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In this newsletter:
- Apple unveils Siri AI, AI photo editing & new parental controls at WWDC 2026
- ChatGPT beats Claude's newest AI at real professional work tasks
- Visa partners with OpenAI to let ChatGPT shop and pay for users
Plus, you’ll find new AI tools and this week’s top AI news headlines!
🍎 Apple Unveils Siri AI, AI Photo Editing, and New Parental Controls at WWDC 2026
Apple kicked off WWDC 2026 with a focus on fixing long-standing software frustrations alongside new AI features, marking Tim Cook's final WWDC before handing the CEO role to John Ternus on September 1.
Siri and Apple Intelligence:
- New Siri, powered by Google Gemini, is more capable, conversational, and compatible with visual intelligence
- Siri gets a standalone app in addition to working across existing apps
- Apple collaborated with Google and the Gemini family of models to develop the next-generation Apple Foundation Models
- Messages get AI-powered reply suggestions
- The phone app can now pull context from other apps like Mail and Messages mid-call
- New cross-app context awareness across Apple Intelligence features
- Tab management for Safari, one-tap password updating
Photos and camera:
- New spatial "Reframe" feature adjusts the perspective of an image as if you repositioned the camera in the original scene
- "Extend" tool expands images to adjust the aspect ratio or add more to a scene
- "Cleanup" tool upgraded for better quality and more realistic removal of distractions using generative AI
- Image Playground gets performance updates and a renewed push for wider use, with no training on generated photos
iOS 27 updates:
- Available on iPhone 11 and newer, the widest iOS rollout ever
- New photos appear 70% more swiftly
- AirDrop transfers 80% faster
- CPU schedulers have been improved for better multitasking
- Full-screen homepage widgets
- Separate volume controls for alarms, timers, and alerts
- Weather app design tweaks with highlights on notable upcoming events
- Rebuilt search foundation powering Spotlight, Photos, and Mail
- New systemwide AI dictation built into keyboard corrects spellings, punctuation, and capitalization
- Shortcuts updated to create automations by describing what you want in plain language
- Health app adds perimenopause and menopause support to cycle tracking
Parental controls:
- Parents can determine who children can call, what apps and websites they can access
- Apple makes suggestions on how restrictions can change over time as children grow
- "Ask to Browse" limits access by default
- "Ask to Buy" is set as the default for the App Store and in-app purchases for children under 13
App Store:
- Developers can partner to offer bundled subscriptions at lower prices
- Personalized app recommendations powered by user interests and behavior
- "App Notes" explain why specific apps appear in recommendations
Foldable iPhone tease:
- iOS 27 developer beta files contain references to "foldState," "angleDegrees," and other foldable device states
- No official announcement, possible reveal at September iPhone event
Liquid Glass design:
- Users can now dial back Liquid Glass design elements or emphasize them
- New layered approach to Liquid Glass within apps
Why it matters:
Apple spent WWDC fixing problems users have complained about for years before showing off anything new, which is a rare admission that its software quality had slipped while the company was distracted trying to catch up in AI.
The Google Gemini partnership for Siri is the most significant strategic shift, since Apple is effectively outsourcing the intelligence layer of its most important feature to a competitor rather than waiting until its own models are ready, suggesting the gap between Apple and the AI leaders is wider than the company has publicly admitted.
👀 Read more about WWDC 2026!
🏆 ChatGPT Beats Claude's Newest AI at Real Professional Work Tasks
UC Berkeley researchers launched Agents' Last Exam (ALE), a new benchmark testing whether AI can handle real professional workflows, with GPT-5.5 taking the top spot over Anthropic's newly released Claude Fable 5.
What's new:
- ALE was launched by UC Berkeley's Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence with over 300 domain experts from 100+ institutions
- Covers 1,490 real professional tasks across 55 industries, scaling toward 5,000 tasks
- Tasks sourced from actual professional workflows like 3D modeling in Siemens NX, neuroimaging analysis, and visual effects in Adobe After Effects
- Uses deterministic code-based grading for 93.2% of tasks instead of unreliable AI judges
- Guards against cheating by keeping 1,300+ tasks private and rotating them over time
Leaderboard results:
- GPT-5.5 via Codex: 24.0% pass rate (1st place)
- GPT-5.5 via ALE Claw: 23.0% (2nd place)
- Claude Fable 5 via Claude Code: 22.0% (3rd place)
- GPT-5.5 via OpenClaw: 21.1% (4th place)
- Cursor CLI with Composer 2.5: 20.4% (5th place)
- Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini CLI score 0.0% on the hardest "Last-Exam" tier
Why GPT-5.5 won:
- Third-party analysis suggests GPT-5.5 is better at strictly following multi-part complex prompts
- Claude architecture reported to sometimes abandon required steps mid-workflow
- ALE caught previous Claude Opus models reading hidden answer keys in Git history instead of solving problems
Why it matters:
Even the top-scoring model only passed 24% of tasks, which reveals how far AI still is from handling real professional work reliably despite all the hype.
For businesses spending heavily on AI agents, this benchmark is a useful reality check - the tools that look impressive in demos regularly fall apart when asked to complete the kind of complex, multi-step work that actual jobs require.
👀 Read more about UC Berkeley research!
💳 Visa Partners With OpenAI to Let ChatGPT Shop and Pay for Users
Visa teamed up with OpenAI to let ChatGPT-powered AI agents search for products, compare options, and complete purchases using a linked Visa card within limits set by the user.
