🧠 OpenAI's smartest model, Deepmind creates worlds + Amazon ⚔️ NVIDIA!

Read time: 4.5 minutes

Hi everyone! it’s Sam—your guide to the AI frontier, back with another week of AI Simplified. Join me as I cut through the noise and break down the important news from this week in AI.

If you’re here, I’m guessing you’re a bit like me: curious, ambitious, and ready to make sense of the whole AI revolution. If so, consider this newsletter your personal roadmap, showing you where the tech world is headed and how you can jump in to lead the charge.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how people often say, "I don’t have time to learn AI—I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done." I hear you. Change feels slow and awkward at first. But remember when you learned to drive a car? It took hours of practice, a few nervous moments, and maybe some frustrating setbacks. Yet now, driving is second nature, and it gets you places a hundred times faster than walking ever could.

Learning AI is similar. At the start, it might feel clumsy—figuring out new workflows, understanding decision trees—but soon it becomes that reliable engine that propels your work forward so much faster. The world is speeding up, you’re at the helm and AI is your wheel. By simply reading this newsletter and staying curious, you’re already investing in your future capabilities.

Now, let’s see what’s been brewing in the world of AI this week.

Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI has us on the edge of our seats with “Shipmas”. Google’s DeepMind found a way to build worlds!? and Amazon is threatening NVIDIA by releasing top tier models for 75% less! There's so much to explore. So grab a hot chocolate, get comfy, and let’s dive in!

🗞️ News:

🎁 “Shipmas” at OpenAI: OpenAI’s Smartest model yet

🌐 DeepMind’s Double Feature: Genie 2 & GenCast

⚔️ Amazon takes on NVIDIA

🐣 Back to the Basics: Nailing the Right AI Mindset

✍️ Prompt Tutorial: Daily Planner → Stress-Free Action Plan

⚡️ 3 AI tools to supercharge your productivity

📸 AI Images of the Day: Impressionism

🗞️ ^_News: 

🎁 “Shipmas” at OpenAI: OpenAI’s Smartest model yet

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promised 12 days of holiday cheer, dubbed “Shipmas”—with new releases or demos hitting our screens each weekday.

So far, it’s shaping up to be a festive feast:

OpenAI Doubles Down on Reasoning: Full o1 Release and ChatGPT Pro

OpenAI was feeling extra generous on Day 1 (Thursday), delivering not one, but two major gifts:

1. Full Version of o1: 

Their reasoning-focused model, o1, is now running at full capacity. It’s not just faster and smarter than the preview; it’s also fully multimodal, meaning it can juggle images and text together. The result? A system that can better tackle complex prompts, from solving math problems based on a hand-drawn diagram to interpreting intricate visual data. According to OpenAI’s team, the final o1 makes about 34% fewer major mistakes than its preview and thinks around 50% faster.

2. ChatGPT Pro ($200/month): 

For power users who crave unlimited access to the very best, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Pro. This premium tier bundles the top-tier version of o1—packed with extra compute—and promises a smoother, more capable experience for tough math, science, and logic problems. Essentially, if you need the AI equivalent of a genius co-pilot for your daily challenges, ChatGPT Pro is it.

On to Day 2: Fine-Tuning Your Own o1 Models

Friday brought a hint of what’s next: The ability to fine-tune o1 on your own datasets. Imagine shaping the model to fit your exact needs—whether you’re a machine-learning engineer adjusting it for a specific industry or a researcher exploring rare genetic diseases. OpenAI says this customization will be publicly available next year, allowing more specialized, domain-focused AI models. It’s like getting a custom engine tweak, tailor-made for whatever race you’re running.

What’s Next?

With 10 more weekdays of Shipmas left, the anticipation is real. Will we finally see Sora, the text-to-video marvel people have been whispering about? Or perhaps more specialized tooling for everyday tasks?

You can read more about it here →

🌐 DeepMind’s Double Feature: Genie 2 & GenCast

Google’s DeepMind is also in a giving mood, releasing two major innovations:

1. Genie 2: A tool to generate interactive 3D worlds from just screenshots. Imagine training AI agents in realistic virtual environments where they can learn everything from simple physics to complex social cues.

2. GenCast: A breakthrough weather forecasting model that predicts storms up to 15 days out. This isn’t just an incremental improvement—researchers say it’s like fast-forwarding decades of progress. More accurate forecasts mean communities get more time to prepare and stay safe.

Why it matters: For AI to truly help us in the real world, it needs to understand more than just words. By giving models richer environments to explore and more accurate predictions to work with, we’re moving closer to AI that’s genuinely useful in our everyday lives. Part of the reason holding us back from AGI is that the inputs that make us human go far beyond our written language on the internet. When AI moves beyond that and begins to be able to interpret and understand more than what is just written, it won’t be long before we begin to hear whispers of the beginnings of AGI.

