Future Tools AI hits pause ⏸️ YC’s latest Demo Day felt like science fiction, featuring startups working on floating nuclear data centers, brain-cell-powered compute, and home humanoids. Matt observes that pitches have shifted from simple software improvements to ambitious projects that could either save civilization or drastically alter it.
Matt's POV
You’re Probably Using ChatGPT Wrong
Most people use ChatGPT as a search bar, but its real value is in analysis, simulation, and troubleshooting. It can explain complex concepts, role-play scenarios, and build custom solutions. By moving beyond simple questions, users can transform the tool into a versatile system for automating daily manual tasks.
My POV
The text box is just an interface for a system capable of research and action; the real goal is identifying manual tasks that no longer require human intervention.
AI News
Microsoft Publishes Humanist AI Code
Microsoft introduced a "humanist AI code of conduct" stating that humans must remain superior to AI. This follows warnings from Anthropic and OpenAI CEOs about development speed. The code rejects AI personhood and mandates that models remain subordinate, understandable, and easy to shut down to ensure human control.
The bigger picture
AI safety is now a primary concern for major labs, raising the question of whether competing companies can effectively self-police while racing toward superintelligence.
Apple Releases Redesigned Siri AI
Apple launched iOS 27 with a redesigned Siri assistant that is more conversational and integrated into the OS. It can pull data from messages, take actions across apps, and answer on-screen questions. Apple is emphasizing privacy through on-device processing and its new Private Cloud Compute infrastructure.
The bigger picture
While Apple appeared late to the AI race, its control over hardware and personal data could make Siri the most practical everyday AI tool for consumers.
Amazing Future Tools
Linkly AI
A local-first document search engine built for AI agents that indexes files on your device for private searching and reading.
Click here to try
OpenCodeReview
An AI-powered code review CLI tool that combines engineering pipelines with LLM agents to deliver precise, line-level review comments.
Check it out
Everything Else
- Google launches Gemini 3.8 Live and Extended Thinking, its latest voice AI models for real-time conversations and complex reasoning.
- Anthropic launches Salesforce in Claude with 37 built-in skills for account research, call prep, pipeline reviews, and CRM updates.
- Meta rolls out Meta One, a new subscription lineup spanning Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Meta AI starting at $2.99 per month.
- OpenAI is in talks for a funding round that could raise its valuation to $1.2 trillion.
- Sakana AI upgrades Marlin with interactive report reading and editable PowerPoint exports for AI-generated research.
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes President Trump’s call onstage at the All-In Summit, where Trump rejects concerns that AI-powered robots will take over.
Videos to Watch
ChatGPT Drew Me In Minecraft
Matt gives ChatGPT Astra control of Minecraft and tells it to build a portrait of him.
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Marketing Brew ☕ Map quest It’s Wednesday, and you have two weeks left to secure your spot at the Marketing Brew Summit. Join leaders from Netflix, Reddit, and Liberty Mutual to discover what’s actually driving results before the "I’ll do it later" plan backfires.
SPORTS MARKETING — On the ground
Mondelēz International is evolving its sports marketing strategy by shifting focus toward regional partnerships. Following the World Cup, the owner of Oreo and Ritz announced new deals with the Kansas City Chiefs and five NCAA programs. This "bespoke, at-scale" approach aims to connect with fans based on their specific "mood states" during games, satisfying both retailer expectations and fan desires for localized communication. By cutting through at a regional level while maintaining national frequency, Mondelēz hopes to deepen its engagement across its massive global portfolio. Continue reading here
AD TECH & PROGRAMMATIC — Speaking my language
As automated traffic grows faster than human activity, brands are shifting focus toward advertising directly to AI agents. With consumers increasingly using these agents for shopping, publishers like Time magazine are exploring "Agent Ads"—formats specifically designed to be readable by bots. This strategy aims to capitalize on high-conversion AI referrals and ensure that AI models provide accurate brand information. By engaging directly with agentic infrastructure, companies hope to influence how they are perceived by the algorithms that are beginning to dominate the consumer funnel. Read more here
DATA & TECH — Value-seekers
Retailers are struggling to keep pace with consumers who increasingly prioritize "strong value" over simple affordability. According to BCG, quality is the primary driver of value satisfaction, though priorities shift toward brand connection or volume depending on the product category. Many shoppers report feeling overwhelmed by information, leading them to trust AI recommendations over traditional advertisements. Currently, nearly a third of consumers use AI while shopping, and a significant majority of frequent users follow through on the products AI suggests, highlighting a shift in how trust is established. Read more on Retail Brew
French Press
- On the job: Learn how to build credibility with Gen Z professionals using LinkedIn research.
