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In this newsletter:
- Google Vids now offers free AI video generation with Veo 3.1
- Microsoft launches 3 AI models for voice, image, and speech
- Slack rolls out 30 AI features to automate workflows and tasks
Plus, you’ll find new AI tools and this week’s top AI news headlines!
🎬 Google Vids Now Offers Free AI Video Generation and Custom Music for All Users
Google Vids added high-quality video generation at no cost using Veo 3.1, custom music creation with Lyria 3, and customizable AI avatars for Pro and Ultra subscribers.
Free features for all Google accounts:
- 10 free Veo 3.1 video generations per month (can upgrade for more)
- Generate video clips from a simple prompt or a photo for animated flyers, promos, and greeting cards
- New Chrome extension records the screen and yourself from anywhere on the web without navigating to Vids first
- Publish finished videos straight to YouTube from Vids; all exports default to Private for review before sharing
For Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers:
- Custom music generation powered by Lyria 3 and Lyria 3 Pro models
- Create 30-second clips to three-minute tracks tailored to the video's vibe
- Customizable AI avatars powered by Veo 3.1 with complete directorial control
- Place avatars into specific scenes, have them interact with uploaded objects like products or props
- Customize avatar appearance, swap outfits, change backgrounds while keeping voice and identity consistent
- Ultra and Workspace AI Ultra accounts can generate up to 1,000 Veo videos per month
Why it matters:
Google is making AI video creation accessible to casual users at no cost while keeping premium features behind paywalls, undercutting competitors like Runway and Pika, which charge for basic generations.
The Chrome extension and direct YouTube publishing remove friction points that kept users from creating video content regularly, positioning Vids as the default tool for the billions of Google account holders who already live inside Chrome and YouTube.
👀 Read more about Google Vids updates!
🤖 Microsoft Launches Three In-House AI Models to Compete Directly With OpenAI and Google
Microsoft released 3 new AI models, MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2, marking its first foundational models built entirely in-house by teams of fewer than 10 engineers each.
MAI-Transcribe-1 (speech-to-text):
- Achieves the lowest average 3.8% Word Error Rate on FLEURS benchmark across the top 25 languages by Microsoft product usage
- Beats OpenAI's Whisper-large-v3 on all 25 languages, Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash on 22 of 25, ElevenLabs' Scribe v2, and OpenAI's GPT-Transcribe on 15 of 25 each
- Batch transcription speed is 2.5x faster than the existing Microsoft Azure Fast offering
- Accepts MP3, WAV, FLAC files up to 200MB
- Already testing inside Copilot's Voice mode and Microsoft Teams
- Diarization, contextual biasing, streaming coming soon
MAI-Voice-1 (text-to-speech):
- Generates 60 seconds of natural-sounding audio in one second
- Preserves speaker identity across long-form content
- Custom voice creation from just a few seconds of audio through Microsoft Foundry
- Priced at $22 per 1 million characters
MAI-Image-2:
- Top-three model family on Arena ai leaderboard
- 2x faster generation times on Foundry and Copilot vs predecessor
- Rolling out across Bing and PowerPoint
- Priced at $5 per 1 million tokens for text input, $33 per 1 million tokens for image output
- WPP is among the first enterprise partners building at scale
How this became possible:
- Microsoft renegotiated the OpenAI contract in October 2025
- Original 2019 deal prohibited Microsoft from independently pursuing AGI
- New terms freed Microsoft to build frontier models while retaining OpenAI license rights through 2032
- Mustafa Suleyman's (Microsoft CEO of AI) superintelligence team was formed six months ago to pursue "AI self-sufficiency."
Team structure:
- Audio model built by 10 people, image team also fewer than 10 people
- Runs on half the GPUs of the state-of-the-art competition
- Teams work in rooms of 50-60 people, "vibe coding side by side all day."
- Extremely flat structure with fewer more empowered people
Pricing strategy:
- Priced to be the cheapest of any hyperscaler (Amazon, Google)
- Conscious decision to compete on cost
- Reduces Microsoft's own infrastructure costs for Teams, Copilot, Bing, and PowerPoint
What's next:
- Mustafa Suleyman confirmed Microsoft will build a frontier large language model to compete with GPT
- Mission to be "completely independent" and deliver state-of-the-art models across all modalities
- Roadmap for the next 2-4 years laid out by CEO Satya Nadella
- Available immediately through Microsoft Foundry and the new MAI Playground
Why it matters:
Microsoft is ending its dependence on OpenAI by proving it can build competitive AI models in-house with tiny teams and half the compute costs, fundamentally shifting the economics of its AI business.
The aggressive pricing undercuts Amazon and Google while reducing Microsoft's own infrastructure costs across Teams, Copilot, and Office products, answering investor pressure for AI spending to translate into margins rather than just revenue growth.
👀 Read more about Microsoft's new features launch!
💼 Slack Rolls Out 30 AI Features to Automate Workflows and Tasks
Salesforce unveiled a major AI upgrade for Slack with 30 new features centered on an upgraded Slackbot agent, rolling out in the coming months.
