.

4. OpenAI is reportedly working on a desktop “superapp” that combines ChatGPT, Codex, and its Atlas browser into a single platform.

5. Together AI is working on Mamba-3, a new state space model that’s faster and cheaper than traditional LLMs with better accuracy on long-running tasks.

📖 AI resources

1. “State of AI 2026” [REPORT]—a series of reports on AI workplace impacts from NVIDIA based on surveys with thousands of leaders.

2. “US Job Market Visualizer” [REFERENCE]—Andrej Karpathy’s project that maps how AI affects different types of jobs.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Really, Gemini? That’s where you draw the line?!

💰 Sunday Bonus #94: Find relevant tools and frameworks to improve your Claude Code setup

Last week, I built a brand-new “Claude Code Essentials” page and shared three self-installing Claude Code skills.

Today I’m adding a fourth:

Workspace Upgrader helps you identify and prioritize new skills, tools, and frameworks that improve your Claude Code setup.

It autonomously scans your entire working folder (config files, subfolders, documents, notes, etc.) and searches the web for resources to make your specific workspace better.

You get a neat visual report with prioritized recommendations:

For every recommendation, Claude estimates the impact and effort it would take to implement:

It’s a great way to find new skills, MCPs, tools, frameworks, etc. that are directly relevant to how you actually work.

Grab the self-installing skill here:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 90+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Adobe news:

   1. Firefly Image Editor now combines generative AI features like Generative Fill, Remove, Expand, Upscale, and Background Removal in a unified workspace.

   2. Photoshop added a conversational AI Assistant that lets you describe edits in plain language or draw directly on the image to make changes.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude can now build interactive visualizations directly in the chat to help you better understand different concepts.

   2. Claude models now have a 1-million-token context window to handle entire codebases or countless documents. (Max or Enterprise accounts only.)

3. Canva launched Magic Layers that split AI-generated images into separate, editable layers so you can customize your design more granularly.

4. Genspark launched AI Workspace 3.0 with autonomous AI employees that can join meetings, manage emails, and run workflows on your behalf.

5. Google news:

   1. Google Maps added Ask Maps and Immersive Navigation, so you can ask questions about your route and see AI overlays while navigating.

   2. Gemini Embedding 2 is a natively multimodal embedding model that maps text, images, video, audio, and documents into a single searchable space.

      

   3. Google Workspace got new Gemini-powered features to help you create documents and analyze data more efficiently.

6. LTX Studio released LTX-2.3 that creates 4K videos with sharper detail, crisper sound, and better prompt adherence than its predecessor.

7. Meta news:

   1. AI anti-scam alerts across Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp can detect and flag suspicious messages and accounts.

   2. Facebook Marketplace got new Meta AI seller tools that turn photos into full listings, auto-reply to buyers, and create seller profile summaries.

8. NVIDIA news:

   1. ComfyUI App View and RTX AI upgrades make creating and upscaling AI-generated videos on a regular PC faster and easier.

   2. Nemotron 3 Super is an open 120-billion-parameter model built for agentic AI workflows with top-tier performance on multistep tasks.

9. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT now has interactive visual explanations for math and science that break down complex concepts in a step-by-step, hands-on way.

   2. Sora added “References,” letting you save consistent characters, settings, props, costumes, or camera styles to reuse across videos.

10. Perplexity launched Computer for Enterprise, linking 20 AI models to 400+ apps for automated agent workflows.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic announced Claude Code Review that uses a multi-agent setup to automatically check pull requests for issues before merging.

2. Luma AI teased UNI-1, a reasoning image model that thinks through the request before generating visual outputs.

3. Microsoft news:

   1. Copilot Cowork will let you hand off multi-step tasks to AI agents to execute across Microsoft 365.

   2. Copilot Health will pull in data from wearables, health records, and lab results to help you make sense of it and prep for doctor visits.

4. OpenAI is reportedly planning to bring its Sora video model into ChatGPT, so you can create videos without leaving the chat interface.

5. Perplexity announced Personal Computer, a dedicated remote Mac mini that connects your local apps to Perplexity’s autonomous agents. (Join the waitlist.)

📖 AI resources

1. “Autoresearch” [TOOL]—Andrej Karpathy’s open-source tool that automatically runs multiple experiments to find the best training setup for an AI model.

🔀 AI random

1. Grammarly disabled its Expert Review tool after it was found to attribute AI writing feedback to real writers’ names without their consent.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Yeah, so maybe don’t take geography lessons from Grok Imagine, kids.

💰 Sunday Bonus #93: Three Claude Code skills that auto-customize themselves to your project

I already shared two “Claude Code” Sunday Bonuses before:

• 9 simple-yet-powerful Claude Code workflows for everyday users

• 100+ use cases & prompts for Claude Code (swipe file)

Today, I’m combining them into a single page called “Claude Code Essentials” and throwing a brand-new bonus into the mix that revolves around useful skills:

Skills are reusable instructions that Claude Code follows every time you run them.

I’ve built many skills for my own needs, but three stood out as being useful to anyone.

So I bundled them into a Skills Starter Pack: self-installing skills that customize themselves to your setup in minutes:

1. Draft Reviewer: Run this whenever you have a piece of writing to review.

   

2. Session Saver: Run this at the end of each productive Claude Code session.

   

3. Workspace Auditor: Run this monthly to keep your setup in good shape.

   

The part I’m happiest with is that these aren’t cookie-cutter downloads.

Each skill scans your project first, then walks you through a short interview to build a version of itself that fits how you actually work.

From your side, it’s one copy-paste trigger prompt and a few quick answers.

Claude Code crafts the entire skill on its own, right in your working folder.

Enjoy:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 90+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3.5 Small, a family of compact multimodal models optimized for on-device use with strong performance despite their small size.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Memory is now free for everyone, with a new import tool to migrate preferences and context from other AI chatbots.

   2. Scheduled Tasks in Claude Code desktop let you automate regular tasks for Claude to run on a schedule.

   3. Skill Creator is now better and can help you test, measure, benchmark, and improve your Agent Skills. (Learn more about Claude Code skills here.)

3. Google news:

   1. AI Mode rolled out Canvas in the US, so you can accomplish writing and coding tasks directly inside search.

   2. NotebookLM can now turn notes into cinematic video summaries powered by Nano Banana Pro and Veo 3. (Only for Gemini Ultra subscribers for now.)

   3. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is the fastest, most cost-efficient model in the Gemini 3 family.

4. LTX Studio launched dubbing and captions that can translate videos into 175 languages with accurate lip sync. (Enterprise-only feature for now.)

5. Microsoft open-sourced Phi-4-Vision-Reasoning, a compact multimodal reasoning model that excels at vision-language, math, and science tasks.

6. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT for Excel is rolling out in beta to help you build models and generate outputs directly in Excel, powered by GPT-5.4.

   2. The Codex app launched on Windows, letting you manage multiple agents that collaborate on long-running tasks.

   3. GPT-5.3 Instant offers smoother conversations, fewer hallucinations, and less defensive or moralizing phrasing.

   4. GPT-5.4 is the company’s latest and best reasoning model with a 1M-token context window and improved coding and tool use.

7. Perplexity introduced Skills for Perplexity Computer, letting you teach it repeatable actions and capabilities that it can apply automatically.

