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Apple expected to launch an AI search

PLUS: Tesla's next-gen Optimus prototype with Grok revealed

Author

Barsee
04 Sep

Together with

Howdy. It’s Barsee again.

Happy Thursday, AI family, and welcome back to AI Valley.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

  • Apple expected to launch an AI search engine with Google

  • Tesla's next-gen Optimus prototype with Grok revealed

  • OpenAI to launch parental controls for ChatGPT

  • Anthropic hits $183B valuation after massive funding

  • Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

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Image: Superhuman

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THROUGH THE VALLEY

Image Credit: GZN

Apple is preparing to launch its own AI-powered web search tool next year, internally called World Knowledge Answers. The system will debut with a major Siri upgrade in the spring and may later expand to Safari and Spotlight. Designed as an “answer engine,” it will pull information from across the web, summarize results, and support text, photos, and video. Apple is working with Google to test a custom Gemini model to power parts of Siri, while also developing its own models to handle on-device search and protect privacy.

Image Credit: Tesla

Tesla has shown a new prototype of its next-generation Optimus robot, now paired with the Grok AI assistant, in a video shared on X during a meeting between Elon Musk and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. The robot, still in early development, answered questions and took a few steps. It features a new gold design and more detailed hands, which Musk says now use forearm actuators and cables like human hands. Musk believes Optimus could eventually handle complex tasks and contribute up to 80% of Tesla’s future valuation.

OpenAI will add parental oversight for teenage ChatGPT users within 30 days. Parents will be able to link accounts, set boundaries on features, and receive alerts if the system detects signs of emotional distress, using thresholds shaped with medical input. The company also plans to route sensitive conversations to reasoning models for better handling. This move comes after OpenAI faced its first wrongful death lawsuit, where parents said their son used ChatGPT to discuss plans before taking his life, raising concerns about AI and mental health.

Image Credit: TechsomaCA

OpenAI and xAI are in talks to access coding data from Cursor, a startup with an AI-powered code editor that records billions of completions, edits, and debugging patterns. This specialized data is seen as more valuable than generic web-scraped text because it reflects real-world coding behavior. Both firms hope to use it to train better models for software development, with OpenAI previously exploring a full acquisition. Any deal faces questions over privacy, ownership, and ethics, but highlights how competition is shifting toward niche, high-quality datasets.

Image Credit: Deccan

Anthropic has raised $13B at a $183B valuation, nearly tripling its worth since March when it was valued at $61.5B. The company now serves over 300,000 enterprise customers, with $100k+ accounts growing sevenfold this year. Claude Code, its coding assistant, brings in $500M annually after usage jumped tenfold in three months. The round includes QIA, marking the first major Middle East investor in Anthropic. Despite talk of an AI funding bubble, capital continues to flow strongly into frontier AI firms.

TRENDING TOOLS

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  • DeepMind URL Context - Instantly pull live data from any website, PDF, or image by pasting the link—perfect for comparing product prices or summarizing research papers

  • HappyRobot - Create fully customized AI workers that take on tasks across your entire organization

  • Notebook Agent - An “agentic notebook” built for data analytics, removing the most tedious parts of data work

  • Factory.ai - A browser-based coding tool powered by AI, built for quick experimentation and development

(*) signifies sponsored tool

THINK PIECES / BRAIN BOOST

Image Credit: Aishwaryanr

FROM AROUND THE WEB

Image Credit: Futurism

  • OpenAI says it's scanning users' ChatGPT conversations and reporting content to the police

  • Salesforce CEO cuts 4,000 jobs, says AI handles half the work

  • The Browser Company, maker of Arc and Dia, is being acquired for $610 million

  • Mistral is reportedly set for $14B valuation with new funding rounds of 2 billion

  • PayPal and Venmo are giving out Comet invites and free Perplexity Pro subscriptions (normally $200 per year)

  • OpenAI acquires product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal, one of the largest acquisitions ever for OpenAI

THE VALLEY GEMS

What’s trending on social today:

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

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