Howdy again. It’s Barsee, and welcome back to AI Valley.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

• 🧠 Anthropic launches Claude 4, its smartest AI yet

• 👤 Anthropic CEO predicts a billion-dollar startup with just one employee

• 🦾 Tesla posts Optimus' most impressive video demonstration yet

• 🤖 Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

🤯 Easiest way on Earth to build any app without writing a single line of code

Emergent, world’s first agentic AI app builder, completely changes the workflow for app creators by turning descriptions into production-ready apps—no code required. Whether you're building a quick MVP or a full-scale platform, Emergent's agentic AI solution lets you launch faster, smarter, simpler and most importantly “Reliable” products

Here’s how it works:

• Describe your vision: Just type what you want—"a marketplace app with secure payments."

• Watch AI build instantly: Frontend, backend, databases—everything auto-generated.

• Fine-tune & customize: Easily tweak designs and add features.

• Instant deployment: Go live to real users with just one click.

Quick Prompt to Try: "Create a travel planning app with itinerary management and budget tracking."

Got an idea? Bring it to life today with Emergent.

Build with Emergent

Use the code VIBEWITHVALLEY and start building your next big app.

_{*This is sponsored}

THROUGH THE VALLEY

🧠 Anthropic launches Claude 4, its smartest AI yet

Anthropic has dropped Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, its most capable models to date. Opus 4 takes the crown as their flagship, built for deep reasoning, multi-step workflows, and outperforming even GPT-4.1 in many areas. Sonnet 4 delivers a snappier, more efficient experience, ideal for day-to-day tasks without sacrificing quality. Both models now support tools, parallel tasking, and come with upgraded memory. Meanwhile, Claude Code is officially rolling out complete with IDE support and a developer SDK. Bonus: new features like “thinking summaries” and enhanced reliability are geared to help devs build sharper, more autonomous agents.

🕶️ Apple reportedly working on smart glasses to rival Meta's Ray-Bans

Apple is expected to launch its own smart glasses in 2026, per Bloomberg reports. Packed with cameras, mics, speakers, and Siri support, the glasses will let users make calls, navigate, control music, and translate speech in real time. True AR may still be a few years away, but Apple’s glasses will feature a custom chip and premium build, likely aiming to leapfrog Meta’s Ray-Bans, which have already crossed a million units sold. The news lands shortly after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced their own AI hardware play for next year.

👤 Anthropic CEO predicts a billion-dollar startup with just one employee

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, believes we’re on the cusp of something wild: a solo founder, armed with powerful AI, building a billion-dollar company, possibly by 2026. With AI now capable of coding, researching, planning, and handling support, the need for large teams is fading fast. Amodei sees industries like dev tools and training platforms where human interaction isn’t essential as fertile ground for AI-powered solo ventures. The one-person unicorn may be closer than we think.

📉 Stack overflow seems to be almost dead

Stack Overflow, once the lifeline for developers, is rapidly losing relevance. The number of monthly questions has fallen to early-2009 levels, with the sharpest drop kicking in after ChatGPT’s late-2022 debut. Though the decline began back in 2014 due to strict moderation, today’s LLMs offer instant, polite, and highly useful answers, making old-school Q&A less attractive. The dev community is shifting to real-time spaces like Discord and Telegram. Stack Overflow isn’t gone yet, but its glory days are clearly over.

Other Headlines

• Jony Ive’s AI device rumored to be “slightly larger” than Humane’s AI pin.

• Perplexity prepares Scheduled Tasks feature to automate your web browsing.

PEAK OF THE DAY

🤖 CEOs are starting to send their digital doubles to work

This week, Klarna and Zoom used AI avatars to deliver their earnings calls, showcasing just how far deep tech leaders are diving into AI-first futures.

Here’s what we know:

• Klarna’s CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski was replaced by his AI avatar in an 83-second Q1 2025 earnings video. “It’s me, or rather, my AI avatar,” it quipped — before presenting the fintech’s latest financials.

• Zoom CEO Eric Yuan did the same for Q1 2026, using Zoom’s AI Companion and custom avatar tech. “I’m proud to be among the first CEOs to use an avatar in an earnings call,” said the digital Yuan while the real one popped in later for live Q&A.

• Both companies are using these avatars to double down on their AI-first branding. Klarna says its AI strategy has cut 40% of its workforce since 2022 and it now uses OpenAI tools to handle the workload of ~700 support agents.

• Zoom, meanwhile, is turning avatars into a product line. In April 2025, it launched Custom AI Companions and Zoom Clips allowing anyone to generate their own talking-head avatar from a selfie and script.

• This isn’t isolated. Otter.ai’s CEO is training a “Sam-bot” for meetings. Synthesia, Soul Machines, and Nvidia-backed startups are helping brands like BMW and Vodafone roll out hyperreal AI presenters. Microsoft and Samsung are in the race too.

• But it’s not all smooth talking. Klarna’s video drew criticism for lip-sync glitches and robotic blinking. Analysts warn AI-generated calls often sound too upbeat and could blur the line between transparency and PR spin.

What it means:

This is more than a gimmick, it’s a glimpse at how companies might scale leadership communication. AI avatars can handle repetitive updates, project innovation, and even free execs to focus on strategy while still “showing up” to shareholders across time zones.

But there’s a trust tax. When investors hear a CGI exec reading from a script, it raises the question: what’s being polished: the delivery, or the message? Yuan jumping in for the Q&A helped, but Klarna’s avatar-only delivery felt oddly hollow.

TRENDING TOOLS

• Rork 1.0 - Make any mobile app you want, save it to your phone or share it with the world in minutes.

• Comet - A browser for agentic search by Perplexity.

THINK PIECES / BRAIN BOOST

• How to built a coding agent from scratch in under 30 minutes.

• Microsoft CTO literally breaks down the future of AI agents.

• Engineers and AI: ramblings of a small startup founder.

THE VALLEY GEMS

What’s trending on social today:

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Thank you for reading today’s edition. That’s all for today’s issue.

💡 Help me get better and suggest new ideas at [email protected] or @heyBarsee

👍️ New reader? Subscribe here

Thanks for being here.

REACH 100K+ READERS

Acquire new customers and drive revenue by partnering with us

Sponsor AI Valley and reach over 100,000+ entrepreneurs, founders, software engineers, investors, etc.

If you’re interested in sponsoring us, email [email protected] with the subject “AI Valley Ads”.