Howdy! It’s Barsee again.

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

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

• Apple falls further behind in the AI race

• Meta is creating a new AI Lab to pursue ‘Superintelligence’

• OpenAI hits $10 billion in annual recurring revenue

• XRobotics' robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month

• Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

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APPLE

Apple falls further behind in the AI race 🍏📉

Apple’s annual developer conference (WWDC) didn’t have a flashy reveal like last year’s Apple Intelligence or 2023’s Vision Pro. Instead, the focus was on a big design overhaul called Liquid Glass (a new look for iPhones, Macs, and Vision Pro).

Here's what you need to know:

1. Liquid Glass Design

• A new "Liquid Glass" design refresh coming to iOS (now rebranded as iOS 26) marks Apple's first major interface overhaul since 2013, featuring glass-like UI elements and smoother animations.

2. AI Improvements (But No Siri Overhaul)

• Live Translation – Real-time translation in calls and messages, all on-device (no internet needed).

• Visual Intelligence – Take a screenshot, and ChatGPT can instantly summarize text, identify products, or extract key information.

• Image Playground – Edit photos (change expressions, hairstyles) or generate AI art in different styles (e.g., oil painting, vector art).

• Apple Watch AI Coach – Personalized workout tips in a dynamic voice.

• Apple also announced that developers would be able to use Apple Intelligence models for their apps.

Why it matters:

While Apple’s updates are useful, many features, like live translation and AI-powered image tools, are already available from competitors. The delayed "smarter Siri" and absence of new AI partnerships (like with Google or Perplexity) signal that Apple’s AI vision is still a work in progress.

By focusing on privacy-first, on-device AI, Apple is betting on seamless, everyday enhancements rather than flashy demos. However, with rivals like Google and Microsoft pushing more ambitious AI, Apple risks falling behind unless it accelerates innovation.

THROUGH THE VALLEY

1. Meta is creating a new AI Lab to pursue ‘Superintelligence’

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly forming a new team at Meta focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI systems that can match or exceed human abilities. According to Bloomberg, this move includes plans to personally recruit around 50 experts and appoint a new head of AI research. The effort comes amid frustration with the performance of Meta’s recent Llama 4 model and delays in launching its more advanced “Behemoth” AI. Meta is also said to be investing over $10 billion in Scale AI, with its CEO Alexandr Wang expected to join the AGI initiative. Competitors like OpenAI are making similar AGI-driven shifts.

2. OpenAI hits $10 billion in annual recurring revenue

OpenAI has reached $10 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), doubling from $5.5B last year (just under three years after launching ChatGPT). This figure includes revenue from consumer, enterprise, and API products, but excludes licensing deals with Microsoft and other one-offs. Despite the rapid growth, the company reportedly lost $5 billion last year and is targeting $125B in revenue by 2029. OpenAI now supports 500M weekly users and 3M paying business users. Its recent $40B funding round, the largest private tech deal ever, reflects investor confidence in its pace of expansion and monetization potential.

3. XRobotics' robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month

XRobotics has developed a compact robot, the xPizza Cube, aimed at helping pizza restaurants automate repetitive prep tasks like saucing, cheesing, and pepperoni placement. About the size of a washing machine, the $1,300/month machine can make up to 100 pizzas an hour and supports various styles, including deep dish. Unlike failed pizza robotics startups like Zume, XRobotics focuses on assistive (not replacement) tech that fits existing kitchens and workflows. After scrapping an oversized early version, their 2023 redesign gained traction. Backed by $2.5M in seed funding, they plan to expand into Mexico and Canada. Their robots now produce 25,000 pizzas monthly.

4. The US government is considering not regulating AI for 10 years

The U.S. government is considering a new law that would block individual states from making their own rules about AI for the next 10 years. This rule is hidden inside a big bill recently passed by the House of Representatives, and now it's going to the Senate. If approved, it would cancel more than 60 state AI laws and stop others from being made. Supporters like Meta and OpenAI say this will help companies grow faster and avoid confusing laws. But critics say it gives too much power to tech companies and takes away important protections for people.

5. The smartest AI models, by IQ

A new ranking compares AI models based on IQ, using the Mensa Norway test, a challenging exam meant for humans. OpenAI’s o3 model tops the list with a genius-level score of 135, beating most people. Claude 4 Sonnet and Gemini 2.0 Flash also scored highly, with IQs above 125. Surprisingly, all top performers are text-only models. Meanwhile, vision-based models like GPT-4o and Grok-3 scored well below the human average, around 60–63. The data suggests AI is now surpassing humans in text-based reasoning, but still struggles with visual tasks.

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TRENDING TOOLS

• Mirage Studio by Captions: Powered by Captions’ proprietary omni-modal foundation model, generates expressive videos at scale, with actors that can laugh, flinch, sing, rap, etc.

• Underlord by Descript: An AI video editor for vibe editing.

• Factory AI: Delegate software development tasks to agents called Droids. Droids take commands and deliver: pull requests, tickets, docs, and more.

• Shaken: AI agent for learning. Create voice-powered learning content in minutes.

THINK PIECES / BRAIN BOOST

• AI has fundamentally made me a different person.

• After 6 months of daily AI pair programming, here's what actually works.

• Why DeepSeek models are good at reasoning.

• Reddit was worthless until ChatGPT.

• A prompt that writes your Entire Business Plan in minutes.

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

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