The most important news pieces from the AI world are here for you, whether you’re an AI enthusiast or just wish to keep an eye on what’s going on.
Focus Topic: If you're a Gemini user, you have to check this out
Gmail is officially entering the Gemini era. If you’ve already been using Gemini elsewhere, this is the moment where it truly becomes part of your daily workflow – whether you asked for it or not. Google has announced a broad rollout of AI-powered features in Gmail, calling it its most significant upgrade since launch. The features aim to shift Gmail from being a passive inbox to an active assistant.
The most notable update is AI Overviews – designed to summarize entire email threads into digestible key points. If you’ve ever scrolled through a dozen back-and-forth replies just to find a date or decision, this one’s for you. You can also ask your inbox questions in natural language (“Who sent the invoice last month?”), and Gemini will do the digging for you. This AI search and reasoning is available only to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, while conversation summaries are free for all.
Another key upgrade is AI Inbox – still in testing – which automatically filters, prioritizes, and extracts tasks from your emails. Think of it as a daily briefing generated from your own inbox, identifying urgent to-dos and surfacing time-sensitive items like bills or appointments. It’s a feature designed for information overload, but its accuracy and utility are yet to be broadly proven.
What’s clear is that Google is gradually replacing the standalone Gemini panel with “in-line” experiences built directly into Gmail. The AI features are optional, and Google emphasizes they are not a forced requirement. Still, this shift raises familiar concerns around trust, hallucinations (remember when Search told users to eat rocks?), and automation fatigue – especially when responses might soon be written by AI and read by another AI, with humans just approving the send.
LLMs & AI Models
- Microsoft launched Copilot Checkout, letting users complete purchases inside the AI chat, boosting conversion rates and skipping traditional checkouts.
- ChatGPT Health is here – OpenAI’s new tool connects medical and fitness data for health guidance, but access is limited outside the US. ChatGPT sees 600K weekly rural health chats, often outside clinic hours, showing AI’s growing role in access
- Amazon released Alexa+ on the web, making the assistant available via browser with integrations like Expedia and Uber – challenging other AI chatbots.
- Nvidia open-sourced Alpamayo, a 10B parameter AI model for self-driving that explains its decisions and handles rare scenarios with human-style reasoning.
- Grok AI came under fire for enabling AI-generated explicit images, including of minors, sparking government backlash in multiple countries.
New Tools
- Lenovo introduced Qira, a cross-device AI assistant that works across Lenovo laptops and Motorola phones, offering context-aware help and app integration.
- Razer unveiled Project AVA, a Grok-based holographic gaming companion in a capsule that gives live advice and supports tasks, now open for US preorders. That is so weird!
- Claude developer Boris Cherny shared his workflow using 5 Claude agents as a coordinated dev team – including slash commands and automated self-verification.
👉 Explore these tools: Lenovo Qira | Razer Ava | Claude Code
Other Quick Picks
- Zhipu AI went public in Hong Kong, raising $558M – its low pricing model may pressure US labs to compete globally on cost.
- Google and Character.AI settledlawsuits tied to teen mental health issues linked to chatbot interactions.
- Utah allows AI to approve prescription renewals alone – AI matched doctors in 99% of test cases.
- Dell will drop AI-focused PC marketing, citing that AI features aren’t influencing consumer purchases.
- Amazon’s Buy for Me tool upset merchants by listing products without consent, using scraped web data.
- Stanford’s SleepFM model predicts 130+ diseases from sleep data, based on 600,000 hours of recordings.
- xAI’s valuation hit $230B after a new $20B round backed by Nvidia and others, now third among top AI labs.
- Nvidia launched Rubin, a chip platform 5x more powerful than Blackwell, aimed at AI training at massive scale.
- AMD says AI chip demand is booming, with top-tier chips now costing tens of thousands each.
- AI models can reconstruct books – Claude 3.7 recreated 95.8% of Harry Potter using prompt tricks, raising serious copyright concerns.
- Yann LeCun left Meta, criticizing leadership and launching a new AI startup with Nabla’s Alex LeBrun.
🇪🇪 AI News from Estonia
- Kaspar Tamsalu warned that AI-generated art makes it harder for young Estonian artists to enter the market and get paid fairly for their work.
- Jaan Tallinn, one of the world’s most successful AI investors, lives a modest life in Estonia despite his Metaplanet portfolio being worth €645M.
- Estonian tech leaders predict 2026 will be a reality check for AI – value creation must prove itself, while defense and digital state investments grow.
🎙️ AIPowerment Podcast is on a small winter break but you are welcome to listen the latest episode Gerlyn Tiigemäe and Sandra Reivik, reviewing 2025’s top AI trends and lessons for 2026.
🎧 Listen to AIPowerment Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
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