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- EP 635: ChatGPT & Wal-Mart team up for AI shopping, Google drops Veo 3.1, Claude Skills get released & more
EP 635: ChatGPT & Wal-Mart team up for AI shopping, Google drops Veo 3.1, Claude Skills get released & more
This week's AI news that matters, OpenAI’s lopsided economics, AWS’s AI hiccups causes delays, the FTC’s lack of AI transparency and more
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Today in Everyday AI
8 minute read
🎙 Daily Podcast Episode: Don’t waste hours a week trying to keep up with AI news. We break it all down for you. Give today’s show a watch/read/listen.
🕵️♂️ Fresh Finds: OpenAI’s lopsided economics, AWS’s AI hiccups causes delays, the FTC’s lack of AI transparency and more. Read on for Fresh Finds.
🗞 Byte Sized Daily AI News: IBM and Groq partner, Meta doubles down on AI hiring, Adobe launches custom AI models and more. Read on for Byte Sized News.
💪 Leverage AI: ChatGPT and Wal-Mart team up, Google’s new AI video drops and more. We tell you what it all means. Keep reading for that!
↩️ Don’t miss out: Did you miss our last newsletter? OpenAI pauses MLK Jr. deepfakes, Oracle’s bullish on AI data center profits, Claude brings Enterprise search and more. Check it here!
EP 635: ChatGPT & Wal-Mart team up for AI shopping, Google drops Veo 3.1, Claude Skills get released & more
Could the combo of ChatGPT and Wal-Mart take on Amazon? 🥊
What are Claude Skill and why do they matter? 🤔
Did Sora 2 already get dethroned by Veo 3.1? 📹
A lot happened in the AI world this week. We'll break it down so you don't have any questions.
Also on the pod today:
• Walmart + ChatGPT: no groceries? 🛒
• Copilot always listening on Windows 👂
• ChatGPT adult content rollout 😳
It’ll be worth your 36 minutes:
Listen on our site:
Subscribe and listen on your favorite podcast platform
Listen on:
Here’s our favorite AI finds from across the web:
New AI Tool Spotlight – Fish Audio S1 generates lifelike voices to caption emotion, Aden turns any file into a chatbot course, and VibeOnly helps companies screen and hire AI-fluent employees.
OpenAI’s Economics — OpenAI is betting billions on AI chips, but risky financing and eye-popping losses have some experts warning this could either ignite or tank the global economy.
AI and Learning — AI is changing STEM education. Here’s how.
AI and Infrastructure: AWS’s outage showed how a single DNS hiccup can ripple across major apps and shake customer trust — and AWS’s fast, transparent updates were as crucial as the fix. Want the full breakdown?

Academics & AI - Amazon and CMU just launched the CMU-Amazon AI Innovation Hub to fund joint research, PhD fellowships, and workshops on generative AI, robotics, NLP and cloud tech. First symposium lands Oct. 28 — want the details?
AI and OCR — Deepseek's OCR compresses image-based documents up to 10x, letting AI handle way longer texts—think millions of pages per day on just a few GPUs.
Life Sciences and AI — Anthropic’s new upgrades make Claude a powerhouse for life sciences, now supporting everything from research to regulatory workflows
AI Transparency —The FTC quietly deleted several blog posts about AI risks and open source projects from Lina Khan's tenure—raising questions about transparency.
AI & Workforce: Lenovo’s new agentic AI powers smarter PCs, services, and TruScale DaaS to boost productivity and cut costs—IDC predicts agentic AI could double workforce productivity by 2027. Want to know what this means for your work?
1. OpenAI Tops Google in Consumer AI Token Use🎖️
OpenAI’s ChatGPT now reportedly outpaces Google in consumer token consumption, driven by massive daily output and an estimated 800 million weekly active users and rising revenue projections. The shift signals growing consumer engagement with conversational AI while Google continues to leverage its huge infrastructure and Gemini models to process vast token volumes across search and cloud services.