8. xAI released Grok 4.20 Beta 2 with better instruction following, reduced hallucinations, and LaTeX support for scientific text.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic started rolling out a speech-to-text Voice Mode in Claude Code, so far to just 5% of users but with a wider expansion planned in the coming weeks.

2. OpenAI is rolling out Codex Security in research preview for AI-driven vulnerability detection and patching.

📖 AI resources

1. “Labor Market Impacts of AI” [REPORT]: Anthropic’s study outlining early hiring slowdowns in the most AI-exposed roles.

2. “Understanding AI and Learning Outcomes” [REPORT]: OpenAI’s framework to measure how AI affects learning retention, motivation, and problem-solving.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Boy, that escalated quickly. Grok Imagine proudly brings you…a self-fatality?

💰 Sunday Bonus #92: Create supporting visuals for any text with "Article Visualizer"

If you’re anything like me, you don’t have the world’s best eye for design.

This means I often struggle to find ideas for visuals that can illustrate my articles.

Enter: Article Visualizer.

It’s a simple Google Opal app that analyzes your text (paste it in or provide a URL), and proposes up to five visual concepts to support your content: comparison charts, diagrams, infographics, graphs, etc.

You pick the one you prefer and get a finished visual to download:

If you liked Data Narrator, this is its sibling:

• Data Narrator helps you make sense of data by visualizing it

• Article Visualizer helps your readers better understand concepts in your articles

All you need is a free Google account.

Enjoy:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search all 90+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen 3.5 Medium, a series of efficient models that match frontier performance while being small enough to run locally.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code Remote Control lets you kick off a session on your computer and continue it remotely from another device. (Max plans only for now.)

   2. Cowork Finance plugins turn Claude into a finance specialist that can handle end-to-end tasks and carry context between Excel and PowerPoint.

   3. Cowork Scheduled Tasks let you describe a task, pick a frequency, and have Claude automatically execute it. (In preview for paid plans only.)

3. Cursor launched Cloud Agents that get their own virtual machines to independently write and test code, with many running in parallel.

4. Google news:

   1. Flow has merged several tools to help you create and edit images and videos together in one workspace in a more organized way.

   2. Nano Banana 2 delivers Pro-level image generation and editing at faster speeds with better subject consistency and cleaner text. (Try it for free.)

   3. Opal, the no-code app builder I covered a while back, added an agent step that can reason and automatically pick relevant tools. (Try it for free.)

5. Notion launched Custom Agents: AI teammates that can run workflows like task triaging, standups, and inbox management on a schedule.

6. OpenAI’s new Codex-to-Figma integration lets Codex turn Figma designs into production-ready code using real layout and component data.

7. Perplexity launched Perplexity Computer that autonomously runs research, coding, design, and workflow tasks across different apps and tools.

8. QuiverAI released Arrow 1.0, a first-of-its-kind model that generates editable SVG graphics from text prompts. (Try it for free.)

9. Wispr Flow launched an Android app that turns messy speech into polished text across 100+ languages. (Download it here.)

🔬 AI research

1. Google news:

   1. Circle to Search will be able to recognize multiple objects in a single image, coming soon to Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10.

   2. Gemini multi-step tasks will soon let it book rides or reorder food in the background while you keep using your phone.

2. Microsoft previewed Copilot Tasks, letting Copilot plan and execute tasks on its own virtual computer and browser. (Join the research preview waitlist.)

📖 AI resources

1. The rise of AI Recommendation Poisoning [ARTICLE]—a look by Microsoft at the rise in prompt injections inside “Summarize with AI” buttons.

2. “Deadline Day for Autonomous AI Weapons & Mass Surveillance” [VIDEO]—important deep dive by AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

This week is just filled with what one might call “AI oopsies”:

1. Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI models recommended nuclear strikes in 95% of war game simulations, a study finds. (They didn’t surrender even when losing.)

2. DJI patched a Romo robot vacuum bug after an engineer using an AI coding assistant accidentally gained access to live feeds and data of nearly 7,000 devices.

3. OpenClaw went rogue on Meta’s AI safety director, deleting 200+ emails and ignoring stop commands until she physically ran to her computer to kill it.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

This, kids, is why you must first create a proper starting frame.
(You can see the non-fail version in this article.)

💰 Sunday Bonus #91: Find your ideal AI solution with “AI Scout”

There’s no shortage of AI tool directories and “top 100” lists out there.

But they’re mostly endless buffets, leaving you to figure out what’s actually relevant to your situation.

AI Scout takes the opposite approach: You explain what you need, it asks you a few follow-up questions, and then heads out to find tools and workflows tailored especially for you.

Soon, you get a nicely polished page with three tailored recommendations:

AI Scout explains how each solution relates to your situation and provides concrete next steps you can take.

Have at it:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 80+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

I’ve been away last week, so we have two busy weeks’ worth of AI news to catch up on.

Let’s get to it.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. ai.com launched a platform that lets you set up a personal AI agent to autonomously handle your tasks. (But read this before jumping in headfirst.)

2. Alibaba news:

   1. Qwen3.5 is an open-weight multimodal model that can handle complex tasks across text, images, and video, with support for 201 languages and dialects.

   2. Qwen-Image-2.0 is an image model that creates 2K-quality images, including posters, infographics, and photos with accurate text rendering.

3. Anam rolled out Cara-3, a real-time avatar model that turns any photo into an expressive, low-latency video. (Try the free demo.)

4. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code on Desktop can now preview your running apps, review your code with inline comments, and auto-fix errors before merging.

   2. Claude in PowerPoint is now also available on Pro plans and supports connectors to help you pull in context from third-party tools.

   3. Claude Sonnet 4.6 comes with upgrades to coding, agentic skills, reasoning, and design, as well as a 1M-token context window (in beta).

   4. Cowork launched on Windows with full feature parity, letting you automate multi-step desktop tasks with file access and plugin support.

5. ByteDance news:

   1. Seed 2.0 is a top-tier multimodal language model that handles text, images, video, and complex multi-step tasks.

   2. Seedance 2.0 is a best-in-class AI video model with native audio capable of complex choreography and multishot scenes.

6. Cursor launched a Plugin Marketplace with one-click installs for Notion, Figma, Neon, and other third-party apps.

7. Figma now lets you pull UI elements built with Claude Code into the Canvas and convert them into fully editable designs.

8. Google news:

   1. AI Overviews and AI Mode now provide on-hover link previews with more prominent icons, making it easier to jump straight to relevant websites.

   2. Gemini 3 Deep Think is a specialized reasoning mode for science, research, and engineering challenges. (Only for Gemini AI Ultra plans for now.)

   3. Gemini 3.1 Pro comes with doubled reasoning performance aimed at complex long-context tasks and practical applications.

   4. Lyria 3 lets you create 30-second music tracks from text or image prompts directly in the Gemini app, complete with lyrics and cover art.

   5. NotebookLM now lets you make revisions to its slide decks via simple prompts and export them to PowerPoint.

   6. Pomelli “Photoshoot” automatically turns product photos into studio-quality marketing assets using your brand’s colors and style.

9. KREA AI launched a Prompt-to-Workflow feature that auto-generates entire node setups from simple text instructions in Krea Nodes.

10. Manus now lets you access its agents via Telegram, so you can automate tasks on the go with full reasoning and tools.

