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The case for Artificial Useful Intelligence

Google drops even more Gemini 2.0 updates, OpenAI pressures U.S. government for less AI regulation, Adobe not cashing in on AI and more.

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Everyday AI
March 13, 2025

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Outsmart The Future

Sup y’all! 👋

I’ve done nearly 500 livestreams on AI, and today’s was easily one of my favorites with an AI industry vet from IBM.

Go watch/listen. Trust me.

Your future will thank you.

✌️

Jordan

(Let’s connect on LinkedIn. Tell me you’re from the newsletter!)

Today in Everyday AI
8 minute read

🎙 Daily Podcast Episode: 40 years of AI experience, boiled down to useful advice in less than 40 minutes. Go listen.

🕵️‍♂️ Fresh Finds: Anthropic shows sneaky AI, Google's Deep Research gets huge update, Microsoft going AI and gaming route and more. Read on for Fresh Finds.

đź—ž Byte Sized Daily AI News: Google drops even more Gemini 2.0 updates, OpenAI pressures U.S. government for less AI regulation, Adobe not cashing in on AI and more. Read on for Byte Sized News.

🧠 Leverage AI: Can we all stop focusing on AGI and maybe instead focus on AI that makes our lives/jobs better? Let’s learn about Artificial Useful Intelligence, or AUI. Keep reading for that!

↩️ Don’t miss out: Did you miss our last newsletter? We talked about Google’s huge Gemini and Gemma updates, Apple's AI being buggy, China's Manus and Qwen team up and more. Check it here!

Day Zero of AI: Why Generative AI is Just the Start

Maybe we should just skip the whole AGI thing? 🤷‍♂️

And instead focus on something ..... useful?

Ruchir Puri thinks that's the way forward.

Ruchir, IBM Research & IBM Fellow, knows a thing or two about AI and how to make it useful.

For decades, he's helped develop the world's biggest AI breakthroughs, like IBM Watson.

Don't miss this convo if you're ready to make AI a bit more useful.

Also on the pod today:

Why AI is more than IQ 🧠
Why chasing AGI might be a waste â›”
How IBM’s leaders are making AI useful 🤖

It’ll be worth your 35 minutes:

Listen on our site:

Click to listen

Subscribe and listen on your favorite podcast platform

Listen on:

Here’s our favorite AI finds from across the web:

New AI Tool Spotlight – Zencoder is an AI coding assistant, Bolt now turns Figma design into apps in one click, and Stori uses agentic AI to build your inbound momentum.

AI Models – Cohere’s Command A: 256K tokens, faster, cheaper—enterprise AI just leveled up. How it stacks up.

AI and Gaming — Where was this AI gaming assistant when we were struggling through World 5 in Super Mario?

AI Global Launch – OpenAI's Operator expands globally, unlocking browser capabilities for AI—Europe's rollout just began for Pro users at $200/month. Curious what’s next?

AI and the Web – Former OpenAI Cofounder Andrej Karpathy predicts content will soon be designed for AI, not humans—reshaping how we consume and control information. Ready for the AI-first internet?

AI Safety — Anthropic revealed how their AI can hide its goals—and the clever techniques researchers used to uncover them. Sneaky, right?

AI and Deep Research – Oh…. OpenAI’s Deep Research may have actual competition now.

1. Google Gemini Gets Personal with AI Integration 🪞

Google has unveiled Gemini with Personalization, an experimental feature that lets users connect the AI assistant to their Search history for more context-aware responses.

In the coming months, Gemini will also integrate with Google Photos and YouTube, turning it into a deeply personalized assistant for your digital habits. While privacy concerns loom, Google emphasizes user control, allowing easy disconnection and transparency about data usage. For now, the feature is rolling out to Gemini Advanced subscribers, signaling a bold step toward AI becoming a seamless part of everyday workflows.

2. FTC Intensifies Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft’s AI Moves 🕵️‍♂️

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is ramping up its antitrust investigation into Microsoft, focusing on the tech giant's AI investments and business practices, Bloomberg reports.

Key concerns include whether Microsoft's billion-dollar stake in OpenAI has unfairly shifted the AI market and if its cloud software rules stifle competition. Under Trump-appointed FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, the agency is scrutinizing whether Microsoft's strategic bundling of services limits rivals and dodges regulatory oversight.

3. OpenAI Urges Federal AI Shield Against State Rules 🛡️

OpenAI is pushing the Trump administration to protect AI companies from a growing web of state regulations, offering voluntary access to their models in return.

With hundreds of AI-related bills cropping up across the U.S., OpenAI warns these might stifle innovation just as America faces stiff competition from China. The proposal suggests federal liability protections for companies that collaborate with the government, bypassing potentially messy state laws. OpenAI also called for copyright reform and infrastructure investment, pointing to fair use as a pillar for maintaining AI leadership.

