Welcome, to all of our new readers! We add subscribers each week, but over the past week, we’ve had a bit of a jump – so worth saying, officially, welcome!
This is no doubt a sign of how fast the AI industry is accelerating. You can’t avoid it – in fact, as you’ll see in our first section, we may be drowning in it as everyone is introducing a new AI something.
So what do we do? How do we keep our heads above water? By doing what we always do … staying informed, looking at the big picture and not losing sight of what this means to you. Remember, my goal is to help you apply this technology and knowledge to your personal goals. How can you use this technology to get ahead? Create separation. And be the expert voice in your industry, your company and your circles. Our mission remains the same despite how cluttered and noisy it is out there (or snowy, as I look out my window in Kent, Ohio).
We’re in this together. And we are IN IT now. (Side note: make sure you see my final thought today … it’s a little mind-blowing.)
Story 1: Will GPT-5 make us think alike?
According to Shelly Palmer, GPT-5 poses a real threat to our ability to think differently. From his essay:
“If everyone starts thinking in AI-assisted patterns—especially if the AI favors certain viewpoints, optimizes for engagement over truth, or reflects a particular corporate or ideological bias—we risk losing intellectual friction.
Orwell called this crimestop—the ability to instinctively shut down any line of thinking that contradicts the dominant ideology. In 1984, he described it as “the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought.” If AI subtly reinforces its own logic over time, the real danger isn’t just groupthink—it’s that we may forget how to think differently at all.”
Story 2: Everyone is using AI agents. But no one is using AI agents.
Just read the story … it will make sense. (WSJ)
Story 3: Although … now Snowflake is here. Which puts the AI agents right in the data environment. (VentureBeat)
No offense to Snowflake, the company … but I’m from Northeast Ohio, and we’re just a little tired of these snowflakes…
Story 4: Here is a deeper look at the security risks of AI agents
“The AI agent dilemma no one saw coming.” (Venture Beat)
Story 5: Perplexity Deep Research is here.
Is anyone else starting to feel like there are too many AI tools? I miss the days of Mac v. PC.
Story 6: Ho-hum Grok 3 is here. (Reuters)
Too many! It’s too … many!!!
Story 7: Aaaaaand another one: Mira Murati announces Thinking Machines Lab. (The Verge)
We’ve entered pumpkin spice territory.
Story 1: OpenAI will soon make o3 DeepResearch available 2x a month to free users and 10x a month to Plus users. (VentureBeat)
All together now … Thank you, Mr. Altman.
Story 2: Anthropic is going to make Claude smarter as it plans a reasoning model soon. (The Information)
Story 3: Adobe’s AI video generator is now available for everyone (The Verge)
Story 4: AI pin maker, Humane, is shutting down and selling assets to HP. (Axios)
Story 5: Fiverr wants gig workers to use its Gen AI tools for training purposes. (TechCrunch)
Wait a sec … something seems fishy about that.
Story 6: When AI thinks it will lose … it cheats.
That’s it! We’ve officially passed the Turing Test. (TIME)
Story 7: OpenAI tops 400M users.
Up 33% over December. (CNBC)
Story 1: The New York Times has announced an internal AI tool. (Semafor)
It’s called Echo and is going to be available to everyone in the newsroom. In a memo, The New York Times introduced it to employees, specifically stating:
“The paper encouraged editorial staff to use these AI tools to generate SEO headlines, summaries, and audience promos; suggest edits; brainstorm questions and ideas and ask questions about reporters’ own documents; engage in research; and analyze the Times’ own documents and images. In a training video shared with staff, the Times suggested using AI to come up with questions to ask the CEO of a startup during an interview. Times guidelines also said it could use AI to develop news quizzes, social copy, quote cards, and FAQs.”
I would share how I feel about this … but I’m not sure how I feel about this. Ya got me, AI … I’m not sure how to process this one. (Which is why it’s in this section.)
Story 2: Your AI cheat sheet – capturing all the latest updates into one visual overview.
Want the visual version of me … i.e., someone who aggregates the news and visualizes it for easy consumption? Conor Grennan is your guy.
Sometimes you and your ‘co-workers’ don’t see eye-to-eye.
I’m in the middle of a little tiff with Gemini at the moment. I’m trying to create a framework for our teams to use with clients that reflects the impact of policies being introduced by the new presidential administration. I’ve been using Gen AI to help me stay organized and supplement.
Now, if you’ve been reading this, Ben Thinking, or just know me in general … I try like hell to avoid politics. For 25 years, my company and our clients have operated through many different administrations. I’m just trying to do my best to learn and apply so our clients can feel confident that we’re watching these trends for them. But, apparently … Gemini feels any simple fact is too political. Because it seems the word ‘Trump’ … anywhere, in the prompt or the materials shared … is a no-no with Gemini.
So I pushed back a bit…
So after debating what history can be discussed and what can’t (why can you talk about, say, wars but not a presidential administration?) I went a different route.
At this point, I’m like, ‘I’ve got stuff to do’ … but before I go … just to make sure I’m not completely missing the point … I asked one final question:
Lesson learned? I’m not sure, really. I guess as much freedom and opportunity that comes with AI, we are still limited to what others want us (or don’t want us) to see or deem as something we shouldn’t see. I’m still unpacking this one.
Keep being the human in the loop!
Thanks for reading.
-Ben
As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.