11. Meta news:

    1. New “Animate” features let you animate your Facebook profile pictures, feeds, and more.

    2. Dear Algo lets Threads users tell the algorithm what content they want to see, adjusting their feeds accordingly for three days.

12. MiniMax open-sourced M2.5, a powerful coding and real-world productivity model that’s almost on par with top-tier competitors and significantly cheaper.

13. Moonshot AI launched Kimi Claw that lets you run OpenClaw AI agents in the cloud with access to 5,000+ community skills and 40GB storage.

14. NVIDIA now lets you set up OpenClaw AI agents for free locally on GeForce RTX and other consumer GPUs.

15. OpenAI news:

    1. Code Blocks in ChatGPT now let you preview and edit generated code more intuitively in split-screen or full-screen view without copy-pasting.

    2. GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark is an ultra-fast coding model running on Cerebras hardware at 1,000+ tokens per second. (Only for Pro plans for now.)

16. Replit launched Replit Animation that creates animated videos from text prompts without complex tooling or a learning curve.

17. Runway released an updated Story Panels workflow for building AI video sequences with consistent characters and scenes.

18. Tavus launched Phoenix-4, a real-time rendering model that creates emotionally aware AI avatars with realistic video and natural facial expressions.

19. WordPress introduced a built-in AI assistant that adjusts layouts, edits content, generates images, and translates text.

20. xAI is trialing Grok 4.2 in public beta with a rapid-learning architecture and weekly capability updates. (Select it manually in the dropdown.)

21. YouTube news:

    1. Conversational AI tool on smart TVs lets people tap “Ask” to get answers about the video without leaving the app. (In beta with a subset of users.)

    2. Personalized playlists let Premium users create an AI-curated playlist from an “idea, mood, or genre.”

22. z.ai released GLM-5, currently the best open-source reasoning model, almost on par with frontier models at a fraction of the cost. (Try it for free.)

🔬 AI research

1. Airbnb announced plans to add AI features for search, discovery, and customer support.

2. Apple’s iOS 26.4 adds CarPlay support for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, so you can ask questions hands-free while driving. (In beta with a release in spring.)

3. Pika introduced AI Selves, an AI version of you that can remember things and act on your behalf. (Which is in no way creepy or dystopian, shut up.)

4. Reddit is testing AI-powered shopping carousels in search that pull recommendations from real user discussions.

5. T-Mobile announced live AI call translation in 50+ languages, built directly into the network with no need for special hardware. (In beta for eligible US subscribers.)

🔀 AI random

1. OpenAI started testing ads in ChatGPT for free-tier users in the US.

2. The Vatican introduced AI-assisted live translation for Holy Mass in 60 languages.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Curling: You’re doing it wrong. (Somehow.)

💰 Sunday Bonus #90: Chat to my entire archive with a custom Gemini Gem

I’ve published over 300 posts on this newsletter.

That’s 3+ years of tool reviews, comparisons, guides, and opinions on just about everything AI-adjacent.

But good luck finding the exact answer you need right now.

My “Start Here” page is nice and all, but it can’t point you to my takes on a specific AI tool or give you tips on the fly.

Now that Google lets us hook up NotebookLM to Gemini, I built a custom Gemini Gem that has access to my entire, categorized post history.

You ask it a question, it answers based on what I’ve written and tested, and then links you to the most relevant posts:

Read more

I’m traveling with the family, so the next Rundown will be on February 22.

Happy Sunday, friends!

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 85+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. ACE Studio open-sourced ACE-Step v1.5, a music model that can create 4-minute songs in under 10 seconds in 50+ languages. (Try the demo.)

2. Adobe Firefly is offering unlimited AI image and video generation with all third-party partner models for paying subscribers until March 16.

3. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3-Coder-Next, a hybrid attention model optimized for coding agents and local development.

4. Amazon launched the Amazon Ads MCP Server, which lets different AI agents create and manage ad campaigns through a single integration.

5. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Cowork plugins let you bundle skills, connectors, slash commands, and sub-agents into complete packages for a given role or process.

   2. Claude in PowerPoint is an add-in that can generate and edit PowerPoint slides using your brand assets. Only for Max, Team, and Enterprise for now.

   3. Claude Opus 4.6 boasts improved agentic coding, a 1M-token context window, adaptive thinking, and agent teams for Claude Code.

6. ElevenLabs fully released Eleven v3, the cutting-edge TTS model that speaks 70+ languages and can use audio tags like [whisper] and [sigh].

7. Kling AI launched Kling 3.0 with superb character and element consistency, 15-second clips, and upgraded native audio.

8. Malwarebytes is now available inside ChatGPT, so you can check suspicious texts, emails, or URLs by typing “@Malwarebytes, is this a scam?”

9. Mistral AI open-sourced Voxtral Transcribe 2, an on-device speech-to-text model with sub-200ms latency that can transcribe 13 languages.

10. OpenAI news:

    1. Codex app for macOS lets you run multiple AI coding agents in parallel in a unified workspace with built-in worktrees and automated schedules.

    2. GPT-5.3-Codex is the company’s most capable agentic coding model that’s 25% faster, tops multiple benchmarks, and helped build itself.

11. Perplexity news:

    1. Deep Research is now powered by Claude Opus, returning better quality analysis and research from harder-to-reach sources.

    2. Model Council runs the same query in three separate models, then synthesizes a single answer. (Only for Max subscribers on the web so far.)

12. Roblox launched 4D generation in open beta, letting users create interactive 3D objects that can follow the players’ instructions.

13. Vercel rebuilt v0 so AI-generated apps can be shipped straight to production with proper GitHub workflows and real deployments.

14. WordPress released wp-playground, a skill that lets agents spin up WordPress installs to run, verify, and iterate on plugins and themes much faster.

15. xAI released Grok Imagine 1.0, with up to 10-second 720p video generation, expressive characters, and “dramatically better audio.”

📖 AI resources

1. Kaggle Game Arena [BENCHMARK]—watch AI models compete at games like chess, poker, and Werewolf with live leaderboards.

2. DeeVid Image to Video AI [TOOL]—a one-tap animation tool that turns a photo or multiple images into short clips with smooth camera transitions [sponsored]

3. DRACO [BENCHMARK]—an open-source benchmark by Perplexity to evaluate deep research agents (Deep Research Accuracy, Completeness, and Objectivity).

4. RentAHuman [MARKEPLACE]—an experimental platform that lets AI hire humans to perform physical tasks in the real world.

5. Sora Feed Philosophy [ARTICLE]—an interesting look into how OpenAI Sora’s recommendation algorithm balances creativity, safety, and personalization.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic’s series of Super Bowl ads poking fun at the idea of chatbot ads got OpenAI’s Sam Altman to pen a defensive response, sparking a bit of online drama.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Ouch…and you were so close! (Imagine that, Grok.)

💰 Sunday Bonus #89: 9 simple-yet-powerful Claude Code workflows for everyday users

In case it wasn’t blindingly obvious from my Claude Code Trilogy, I’m really digging Claude Code these days.

Back in January, I shared a swipe file with 100+ use cases and starter prompts.

But a list of applications for inspiration is one thing. Knowing exactly how to get started is another.

So today, I bring you The Claude Code Playbook: nine ready-to-use workflows designed for non-coders, complete with copy-paste prompts. Each one is easy to kick off but gives you something real: an organized folder, a working app, a redesigned process, and so on.

