Ad
Skip to content
Subscribe Now
Matthias Bastian
Matthias Bastian View the LinkedIn Profile of Matthias Bastian
Jan 6, 2026
Short News
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section
Read full article about: AI industry finds its 2026 narrative as OpenAI and Microsoft argue users are the bottleneck, not models

The AI industry seems to have found its narrative for 2026: AI models are more capable than the people using them. Following Satya Nadella, OpenAI product head Fidji Simo has now weighed in. Her message: "AI models are capable of far more than how most people experience them day to day." OpenAI's goal for 2026 is closing the gap between what AI can do and how people actually use it. The company that turns research into useful products will lead the market.

ChatGPT has over 800 million weekly active users and one million business customers, according to Simo. In 2026, OpenAI plans to evolve it from a chatbot to a more personal "super assistant," one that understands goals, stores context, and helps proactively. A leaked mid-2025 document describes how such a super assistant would compete for human attention.

For businesses, OpenAI wants to build an automated workflow platform, with Codex serving as an "automated teammate" for developers. To justify higher prices, OpenAI needs major AI agent improvements: the company is reportedly considering plans costing up to 20,000 dollars per month.

Comment Source: Fidji Simo Blog
Matthias Bastian
Matthias Bastian View the LinkedIn Profile of Matthias Bastian
Jan 6, 2026
AI in practice
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section

Boston Dynamics unveils production Atlas designed for warehouses and factory floors

Boston Dynamics is turning its humanoid robot Atlas into a commercial product. The first fleet ships to Hyundai in 2026, where the 1.9-meter-tall robot will handle heavy lifting in warehouses and factories.

Read full article
Comment
Matthias Bastian
Matthias Bastian View the LinkedIn Profile of Matthias Bastian
Jan 5, 2026
Short News
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section
Read full article about: OpenAI loses top AI researcher Jerry Tworek after seven years

OpenAI is losing yet another senior researcher: Jerry Tworek is out after nearly seven years at the company. Tworek shared the news in a message to his team. He was a key player in building GPT-4, ChatGPT, and OpenAI's first AI coding models, while also helping push new scaling boundaries. Most recently, he ran the "Reasoning Models" team, working on AI systems that can handle complex logical reasoning. He was part of the core group behind the o1 and o3 models, the foundation for much of OpenAI's recent AI progress.

Tworek says he wants "to try and explore types of research that are hard to do at OpenAI." That sounds like a not-so-subtle dig at CEO Sam Altman's relentless focus on products and revenue, which has reportedly been causing tension among researchers. No word yet on where Tworek is headed next.

Comment Source: Tworek via X
Matthias Bastian
Matthias Bastian View the LinkedIn Profile of Matthias Bastian
Jan 5, 2026
Short News
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section
Read full article about: Abu Dhabi's TII claims its Falcon H1R 7B reasoning model matches rivals seven times its size

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) from Abu Dhabi has released Falcon H1R 7B, a compact reasoning language model with 7 billion parameters. TII says the model matches the performance of competitors two to seven times larger across various benchmarks, though as always, benchmark scores only loosely correlate with real-world performance, especially for smaller models. Falcon H1R 7B uses a hybrid Transformer-Mamba architecture, which lets it process data faster than comparable models.

Falcon H1R 7B scores 49.5 percent across four benchmarks, outperforming larger models like Qwen3 32B (46.2 percent) and Nemotron H 47B Reasoning (43.5 percent). | Image: Technology Innovation Institute (TII)

The model is available as a complete checkpoint and quantized version on Hugging Face, along with a demo. TII released it under the Falcon LLM license, which allows free use, reproduction, modification, distribution, and commercial use. Users must follow the Acceptable Use Policy, which TII can update at any time.

Comment Source: Website | Github Blog
Maximilian Schreiner
Maximilian Schreiner View the LinkedIn Profile of Maximilian Schreiner
Jan 5, 2026
AI in practice
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section
Read full article about: Amazon opens Alexa Plus web version for certain users in Early Access

Amazon has released the web version of its AI assistant Alexa Plus in early access for users in the US and Canada. Users can sign up at Alexa.com and use the new chatbot directly in their browser. Alexa Plus was already available on new Echo devices and recently rolled out to older Echos as well. A beta test is currently running in Germany.

The web interface lets users upload documents, emails, and images. Alexa Plus can extract information from these files - turning recipes into shopping lists or automatically adding appointments to your calendar. Amazon is also promoting features like automatic meal planning and filling Amazon Fresh carts based on dietary restrictions. Smart home devices can be controlled through the website too. Amazon is also launching a new sidebar for quick access and a redesigned mobile Alexa app.

Comment Source: Amazon
Maximilian Schreiner
Maximilian Schreiner View the LinkedIn Profile of Maximilian Schreiner
Jan 5, 2026
AI in practice
Copy the url to clipboard Share this article Go to comment section

AI tool catches pancreatic cancer in routine scans before symptoms appear

According to physician Zhu Kelei, AI has definitively saved the lives of patients whose scans were only flagged by PANDA, an AI tool developed by Alibaba researchers. The system analyzes non-contrast CT images – scans where even experienced radiologists can easily miss tumors.

Read full article
Comment