😸 The $99 AI BFF

PLUS: Sam Altman's latest tweet... 🔥

Welcome, humans.

A picture of Sam Altman’s garden just lit the internet on fire:

While the post was pretty basic, those in the know saw it for what it really was: a tease for Project Strawberry, OpenAI’s upcoming (and most advanced) new “reasoning” model.

This AI-nerd thirst trap coincided with another OpenAI tease: a new model known only as “anonymous-chatbot” that showed up on one of the popular LLM arenas for testing.

You can try to find it here—enter a prompt, and you’ll get two results. You rank the result you think is better, and then the models are revealed. If you find it, let us know…plus whether or not you think it’s Sam’s magic “Strawberry”!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

New AI companions are capitalizing on AI becoming more human.
ChatGPT's mobile app revenue grew rapidly over the last 3 months.
Audible announced plans for an AI-powered search for audiobooks.
84% of data + AI leaders said they want updated AI copyright laws.

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New AI companion startups are trying to take advantage of AI getting more human-like.

You might have seen Friend’s viral launch video last week (23M views on X and counting)…

The “Friend” is a $99 AI necklace that's always listening, and can send you text messages whenever it feels like it—y’know, like a real friend.

What’s interesting here is that, unlike the usual pitch for AI as a “productivity tool”, these new AI companions are designed to combat loneliness (not help you work).

Avi says that “10% of America (18 to 27) will consider AI a friend by the end of the decade.”

Do we really need a new device though? Friend works with an app to communicate with you via text. Some Reddit users have criticized the pendant form-factor as another unnecessary new smart device.

Speaking of, the AI Pin from Humane has seen its daily returns outpace its daily sales. Imagine if people were returning iPhones more than they were buying new ones. That would be a BAD sign.

It’s not like a new smart device couldn’t work, though:

Meta, OpenAI, and Apple are all exploring the idea of earbuds with cameras.
OpenAI just made a $60M bet on webcams, and plans to prototype a bunch of new AI-powered cameras for “creator tools.”
Zuckerberg says Meta’s AI Ray Bans are selling out faster than the company can build them (but the AI isn’t the key selling point—yet).

What’s the biggie: AIs are becoming more human-like. They sound more human, they say more human things… Advanced Voice Mode even has to pause to take a breath.

These signs show that “voice-to-voice” chat will become a much more common human-computer relationship. It’s also much more natural than typing in many instances.

Our take? People have different communication styles, so the future talking AIs will be able to chat with you no matter how you communicate. If you wanna talk to it, it’ll listen. If you’re in public and you’d rather text, type to it. If you want to draw to it, it should be able to draw back.

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Around the Horn.

ChatGPT’s mobile app earned $38M in net revenue from its mobile app in July.
In a new poll, 84% of director-level data, privacy, and AI decision-makers said they want more up-to-date copyright laws related to AI.
Audible will introduce AI-powered search onto its platform to help people search for audiobooks.

Treats To Try.

*The Neuron is built on Beehiiv: We grew this newsletter from 0 to 450K+ readers with Beehiiv's tools—and you can, too. Try it for free here.
Napkin turns your text into editable visuals like infographics, diagrams, and flowcharts for presentations, blogs, and social media (raised $10M).
AIswers lets you ask questions and receive answers from multiple AI models in one place.
Centa tracks your calories and macros by analyzing photos or descriptions of your meals, while FitAction combines an AI training coach, calorie tracker, meal recipes, and workout plans in one app.
Brainybear helps you create and train AI chatbots in 3 clicks to instantly answer customer questions (based on your web content).
Spreadsite transforms spreadsheet data into interactive web dashboards and custom websites (no code required).
Nuelink is a social media management platform that offers scheduling, automation, and AI-powered content creation tools.