The first one is the “getting started” tip from my last article. The rest build on it:

The workflows cover everything from improving your existing processes to bulk-organizing files or turning raw data into interactive dashboards.

Have at it:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 80+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Airtable launched Superagent, a multi-agent AI that uses function calls to handle complex tasks and deliver polished answers.

2. Alibaba released Qwen3‑Max‑Thinking, a SOTA reasoning model with built-in tools for search, memory, and code execution.

3. Anthropic news:

   1. Contribution metrics in Claude Code let Team and Enterprise admins evaluate the impact of Claude-assisted PRs and commits via GitHub.

   2. Cowork Plugins let you customize Claude with bundled skills, connectors, and commands for specific roles and workflows.

   3. Interactive tools in Claude enable users to open and interact with apps like Asana, Slack, Figma, and more right inside the chat.

4. Apple updated Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro with new AI-powered tools to speed editing and music production.

5. Decart AI dropped Lucy 2, a real-time video model that redraws live scenes at 1080p with zero latency.

6. DeeVid launched AI Video & Image Agent, a chat-style assistant that turns briefs into finished videos and images, complete with a soundtrack and voiceover.

7. Genspark rolled out AI Workspace 2.0, with voice dictation input, autonomous email workflows, and upgraded AI creative agents.

8. Google news:

   1. GDP premium benefits are now bundled into AI Pro and AI Ultra plans, giving subscribers Google Cloud credits and integrated developer tools.

   2. Gemini 3 is now the default model for AI Overviews, and you can dive into AI Mode for follow-up chat right from Search.

   3. Gemini in Chrome got a major upgrade that uses Gemini 3 to navigate sites, fill forms, do comparison shopping, and complete multi‑step tasks.

   4. Gemini in Navigation is now also available for walking and cycling so that you can ask AI for routes, nearby spots, ETAs, and more while on foot or bike.

   5. Project Genie lets you create and explore infinite interactive worlds from text prompts. (Only for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US for now.)

9. InVideo launched AI Motion Graphics in cooperation with Anthropic, letting you generate pro‑level animated designs from a single prompt.

10. LM Studio dropped LM Studio 0.4.0, making it easier to run local AI models with a new chat API, faster responses, and a cleaner UI.

11. Luma AI dropped Ray3.14, generating native 1080p professional‑grade videos with stronger quality and motion consistency 4× faster and 3× cheaper.

12. Moonshot AI dropped Kimi K2.5, a new open‑source multimodal agentic model with vision, coding smarts, and a self‑directed agent swarm for parallel workflows.

13. OpenAI news:

    1. GPT‑4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and o4-mini will be retired on February 13, so you’ll need to switch to newer ChatGPT models.

    2. Prism is a free GPT‑5.2‑powered LaTeX editor that lets scientists write, cite, and collaborate in one AI-native workspace.

14. Suno AI launched Sample that turns any sound clip into a full song by trimming, styling, and remixing it with AI.

15. xAI launched Grok Imagine API, a video-audio creation and editing tool that turns text or images into cinematic clips with edit controls.

16. Yahoo released Scout, an AI-powered answer engine that uses Claude to synthesize information from the open web and Yahoo content.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. Anthropic partnered with the UK Government to pilot a Claude‑powered AI assistant on GOV.UK to help people navigate public services.

2. Meta teased agentic commerce tools that aim to automate shopping and business tasks across Meta products over the coming months.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools or stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “The Adolescence of Technology” [ESSAY]—musings on the maturation of artificial intelligence and AI risks by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

2. “Complete guide to building skills for Claude“ [PDF]—a comprehensive guide from Anthropic that covers workflows and best practices from early adopters.

3. “How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills“ [REPORT]—a look at how coding copilots affect performance and employee learning by Anthropic.

4. “Use of AI in the Workplace” [REPORT]—snapshot from Gallup of real-world AI use by US workers, including trends.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. NVIDIA open-sourced Earth‑2 open AI weather models that use AI to forecast storms and 15-day global weather faster and cheaper than legacy systems.

2. OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot, then Moltbot)—an open‑source AI assistant that automates tasks, has persistent memory, and lives in your messaging apps—became a viral hit…and sparked major security concerns.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

When you rebrand so often, your own search results don’t know even who you are anymore.

💰 Sunday Bonus #88: NotebookLM video walkthrough (+advanced tips and use cases)

Today’s bonus is the recording of my first official live Q&A session.

It’s a complete walkthrough of NotebookLM, from basic mechanics to lesser-known features and workflows.

I also include a neat reference sheet with all the key points covered in the video.

Enjoy:

Leave a comment

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search all 85+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Adobe news:

   1. Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Express now let you edit PDFs using natural-language prompts and turn them into presentations or podcasts.

   2. Adobe Premiere and After Effects added new AI tools for one-click masking, precise tracking, and collaborative storyboarding.

2. Alibaba open‑sourced its Qwen3‑TTS family of text‑to‑speech models for natural, expressive, multilingual speech, voice design, and voice cloning.

3. Anthropic expanded Claude in Excel to Pro plans, with drag-and-drop multi-file uploads, smarter cell protection, and longer chats.

4. FlashLabs open-sourced FlashLabs Chroma 1.0, a real-time spoken dialogue model capable of personalized voice cloning. (Try a demo here.)

5. Google news:

   1. Google Classroom now offers free practice SATs, new dashboards, and built-in audio/video recording to boost teaching and learning.

   2. Google Photos added a Me Meme feature that lets you star in your own AI-generated memes.

   3. Personal Intelligence lets AI Mode pull context from Gmail and Photos to deliver tailored answers. (Rolling out to US AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.)

6. KREA AI introduced Realtime Edit, which lets you edit images with complex instructions in real time. (Join the beta.)

7. Kyutai open-sourced Pocket TTS, a tiny model that can run on a laptop and turn text to speech in real time or clone voices from seconds of audio. (Try for free.)

8. LTX Studio launched Audio-to-Video that turns audio clips into videos with synced actions, consistent voices, and performance control.

9. Microsoft upgraded Notepad with streaming results for AI text and added a “Coloring Book” feature to Paint that turns prompts into coloring books.

10. Roboflow launched RF-DETR-Seg that lets you segment objects in a video in real time with just one click in the browser.

11. Runway released Gen-4.5 Image-to-Video for paid accounts, built for long-form storytelling with precise camera control and consistent characters.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. HeartMuLa open-sourced HeartMuLa, a family of music foundation models that can generate high-fidelity songs with lyrics in different styles. (Get the code.)

2. Notion is reportedly testing custom MCPs, background Workers, and computer use agents that can run tools and interact with file systems.

3. Spotify will expand Prompted Playlists to new markets, letting more users request AI-generated playlists from natural-language prompts.

4. YouTube outlined its AI strategy focused on tools for AI-generated Shorts, games, and music while adding safeguards and likeness protection against deepfakes.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools or stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “The Assistant Axis” [RESEARCH PAPER]: deep dive into mapping and stabilizing LLM personas by Anthropic.

2. “Claude’s new constitution” [REFERENCE]: Anthropic’s framework for how Claude reasons, sets boundaries, and aligns its behavior with human values.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. Anthropic partnered with Teach For All to grant 100,000 educators across 63 countries access to Claude tools and hands-on AI fluency programs.