2. IBM and Groq partner to speed up agentic AI deployments ⚡
IBM and Groq announced a strategic partnership to bring GroqCloud inference to watsonx Orchestrate, promising over 5X faster and more cost-efficient model inference for enterprise agent workflows, starting immediately. The deal aims to help regulated industries and large enterprises move AI agents from pilot to production by reducing latency, cost, and reliability risks, and plans to integrate Red Hat’s open-source vLLM with Groq’s LPU architecture while supporting IBM Granite models.
3. Meta doubles down on AI hiring with fresh high-profile poaches🧑💼
Meta has continued an aggressive recruitment wave, snapping up top AI talent from OpenAI, Apple and startups despite an earlier hiring pause, adding names like Andrew Tulloch, Ke Yang, Shengjia Zhao and Alexandr Wang to its superintelligence and model teams. This flurry of hires follows a recent temporary freeze and signals Mark Zuckerberg’s push to close gaps with OpenAI and Google, leveraging Meta’s massive user base to scale future models and products.
4. Anthropic Teams Up With U.S. Government to Block AI Nuclear Know-How ☣️
Anthropic has announced a fresh partnership with the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration to keep its Claude chatbot from aiding anyone in building a nuclear weapon, according to Wired.
The new filter aims to prevent AI from leaking nuclear secrets, but experts are split over whether this is a serious safeguard or just window dressing. This move puts the spotlight on how rapidly AI tools are being enlisted in high-stakes national security efforts, showing the urgency tech companies feel as their creations get smarter.
5. Adobe Unveils Custom AI Models for Enterprises �*
Adobe just launched its AI Foundry, letting companies train custom generative AI models using their own branding and intellectual property, according to TechCrunch.
Powered by Firefly, these models can crank out tailored text, images, videos, and even 3D scenes for marketing teams that want creative control and consistency across campaigns. The offering shifts away from Adobe's traditional pricing by seat, charging instead based on usage
🦾How You Can Leverage:
ChatGPT teamed up with Walmart for AI shopping but forgot to include fresh groceries. OpenAI's partnering with Broadcom to build custom AI chips delivering 10 gigawatts of computing power.
Wild.
Meanwhile? Anthropic dropped not one but two major updates to Claude that actually focus on how people actually work.
Plus Microsoft finally gave Windows 11 users an always-listening AI assistant. You know, if you opt in.
And OpenAI's planning to allow adult content on ChatGPT in December according to CEO Sam Altman.
What a packed week of AI news.
1 – Walmart Teams Up with ChatGPT But Forgot the Groceries 🛒
How do you partner with America's largest grocer and somehow exclude groceries?
Walmart announced its integration with ChatGPT this past week, allowing shoppers to purchase items from anything from towels to iPhone cases straight from Walmart's catalog within ChatGPT. The new instant checkout feature lets Walmart users search and buy products directly in the chatbot.
But there's a catch.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Walmart's ChatGPT partnership currently excludes fresh groceries despite Walmart being America's largest grocer.
This limitation is pretty notable because ChatGPT excels at things like meal planning. So this could be a boon when and if this feature does become available.
Walmart's vast grocery business includes cold chain logistics and same-day pickup and delivery that make it uniquely positioned to solve the challenge of fresh food ecommerce. But it's not available, at least now, inside ChatGPT.
Industry experts say whoever controls the AI interface for shopping will control the future of retail. That makes Walmart's move inside ChatGPT a pretty strategic one.
Right now you can only access the feature with natural language. If you're shopping for something, you really have to be shopping for something in particular to trigger the Walmart integration or the other big ones for Shopify or Etsy.
A lot of people haven't even seen it yet.
What it means: So many people use ChatGPT to not just meal plan, but to be like "hey, what can I make?"
It seems like a no-brainer for OpenAI to eventually work with the grocery side of Walmart.
You can't do the one thing that probably a lot of people thought you could.
2 – Claude Launches "Skills" to Actually Remember How You Work 🎯
Anthropic launched a new feature called Skills inside Claude AI and Claude Code this past week, aiming to streamline how the chatbot performs specific work-related tasks.
Skills are essentially folders that contain documents, instructions, and potentially code allowing Claude to access tailored information for a given task.
