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- Elon Musk’s X rolls out Grok 4.1
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Welcome to AI Toast!
Here’s what’s on the menu today:
Grok 4.1 Now Available to All Users
Jeff Bezos is back in the operator’s chair
Sakana AI secures $135M Series B
Build your own AI Skills with Google
Superhero Tools (Video Version)
Quick Bites: OpenAI’s money math looks messy.
Total read time: About 5 minutes, perfect for a quick coffee break with Grok!
Image Source: xAI
xAI has unveiled Grok 4.1, an advanced large-language model that enhances real-world interactive conversations with better style, personality, and coherence, focusing on creativity and emotional intelligence.
Grok 4.1 offers two operation modes: a fast “Non-Thinking” model and a deeper “Thinking” model for complex reasoning.
The model reduces hallucination rates by three times compared to prior versions, now at just 4%, enhancing factual accuracy.
It shines in creative, emotional, and collaborative tasks with improved nuance, style, and personality.
Grok 4.1 excels at long conversations by better maintaining context and adapting to shifts without losing coherence.
The model achieved top AI benchmarks, ranking #1 on the LMArena Text Leaderboard with an Elo score of 1483.
New reward-model systems and advanced autonomous reasoning optimize responses for helpfulness and alignment.
Available broadly, users can select Grok 4.1 anytime for sharper, more human-centered AI interactions.
Personal Take: Models will ship with characters. The winners will separate theater from truth, using search‑grounded pipelines for facts and reserving “self” moments for engagement. Pair a bold narrative with quieter technical gains. If the persona draws attention, the accuracy keeps it.
Unlocking Incrementality: A Guide for Marketing Success
In today's chaotic marketing landscape, brands need a reliable way to measure what works and what doesn't. Incrementality is the answer.
This free ebook, “Unlocking Incrementality: A Guide for Marketing Success,” will teach you everything you need to know about incrementality, from the basics to advanced strategies.
Inside, you’ll learn:
What incrementality is and why it matters: Understand how it differs from traditional attribution and why it’s essential for modern marketers.
How to measure and test incrementality: Explore proven methods like geo experiments and conversion lift testing.
How to optimize your marketing spend: Identify your most impactful channels and allocate your budget with confidence.
Real-world success stories from top brands: See how leading brands use incrementality to drive growth and improve ROI.
Image Source: Cybernews
The Amazon founder is reportedly co‑CEO of a new AI startup called Project Prometheus, alongside Google X veteran Vik Bajaj.
The company has raised a jaw‑dropping $6.2B and already hired close to 100 people from Meta, OpenAI, and DeepMind.
The pitch: “AI for the physical economy”, tools that help engineers build real‑world things faster across computing, aerospace, and autos.
Think of Prometheus as the bridge between bits and atoms. Instead of only training on internet text, the team aims to simulate the physical world and feed AI with high‑signal experimental data akin to what Periodic Labs is doing with autonomous labs and physics‑grade simulations.
If it works, we get shorter R&D cycles, faster materials discovery, and better manufacturing throughput. If it doesn’t, we get a very expensive science project.
The AI narrative has been dominated by chatbots and content. Prometheus bets the next big unlock is in pipes, chips, planes, the actual hard stuff.
Personal Take: If LLMs made software feel magical, Prometheus wants to make hardware feel programmable. It’s also Bezos‑coded: long horizons, heavy infrastructure, and a taste for moonshots that dovetail with Blue Origin’s ambitions.
Image Source: Sakana AI
Tokyo’s breakout AI startup Sakana AI just locked in a massive $135M Series B, pushing its valuation to $2.65B as it races to build the most culturally aligned, Japanese-native AI models on the market.
The round pulled in a who’s who of global and domestic investors: MUFG, Khosla Ventures, Macquarie Capital, NEA, Lux Capital and In-Q-Tel
The company was founded in 2023 by ex-Google researchers Llion Jones, Ren Ito, and David Ha (now CEO), known for pushing the boundaries of efficient, small-data generative models.