2. ElevenLabs released The Eleven Album, a fully original, studio-quality music album created with real-world artists using its AI music model.

3. OpenAI news:

   1. Age prediction in ChatGPT will estimate a user’s age to protect minors while avoiding precise identification and reducing bias.

   2. Education for Countries is an initiative to help governments roll out AI in education with localized models, teacher training, and student access.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

“Oof, almost! Oof, almost again! You’ll get them next time!”

💰 Sunday Bonus #87: Extract insights from messy notes with "Note Decoder"

If you’re anything like me, you often take notes during meetings or brainstorming sessions that end up just…sitting there.

I jot stuff down with the best intentions but rarely get around to organizing them.

That’s where Note Decoder comes in!

This Claude artifact turns scribbles and half-baked notes into structured insights. Simply snap a photo and feed it to Note Decoder.

It can handle pretty much any input: handwritten notes on a paper napkin, whiteboard filled with post-its, doodles with cryptic labels, whatever.

Here’s what happens:

• Clean transcription: You get a copy-ready text version of your notes.

  

• Guided cleanup: The tool walks you through its interpretation and asks for clarifications (“WTF does ‘PX689 at 7 o’clock blue’ even mean, bro?”).

  

• Structured output: You get a nicely formatted page with key decisions, action items, and other outputs relevant to your notes and answers.

  

Note Decoder makes sure your notes become something actionable instead of gathering dust in a corner somewhere.

All you need is a free Claude account:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Search 85+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Anthropic introduced Cowork, an agent that can manipulate files and folders to autonomously handle real work. (Only for paid accounts and MacOS for now.)

2. Black Forest Labs released FLUX.2 [klein], an ultra-fast image model that combines generation and editing and can run on consumer GPUs.

3. ElevenLabs launched Scribe v2, a faster, more accurate speech-to-text model for transcribing long audio and multiple languages at scale.

4. Google news:

   1. NotebookLM can now create Data Tables from your notes and sources, structured and exportable to Google Sheets. (Paid-only for now.)

   2. Personal Intelligence lets Gemini use context from other Google products to provide more tailored and relevant responses. (In US-only beta for now.)

   3. TranslateGemma, a new suite of open translation models that work across 55 languages and can run efficiently on smaller personal devices.

   4. Trends Explore added a Gemini-powered side panel that help users quickly understand what’s driving spikes and shifts in interest.

   5. Veo 3.1 got an Ingredients to Video feature that combines multiple reference images and can now upscale videos to up to 4K.

5. Manus launched Meeting Minutes, which can record in-person conversations and turn them into summaries with key points and action items.

6. Microsoft news:

   1. New edu tools and programs provide educators with AI assistants, lesson-planning support, and training resources to personalize their teaching.

   2. OptiMind is a research model built to deliver fast, accurate solutions to complex planning and optimization tasks.

7. OpenAI expanded its low-cost ChatGPT Go subscription worldwide, with more messages, file uploads, and image generation than the free tier.

8. PixVerse released R1, a real-time video world model that understands physics and object permanence, letting it generate consistent motion. (Try it here.)

9. Replit introduced Mobile Apps on Replit, letting anyone publish a complete app to the App Store by simply describing what it should do.

10. Runway launched Story Panels, an app that turns a single character or product image into a three-panel visual story.

11. Z.ai open-sourced GLM-Image, an image model that excels at precise text rendering and knowledge-rich visuals.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. DeepSeek released a paper on Engram, a module that separates long-term memory from reasoning to reduce compute costs without sacrificing performance.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools or stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. Anthropic Economic Index [REPORT]—metrics and data on how Claude is used across work, education, and personal tasks.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. Apple partnered with Google to use its Gemini models to power the next generation of Apple Intelligence, including a more personalized Siri.

2. OpenAI will soon start testing ads in ChatGPT for Free and Go tiers in the US. (Paid plans from Plus and above will stay ad-free.)

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

ChatGPT turned my Claude Code article into a movie poster. Maybe a win?

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #86: 100+ use cases & prompts for Claude Code (swipe file)

Now that I explained how to set up Claude Code on your computer, the next logical step is figuring out what to use it for.

So today’s Sunday Bonus is a curated swipe file with 100+ use cases for Claude Code.

It proudly joins all my other swipe files:

• 90+ use cases for GPT-4o image generation

• 45+ practical use cases for o3

• 40+ use cases for Claude 4

• 72 use cases for Nano Banana

• 100+ use cases & prompts for Gemini 3 Pro

• 100+ use cases & prompts for Nano Banana Pro

Each use case comes with a basic starter prompt that you can one-click copy and modify based on your needs:

Enjoy!

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for paid subscribers.

Search 80+ Sunday Bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3-VL-Embedding and Qwen3-VL-Reranker, which help find and rank information across text, images, screenshots, and video.

2. Google is rolling out Gemini inside Gmail with tools that summarize emails, suggest and improve replies, and highlight what matters most in your inbox.

3. Lightricks open-sourced its LTX-2 video model with native audio, so you can download the weights and code and run it offline. (Get the model here.)

4. Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Checkout that lets shoppers buy items without leaving the chat, starting in the US.

5. NVIDIA news:

   1. Nemotron RAG models make it easier to extract accurate information from text, images, audio, and video.

   2. Nemotron Speech ASR lets you build low-latency transcription and voice agents with open models.

6. Nous Research released NousCoder-14B that builds on Qwen3-14B to deliver better competitive programming performance. (Get the model.)

7. TII open-sourced Falcon-H1R-7B, a compact reasoning model that delivers strong step-by-step thinking at lower cost. (Try on Hugging Face.)

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. DeepSeek is preparing to release DeepSeek V4, rumored to outperform existing top-tier models on coding tasks.

2. OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health that grounds your chats in data from medical records and wellness apps. (Join the waitlist.)

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools or stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “AI Models” [DATABASE]—comprehensive database breaking down factors behind machine learning progress across 3,200 tracked models by Epoch AI.

2. “How Consumer Industries Are Adopting AI: Key Survey Insights” [SURVEY]—research summary from Ropes & Gray.

3. “State of AI in Retail and CPG” [REPORT]—NVIDIA’s annual survey on AI adoption.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. X restricted Grok image generation to paid subscribers after backlash over non-consensual sexualized images.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #85: Fix any prompt with “Prompt Medic”

The “Image Prompt Cleaner” GPT is one of my most popular Sunday Bonuses. It automatically fixes confusing and overstuffed image prompts based on my “splatterprompting” insights and industry best practices.

It’s…pretty great.

But recently I thought: “Why just image prompts? And why just a chat-based GPT?”

So I went ahead and created "Prompt Medic,” a neat Claude Artifact that takes your prompt, categorizes it, automatically applies relevant best practices, and spits out an optimized version.

Like any fancy diagnostics tool, Prompt Medic gives you a neat count of solved issues in addition to the optimized prompt itself:

From here, you can simply one-click copy the new prompt and use it as is.

But if you’re feeling nerdy, Prompt Medic gives you a comprehensive overview of changes and feedback to learn from.

While Image Prompt Cleaner is still excellent for fixing image prompts, think of Prompt Medic as your new Swiss Army Knife for all kinds of requests.

I’m really happy with how it turned out, and I’d love to hear your feedback once you get to test it. All you need is a free Claude account.