Here's how it works.
The feature is only available to paid subscribers, though luckily this time Anthropic did not just limit it to its $100 or $200 a month max plan. Normal Pro subscribers and Team and Enterprise users will have access to Claude Skills.
There are some pre-built skills right now inside Claude that Anthropic kind of uploaded. But also users can create their own custom skills by uploading files and guidelines enabling Claude to follow company-specific workflows and branding requirements.
Claude can automatically select and use relevant skills such as brand guidelines or design templates to complete tasks like creating pitch decks or posters. Once created, skills are available across all Claude interfaces including the web app, Claude Code, and the API as long as they are enabled.
Anthropic has also built standard skills for common tasks, but the ability to create custom skills is designed to help teams save time and maintain consistency.
The skills feature also moves Claude a little closer to agentic behavior, allowing it to handle repetitive or complex tasks without needing repeated instructions.
What it means: Skills are kinda like a more advanced version of a GPT that can actually do way more things because you cannot only put together instructions, but also you can take advantage of more of Claude's capability.
This helps teams save time and maintain consistency.
3 – Claude Now Integrates with Microsoft 365 🔍
Claude has launched a new integration with Microsoft 365 this past week, allowing organizations to search and analyze data across their enterprise documents, emails, calendars, and chat tools all from one place.
Claude can now connect directly with Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams.
This makes it possible to search and analyze documents, emails, and conversations without manual uploads.
Users can ask Claude questions and receive answers that pull from all the connected company data sources, not just their own files, offering a more complete view of organizational knowledge.
The new enterprise search feature is especially useful for onboarding new employees, quickly finding company policies, and identifying internal experts on specific topics.
Now kind of on par with where ChatGPT is with its Microsoft 365 connectors.
What it means: New employees can quickly find company policies and identify internal experts on specific topics.
This is the kind of integration that actually makes AI useful for day-to-day work.
4 – OpenAI Planning to Allow Adult Content on ChatGPT 🔞
OpenAI is planning to allow adult content on ChatGPT maybe as soon as December according to reports.
This represents a major policy shift.
Currently, ChatGPT blocks requests for sexually explicit content and related material.
But here's the thing.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on social media this past week that "in December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our 'treat adult users like adults' principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults."
He explained that OpenAI made ChatGPT "pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues." Altman admitted this made it "less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right."
Now that they've "been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools," OpenAI is going to be able to "safely relax the restrictions in most cases."
Altman clarified that users "won't get it unless you ask for it."
It's opt-in only.
The announcement comes roughly a month after OpenAI introduced new ChatGPT features aimed at creating a safer experience for teens, including parental controls.
What it means: OpenAI's betting that controlled adult content generation with age verification is better than users finding workarounds or switching to alternatives.
They'll need strong safety rails and age verification to avoid a PR nightmare.
This could also open up legitimate use cases for creators.
5 – Trump Shares Controversial AI Videos Amid No Kings Protests 🎭
US President Donald Trump is facing new criticisms this past week for how he's using AI video.
Trump shared some controversial AI videos amid the No Kings protests here in the U.S.. In one video, Trump wears a crown while piloting a fighter jet labeled "King Trump," dropping apparent excrement on crowds of protesters.
Yikes.
The No Kings protests saw millions of Americans demonstrating on October 18th across the country. It was one of the largest single-day protests in American history, with rallies in more than 2,500 communities.
The timing of the White House sharing AI videos during these protests drew criticism from organizers and participants.
The situation highlights growing concerns about how government officials use AI-generated content.
What it means: We're entering territory where government communications could involve AI-generated content without clear guidelines.
This sets precedents for how future leaders use these tools.
Expect more scrutiny on AI use in official government communications going forward. Well, maybe starting with the next administration.
6 – OpenAI Building "Sign In with ChatGPT" Feature 🔐
Could ChatGPT become the next "Sign in with Google"?
OpenAI is set to unveil a "Sign in with ChatGPT" feature according to The Information, allowing users to authenticate on third-party websites and apps using their ChatGPT credentials.
This is pretty huge.