What's new:
- Users can link their Visa card to ChatGPT and authorize AI to make purchases within pre-defined spending limits
- AI agent searches for products, compares options, completes checkout, and manages transactions without the user visiting online stores
- Safeguards include spending caps, merchant restrictions, and approval requirements
- Most transactions initially require human approval before payment is completed
- Visa's payment authorization infrastructure and fraud monitoring tools power the payment side
- OpenAI provides AI capabilities that enable ChatGPT to interact with merchants and make purchasing decisions
- Part of Visa's broader Intelligent Commerce strategy
How it works in practice:
- Ask ChatGPT to find wireless headphones or makeup under a specific budget
- AI compares available options, selects the best deal, and completes the purchase using the linked Visa card
- AI acts as a personal shopper, handling research and checkout
Concerns raised:
- Online discussions highlight worries about accidental purchases, fraud, and how disputes would be handled when AI makes a transaction on your behalf
- Visa says its existing security framework, spending controls, and fraud monitoring systems address these risks
Why it matters:
Visa and OpenAI are turning ChatGPT from a research tool into a shopping agent that can actually spend your money, which is a fundamentally different level of trust than asking AI to write an email.
The spending caps and approval requirements suggest both companies know users aren't ready to hand over full financial control yet, but the direction is clear - the companies want AI handling routine purchases automatically, which raises real questions about who is responsible when the AI buys the wrong thing or gets manipulated by a bad actor into an unauthorized transaction.
👀 Read more about the Visa OpenAI partnership!
My Latest LinkedIn & X/Twitter Posts:
- 3 strategic ways to use AI in your workflows (view post)
- 12 prompts that turn ChatGPT into your thinking coach (view post)
- 10 powerful ways to use ChatGPT’s Deep Research (view post)
- 9 ChatGPT prompts to extract strategies and build frameworks (view post)
- 9 essential AI skills to future-proof your career (view post)
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New AI Tools to Boost Your Productivity:
- Claude Fable 5: Next-generation model for knowledge work and coding.
- ThinCorp: Creates photorealistic AI avatars for customer service.
- Scraper Builder: Builds web scrapers from URLs.
- OutlierKit: Reveals winning videos and trends in any YouTube niche.
- SalesArmor: Practices sales calls with AI role-play prospects.
- Research Monkey: Summarizes YouTube videos into key takeaways.
- SnappyAds: Creates video ads from a product photo.
- EZUGC: Creates AI UGC videos from scripts and avatars.
- Gamut: Builds AI agents for research and business insights.
- OmniPhoto: Turns selfies into professional headshots and portraits.
- AISA: Certifies AI skills through a conversational assessment.
- MagicLight: Creates videos from scripts, ideas, and story concepts.
- TranscripTool: Generates transcripts from TikToks, Reels, and videos.
- TapEdit: Edits and enhances photos with AI.
- Reelyze: Analyzes Reels, TikToks, and Shorts before you post.
- MagicSlides: Creates presentation slides from text, documents, and videos.
- Max: Optimizes brand visibility in AI search results.
- The Meeting Brief: Prepares meeting briefs from emails, calendars, and contacts.
- Virality Predictor: Predicts a post's viral potential.
This Week's Top AI News Headlines:
- Claude Could Become an Apple Intelligence Option on iPhone, Giving Users a Direct Alternative to ChatGPT for AI Assistance (View Article)
- Google Adds Gemini AI Features to FIFA World Cup 2026 Coverage With Personalized Insights, Match Summaries, and Interactive Fan Experiences (View Article)
- Meta’s Edits Video App is Getting an AI Assistant and Desktop Version to Help Creators Edit Content Across Devices (View Article)
- ElevenLabs Launches Avatars, an AI Video Generation Platform that Creates Talking Digital Presenters From Text and Voice Inputs (View Article)
- Perplexity Brings Deep Research to “Computer” AI Agent, Enabling Automated Research, Analysis, and Task Execution Across Applications (View Article)
- Deezer, the Music Streaming Service Competing With Spotify and Apple Music, Launches AI Music Detection Tool as Platforms Face a Growing Flood of AI-Generated Songs (View Article)
- Coinbase, One of the Largest Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Wallet Platforms, Launches Coinbase for Agents to Give AI Agents their Own Payments and Onchain Financial Capabilities (View Article)
- Anthropic Faces Backlash After Quietly Replacing Claude 5 With a Weaker Model Variant, Raising Transparency and National Security Concerns (View Article)
- OpenAI Acquires ONA, the AI-Native Design Studio Behind ChatGPT’s Branding and Product Experiences, to Strengthen its Design Team (View Article)
- Google Introduces Diffusion Gemma, an Open AI Model that Uses Diffusion Techniques to Generate Text Faster than Traditional Language Models (View Article)
- Nvidia Brings Confidential Computing to Apple Private Cloud Compute to Help Secure AI Processing and Protect User Data in Apple Intelligence (View Article)
- Pools, a New App that Turns Screenshots into a Searchable Personal Memory Archive, Helps Users Organize and Retrieve Information With AI (View Article)
- DoorDash Launches AI Shopping Assistant that Lets Customers Order Food and Groceries Using Natural Language Prompts and Photos (View Article)
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Have a wonderful week!
Andrew Bolis
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