One-click automation:
- Reusable AI skills let you define specific tasks for Slackbot that can be applied across different scenarios
- Built-in library of AI skills plus the ability to create custom versions
- Trigger with a simple command like "create a budget" for an upcoming event
- Slackbot pulls relevant information from Slack channels, connected apps, and data sources to create an actionable plan
- Automatically sets up a meeting to discuss the plan and invites relevant employees based on their titles
Connects to other business tools:
- Slackbot now functions as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) client to connect with outside services
- Integrates with Agentforce (Salesforce's AI agent development platform launched in 2024)
- Routes work or questions to Agentforce or any agent/app in your company without human intervention
What Slackbot can do now:
- Transcribes and summarizes meetings
- Produces a recap, including action items if you miss details
- Monitors desktop activities outside Slack, including deals, conversations, calendar, and habits
- Makes actionable suggestions or drafts follow-ups for critical tasks based on context
- Privacy protections built in with adjustable permissions
How companies are using it:
- In January, Slackbot got the ability to draft emails, schedule meetings, and search through inboxes
- On track to become the fastest-adopted product in Salesforce's 27-year history
- Some employees at customer organizations save up to 90 minutes per day
- Inside Salesforce, teams save up to 20 hours per week, translating to $6.4 million in estimated productivity value
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noted that in the five years since Salesforce acquired Slack, it delivered "two and a half times revenue growth."
- About 1 million businesses run on Slack
Why it matters:
Slack's desktop monitoring creates a new category of workplace surveillance where AI watches everything you do across applications and makes suggestions based on your behavior patterns.
The push into enterprise automation beyond messaging puts Salesforce in direct competition with Microsoft's strategy of embedding Copilot across Office apps, with the winner controlling how companies orchestrate work across dozens of business tools.
👀Read more about Slack's new AI features!
My Latest LinkedIn & X/Twitter Posts:
- 3 levels of prompting to go from basic to expert level (view post)
- 10 prompts to replace expensive business consultants (view post)
- 12 prompts that turn ChatGPT into your thinking coach (view post)
- 3 ways you can use AI in your workflows (view post)
- 20 ChatGPT prompts to supercharge your business (view post)
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New AI Tools to Boost Your Productivity:
- Wellpin: Syncs Google Calendar to book meetings fast.
- BrandBeacon: Tracks brand visibility and mentions across AI search engines.
- Dialoft: Answers calls and schedules appointments via AI.
- ChatGPT Exporter: Exports ChatGPT chats to PDF, Markdown, and CSV.
- Cotypist: AI autocomplete that predicts and completes text.
- SocialAF: Generates and schedules social media content.
- LittleBird: Records screens & meetings to automate tasks.
- Messync: Syncs and queries uploaded data to provide verified answers.
- FrameZero: Turn a blank canvas into a polished animated video.
- Viasocket: No-code platform for app automation and workflows.
- Omnibox: Saves web pages and files to answer questions and organize notes.
- Liminary: Captures and recalls knowledge automatically across your workflow.
- Clico: An AI writing assistant that works inside any text box.
- LLMnesia: Searches AI chat history across tools from one interface.
This Week's Top AI News Headlines:
- Perplexity Launches “Computer for Taxes” AI Tool That Automates Tax Filing by Navigating Forms, Entering Data, and Completing Submissions on Users’ Behalf (View Article)
- Alibaba Releases Qwen Update Showcasing New Multimodal Capabilities and Improved Performance Across Reasoning, Coding, and Agent Tasks (View Article)
- Anthropic Accidentally Takes Down Thousands of GitHub Repositories While Trying to Remove Leaked Claude AI Source Code (View Article)
- OpenAI Acquires TBPN, a Founder-Led Business Talk Show, to Expand its Media Presence and Influence in the Startup Ecosystem (View Article)
- Apple Adds ChatGPT Integration to CarPlay in iOS 26.4, Letting Drivers Use AI Voice Conversations While Navigating and Driving (View Article)
- Anthropic’s Claude Code Leak Reveals System Prompts, Tooling Instructions, and Internal Agent Workflows Used to Run its AI Coding Assistant (View Article)
- Google Gemini for Google Home Gets Improved Personalization to Better Understand User Preferences and Deliver More Context-Aware Smart Home Responses (View Article)
- Amazon Expands Alexa Plus With Food Ordering Integrations Through Uber Eats and Grubhub to Let Users Order Meals via Voice Commands (View Article)
- Arcee, an Open-Source AI Model Startup, Launches Trinity “Large Thinking” Model as a U.S.-Built Alternative to Closed Reasoning Systems (View Article)
- Google Expands AI Pro Plan With Major Cloud Storage Upgrade, Increasing Capacity for Users of its Gemini AI Services (View Article)
- Runway Launches $10 Million Fund and Builder Program to Support Early-Stage AI Startups Developing Creative AI Tools (View Article)
- Google Releases Gemma 4 AI Models Under Apache 2.0 License, Allowing Commercial Use and Greater Flexibility for Developers (View Article)
- OpenAI Raises $3 Billion From Retail Investors at $122 Billion Valuation Despite Not Yet Going Public (View Article)
- Mercor, an AI Hiring Startup, Reports Cyberattack Linked to Compromised LiteLLM Open-Source Project, Exposing Risks in AI Developer Tooling Supply Chain (View Article)
- Cognichip, an AI Chip Design Startup, Raises $60 Million to Build AI Systems That Design Semiconductors for Next-Generation Computing (View Article)
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Have a wonderful week!
Andrew Bolis
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