- Hut, hut: Consider these key marketing themes during the NFL season.
- Double screen: Explore how the iPhone Duo might change the landscape of content creation.
Wish We Wrote This
- Ad Age — An inside look at how fast-food chains are investing in experimental restaurant concepts.
Other
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AI Breakfast Apple shipped the new Siri. Google built a chunk of the brains. Apple’s Siri AI Beta
Apple has released the beta version of its revamped Siri, featuring personal context awareness, visual intelligence, and in-app actions. Surprisingly, the system utilizes Apple Foundation Models developed in collaboration with Google’s Gemini. While available in English now, it faces regulatory hurdles in the EU and China. Concurrently, X Corp and xAI have dropped Apple from their antitrust lawsuit regarding ChatGPT integration, though they continue to sue OpenAI.
Jensen Huang on AI Regulation
At Salesforce’s Dreamforce, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang argued that AI safety is an engineering challenge rather than a legal one, dismissing the need for new regulations. He advocated for product liability and self-restraint over government intervention, calling the speed-versus-safety debate a "false choice." Meanwhile, Salesforce debuted "Koa," a CRM-specific reasoning model post-trained on NVIDIA’s Nemotron 3 Super, claiming significant error reduction in industry-specific tasks without using customer data.
China’s $5B AI Surge
Chinese AI lab Z.ai secured $5 billion to advance its GLM foundation models and domestic chip adaptation. Simultaneously, Shanghai AI Laboratory released "Atria Dawn Preview," a massive 753B-parameter model under an open MIT license. Beijing officials and state media have dismissed Western calls for "pacing" AI development, labeling the movement as a strategic attempt to maintain American dominance while urging for international consultation on governance rather than unilateral restrictions.
Policy & Regulation
Industry & Markets
Product & Research
AI Tools
- Open Code Review is Alibaba’s code review CLI that uses LLM agents to provide line-level comments and validated issue detection.
- Colibri is a pure-C inference engine that enables massive models to run on consumer hardware by treating disk, RAM, and VRAM as a single hierarchy.
- Perplexity Portable Computer brings local agentic workflows to Windows, running on-device via high-end NVIDIA GPUs with connectors for major cloud drives.
- Weave Router 2.0 optimizes costs by routing coding tasks between cheap models and frontier models based on task difficulty.
- Jev by TypeSafe AI generates schema-guaranteed typed outputs from unstructured data at speeds up to 200x faster than standard LLMs.
- Capsule is a Rust-based tool that bundles HTML/CSS apps and SQLite data into portable, offline files playable on desktop.
Sponsored
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Masters of Scale How to delete a quarter of your job How to delete a quarter of your job
Jim VandeHei, CEO of Axios, argues that approximately 25% of our professional lives are wasted on unnecessary tasks and meetings performed out of habit. He suggests that these lost hours accumulate into years of wasted potential over a career and introduces a framework designed to reclaim that time.
Links
Rapid Response
In this episode, VandeHei explains how AI is currently acting as a "complexity-creation machine," increasing the volume of polished but unnecessary communication. This influx leads to decision fatigue, which degrades the quality of leadership. He proposes a three-step system—confront, delete, and amplify—to filter out low-value work.
Links
Key Points
- AI often increases the decision-making burden by generating a higher volume of messages and research that requires review.
- The "Confront" step involves questioning the necessity of every task, particularly meetings where one might only be seeking information.
- The "Delete" step encourages leaders to actively identify and eliminate processes, products, or meetings that are no longer useful.
- The "Amplify" step focuses energy on high-impact work that drives professional growth and fosters important relationships.
The takeaway
VandeHei recommends a team exercise where members list three essential tasks for success alongside "stupid" tasks that should be eliminated or delegated. This process highlights misalignment between staff and management. The ultimate goal is to achieve results using the minimum number of people, meetings, and bureaucratic hurdles.
Links
Key Points
- Comparing essential tasks against "stupid" ones helps surface hidden inefficiencies and misaligned expectations within a team.
- True efficiency is found by constantly asking how to complete work with the fewest possible people and meetings.
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