AI in practice Archive

Jan 19, 2026

Google's Gemini API business is taking off. According to The Information, API requests shot up from around 35 billion in March to roughly 85 billion in August, more than doubling in just five months. The spike started after Google shipped its "breakthrough" model, Gemini 2.5, this spring, and continued climbing with Gemini 3. Gemini 2.5 is even turning a profit on operating costs, though not on research and development. Google plans to break down the numbers during its quarterly earnings call on February 4.

On the enterprise side, Google says Gemini Enterprise now has eight million subscribers across 1,500 companies, with another million signing up online. Reviews are mixed, though. Some users like how it connects to company data and find it handy for research and documents; internal surveys at one consulting firm show 83 percent satisfaction. But others say the product works fine for simple questions while falling short on specialized tasks and custom app development.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Jan 19, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI says it could have grown even faster if only it had more compute

OpenAI says more compute means more revenue. The company’s new business figures show both tripling year over year, but with cash outflow expected to hit 115 billion dollars by 2029, the formula needs to hold up.

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Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 19, 2026

AI in practice

Thinking Machines could face tough questions from investors after talent exodus

The AI startup from former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati had a rough week. After firing a co-founder, several researchers left for their former employer. A planned funding round at a $50 billion valuation could be in jeopardy.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 18, 2026

Short News

South Koreans now spend more per month on AI subscriptions than on Netflix. According to Hankyung Aicel, payments for seven AI services, including ChatGPT and Gemini, hit an estimated 80.3 billion won (roughly $55-60 million) in December 2025. That's more than the average monthly Netflix subscription revenue in Korea during 2024, which came in at 75 billion won (around $50-55 million). One important caveat: the AI figure includes business payments, while Netflix is a consumer-only service.

Credit card payments for AI services jumped from 52,000 transactions in January 2024 to 1,666 million in December 2025. Private customers paid an average of 34,700 won (about $24), while businesses spent 107,400 won (roughly $74). ChatGPT dominated with 71.5 percent of all payments, followed by Gemini at 11.0 percent and Claude at 10.7 percent. According to Hankyung Aicel CEO Kim Hyung-min, Korea's subscription market continues to grow, and generative AI is becoming a regular subscription product.

For context: Netflix reports revenue per subscription of around $7 for Asia-Pacific, compared to roughly $17 in the US and Canada. That's significantly higher revenue per subscription per month.

Comment Source: Hankyung

Matthias Bastian

Jan 18, 2026

Short News

Google is rolling out Gemini 3 Pro to power AI Overviews in search. The system now automatically routes complex queries to Google's most powerful language model, while faster models still handle simpler questions, according to Robby Stein, product manager for Google Search.

Google Search Product Manager Robby Stein announced the Gemini 3 Pro integration for AI Overviews. | Stein via X

This intelligent routing already works in AI Mode, Google's AI-powered search chat, and is now expanding to AI Overviews, the quick answers that appear directly below search queries. The feature is available worldwide in English, but only for paying Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

AI Overviews and similar services from other companies have faced criticism for confidently delivering incorrect answers. While source citations create an appearance of trustworthiness, users rarely verify them. More capable models can reduce errors but won't eliminate them.

Comment Source: Stein via X

Matthias Bastian

Jan 17, 2026

AI in practice

Claude Cowork hit with file-stealing prompt injection days after Anthropic's launch

Matthias Bastian

Jan 17, 2026

Short News

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek ran into trouble developing its new flagship model and had to switch to Nvidia chips. According to insiders, Deepseek initially tried using chips from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers last year, reports the Wall Street Journal. But the results weren't good enough. The company ended up switching to allegedly smuggled Nvidia chips for some training tasks, which finally got things moving. The new model is expected to ship in the coming weeks.

At a recent conference in Beijing, leading Chinese AI researchers admitted that Chinese AI models won't be able to keep pace with US companies without access to better hardware. Justin Lin from Alibaba's Qwen team put the odds of overtaking OpenAI or Anthropic within three to five years at 20 percent at best. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is pushing to cut US chip imports to boost domestic production.

Comment Source: WSJ

Jonathan Kemper

Jan 17, 2026

AI in practice

Flux 2 small brings AI image generation and editing to consumer graphics cards

Collage of photorealistic AI images: Portraits, landscapes, animals and city scenes with a high level of detail

Matthias Bastian

Jan 16, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is pushing "Open Responses," an open interface that works with language models from different providers. The project builds on OpenAI's Responses API and lets developers write code once and run it with any AI model.

Currently, Google, Anthropic, and Meta all handle their APIs differently, which means developers have to rewrite code when switching between models. Open Responses tries to fix that with a shared format for requests, responses, streaming, and tool calls. Vercel, Hugging Face, LM Studio, Ollama, and vLLM have already signed on.

Of course, if successful, this move works in OpenAI's favor. If its API becomes the default, competitors would need to adapt to OpenAI's approach, while existing OpenAI customers wouldn't have to change a thing. The "open" label also lets the company signal a spirit of collaboration, even though it's not sharing any technology beyond what's already public.

Comment Source: OpenAI via X | Open Responses

Matthias Bastian

Jan 16, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI will soon test ads in ChatGPT despite CEO Sam Altman once calling the idea dystopian

OpenAI will start testing ads in ChatGPT, despite CEO Sam Altman’s earlier objections. With a valuation of up to $750 billion to justify and only around five percent of users paying for the service, the company is under enormous pressure to find new revenue streams.

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