The feature would let developers integrate ChatGPT as an identity provider, similar to how "Sign in with Google" or "Sign in with Apple" works today.
It signals OpenAI's ambition to become not just an AI provider but a foundational internet identity platform.
What it means: If they pull this off, OpenAI's positioning ChatGPT as essential internet infrastructure, not just another chatbot.
This could lock in hundreds of millions of users who won't want to manage separate logins across AI-powered apps.
7 – Google Drops Veo 3.1 with Major Video Upgrades 🎬
Google has launched its Veo 3.1 update this past week with some new features for AI video creation.
The update includes improved quality and new capabilities.
Google's Veo 3.1 introduces richer audio, improved narrative comprehension, and enhanced realism in AI-generated videos, now available on Gemini, Vertex AI, and Google Flow.
New features include Ingredients to Video for matching audio and reference images, Scene Extension with audio support, and First and Last Frame for seamless transitions between uploaded images.
What it means: Google's finally getting serious about competing in the AI video generation arms race.
Veo 3.1 puts them back in the conversation alongside the leading video generation tools.
Should we cover AI video more?
8 – Microsoft Unleashes "Always Listening" Copilot for Windows 11 🎤
Microsoft is rolling out a major update to Windows 11 this past week, introducing its Copilot AI as an always-listening AI assistant for users who opt in.
This new Copilot feature allows users to activate voice commands with the command "Hey, Copilot" similar to Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google's Assistant.
Yeah, maybe finally more smart assistants that aren't actually just... however, this new feature is not enabled by default.
Users must turn it on in the app's settings to allow voice activation.
Once activated, a microphone icon and a chime signal will come on telling you that Copilot is listening for commands. To end a conversation, users can either say goodbye, click on the X interface on their screen, or wait for Copilot to disengage after inactivity.
Copilot can perform different Windows tasks, answer questions, and interact with Office apps like PowerPoint and Word using natural language. That's gonna be the big one and how well it actually works.
And well, when access rolls out right now, Microsoft is also rolling out the new Copilot-driven Windows taskbar. Can't forget about that.
Copilot Actions will also let users book restaurants or order groceries from the desktop.
The voice-enabled Copilot will first be rolled out to users in the Windows Insider program starting in May and will expand to more users in the coming months.
What it means: Microsoft's finally giving Windows users the hands-free AI assistant they've been waiting for, kinda their answer to Siri.
But making it opt-in shows they learned from past privacy backlash - nobody wants AI listening by default.
The real test will be how well it actually works with Office apps using natural language.
9 – OpenAI and Broadcom Partner on Custom AI Chips 💻
MOpenAI wants its own chips.
OpenAI is teaming up with Broadcom to design and deploy custom computer chips for their AI, aiming to roll out new AI accelerators late next year.
This partnership is expected to deliver computing power equivalent to 10 gigawatts, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman describes as a gigantic amount of computing infrastructure for advanced AI.
Wild numbers.
OpenAI's move to create its own AI chips signals a push to control the hardware side and future capabilities, potentially reducing reliance on outside suppliers like Microsoft.
Broadcom shares surged more than 9% following the deal, underlining investor excitement about the partnership.
The collaboration, though, began more than eighteen months ago according to Sam Altman, and Broadcom already works with some of the biggest names in tech, like Amazon and Google, on similar AI projects.
OpenAI has recently struck up some huge deals with NVIDIA and AMD for specialized chips as well as data center partnerships with Oracle and CoreWeave.
So yeah, not only are they working with AMD and NVIDIA for specialized AI chips, well, now they're just getting in on the action themselves with this chip partnership with Broadcom.
And many of these deals, though, involve circular financing, which has caused a lot of these AI bubble talks to keep bubbling. This is where companies both invest in OpenAI and supply it with technology, raising concerns about whether this AI bubble is gonna burst.
What it means: OpenAI's not just building better models - they're building the entire computing stack to run them to keep up with compute.
This could potentially reduce their reliance on outside suppliers like Microsoft.
The circular financing setup where partners invest in OpenAI while supplying it with technology is raising legitimate concerns about AI bubble economics.
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