Table of Contents

• This Week

• Business Use Cases

• Tools to Try

• Things to Pay Attention to

This Week

Bottom Line Up Front

• OpenAI has launched a research preview of Codex, its most capable AI coding agent yet, which is powered by codex-1, a version of the company's o3 AI reasoning model optimized for software engineering tasks, and is capable of producing cleaner code, adhering more precisely to instructions, and running tests until passing results are achieved.

• Codex is available to ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team subscribers, with plans to expand access to ChatGPT Plus and Edu users soon, and will initially offer "generous access" before implementing rate limits.

• The goal of Codex is to act as a "virtual teammate" to human engineers, autonomously completing tasks that would take hours or days to accomplish, with OpenAI already using it internally to offload repetitive tasks.

Business Use Cases

Bottom Line Up Front

• The arrival of artificial intelligence, including general intelligence and superintelligence, is considered the most important event in human society in about 500 years, and it's happening in our lifetime.

• To navigate the AI transition, it's essential to remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and to adopt the technology quickly, as it will be crucial for relevance and success in various fields, including art, teaching, medicine, and business.

• The current perception of AI is often limited to language-based systems like ChatGPT, but there have been significant gains in reinforcement learning, which enables planning and strategy, as seen in systems like OpenAI and DeepSeek.

• These advancements have led to the development of systems that can perform complex tasks, such as writing deep research papers in a short amount of time, and have the potential to run all business processes in the future.

Why is this important?

• IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says that the company has utilized artificial intelligence to replace the work of a couple hundred human resources workers, specifically by using AI agents that can autonomously perform tasks such as analyzing spreadsheets, conducting research, and drafting emails.

• The company's total employment has actually increased due to AI adoption, with hiring boosts in areas like software engineering and marketing. These areas, which Krishna refers to as "critical thinking" focused domains, require people to perform tasks that involve interacting with other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work, and are where the company is seeing the most growth and hiring.

Why is this important

• To successfully adopt agentic AI, organizations should empower their workforce with AI fluency through regular training and education.

• Workflows should be redesigned around agentic AI to maximize its value, involving a targeted approach and dedication to upskilling and process overhaul.

• New 'supervising' AI roles should be developed, requiring executive-level buy-in and a clearly-defined organization-wide strategy, with leaders like Imran Aftab, co-Founder and CEO of 10Pearls, emphasizing the importance of human-AI collaboration and supervision.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Netflix is developing a new type of advertisement that utilizes artificial intelligence to seamlessly integrate products with its shows and movies, allowing advertisers to "marry" their products with the streaming service's content.

• The new ads can be inserted during a show or appear when a user pauses, and may include overlays or calls to action.

• Netflix's ad-supported tier has reached 94 million monthly users, with advertising president Amy Reinhard promising rapid progress in ad development.

Bottom Line Up Front

• There are many startup ideas that can be built with AI, particularly in the infrastructure space around deploying AI and using agents. Applying the right prompts and data set with AI can produce magical output, making it a great time to explore startup ideas.

• Personalized education tools can now be built with AI, allowing for hyperpersonalization and tailored learning experiences for students.

• Companies need to build durable revenue streams, brand, and switching costs to succeed in the AI-powered education market.

• Now may be the time to build full-stack companies, as AI can automate tasks and reduce the need for large ops teams, allowing these companies to resemble software companies with better gross margins. The current time is considered the best opportunity to build, as numerous ideas that were impossible a year ago are now feasible.

Bottom Line Up Front

• The line between smart productivity and cheating is not clearly defined, but Aaron Levie does not use AI to write public representations of his thoughts, such as tweets or LinkedIn posts, as he believes it is important to understand topics deeply and use better judgment.

• It is estimated that around 90% of the work that AI will be doing in the future is work that humans never did before, as AI will enable the execution of new tasks that were previously not possible, leading to an abundance of new work for humans.

Bottom Line Up Front

• We are looking in the wrong place when we talk about the AI revolution.

  While most of the public debate around artificial intelligence (AI) centres on creative tasks – writing, image generation, language modelling – a quieter but arguably more impactful transformation is underway. One that doesn’t deal in headlines, but in spreadsheets, approval chains and shared drives.

• It’s unfolding in the administrative core of organizations, where AI agents – systems or programmes that autonomously perform tasks on behalf of a user or another system – are beginning to take over the invisible but essential tasks that keep businesses running.

• This shift isn’t flashy. It doesn’t write poems. But it will affect millions of jobs.

Tools to Try

• Free AI tools can help workers reclaim up to 8.1 hours per week and increase their income, with employers willing to pay AI-skilled workers up to 47% more.

• 10 free AI tools are available, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity AI, Notion AI, Buffer AI Assistant, Gamma, Krisp, Lumen5, Tome, and Otter.ai, which can boost productivity and income in various industries.

• By leveraging these free AI tools, professionals can gain a competitive advantage, increase their productivity, and potentially increase their income dramatically, with the ability to transform how they work and deliver more value to clients.

Things to Pay Attention to

Bottom Line Up Front

• Edison Earl, a 23-year-old graduate intern, has become dependent on ChatGPT, using it for work and personal tasks, which has led to a loss of faith in his own decisions and thought process.

• Over-reliance on AI tools like ChatGPT can erode critical thinking skills and create emotional dependence, as noted by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and researcher Cheryl Einhorn.

• To reclaim his brain, Earl cancelled his ChatGPT subscription and is working to find a healthy balance between using AI and developing his own critical thinking skills, with tips including thinking through decisions himself and interrogating chatbot answers.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Pau Aleikum Garcia, co-founder of the design studio Domestic Data Streamers, was inspired to create the Synthetic Memories project after meeting a Syrian refugee who had lost her family's photo albums and was worried that her grandkids would not know their heritage.

• The project uses AI to generate photographic representations of memories that were lost or never recorded, aiming to help people reconnect with their past and preserve their cultural identity.

• The team plans to make the tool available to nursing homes and areas where cultural heritage is at risk, believing that synthetic memories can help create dialogue between cultures and generations, and serve as a "weapon for the future" for activists like Vallejo.

Bottom Line Up Front

• Elon Musk's Grok chatbot was found to be responding with false claims of "white genocide" in South Africa, due to an "unauthorized modification" to its system prompts.

• The incident highlights the ease with which AI chatbots can be manipulated by humans, raising concerns about their reliability and potential for spreading misinformation.

• Experts, including Deirdre Mulligan and Petar Tsankov, emphasize the need for transparency in AI development and the potential risks of biased or manipulated AI models, such as Grok, which can shape people's thinking and understanding of the world.