Happy Friday!
As always, it's been a flood of a week in AI land.
Trying a new format to help you cut through the noise faster.
Let me know how you like it.
Here's the breakdown:
- The Big Drops: Gemini in Chrome + Meta's new glasses
- Other Tool Updates: Notion gets agents, ChatGPT speed controls
- Connecting Dots: AI companies want to control your wallet
- Quick Signals: Google takes over the app store, AI getting too smart to train
- The Rumor Mill: Claude 4.5 dropping any day now
The Big Drops
Google Turns Chrome Into an AI Browser
Google just launched 10 new AI features for Chrome, calling it "the biggest upgrade in Chrome's history."
The standout: Gemini is now built directly into Chrome. You can ask it to explain any webpage you're reading, compare information across multiple tabs, or recall websites you visited weeks ago by describing what you remember.
There's more: Chrome is adding "agentic browsing" in the coming months. This means Gemini will be able to book appointments, order groceries, and handle other tedious web tasks for you.
Plus Chrome can now detect scams in real-time, change compromised passwords, and access Google AI search from the address bar.
What this signals:
- Google continues to take AI mainstream. Chrome has 3+ billion users, now with access to one of the top AI models as they browse.
- Google is defending search revenue from AI competitors By embedding Gemini in Chrome, they keep users in Google's ecosystem instead of losing searches to ChatGPT or Perplexity.
- This kills specialized AI browsers before they scale. Why download Dia or try Perplexity's Comet browser when Chrome already has AI built-in?
Meta's New Smart Glasses Read Your Mind (Sort Of)
Meta unveiled their latest AI Ray-Ban glasses. The crazy part? Your muscle movements can control its display.
Here's how: The glasses come with a wristband that reads your body's electrical signals. Think about tapping your finger? The wristband catches that and turns it into a command.
The glasses project a full-color display onto their right lens that only the wearer can see. Notifications, navigation, messages, and videos.
What about AI? Meta AI runs everything. Live captions that isolate voices in crowds, instant language translation, ask questions about your surroundings. They can also edit photos, filter messages, and help you during calls.
What this signals:
- AI is getting closer to us. Instead of pulling out your phone, you'll just think and gesture. This is where computing is headed.
- Meta could bypass Apple's hardware dominance. If gestural computing replaces phone interactions, Meta could control the next platform instead of paying Apple's App Store taxes.
- Premium entry point at $799. Expensive now, but competitors are already building their own. Expect cheaper options and way more choices soon.
OpenAI's Coding Tool Gets an Upgrade
OpenAI gave their AI coding tool, Codex, a new model (GPT-5-Codex).
What changed? Before, Codex was smart autocomplete (devs would ask for code, it would write it, then they'd debug and fix it themselves).
Now it's more like an AI developer that doesn't sleep. Give it a project and it plans the architecture, writes the code, tests and debugs issues. It can work for up to 7 hours straight.
Why does this matter for non-technical workers? Your developers can hand off bigger projects and focus on strategy instead of debugging. Faster turnaround, fewer "that'll take two weeks" convos.
What this signals:
- Codex won't be perfect. But it's one of many tools advancing what tech teams can create.
- The technical bottleneck is cracking. Takes work off coders' plates and shifts what they can tackle. Small teams can build bigger things.
Other Tool Updates
- Notion Adds AI Agents Notion 3.0 includes agents that can work independently for 20+ minutes. They build databases, create launch plans, consolidate across apps, and handle multi-step workflows.
- ChatGPT Speed Controls You can now choose how long ChatGPT "thinks" before responding. Light mode for quick answers, Heavy mode when you need it to work through complex problems.
- Microsoft Auto-Installing Copilot Starting October, Microsoft is automatically installing Copilot across all Office365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook). It'll show up as a sidebar for all business users..
- YouTube's AI Video Integration YouTube put Google's Veo 3 Fast model into Shorts, letting creators generate AI video clips. Plus new "Edit with AI" turns raw footage into polished videos with transitions and music.
- Zoom AI Companion 3.0 Zoom announced photorealistic AI avatars (coming December) so you can "attend" meetings when you're not camera-ready. They also added note-taking abilities outside Zoom and other skills.
- Gamma 3.0 The presentation tool launched an AI agent that can make sweeping edits. Think "make it more visual" and it'll scan every slide to add charts and graphics. They also added multi-language translation.
Connecting Dots
Big AI Wants Control of Your Wallet
Three recent moves that show where this is heading:
- OpenAI is preparing to launch an "Orders" section in ChatGPT. Store credit cards, buy plugins and services, track purchases all inside the app.
- Google open-sourced a payment system that lets any AI app handle purchases. Coinbase, PayPal, Mastercard + 60 others are already supporting it.
- Google is partnering with PayPal. They'll be embedding AI-powered shopping across Google's ecosystem and working to create new agentic shopping experiences.
When AI researches, recommends, and buys for you, whoever controls that flow controls serious money. Your purchases could shift to whoever has the best AI shopping experience.
What this signals:
- AI is moving from helper to buyer. These companies are preparing for a world beyond giving recommendations.
- The entire customer journey is about to change. Everything from awareness to purchase could happen in one AI conversation, cutting out traditional sales processes.
Quick Signals
- Google's Gemini beat ChatGPT as #1 iPhone app thanks to their "Nano Banana" image creation and editing model. Shows viral features are more important than intelligence for the masses.
- AI models getting too smart to train OpenAI and Anthropic struggling to create tasks hard enough for their latest models. The models are outpacing humans' ability to teach them new things.
- Albania gave AI a government job Appointed AI named "Diella" to oversee public contracts and fight corruption. This is the first country to give AI government authority.
- AI predicts 1,000+ diseases years early Analyzes medical records, tells you diabetes/cancer/heart risk up to 20 years out. Already tested on millions with crazy accuracy.
Rumor Mill
- Rumors point to Claude 4.5 dropping any day now.
- Gemini 3 is expected before the holidays, with noise it could come sooner than later.
- Grok 5 is also targeting a release before 2026.
