OpenAI Nears 40B Investment

Welcome to another edition of AI PlanetX.

$40B SoftBank investment pushes OpenAI to a $300B valuation; Qwen unveils QVQ-Max for next-level image reasoning; ChatGPT's unauthorized Ghibli makeovers go viral.

• Hottest AI News

• Top AI & SaaS Tools

• Top AI & Tech News

• Interesting Uses of AI: Improve Prompt with a Simple Trick

• AI Video Tutorial

• F-R-E-E AI Course of the Day: Vibe Coding 101

Hottest AI News

OpenAI

SoftBank Leads 40B Investment Pushing OpenAI To 300B Value

OpenAI is finalizing a $40B funding round led by SoftBank, potentially valuing the ChatGPT creator at $300B. If completed, it would be the largest private funding round ever, nearly doubling its $157B valuation from October.

Details:

• Funding will be in two tranches—$7.5B from SoftBank and $2.5B from investors initially, followed by $30B later this year, with $22.5B from SoftBank and $7.5B from investors like Magnetar, Coatue, Founders Fund, and Altimeter

• OpenAI expects to triple revenue to $12.7B this year, up from $3.7B in 2023, with projections of $29.4B in 2025 and $125B+ by 2029, when it expects positive cash flow

• Despite investor enthusiasm, SoftBank shares fell 4.7% in Tokyo, and credit default swaps widened due to concerns over the large financial commitment. OpenAI faces high costs for chips, data centers, and talent

This investment highlights strong market confidence in AI. While key players declined to comment, its scale reflects AI’s vast potential and high costs.

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Alibaba Cloud

Qwen Launches QVQ-Max Visual ‘Reasoning’ for Advanced Image Analysis

QVQ-Max (choose it from top by pressing ‘Expand more models’) advances visual reasoning, going beyond recognition to analytical thinking. It processes visual data step by step, making its thought process transparent.

Details:

• Handles multiple images at once, allowing for comparisons and deeper analysis of complex scenarios that require cross-referencing different inputs

• Applies mathematical reasoning to interpret charts, analyze graphs, and solve geometry problems that include diagrams

• Understands video content beyond individual frames, analyzing relationships and scene progression for advanced temporal reasoning

QVQ-Max is excelling on benchmarks like MathVision, with longer reasoning improving accuracy. Ongoing refinements are enhancing its AI-powered visual understanding.

OpenAI

ChatGPT Goes Viral With Unauthorized Studio Ghibli Makeovers

OpenAI's "Images for ChatGPT" sparked a wave of Studio Ghibli-inspired creations, evolving from playful fun to a complex debate on artistic style, copyright, and content moderation.

Details:

• OpenAI's image generation feature shows impressive technical progress, rendering depth, shadows, and text. Ghibli aesthetic, known for its soft style, has become a popular choice for many users

• What started with users turning personal photos into Miyazaki-inspired art soon grew controversial, with historical tragedies, political events, and celebrity photos reimagined in Ghibli style, from 9/11 to JFK's assassination and Sam Altman's testimony

• Although Hayao Miyazaki is alive, OpenAI allows broader studio styles, despite its policy against using living artists’ work. This, combined with weak safeguards on public figures, has led to ethically questionable content

This trend highlights AI art's broader challenges, with the ease of image generation quickly shifting from fun to controversy. Despite Miyazaki's opposition to AI art, his iconic style has become one of the most replicated.

Top AI & SaaS Tools

• Smart Clerk (Life-time Deal): AI bookkeeping tool that converts bank and credit card statements into organized, accountant-ready reports, categorizing transactions and generating profit and loss statements

• Ideogram 3.0: Image generator with Style References for uploading images to control aesthetics and Random style exploration for choosing from billions of presets [F-R-E-E]

• Qwen2.5-Omni: Latest Alibaba AI model that comprehends audio, text, image, and video inputs for voice and video chatting [F-R-E-E]

• Atlas: Build spatial apps directly in your browser by uploading data and connecting to APIs and spreadsheets without coding [F-R-E-E]

• Krisp: Latest update records your meetings just like any other assistant, but it can also modify a user's accent in real-time during calls [F-R-E-E]

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Top AI & Tech News

• Anthropic's research papers unveil how Claude processes information, shedding light on its multilingual reasoning and advanced planning abilities

• OpenAI rolled out an updated GPT-4o for paid users, enhancing prompt adherence, coding, creativity, and overall flexibility

• OpenAI is postponing GPT-4o's image generation for f-r-e-e users and enforcing rate limits, as Sam Altman says demand is "melting" his GPUs

• NVIDIA launched Project G-Assist 0.1, a local AI assistant for GeForce RTX PCs that optimizes performance via voice commands

• Character AI tested a feature that provides parents with insights into their kids' chatbot usage, including conversation topics and chat duration

• Google introduced five upgraded tools across Search, Maps, Lens, and Gemini to enhance summer travel planning

• Butterly Effect, creator of viral AI agent Manus, aims to raise a funding round at a $500M valuation

Interesting Uses of AI

AI Art Spotlight

Model: Reve Image 1.0 (Halfmoon)

Prompt:

A blurry Y2K photograph capturing a man with frosted tips wearing a baggy graphic tee and jeans. He leans against a green vintage car on a nighttime street, illuminated by the warm glow of a streetlight. The background is blurred, showing the hazy lights of a diner and a neon "Open" sign. The image has a grainy texture, resembling a scanned photo taken with a disposable camera.

Prompt of the Day

Prompt Improvement Analysis

A prompt to help users improve their AI interactions. Users can share a past prompt and its response to receive tailored suggestions for better results.

Prompt:

Here’s what I asked ChatGPT: [insert prompt]. Here’s the response I got: [paste it]. How can I improve the prompt to get better results?

Top AI Video Tutorial

Gemini 2.5 Features Are UNBELIEVABLE (INSANE USE CASES)

Complimentary AI Course of the Day

Vibe Coding 101 with Replit

"Vibe coding" allows you to let a coding agent handle most tasks while you focus on your application's architecture and features. Effective vibe coding requires structured work, refined prompts, and frameworks for cleaner code. In this course, you'll use Replit’s cloud environment to build and deploy two web applications with an AI coding agent, enhancing collaboration and development skills.