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Alibaba news:

   1. Qwen Code v0.6.0 introduced new commands, an experimental “skills” feature, and multi-provider support.

   2. Qwen-Image-2512 is an image model that generates better faces, finer details, and cleaner text in images and slides. (Try on Qwen Chat.)

   3. Qwen-Image-Edit-2511 can edit images with better identity consistency and has built-in support for LoRA styles. (Try on Qwen Chat.)

   4. Qwen3‑TTS‑VC‑Flash and VoiceDesign‑VD‑Flash let you clone a voice from three seconds of audio or craft custom voices from text prompts.

2. Liquid AI released LFM2-2.6B-Exp, a small language model that beats much larger ones at following instructions and basic math. (Try here.)

3. MiniMax open-sourced M2.1, tuned for real-world coding and agent workflows with faster, more concise responses and stronger tool support. (Try here.)

4. OpenAI added new “Personalization” settings in ChatGPT so you can fine-tune traits like warmth, enthusiasm, and emoji use.

5. Tencent open-sourced HY-Motion 1.0, a model that turns text prompts into high-quality 3D animations for games and film. (Try on Hugging Face.)

6. Z.ai released GLM-4.7, boasting improved agentic coding and terminal tasks while generating cleaner web UIs and slides.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. YouTube is trialing Playables Builder, which lets creators make and publish simple playable games without coding. In closed beta (apply here).

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “Top Frontier Models by Modality 2025” [REFERENCE]—a Twitter thread round-up from LM Arena.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week—acquisitions and partnerships galore:

1. Adobe partnered with Runway to integrate its generative video models into Adobe’s creative tools for faster AI-powered video creation.

2. Groq struck a deal with NVIDIA to license its inference tech to speed up and scale AI model serving worldwide.

3. Manus joined Meta to help build the next era of innovation in spatial computing and immersive tech.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #84: Find relevant Sunday Bonus entries faster with a new directory

New year, new Sunday Bonus page.

To date, I've published over 80 Sunday Bonus entries, including the 15 original “Sunday Showdowns” with AI tips.

But having this much bonus content has become a bit of an issue: It’s increasingly tricky to navigate the page and discover relevant older entries. The current “one long bullet list of titles” approach doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

So I vibe-coded a better directory with the help of my friends ChatGPT and Gemini.

It’s now much easier to sort, filter, and search the library of Sunday Bonuses to find what you’re after.

Test it out here:

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

Note: If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

As we all head into the holidays, I’m winding down for the year. This is my last Sunday Rundown of 2025.

Thank you for following along, and I’ll make sure to keep you up to speed in 2026.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

You’d think things would be slowing down, but no—this is perhaps the most launch-packed week we’ve had this year.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Adobe news:

   1. Firefly has been upgraded with a precise prompt-based editor, camera controls, new partner models, plus free credits until Jan 15. (Try here.)

   2. Generate Presentation is a new feature that turns ideas or docs into polished slide decks with customizable templates, outlines, and easy edits.

2. Alibaba news:

   1. Qwen Code v0.5.0 comes with VS Code integration, a TypeScript SDK, and broader support for OpenAI-compatible reasoning models.

   2. Qwen-Image-Layered is an open-source diffusion model that breaks images down into editable RGBA layers so you can tweak them independently.

   3. Wan 2.6 is the newest video model with native audio, better lip sync, camera controls, and multi-image reference. (Try here.)

3. Black Forest Labs launched FLUX.2 [max], its most powerful image generation and editing model, capable of handling up to 10 reference images. (Try here.)

4. Google news:

   1. Deep Research can now generate Visual Reports that supplement text with charts, images, and structured layouts. (Google AI Ultra accounts only.)

   2. FunctionGemma is a function-calling model designed to reliably turn natural language into structured calls for tools and APIs.

   3. Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio is now better at conversations and following complex instructions, and comes with live speech-to-speech translation.

   4. Gemini 3 Flash is a super-fast, capable, cost-effective model that’s now the default in the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search, and available via API.

   5. Google Translate got Gemini-powered upgrades and now offers more natural text translations plus language practice tools.

   6. NotebookLM can now turn messy notes and sources into structured, exportable Data Tables to simplify research and analysis.

   7. T5Gemma 2 is a next-gen encoder-decoder model family with long context plus multimodal and multilingual capabilities.

5. Kling AI news:

   1. VIDEO 2.6 Motion Control gives creators precise control over character movements using reference images and video clips.

   2. VIDEO 2.6 Voice Control lets you match custom voices to characters for more realistic, multi-language dialogue.

6. Luma AI’s new Ray3 Modify lets you edit anything in a video, including character swaps, relighting, direct edits using keyframes, and more. (Try here.)

7. Manus released 1.6 Max, a smarter agent with higher task success, better capabilities, mobile app support, and a visual design editor. (Try here.)

8. Meta introduced SAM Audio that lets you isolate any sound in a video using text, visual, or time-based prompts. (Try here.)

9. Microsoft released TRELLIS.2-4B, a 3D generative model that turns a single image into textured assets in high resolution. (Try on Hugging Face.)

10. Mistral AI released OCR 3 that can accurately extract structured text from complex scanned documents, forms, and handwriting.

11. NVIDIA open-sourced Nemotron 3, a family of models designed for efficient, long-horizon agentic AI tasks with full access to weights, data, and tools.

12. OpenAI news:

    1. Branched Chats are now also available on iOS and Android.

    2. GPT‑Image-1.5 is a top-tier image model with better prompt following and text rendering, available in the API and a dedicated ChatGPT Images space.

    3. OpenAI released GPT-5.2-Codex, its best agentic coding model thus far with better long-horizon planning, refactoring, and cybersecurity skills.

13. Xiaomi open-sourced MiMo-V2-Flash, an ultra-fast foundation model designed for reasoning, coding, and long-running agent workflows. (Try here.)

14. Zoom rolled out AI Companion 3.0 that turns online meetings into actionable summaries, briefs, and automated follow-ups across Zoom, Drive, and Slack.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. ByteDance Seed introduced Seedance 1.5 pro that generates video with native synced audio plus multilingual lip sync and cinematic camera controls.

2. Google has an experimental CC agent that connects to Gmail, Drive, and Calendar and emails you tailored daily briefings. (Join the waitlist.)

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “New Gemini + The ‘Proto-AGI’” [VIDEO] - a great episode of AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. OpenAI now lets developers submit ChatGPT apps for review and may feature them in a new in-app directory.

2. xAI launched Grok Voice Agent API that lets developers build ultrafast, multilingual voice agents with access to tools and real-time search.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #83: Get one-click insights from any video meeting

This week, I turned one of my earliest Sunday Bonus guides into a handy Opal app called Meeting Mind.

Simply upload a recorded meeting (or drop in a YouTube link), and the app automatically runs it through every analysis step from the guide, plus a few new ones I’ve added.

Meeting Mind goes beyond basic meeting minutes and action items. It also looks at intangibles like group dynamics, conversation flow, points of friction, tangents, etc..

The result is a clean, structured page with takeaways and actionable recommendations for future meetings.

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

Note: If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Adobe launched Acrobat, Express, and Photoshop for free inside ChatGPT, so you can create and edit images and documents using natural language.

2. Alibaba news:

   1. Qwen Code v0.3.0 is a major update with streaming JSON input/output, easy English/Chinese switching, and a bunch of stability fixes.

