New features and launches in ChatGPT, Cursor, Perplexity and other AI tools, plus changes to pricing and availability.
Adobe just launched Contract AI for its Acrobat AI Assistant, an add-on feature that digests complex legal documents in seconds. It automatically recognizes contract PDFs, translates confusing jargon into plain English, and highlights version differences. Why it matters: It turns Acrobat into an affordable practical legal copilot for small businesses and individuals overwhelmed by fine print.
Virgin Media O2 built an AI bot named Daisy to troll phone scammers. Posing as a chatty 78-year-old grandmother who rambles about knitting and scone recipes, the bot kept fraudsters on the line for up to 40 minutes at a time to keep them away from real victims.
OpenAI just rolled out Deep Research to all ChatGPT Pro subscribers across iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows apps. The tool autonomously browses the web and synthesizes deep findings into structured reports, now accessible straight from your pocket or desktop.
Perplexity just rolled out Perplexity Assistant for Android users, turning its search engine into an action-taking agent. It can hail rides, reserve tables, and read your screen or camera feed across apps in 15 languages. While completely free to use right now, CEO Aravind Srinivas admitted some complex multi-app actions might still be hit-or-miss.
Freepik just integrated Google's Imagen 3 into its AI Suite, touting its lighting and fine detail. Users can claim two free image generations within the first 24 hours of launch.
KREA AI just launched custom model training, allowing users to build personalized visual styles from as few as three reference images. Powered by io.net's decentralized GPU network, training takes only a few minutes, and the resulting style plugs directly into KREA's real-time generation canvas. The training feature is available on paid plans starting at $10 a month.
OpenAI just unveiled Operator, a research preview of an AI agent that controls a web browser to complete real-world tasks like filling out forms and ordering groceries. Powered by a new Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model, it navigates interfaces like a human while asking users to take over during logins and payments. It is currently rolling out to Pro users in the U.S.
OpenAI just launched a research preview of Operator, a general-purpose AI agent that takes control of a browser to handle travel booking, reservations, and online shopping. Powered by a Computer-Using Agent model, it clicks and fills out forms just like a human, though sensitive actions like payments still require manual user approval.
Google is rolling out head and facial expression tracking to more Chromebooks, letting users navigate hands-free without a mouse. Built for users with motor impairments and based on its Project Gameface tool, it recommends at least 8GB of RAM. The company also unveiled new real-time classroom screen-sharing controls and teased over 20 upcoming laptops for 2025.
Adobe just rolled out major beta updates across its video suite ahead of the Sundance Film Festival. Premiere Pro gains on-device, AI-powered natural language footage search and 17-language caption translation, while After Effects overhauls its caching system to let older hardware preview complex comps smoothly. Finding needle-in-a-haystack B-roll just got a lot faster.
ByteDance just launched Trae, a new AI code editor targeting overseas developers. Built on Microsoft software, it lets programmers generate project-level code using OpenAI's GPT-4o or Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet—and all AI features are currently free. The app is live on macOS, with a Windows version on the way.
Perplexity just rolled out its Sonar API, letting developers bake real-time web search with citations straight into their apps. The service comes in two tiers—standard Sonar and 200k-token Sonar Pro—with base pricing starting at $5 per 1,000 searches. Why it matters: Perplexity is productizing its core consumer moat into an API, taking direct aim at Google and OpenAI.
A Canadian maker named Hudzah just built a tabletop nuclear fusor capable of detecting neutrons for around $3,000, guided largely by Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's o1 pro. Claude Projects digested forum archives to debug the build, while o1 pro handled intricate electrical wiring. Why it matters: Frontier reasoning models are actively lowering the barrier for complex, high-risk physical engineering at home.
OpenAI just updated the custom instructions UI inside ChatGPT, making it much easier to tweak how the bot talks to you. The refreshed interface lets you directly set the personality traits you want it to have, its tone of voice, and any guardrails it should follow.
Cognition just released Devin 1.2, giving its AI software engineer better in-context reasoning to understand repository structures and reuse existing code. Users can now assign tasks simply by sending voice notes directly in Slack. The platform still starts at $500 a month, now with usage-based overage options.
Apple just temporarily disabled notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in the latest iOS 18.3 developer beta. The Apple Intelligence feature sparked backlash after hallucinating crucial facts, including wrongly claiming a shooting suspect shot himself in a BBC alert. Apple plans to bring it back later with italic styling, individual app toggles, and clear warnings that AI summaries "may contain errors."
Krea AI just rolled out a tool that converts flat 2D images into 3D objects within its real-time generator. Users can rotate, reposition, and scale the converted models while the background updates live. Why it matters: it makes complex scene composition and character posing much easier without manual redrawing.
DeepSeek just launched its official mobile app on the iOS App Store and major Android marketplaces, giving users free access to its 671-billion-parameter DeepSeek-V3 model. The app supports web search, deep thinking mode, and file and image scanning. It basically turns one of open source's hottest models into a free, pocket-sized ChatGPT rival.
LinkedIn just rolled out two free AI tools for job hunters and small businesses, including a Jobs Match feature to evaluate if postings are worth applying to and a synthetic hiring agent to triage candidates. Notably, both rely on LinkedIn's in-house AI rather than OpenAI models.
Microsoft just launched Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, bringing metered AI agents into its free GPT-4o chat experience for commercial users. Employees can now run web searches, analyze files, and trigger custom agents without a full subscription. Why it matters: It gives companies an easy, low-friction on-ramp to deploy workplace agents at scale.