You can read more about it here →

⚔️ Amazon takes on NVIDIA

At the recent AWS re:Invent conference, Amazon announced a series of bold steps designed to position it at the forefront of the AI landscape:

1. New Foundation Models: Six new models that rival or surpass current leaders at 75% lower costs. By 2025, they aim to support over 200 languages and offer speech-to-speech and “any-to-any” models.

2. Next-Gen AI Chips (Trainium2): Four times the performance, half the cost of comparable NVIDIA solutions, and with partners like Apple on board.

3. Project Rainier (Supercomputer): A massive distributed AI compute cluster, potentially 5x more powerful than current top systems, allowing for unprecedented scale.

4. Partnership with Anthropic: A multi-billion-dollar investment making Amazon Anthropic’s main cloud provider, granting AWS customers early access to Claude and future models.

In short: Amazon is building an entire AI ecosystem—from hardware and infrastructure to cutting-edge models and strategic alliances. They’re not just joining the race; they’re sprinting ahead.

You can read more about it here →

 🐣 Back to the Basics: Nailing the Right AI Mindset

Let’s strip it down to the core. When you’re first dipping your toes into AI, it’s not about fancy models or advanced techniques. It’s about knowing what you need and communicating it simply and clearly. Think of AI like a super-brainy friend who’s great at following instructions. If you say “help me brainstorm ideas for my side hustle,” it can. If you say “explain photosynthesis like I’m a fifth grader,” it’ll do that too. The key is clarity:

Be Direct: No need for long-winded backstories unless they’re relevant.

Set the Scene: Give context if it helps, like “I’m trying to market a new fitness app to millennials.”

Ask for Specifics: Want bullet points, a 200-word summary, or an example? Say so.

Get these basics right, and you’re already halfway to making AI your personal productivity co-pilot.

 ✍️ Prompt Tutorial: Daily Planner → Stress-Free Action Plan

Let’s make AI your personal productivity coach. Suppose you already have a daily schedule—maybe a screenshot of your planner, a to-do list, or a list of tasks you’ve jotted down. With the right prompt, you can ask the AI to prioritize these tasks, highlight the most important ones, and suggest how to tackle them efficiently. Think of it as transforming a messy pile of tasks into a neat, action-oriented roadmap.

How to Do It:

1. Gather Your Schedule:
   Prepare your daily planner. This could be a short text list or a screenshot transcribed into text. Keep it clear and itemized—like “9 AM: Respond to client emails, 10 AM: Draft project proposal,” etc.

2. Set Your Goals:
   Decide what you want from the AI. Do you need it to rank tasks by importance? Suggest time blocks? Highlight where you can batch similar tasks? The clearer you are, the better the AI can help.

3. Write a Prompt That Sets the Context and Goal:
   Example Prompt:

I’m sharing my daily planner with you. Please read through my schedule and help me optimize my day. Identify the top three most important tasks, explain why they matter, and suggest a logical order for completing them. Also, recommend how to group similar tasks to save time and propose short breaks to prevent burnout. Here’s my current planner:

9:00 AM: Respond to 20 client emails
10:00 AM: Draft project proposal for new client
11:30 AM: Team meeting (1 hour)
1:00 PM: Research for next month’s marketing campaign
2:30 PM: Revise presentation slides for tomorrow’s pitch
4:00 PM: Quick call with supplier
4:30 PM: Wrap up and check inbox again

Review and Refine:
Once the AI responds, read its suggestions. Maybe it recommended doing the project proposal before emails, or splitting research into two shorter sessions. Adjust your prompt if needed—ask it to consider your energy levels at different times of day, or to prioritize tasks that have strict deadlines.

⚡️ 3 AI tools to supercharge your productivity

Equals

A next-gen spreadsheet that connects directly to your data sources. Automate reporting, analysis, and insights. It’s like having a data-savvy coworker ready to run queries at a moment’s notice.

Try it here →

Substrata

Close B2B deals faster. This tool combines AI with your sales data to streamline negotiations and shorten decision-making cycles.

Try it here →

CommentScope

Analyze YouTube comments with AI to uncover patterns and insights. A great way to understand audience sentiment without getting overwhelmed.

Try it here →

📸 AI Images of the Day: Impressionism

Impressionism highlights the interplay of light and color, employing visible brushstrokes and an overall soft, atmospheric quality. This style aims to capture fleeting moments—often of everyday life and natural landscapes—through loose, rapid brushwork and a vivid color palette. The result conveys a sense of spontaneity and immediacy, evoking the artist’s instantaneous perception. Ultimately, Impressionism’s hallmark is its emphasis on beauty, lightness, and the sensory experience of a scene.

Prompt Template: "Create an impressionist painting of [subject] in [location], focusing on the interplay of light and color. Include details like [specific elements] with soft, visible brush strokes.

Prompt Used: "Create an impressionist painting of a couple dancing in a park, focusing on the interplay of light and color. Include details like blooming flowers and gently swaying trees with soft, visible brush strokes."

🫡 We are here for you

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Until next time!

Sam Hadar ✍️