Good morning, this is Friday, March 21, 2025. We have some exciting AI news today with Oracle unveiling a new AI development platform and Beijing supporting a promising AI startup.

1. OpenAI Launches New Speech & Audio Models for Developers

OpenAI has launched new speech-to-text and text-to-speech models in its API, allowing developers to build smarter, more customizable voice agents. The gpt-4o-transcribe models outperform Whisper in accuracy, handling accents, noise, and fast speech more reliably. The new text-to-speech model enables AI to adjust its speaking style, like sounding empathetic for customer service. With reinforcement learning and self-play techniques, these models offer improved precision and reduced errors, making them ideal for call centers, transcription, and voice assistants.

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2. China Backs Rising AI Startup Manus as It Gains Global Attention

Chinese AI startup Manus is gaining government support after making waves globally. The company went viral for creating an AI agent that makes decisions with less prompting than ChatGPT. Now, Beijing is backing its growth, with state media featuring Manus and regulators approving its AI assistant for use in China. Manus also partnered with Alibaba’s AI team, boosting its domestic expansion. The company’s AI agent has a 2-million-user waitlist, showing strong demand.

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3. Nvidia Partners with Energy Industry to Use AI in Solving Grid Challenges

Nvidia is teaming up with power industry group EPRI and major utilities to tackle energy grid challenges—many of which stem from AI's own skyrocketing power demands. The new Open Power AI Consortium will use AI models to find solutions for the growing strain on electrical grids, with models made open-source for researchers. With electricity demand expected to rise 4% annually, tech companies are scrambling to secure power, particularly from renewables. Microsoft, for instance, is investing heavily in solar and other green energy projects. The consortium will also explore ways to optimize energy use and unlock additional capacity.

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4. Gmail’s New AI-Powered Search Makes Finding Emails Faster and Smarter

Gmail is upgrading its search functionality with AI to deliver more relevant results faster. Instead of just sorting emails chronologically by keywords, the updated search now considers factors like recency, frequently contacted people, and the most-clicked emails. This means the emails you need are more likely to appear at the top, saving you time and making it easier to find important information. The new feature is available for personal accounts on web and mobile, with future plans to expand it to business users.

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5. High Schooler Builds Minecraft Benchmark to Test AI Models' Creativity

In response to the inadequacies of traditional AI benchmarking, developers are turning to more imaginative methods, like using Minecraft to assess generative AI models. The Minecraft Benchmark (MC-Bench) was created by 12th-grader Adi Singh, who developed the website to challenge AI systems in head-to-head contests, where they must respond to prompts by creating Minecraft builds. Users vote on which model performed better, helping track AI progress in a visual and accessible way. Supported by companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, MC-Bench provides a unique method of evaluating AI that reflects how far models have come since the GPT-3 era.

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6. Oracle Launches AI Agent Studio to Empower Businesses with Custom AI Agents

Oracle introduced AI Agent Studio at Oracle CloudWorld, a platform that enables businesses to create, deploy, and manage custom AI agents within Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. The Studio offers pre-built templates, testing tools, security features, and integrations with both Oracle and third-party systems. This new platform helps businesses extend automation, improve productivity, and easily customize AI agents to meet specific needs—all at no extra cost for Oracle Fusion Applications customers. It promises to transform how organizations leverage AI to enhance business processes and drive innovation.

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Stay tuned for more updates, and have a fantastic day!

Best,
Zephyr