Silism Week-49: EU pushes social-media age limits, Databricks targets a $134B valuation, NVIDIA launches Alpamayo-R1, Amazon backtracks on AI dubs, OpenAI acquires Neptune, and 20+ new AI tools—from automated workflows to human-level video understanding. Stay informed with Silism’s AI Weekly Roundup.
Need-to-Know
- Avatar director James Cameron says performance capture elevates real actors, while generative AI inventing characters from nothing is “horrifying.”
- The EU approved a proposal banning under-16s from using social media or AI chatbots without verified parental consent.
- Databricks is reportedly seeking a $5B raise at a $134B valuation as revenue climbs but margins shrink under heavy AI workloads.
- Banks are in discussions to lend $38B to Oracle and Vantage to build additional data centers serving OpenAI.
- Deutsche Telekom and Schwarz Group are exploring a joint AI data-center project supported by the EU’s $20B digital-infrastructure program.
- Residents in Saline protested DTE’s fast-tracked plan to power an OpenAI–Oracle data center, citing environmental and energy concerns.
- MIT spinout Liquid AI released the LFM2 blueprint, enabling small models to operate as reliable on-device control layers for enterprises.
- The Zig Foundation is leaving GitHub for Codeberg, citing unresolved GitHub Actions bugs and Microsoft’s AI-heavy direction degrading engineering quality.
- NVIDIA unveiled Alpamayo-R1, an open reasoning model for autonomous driving, plus major new tools for digital and physical AI systems.
- Accenture is partnering with OpenAI to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise to tens of thousands of employees as it scales its enterprise-AI strategy.
- Elon Musk claims AI and robotics could eliminate the U.S. debt crisis in three years through huge productivity gains—experts remain sharply divided.
- Germany’s Black Forest Labs raised $300M at a $3.25B valuation, marking one of Europe’s largest AI funding rounds this year.
- Amazon removed its AI-generated anime dubs after backlash over poor quality and reliance on generative systems.
- Google is testing a merged interface combining AI Overviews and AI Mode, allowing users to shift from AI snapshots to conversational search on one screen.
- AWS debuted Kiro, a coding agent that can run for days, alongside new DevOps and security agents for long-running workflows.
- Apptopia reports ChatGPT referrals to retail apps jumped 28% on Black Friday, though traffic remains limited and dominated by Amazon and Walmart.
- Amazon is offering early-stage startups one free year of Kiro Pro+ compute credits to drive adoption of its AI coding tool.
- Amazon and NVIDIA introduced “AI Factories,” enabling enterprises to run AWS AI systems inside their own data centers.
- OpenAI is acquiring Neptune, strengthening its model-training workflow tracking and research infrastructure.
- Wikipedia is pursuing new licensing deals to ensure AI companies pay for scraping-driven server load.
- Microsoft cut its AI-agent sales targets after slower-than-expected enterprise adoption, signaling readiness gaps in real deployments.
- In Google’s Year in Search 2025, Gemini and DeepSeek were the top breakout global queries—marking chatbots’ first dominance in search trends.
- Cristiano Ronaldo invested in Perplexity, launching a “Perplexity x CR7” collaboration as he expands into the AI sector.
- OpenAI is testing a “second-output” self-check for model misbehavior, though it only flags issues and is drawing criticism.
- Google and Replit signed a multi-year agreement to advance enterprise “vibe-coding” and grow Google Cloud’s AI share in developer tools.
Weekly AI Launches
- Ripplica launched a system that records browser workflows once and re-executes them automatically with AI agents.
- TinyCommand introduced a no-code platform combining forms, data, and AI agents to run automated workflows.
- plok.sh released a tool that instantly converts any GitHub repo’s Markdown into a fast, themed, CMS-free blog.
- Unfold launched a free creator tool generating interactive, personalized animated courses from user prompts.
- CyberCut AI introduced an editor that auto-splits long videos into social-ready clips and provides full AI editing capabilities.
- Taskade Genesis launched, enabling entire business systems like CRMs to self-run via AI agents and workflows from a single prompt.
- TwelveLabs released Marengo 3.0, a multimodal model with human-level video understanding for precision search and retrieval.
- Telegram launched Cocoon, a decentralized network linking GPU owners, developers, and users for low-cost private AI compute.
- X-Design introduced an AI tool transforming basic product photos into styled, realistic scenes in one click.
- Stickerbox launched a voice tool turning children’s spoken ideas into printable stickers they can color.
- ZapDigits debuted a unified marketing dashboard merging 20+ tools into one real-time, shareable interface.
- Once UI 1.5 shipped with drop-in visual effects and real-time charts for expressive indie-developer interfaces.
- Aha 2.0 launched an automated influencer-marketing platform designed for AI startups—users just approve campaigns.
- TrueFoundry launched the AI Gateway, a production control plane for experimenting with, governing, and monitoring AI agents.
- Fellow 5.0 rolled out new bot/botless meeting capture modes, improved AI recaps, and an integrated MCP server.
- beLow released a tool that auto-optimizes C/C++ embedded code for target hardware to reduce energy use and runtime.
- Pylar launched a platform converting data views into MCP tools to securely connect agents to enterprise data stacks.
- Compass introduced a Slack app enabling natural-language queries over warehouse and prospecting data.
- GNGM launched a tracker-free sleep-reset app helping night-owls shift their circadian rhythm with nightly check-ins.
- Korl launched a Slack agent that manages feature-request tracking across customer calls, Jira, and status updates.