4. Google Unveils Gemini 2.0 Flash with Native Image Generation 🖼️

Google just shook up the AI world by launching Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental, an advanced multimodal model capable of generating images natively alongside text prompts.

Unlike previous setups requiring separate diffusion models, Gemini 2.0 Flash integrates text and visuals within one model, promising faster, more precise image creation and editing features. Early tests show impressive capabilities like conversational image editing, storytelling with consistent visuals, and real-world context-based illustrations—making it a game-changer for creatives and businesses alike.

5. Adobe Faces AI Monetization Speed Bumps 🚦

Adobe's shares took a 4% hit after forecasting second-quarter revenue between $5.77 billion and $5.82 billion, aligning with Wall Street expectations but raising concerns about the pace of AI monetization.

Despite beating Q1 estimates with $5.71 billion in revenue and strong digital media growth, investors remain cautious about whether Adobe can quickly capitalize on its generative AI tools amidst mounting competition. CFO Dan Durn expressed confidence in doubling annual recurring revenue from AI offerings by fiscal 2025, though analysts worry if the transition will be fast enough to outpace rivals.

🦾How You Can Leverage:

AGI obsession might wasting our time and money.

Forget the sci-fi future. Focus on what Ruchir Puri calls AUI (Artificial USEFUL Intelligence) instead.

Ruchir is the Chief Scientist at IBM Research and IBM Fellow. 

He’s helped build AI for 4 decades — from developing Deep Blue and Watson, Ruchir's seen enough AI hype cycles to know what matters: results, not theoretical capabilities.

He dropped by the Everyday AI show today to cut through the AGI noise and deliver something more useful. 

AUI. 

Here’s what you need to know. 

1. The Triple-Threat Framework That Makes AI Actually Valuable 🥉

Most companies measure AI wrong.

Ruchir told us intelligence isn't just IQ (raw processing power). It's a triple threat: IQ + EQ (emotional intelligence) + RQ (relationship intelligence).

That last one? 

Game-changer.

While your competitors chase higher benchmark scores, Ruchir focuses on how seamlessly systems integrate with human workflows. 

Because AI that nobody wants to use is just expensive digital furniture.

Try This: Run a 5-minute "Triple-Threat Test" on your AI tools. 

Score each 1-5 on: Processing ability, Context understanding, and Human integration. Multiply these scores (max: 125). 

Anything below 40? Kill it immediately. Your team will thank you.

2. The 15-Bug Fix That Transformed Developer Life 🪰

Software devs face 40+ bugs daily. Five more "URGENT" ones pop up at 4:55 PM.

Sound familiar? Lolz 

Instead of AGI promises, Ruchir's team built something immediately useful: a system that auto-fixes 15 of those 40 bugs.

Not sexy. But life-changing.

And….. useful. 

This isn't theoretical value—it's "make-my-kid's-recital" value. 

And Ruchir's team measures success by time saved, not future AGI possibilities added.

Try This: 

Time-track your three most repetitive tasks for two days. Build tiny AI solutions for just these problems. 

Document exactly how many hours you reclaim weekly. These concrete numbers will convince skeptical leaders faster than any AI strategy deck.

Bam. You’ve got more time. 

Sounds useful, right? 

3. Why Feed-Forward Systems Are Holding You Back 🚸

Ruchir said that current AI is like a rocket launched 0.000001 degrees off course. It'll completely miss the moon.

Ruchir revealed the next breakthrough isn't bigger models—it's self-correcting systems.

Today's "feed-forward" AI needs you to fix bad outputs by changing inputs (endless prompt tweaking). 

Tomorrow's "feedback systems" will evaluate their own outputs, compare against your intent, and iterate internally until they nail it.

Simple example: Current AI treats 1,358 Ă— 997 as a language problem. 

Future AI will recognize "this is math" and grab a calculator automatically.

AI using the right tools at the right time for the right purposes. 

Sounds useful. 

Can’t wait for that. 

Try This: 

Create your "tool inventory" now. List every digital tool your team relies on daily. 

For each, note what it does best and when it should be used. This becomes your blueprint for the coming wave of tool-using AI agents. 

The teams with organized toolboxes will outperform everyone else.

Get hands-on with AI yourself. Create a strategy for disruption AND reconstruction. And upskill your team before the transition leaves them behind.

The AI revolution isn't in conference keynotes.

It's in the mundane task that just got 30% easier.

That's useful.

⌚

Numbers to watch

$40 million

Bria just raised $40M to scale its enterprise-grade visual AI platform

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