Welcome, humans.

Deepseek, the epic open-source Chinese AI we told you about earlier this week, didn’t just give ChatGPT o1 a run for its money… apparently, it scared the pants off the supposed “open-source” frontrunners at Meta, too.

Y’know what’s awkward about that? Deepseek is actually just some hedge fund’s side project that only cost ~$6M to make.

Remind us… Sam’s gonna spend HOW much on Stargate?

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

• OpenAI released Operator, it’s new browser agent.

• Perplexity launched its own assistant for Android users.

• Reliance announced “world’s biggest” data center.

• AI startup GameOn charged with “brazen fraud” by DOJ.

OpenAI's “Operator” is what we've been waiting for—an AI that actually does stuff.

Y’know how in every futuristic sci-fi movie ever made, people can just tell their computers what to do and—poof—it happens? Well, OpenAI’s new Operator tool is basically that… a version 0.1 of that, anyway.

Operator is OpenAI's first true “agent”—an AI that can use a web browser just like you do, handling everything from booking dinner reservations to ordering groceries to researching papers. Somebody even used it to find an in-network dentist.

The coolest part is you can watch it work in real-time, like having a super-smart intern sharing their screen with you while they handle your to-do list. Check it out:

Instead of needing special API connections to work with websites, Operator literally browses the web like a human—taking screenshots, clicking buttons, typing in forms, and scrolling through pages.

Operator already integrates with some major players:

• DoorDash + Instacart for food + grocery delivery.

• OpenTable + Priceline for restaurant and travel booking.

• StubHub for event tickets…and Uber for the rides there + back!

To try it out, go to operator.chatgpt.com. For now, Operator is only available to Pro users ($200/month) in the US, but OpenAI plans to roll it out to Plus / Team users soon.

It’s personalized, too. You can give Operator custom instructions for different websites, like “always book refundable hotels with free breakfast on Priceline” (demo), save prompts for recurring tasks like grocery runs (demo), and take back control of the screen whenever you want for sensitive stuff like payments or logins.

There are some quirks, of course. Sometimes it gets stuck in loops, can be slower than doing things yourself for simpler tasks, and occasionally misses obvious features (like saving links to articles it finds).

Friendly reminder not to outsource all your thinking to AI, it’s a lazy person’s trap!

Pro tip: The key to getting the most out of Operator is being super specific with your instructions. Instead of “find me a hotel,” try “find me a pet-friendly hotel in downtown Seattle with free parking for next weekend under $300/night.”

In related news… Perplexity also just launched its Perplexity Assistant, which integrates directly with Android apps to handle complex tasks and follow-up actions. CEO Aravind Srinivas says it can handle everything from booking Ubers to playing YouTube videos, all through voice commands or gestures.

Since Perplexity is powered by both ChatGPT and Claude's tech, it's not surprising to see it rolling out similar agent capabilities. The key difference? Perplexity's assistant will be free for all Android users (just switch your default assistant from Google/Gemini), while Operator costs $200/month with Pro.

As Ethan Mollick pointed out, pretty soon we’ll have to learn which brands our agents prefer to accomplish their tasks… new stage of the SEO industry, folks!

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Here’s one AI tool we use every week at The Neuron.

A little well-kept secret for companies crushing it with AI is that only a handful of AI tools are actually worth using.

That’s why we—Noah & Grant—use ChatGPT and Claude, along with a killer product called Attention.

Here’s how it works:

1. We tell Attention exactly what to pay attention to in our meeting (goals, budget, etc).

2. Attention listens in to our call.

3. After, Attention outputs important insights, action items, and follow-up emails.

There are way, way more features, and it’s a must-have for all sales teams. (If you sell anything, literally drop what you’re doing and go book a demo with Attention ASAP). 

Operator Tip of the Day

Here's a neat trick from AI researcher Elvis Saravia: When Operator is taking too long on a task, you can either:

1. Tell it to “finish up” (for a quick summary of what it found so far).

2. Take control yourself mid-task (perfect for when it's stuck in a loop).

In his demo, Elvis tested this while researching AI papers on archive.org. When Operator started diving too deep into papers, he simply told it “can you please finish up the task, just summarize what you have already.”

Treats To Try.

1. UPDF AI helps you chat with, summarize, and translate your PDFs (also converts them into visual mind maps) for better understanding.

2. Master Key analyzes Zillow listings to help you determine a property's true value—shared by a reader!

3. Simple AI makes phone calls on your behalf to book appointments and make reservations, then provides you with call transcripts—shared by a reader!

4. Fingertip builds your website, handles bookings, processes payments, and manages your entire business in a single dashboard.

5. Backflip turns your ideas into real 3D-printable models by describing, drawing, or photographing what you want.

6. Hiring.Cafe is a database of 1.6M open job postings that someone made because they were fed up with LinkedIn.

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

Around the Horn.

• Midjourney announced plans for a February V7 release, alongside partnerships for two upcoming video models, with 3D features and faster processing also in development.

• Reliance plans to build the “world’s biggest” data center in India, which supposedly will cost ~$20-$30B.

• GameOn, an AI chatbot startup, was indicted by the US DOJ for a “brazen and wide-ranging” six-year fraud.

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Our offshore talent has more impressive resumes than your employees.

Imagine having a right-hand who thinks and operates like you do. Oceans’ Executive Assistants can independently manage the backend admin and operational aspects of your business. So you can focus on what actually matters: scaling your business.

And it’s not just Executive Assistants—Oceans also provides exceptional talent in marketing, finance, and operations roles to support every part of your business.

Learn more about the talent powering the top executives at Morning Brew, Magic Spoon, and True Classic.

Under the Hood

• In the above video, Dave Ebbelaar reveals why most companies fail at building AI agents—instead of complex self-directing systems, 80% of AI applications just need simple workflows with predefined steps.

• NVIDIA Blueprints are pre-built AI application templates that come with all the code and instructions you need to customize them—kind of like getting a partially assembled IKEA furniture set instead of raw lumber.

• Anthropic released Citations as part of its API that lets Claude now cite what claims came from what sources in its output—very helpful for verifying data.

Intelligent Insights

• If you want the inside scoop on all the drama between Microsoft and OpenAI leading up to Project Stargate, this exclusive from The Information has it all. Another source says Stargate “doesn’t really have a plan.”

• Here’s what happened when a Redditor tried to build a full web app from the ground up with o1 Pro. Spoiler alert: devs, your jobs are fine.

• Just as websites in 1998 couldn't grow without legal protection from user content liability, Jeff LaPorte at Road to Arificia argues today's AI agents are stuck in a similar bind.

• Here’s a good explainer on the AI scaling laws and where they go from here—v technical, but interesting! 

• Lukas Petersson thinks “horizontal AI” that can easily be onboarded like onboarding a new coworker will win out over “vertical AI”—unless your vertical AI has an “absolutely exclusive” data source.

A Cat's Commentary.