   2. Qwen3-Omni-Flash is now better at audio-visual conversations, multilingual compliance, and human-like speech with fully customizable system prompts.

3. Cursor launched a Visual Editor in the Cursor Browser so you can make visual UI edits, drag-and-drop elements, adjust sliders, tweak styles, etc.

4. DiffSynth-Studio dropped Qwen-Image-i2L, which turns one image into a custom LoRA (low-rank adaptation) to copy its style.

5. Google integrated Gemini 3 into its experimental design tool Stitch, so you can generate high-quality UI and “stitch” screens together into working prototypes.

6. Mistral AI open-sourced a coding model Devstral 2 and a Mistral Vibe CLI command-line tool that automates coding tasks from natural language prompts.

7. OpenAI is rolling out GPT-5.2, with strong performance in coding, science, vision, tool use, and long-context understanding for professional knowledge work.

8. Orchids launched a coding IDE that can see your screen and hear your voice instructions as it builds apps from simple requests.

9. Z.ai open-sourced GLM-4.6V, a multimodal model with native tool use that can process image and video inputs.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. Google is working on a GenTabs feature in Google Labs that turns your open tabs and chats into interactive web apps. (Join the US-only waitlist.)

2. OpenAI is rumored to be testing new Image-2 models spotted on LM Arena, showing early boosts in detail and realism.

3. Runway announced GWM-1, a trio of general world models built on its Gen-4.5 video model and designed to simulate and interact with the real world.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “ChatGPT Foundations for Teachers” [COURSE]—free Coursera offer by Open AI.

2. “The state of enterprise AI” [PDF REPORT]—findings from a survey of 9,000 workers in 100 enterprises by OpenAI.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. Anthropic donated its Model Context Protocol (MCP) to the new Agentic AI Foundation as an open standard for connecting AI models with tools and data.

2. Disney and OpenAI signed an agreement that officially lets Sora 2 users create videos with 200+ characters (Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars).

3. McDonald’s pissed off the entire Internet with a lazy AI-slop ad that should have probably been the true AI fail of the week.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰Sunday Bonus #82: 11 Nano Banana Pro infographic styles and how to use them

Google’s Nano Banana Pro can do a lot of things. Just two weeks ago, I shared more than 100 possible use cases for it.

One thing Nano Banana Pro does exceptionally well is creating infographics. Simply asking for “an infographic about [BLANK]” will typically spit out a polished result.

But you can get way more control by specifying the visual aesthetic/style of the infographic. They all have their strengths and are individually well-suited for certain topics.

Below, I’ll share 11 infographic styles, a comparison table with copy-paste starter prompts, and Nano Banana Pro outputs that showcase each style.

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

Note: If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Amazon news:

   1. Frontier Agents is a suite of three autonomous agents like Kiro that can code and triage with minimal supervision.

   2. Nova 2 is a multimodal model family, along with Nova Forge to train custom versions and Nova Act for building and managing AI agents.

2. Anthropic introduced Claude for Nonprofits, granting them a 75% discount on AI usage, connectors to popular nonprofit tools, and a free “AI Fluency” course.

3. ByteDance launched Seedream 4.5, an image model with better subject consistency and small text rendering.

4. DeepSeek open-sourced V3.2 and V3.2-Speciale: two reasoning models built for agentic tool use.

5. Google news:

   1. Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro in AI Mode expanded to nearly 120 countries, unlocking better reasoning and multimodal answers.

   2. Gemini 3 Deep Think is a stronger reasoning mode for Google AI Ultra users that handles tough math, science, and logic problems.

   3. Workspace Studio gives business users a no-code way to build Gemini‑powered agents that automate work across Google products.

6. Kinetix launched Kamo‑1 in open beta, a video model that lets you control both full-body motion and camera movement for cinematic results. (Try it here.)

7. Kling AI news (omni launch week):

   1. Avatar 2.0, a talking character model that supports up to 5-minute videos with more accurate gestures and facial expressions.

   2. Image O1 image model can seamlessly blend up to 10 reference images, make edits based on simple commands, and mimic styles.

   3. Video 2.6 is the company’s first native video model that generates sound effects and dialogue to go with the video.

   4. Video O1 is a multimodal video model and platform that lets you generate and make precise edits to existing clips via simple commands.

8. KREA AI launched Node App Builder that turns your visual workflows into simple apps for others to use.

9. Mistral AI open-sourced Mistral 3, a family of multimodal models including Mistral Large 3 that boasts top-tier multilingual and reasoning performance.

10. OpenAGI launched Lux, a foundation computer‑use model that performs well on real-world, web-based tasks according to the Mind2Web benchmark.

11. Runway released Gen‑4.5, a new text‑to‑video model that promises SOTA motion quality, prompt adherence, and visual fidelity.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. Apple is working on STARFlow‑V, a normalizing flow‑based video model that matches diffusion models in quality.

2. OpenAI is reportedly working on a new model codenamed “Garlic” to regain its lead in reasoning and other benchmarks. (Possibly to launch as GPT-5.2?)

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “How AI is transforming work at Anthropic” [ARTICLE]—real-world insights based on a survey of 132 Anthropic engineers.

2. “What 1,250 professionals told us about working with AI” [TOOL & STUDY]—findings from Anthropic’s new “Interviewer” project about people’s use of AI.

🔀 AI random

Other notable AI stories of the week:

1. OpenAI was rumored to be gearing up to introduce ads on ChatGPT but reportedly scrapped those plans due to “code red” over Google’s lead.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #81: Turn a product image + description into a full marketing kit

This week, I wanted to push my go-to Google Opal app maker by creating someting that calls on most of its features.

The result is Product Marketer, a tool that takes your product image and description and generates a marketing kit, complete with:

• Product copy

• List of key selling points / benefits (bullet list)

• Taglines and slogan ideas

• Social media post ideas

• Marketing campaign ideas

• Visuals for a product / lifestyle shot

• Short video teaser for the product

It should go without saying that no AI tool will ever give you ready-to-go marketing collateral from scratch, but Product Marketer is a solid way to get some inspiration and overcome the “blank page” problem.

Read more

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

Note: If you’re consistently missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. Alibaba open-sourced Z-Image, a fast text-to-image model with bilingual text support and excelling at photographic images.

2. Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.5, which tops coding and agentic tool use benchmarks while being more aligned and resistant to prompt injection.

3. Black Forest Labs open-sourced FLUX 2, an image model that writes complex text, maintains character consistency, and outputs in 4MP resolution.

4. Character.AI debuted Stories, letting anyone craft choose-your-own AI adventures featuring their favorite characters.

5. Google news:

   • Agentic Calling lets US customers ask Google to call local businesses on their behalf to gather information about availability, pricing, and more.

   • Nano Banana Pro is now built into Workspace tools like Slides, Vids, and NotebookLM, helping you create infographics, visuals, and slide decks.

6. LTXStudio rolled out Retake, a feature that lets creators rewrite dialogue or tweak a shot in an AI video without having to regenerate it from scratch.

7. Microsoft open-sourced Fara-7B, a compact agentic model tuned for real-world web tasks and computer use.

8. OpenAI news:

   • Improved Voice Interface in ChatGPT means you can now use voice chat while viewing the transcript and visual results in the chat window.

