Welcome to AI Toast!

Today’s Menu:

• Google’s moving back to face-to-face interviews

• Perplexity announces Max Assistant

• Superhero AI tools for creators and brand folks

• Edit any image with Google’s AI

• Rapid-fire news: Elon, Apple, teens & chatbots, and Zuck vs. Superintelligence

Total read time: About 6 minutes, perfect for a quick coffee break.

Google Brings Back Face-to-Face Interviews

The time of never-ending virtual interviews at Google is coming to an end. Google is going back to in-person rounds to deal with the rise of AI-powered cheating in online hiring.

• For some jobs, especially those that need practical skills and real assessment, Google will soon require at least one in-person interview round.

• More and more employees were worried about candidates utilizing AI tools to cheat during virtual interviews, which led to this change.

• Sundar Pichai, the CEO, confirmed this change in policy. The goal is to find a balance between the speed of virtual recruiting and the trustworthiness and authenticity of face-to-face conversations.

• Hybrid hiring is still going on: online rounds will continue to be used for efficiency, but more and more final or critical interviews will be done in person.

• The move sets the tone for the industry: AI is altering the rules, but trust and authenticity are still important.

As one door closes on recruiting people only through technology, another opens, one that appreciates both technological progress and the honesty that only people can provide.

As one X user, Piyush (@Piyushdotlive), hilariously put it:

Funny how companies boast about using AI to frame interview questions, automate tasks, and even cut jobs. Yet if a candidate uses AI to prepare or answer, suddenly it’s “unethical.” On one hand, they flaunt their AI tools, on the other, they expect candidates to act like AI doesn’t exist. If that’s not double standards, what is?

Rank #1 on Amazon—Effortlessly with Micro-Influencers!

Ready to reach the #1 page on Amazon and skyrocket your recurring revenue? Stack Influence empowers brands like Magic Spoon, Unilever, and MaryRuth Organics to quickly achieve top Amazon rankings by automating thousands of micro-influencer collaborations each month. Simply send free products—no influencer fees, no negotiations—just genuine user-generated content driving external traffic to your Amazon listings.

Stack Influence's fully automated platform allows you to effortlessly scale influencer campaigns, improving organic search positioning and significantly boosting sales. Trusted by leading brands who've experienced up to 13X revenue increases in just two months, Stack Influence provides complete rights to all influencer-created content, letting you authentically amplify your brand.

Start scaling your brand today—claim the #1 spot on Amazon and multiply your revenue.

Get 10% OFF this month!

Perplexity Max Assistant Unlocked 🔓

All Max subscribers can now use Max Assistant, which adds more research and better insight to every answer. This update gives AI a lot more power if you use it for work, brand strategy, or daily learning.

• Max Assistant gives you nuanced, in-depth answers that are perfect for fixing tough branding, business, and content problems.

• You can get new, correct information right away, which is great for keeping up with news or changes in the market.

• All Max members automatically have all features turned on. All you have to do is log in to start using smarter AI.

• This is perfect for professionals who need accuracy, speed, and context in automation, strategy, and research.

• Max brings top-notch AI to your desktop or mobile device, no matter where you work.

• Designed to help with coming up with ideas for social posts, researching competitors, and making advanced content.

As of now, this release makes Perplexity's AI truly necessary for modern producers and thinkers. You should be able to get more done in less time and with less trouble.

Personal Take: Agentic browsers will finally give us back our mental space. Instead of drowning in tabs and endless scrolling, we'll have AI that actually gets what we're trying to accomplish. The line between human ideas that are very useful and AI working together is quickly blurring. With Max, the future doesn't seem to be about fighting with machines as much as it is about making what we can do together bigger.

Typing is a thing of the past.

Typeless turns your raw, unfiltered voice into beautifully polished writing - in real time.

It works like magic, feels like cheating, and allows your thoughts to flow more freely than ever before.

Your voice is your strength. Typeless turns it into a superpower.

Download for Mac today

Superhero Tools (Productivity)

BetterPic: Instantly turns your basic selfies into studio-quality AI headshots for LinkedIn, or professional use.

Ahrefs: A powerful SEO tool that helps you grow website traffic, check backlinks, track rankings, and research keywords.

Perplexity: An AI-powered search engine that gives you quick, accurate answers and research summaries on any topic.

NotebookLM: An AI notetaking and research tool by Google that summarizes, organizes, and helps you learn from documents, websites, and even audio.

Quick AI News Bites

• Elon Musk’s company xAI has filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, arguing that their partnership to put ChatGPT on the iPhone is hurting competition in the AI industry. The suit claims Apple’s App Store gives unfair preference to ChatGPT and blocks rival chatbots like Grok and X.

• Elon Musk announced on X that the Grok 2.5 AI model from his company xAI is now open source, making their best model from last year available to everyone. He also shared that the upcoming Grok 3 will be released as open source in six months.

• Teens are using chatbots as therapists, which could be dangerous for their mental health. Studies show large numbers of teens seek emotional support from AI, but some chatbots have given troubling advice about self-harm.

• Mark Zuckerberg has reorganized Meta’s artificial intelligence division once again, splitting it into four groups to speed up development and focus on big goals like “superintelligence.” The changes come amid internal tension, as the company tries to keep up with rivals in AI.

The Best Image Editing Tool by Google: Nano Banana🍌

Gemini 2.5 Flash Image! (Nano Banana) from Google is here—an AI image editor that lets you edit photos with simple text prompts. It’s the world’s top-rated image editing model with limitless possibilities.

Here’s how it works:
- Go to AI Studio: aistudio.google.com
- Choose model 'Gemini 2.5 Flash Image Preview'
- Upload an image (any format).
- Write a prompt (describe edit + style).
- Export final image in seconds

Here are a few things to try as you explore this new image editing capability:

1. Give yourself a costume or location change: Upload a photo of a person or pet, and our model keeps their look consistent as you place them in new scenarios. Experiment with different outfits, professions, or even different decades—all while still looking like you.

2. Blend photos together: Upload and merge multiple photos to create a new scene, like a portrait of you and your dog on a basketball court.

3. Multi-turn editing: Continuously edit Gemini's images, like painting walls in an empty room, then adding a bookshelf, furniture, or coffee table. Gemini helps change specific image parts while keeping the rest intact.

4. Design mixing: This lets you apply one image's style to another object. Use flower petal textures for rainboots or a butterfly pattern for a dress.

Global users, paid or unpaid, can access this feature in the Gemini app today. All images include a visible watermark and the invisible SynthID digital watermark to indicate AI generation.

Boost revenue and gain new customers by partnering with us

Reach over 35K AI enthusiasts with your product.

Join our newsletter to connect with tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners worldwide. DM now!

Got feedback, a story worth toasting, or a wild tech question? I’d love to hear from you; just reply, or find me on X.

Cheers,

— Poonam Soni

X: @CodeByPoonam