Sakana’s aim: affordable AI that understands Japanese language and culture.
Where the money goes:
Deepening R&D to build next-generation Japanese-tuned LLMs
Expanding engineering, sales, and enterprise distribution inside Japan
Moving beyond finance (Daiwa, MUFG) into industrial, manufacturing, government, defense and intelligence through 2026
Pursuing strategic partnerships, investments and acquisitions to scale globally
Why they stand out: Sakana isn’t chasing the giant-model arms race, it’s carving out a lane for sovereign AI systems shaped by national culture, language and values.
Personal take: This is a power move. Japan wants AI built for Japan and Sakana is positioning itself as the country’s flagship model provider that is culturally tuned, enterprise-ready and geopolitically relevant. If “sovereign AI” becomes the next big frontier, Sakana just planted its flag early
Superhero Tools (Video Edition)
Veo 3.1 - Generate realistic 8-second clips, extend scenes, and insert/remove objects while keeping physics, lighting, and prompt adherence tight. Great for storyboards, ads, and pre-viz.
VEED - Create Pro level videos in the Blink of AI. An all-in-one editor with automatic subtitling and AI cleanup that keeps long-form content polished and professional.
FocuSee - Record once, look pro. Automatic zoom-ins on key actions, cursor highlights, clean layouts which is perfect for tutorials, demos, and onboarding.
Descript - Create any kind of video with powerful AI editing. Guide your AI co-editor or take full control using intuitive tools. With Descript, editing is as easy as typing.
HeyGen - Talking avatar powerhouse. Fast lip-sync, multi-language dubbing, spokesperson videos without a studio. Great for localized content and product explainers.
Higgsfield - AI camera control + effects playground. Presets for cinematic moves, UGC generators, lipsync studio, and wild VFX templates which is ideal for social-first creative and quick ad concepts.
Google Skills: Learn AI step by step
Google Skills is Google’s all-in-one learning platform for AI and cloud. It bundles short courses, hands-on labs, skill badges, team leaderboards, and hiring pathways so you can learn fast and show proof.
Here is how to use it:
Pick a clear outcome: AI literacy, workflow automation, or building apps with Gemini.
Start with the right path
New: AI Essentials → Prompting Essentials → AI in Google Workspace.
Devs: Generative AI for Developers → Vertex AI labs → Gemini Code Assist badge.
Open hands-on labs. Enable Gemini Code Assist to get in-editor help. Follow tasks, ship small demos.
Complete assessments to get skill badges like Kickstarting Application Development with Gemini Code Assist. Consider Google Cloud Certificates for deeper validation.
Take Deploy an Agent with Agent Development Kit. Explore MCP, Agent-to-Agent patterns, and vibe coding to connect tools into real workflows.
Use gamified features: leagues, achievements, streaks. Keep a weekly AI hour. Share badges to document progress.
Apply skills to your job or portfolio. Some certificates include direct interview pathways with partners.
Start with a path, finish a lab, earn a badge, then ship a real workflow.
Quick AI News Bites
Group chats in ChatGPT (pilot) is rolling out on web and mobile in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan. Memory stays private, GPT‑5.1 Auto handles replies, and you can @mention ChatGPT to chime in. For teams, this nudges AI toward “collaboration layer,” not just a solo tool, expect new playbooks for co-creation.
Apple is accelerating plans for Tim Cook succession reports say. Apple may be preparing a leadership change, with Tim possibly stepping down next year. Hardware chief John Ternus is seen as the frontrunner amid Apple’s push into AI and mixed reality, though there’s no official comment yet.
Peec AI raises $21M to power “GEO” (Generative Engine Optimization), tracking brand visibility in AI answers, sentiment, and source influence. Pricing is prompt-based; recommendations include joining specific Reddit threads. This is the SEO-to-GEO moment: brands will optimize for questions, not keywords.
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— Poonam Soni