   • Shopping Research crafts a personalized “Buyer’s Guide” from your request directly inside ChatGPT.

9. Perplexity news:

   • Assistants with Memory can remember your preferences across chats and lean on this history to provide more relevant, tailored responses.

   • New Shopping experience can have the AI assistant find the right product for your needs and lets you complete purchases with one click.

10. Tencent open-sourced HunyuanVideo‑1.5, a model that creates high‑quality, smooth videos from text or images.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “Estimating AI productivity gains from Claude conversations” [STUDY]—Anthropic’s research into measuring Claude’s impact on productivity.

2. “HumaneBench” [REFERENCE]—a benchmark measuring the steerability and “humaneness” of AI models.

3. “The Thinking Game” [DOCUMENTARY]—a great look at Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the journey toward building AGI.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #80: 100+ use cases & prompts for Nano Banana Pro (swipe file)

Google’s been shipping like crazy lately.

So hot on the heels of last week’s Gemini 3 swipe file, I now also have one for the awesome Nano Banana Pro. Google’s new image model can do crazy stuff like fully fleshed-out infographics with accurate text and much more.

Today’s swipe file adds to this growing list:

• 90+ use cases for GPT-4o image generation

• 45+ practical use cases for o3

• 40+ use cases for Claude 4

• 72 use cases for Nano Banana

• 100+ use cases & prompts for Gemini 3 Pro

There are 103 use cases across 7 categories, with an additional filter to separate image creation from image editing/remixing use cases:

Read more

🎉Today is November 23, which happens to be my birthday! To celebrate, I’ve unlocked “The Skeptical Writer’s Guide to AI” from my archive. Enjoy!🎉

Welcome back to the weekly look at generative AI that covers the following:

• Sunday Rundown (free): this week’s AI news + a fun AI fail.

• Sunday Bonus (paid): an exclusive segment for my paid subscribers.

Every Sunday Bonus Ever

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

Note: If you’re regularly missing out on my emails, remember to check your “Promotions” tab and mark whytryai@substack.com as a “Safe Sender.”

Let’s get to it.

🗞️ AI news

Here are this week’s AI developments.

👩‍💻 AI releases

New stuff you can try right now:

1. AI2 open-sourced Olmo 3, a model family that makes every training step traceable, which helps anyone looking to build or improve their own models.

2. Amazon launched Video Recaps on Prime Video: AI-generated highlight reels that summarize past seasons with narration, dialogue, and music.

3. ElevenLabs introduced Image & Video (Beta) to let you create images, audio, and video within a single platform. (Try it here.)

4. Genspark launched AI Workspace, an agentic space that completes complex tasks—from slide decks to entire apps—from simple prompts.

5. Google news:

   1. Antigravity is an agentic development platform where you can orchestrate agents to plan, code, and verify tasks in your editor, terminal, and browser.

   2. Gemini 3 is the world’s best large language model, with top-tier reasoning, multimodal, and agentic coding skills. (It also proves you don’t need hype.)

   3. Gemini app now lets you verify if an uploaded image was made by Google AI by parsing the invisible SynthID’s watermark

   4. Google Search added Canvas in AI Mode that lets you plan trips with real-time flight data, hotels, maps, and booking links by simply prompting.

   5. Google Vids expanded Gemini features like AI voiceovers and transcript trimming to all Gmail users.

   6. Nano Banana Pro is a SOTA image model that excels at rendering text, editing visuals, and grounding results in real-world info. (Try it here.)

   7. Scholar Labs helps break down complex research questions and find relevant academic papers. (Try it here.)

6. Manus released Browser Operator, a browser extension that runs Manus AI directly in your logged-in browser without additional authentication.

7. Meta news:

   • Segment Anything Model 3 (SAM 3) can segment and track objects in images or videos based on text or visual prompts. (Try in Playground.)

   • SAM 3D turns image into accurate 3D reconstructions of objects and people, complete with shape, texture, and pose. (Try in Playground.)

8. Microsoft news:

   • Agent 365 is a “control plane” that helps IT manage and secure AI agents across a company’s suite of Microsoft products.

   • Copilot Actions in Windows 11 let an AI agent complete desktop tasks like organizing files or converting PDFs in an isolated environment.

   • Excel, PowerPoint, and Word agents in Copilot can generate full spreadsheets, slides, and docs, grounded in enterprise data.

9. Midjourney news:

   • Style Creator lets you discover new aesthetics without prompts, relying primarily on visual grids.

   • Profiles give users a customizable space to show off their creations.

10. OpenAI news:

    • ChatGPT for K-12 Teachers is a free AI workspace that helps K–12 educators plan lessons, create study materials, and more. (US-only for now.)

    • GPT-5.1-Codex-Max is a frontier agentic coding model that can refactor entire projects and debug for hours while spending fewer tokens.

    • Group chats in ChatGPT let you bring family, friends, and coworkers into shared conversations to work, plan, and make shared decisions.

11. Perplexity news:

    • The AI shopping agent is now free for US customers, with one-click buying and the ability to recall past chats.

    • Asset creation tools let Pro and Max users create slides, sheets, and docs directly inside search.

    • Comet for Android brings the AI-native browser to your smartphone, including tab summarization, voice chat, and a built-in ad blocker.

12. Quora rolled out group chats for Poe, letting up to 200 people work together with any available AI model in a single conversation.

13. Replit launched Design Mode (powered by Gemini 3) that turns your ideas into interactive mockups or websites in minutes.

14. TikTok now uses invisible watermarks to label AI-made videos and lets users control how much AI content shows up in their feeds.

15. TwelveLabs brought video intelligence features into Frame.io, letting creatives find specific video shots, auto-tag scenes, and flag compliance issues.

16. xAI released Grok 4.1, with better emotional intelligence, improved creative writing skills, and fewer hallucinations.

🔬 AI research

Cool stuff you might get to try one day:

1. CraftStory announced Model 2.0, a video model that can create up to 5‑minute long studio-quality videos from one image and a script. (Sign up for early access.)

2. Google news:

   1. Gemini 3 Deep Think will boost Gemini’s reasoning and multimodal skills to tackle harder problems with code execution and deeper logic.

   2. Generative UI will let Gemini craft interactive tools and experiences from a prompt directly inside Search and the Gemini app.

3. Meta unveiled WorldGen, a system that turns text prompts into fully interactive 3D worlds compatible with game engines like Unity and Unreal.

📖 AI resources

Helpful AI tools and stuff that teaches you about AI:

1. “AnyLanguageModel” [TOOL]—a Swift tool from Hugging Face that lets developers easily run any local or cloud LLM with a single code tweak.

2. “Google for Education” [REFERENCE]—a collection of Google’s AI-focused courses and certifications for students, educators, and administrators.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Send me your AI fail for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Sunday Rundown.

💰 Sunday Bonus #79: 100+ use cases & prompts for Gemini 3 Pro (swipe file)

Today’s bonus is a bit of a meta exercise.

I got Gemini 3 Pro to pull together and create an interactive swipe file of use cases for itself. It joins the ranks of my other popular swipe files:

• 90+ use cases for GPT-4o image generation (swipe file)

• 45+ practical use cases for o3 (swipe file)

• 40+ use cases for Claude 4 (swipe file)

• 72 use cases for Nano Banana (swipe file)

There are 111 use cases in 9 filterable categories:

Read more