Applied AI Weekly News

Justin Grammens

Welcome, Applied AI Weekly Readers, to the latest issue! I'm thrilled to once again share with you the most interesting articles on artificial intelligence that I've found this past week.

Mustafa Suleyman and Yuval Noah Harari debate AI’s future, while Perplexity unveils Deep Research for autonomous expert analysis. Anthropic raises $61.5B and predicts superintelligent AI by next year, while OpenAI teases GPT-4.5. Arizona moves to regulate AI in health claims, and Humane shuts down its AI Pin, selling to HP. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip marks a quantum computing breakthrough, and ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati launches Thinking Machines Lab.

Before we go there, here are a few things I wish to share.

Upcoming Events

AppliedAI has our next event, Level 200: Beyond Basic Use Cases of AI - How to Unlock Potential on Thursday, March 6th at Lab651 & Recursive Awesome. I hope you can join us!
For the Spring 2025 Applied AI Conference, I'm thrilled to announce that will be partnering with MinneAnalytics.
The next conference I'll be speaking at is the closing keynote at the Illinois Associations of Home Care & Hospice. I'll be speaking on this new wave of agents will transform the way home care hospice providers provide care.

A Bit of Thanks

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported me and the panel at the Future of Healthcare Conference at the University of Saint Thomas. Here's some photos of our panel at the event with Minnesota healthcare leaders.
I'm continuing to offer free consultations and workshops with many business leaders on how AI is changing the landscape of how you will run your business today and into the future. Connect today and book a meeting with me.

Now that we have that covered, please enjoy the articles I have spent time finding and curating for you this past week.

Finally, please do reach out if there is anything you feel I might have missed. Enjoy!

News

Mustafa Suleyman & Yuval Noah Harari - What Does the AI Revolution Mean for Our Future?

How will AI impact our immediate and near future? Can the technology be controlled, and does it have agency? Watch DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and Yuval Noah Harari debate these questions, with The Economist Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton-Beddoes.

Introducing Perplexity Deep Research

Today we’re launching Deep Research to save you hours of time by conducting in-depth research and analysis on your behalf. When you ask a Deep Research question, Perplexity performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material to autonomously deliver a comprehensive report. It excels at a range of expert-level tasks—from finance and marketing to product research—and attains high benchmarks on Humanity’s Last Exam.

A Voice Coach Discusses Adrien Brody’s AI-Assisted Oscar Win

Adrien Brody's win for best actor at the Oscars is reviving controversy – and it's not due to another strange on-stage kiss or his shutting down the orchestra for an extra long acceptance speech.

Brody's award-winning performance in The Brutalist, a film about a fictional architect and refugee making his way to the U.S., was enhanced with artificial intelligence.

Sponsor

Join the Applied AI Community!

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Business

Anthropic raises Series E at $61.5B post-money valuation

Anthropic has raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, amongst other new and existing investors.

Introducing GPT-4.5

We’re releasing a research preview of GPT‑4.5—our largest and best model for chat yet. GPT‑4.5 is a step forward in scaling up pre-training and post-training. By scaling unsupervised learning, GPT‑4.5 improves its ability to recognize patterns, draw connections, and generate creative insights without reasoning.

How Powerful Women Tackle Tech in Business

Three women who are leaders in the business world spoke about the growing role of new technologies, like AI, on a panel moderated by TIME senior correspondent Alice Park, at the TIME Women of the Year Leadership Forum in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Anthropic Chief: by Next Year, AI Could Be Smarter Than All Humans

Then, on Mondays, they show up at the headquarters of Anthropic, the $60 billion rival to OpenAI they co-founded, to develop artificial intelligence (AI), which they believe will soon replace swathes of human work and, in the process, probably transform their start-up into one of the megacorporations of tomorrow.

Amodei, 42, has predicted that “superintelligence”, which he defines as AIs that are more capable than Nobel prizewinners in most fields, could arrive as soon as next year.

Healthcare

Why DeepSeek Will Upend American Medicine

At this month’s Paris AI Summit, the global conversation around artificial intelligence took an unexpected turn.

On day two of the summit, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance called the world’s approach to AI “too self-conscious, too risk-averse,” warning that overregulation could “paralyze one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations.”

His remarks reflect a shift in how political and business leaders are thinking about AI—not just as a technology to regulate but as a force to accelerate.

Arizona Moves to Ban AI Use in Reviewing Medical Claims

Legislation has been introduced in at least 11 states as calls grow for human oversight of artificial intelligence use in reviewing health insurance claims. If signed into law, the bill would ban AI from being used to deny a medical claim or from denying a prior authorization needed for “medical necessity, experimental status or any other reason that involves the use of medical judgment,” the bill states.

Wearables

Humane Is Shutting Down the AI Pin and Selling Its Remnants to HP

Humane is selling most of its company to HP for $116 million and will stop selling AI Pin, the company announced today.

AI Pins that have already been purchased will continue to function normally until 3 PM ET on February 28th, Humane says in a support document. After that date, Pins will “no longer connect to Humane’s servers.” As a result, AI Pin features will “no longer include calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access.” Humane is also encouraging users to download any pictures, videos, and notes stored on their Pins before they are permanently deleted at that shutdown time.

Development

Microsoft’s Majorana 1 Chip Carves New Path for Quantum Computing

Microsoft today introduced Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture that it expects will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.

It leverages the world’s first topoconductor, a breakthrough type of material that can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, which are the building blocks for quantum computers.

Mira Murati Launches Rival to OpenAI Called Thinking Machines Lab

After her sudden departure from OpenAI last fall, ex-CTO Mira Murati vanished from public view to start something new. Now, she is ready to share some details about what she’s working on.

Her new AI startup is called Thinking Machines Lab, and while the specifics of what it plans to release are still under wraps, the company says its goal is “to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable and generally capable.” The startup also promises at least some level of public transparency by pledging to regularly publish technical research and code.