Recent AI startup desires to automate everyone

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The AI automation conversation just got uncomfortably direct — with Epoch co-founder Tamay Besiroglu launching Mechanize, a startup with the specific goal of replacing human staff entirely.

But with job losses already mounting and user trust in AI still lacking, getting the masses on board with the utopian dream of abundance from mass automation could also be tougher than expected.

In today’s AI rundown:

• AI startup to automate the complete workforce

• Cursor AI’s hallucinated policy sparks cancellations

• Create full-stack web apps without coding

• DeepMind’s shift to ‘experiential’ AI learning

• 4 latest AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MECHANIZE AI

⚙️ AI startup to automate the complete workforce

The Rundown: Epoch co-founder Tamay Besiroglu just launched Mechanize, a brand new startup developing virtual environments and training data to enable AI agents that may replace human staff for the “full automation of all work”.

The small print:

• The corporate plans to create simulations of workplace scenarios to coach AI agents in handling complex, long-term tasks currently performed by humans.

• Mechanize will initially give attention to automating white-collar jobs, with systems that may manage computer tasks, handle interruptions, and coordinate with others.

• Backed by tech leaders including Jeff Dean and Nat Friedman, the startup estimates its potential market at $60T globally.

• The announcement drew criticism for each the economic implications and potential conflicts with Besiroglu’s role at AI research firm Epoch.

Why it matters: Besiroglu and co. likely aren’t the one researchers that think AI is ready to automate every aspect of labor — but with tensions already high over each negative views of AI and mounting job losses, this goal could be saying the quiet part a bit too loudly. The age of automation is coming, and never everyone will probably be joyful about it.

TOGETHER WITH SALESFORCE

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Data Cloud grounds AI agents built with Agentforce enabling:

• More relevant, accurate output and actions

• Automation through data-triggered workflows

• Analytics within the workflow

• AI-powered applications

Learn more and explore how Data Cloud powers AI success.

CURSOR

🤖 Cursor AI’s hallucinated policy sparks cancellations

The Rundown: Agentic coding platform Cursor faced backlash after its AI support agent, Sam, hallucinated a fake policy that caused user outrage and subscription cancellations.

The small print:

• A Reddit user experienced unexpected logouts when switching between devices, resulting in a support inquiry answered by an AI agent.

• The AI hallucinated a policy claiming single-device restrictions were an intentional security feature, with the post sparking backlash and cancellations.

• Cursor’s co-founder acknowledged the error, explaining a security update caused login issues, with the policy completely fabricated by the AI.

• He added that the corporate is implementing clear AI labeling for support responses going forward and refunding the affected users.

Why it matters: The hype surrounding AI agents has never been stronger, but cautionary tales like this one show that hallucinations are still a serious issue to contemplate when deploying customer-facing bots. Despite corporations rushing to automate customer support, it should be too early within the AI boom for complete automation.

AI TRAINING

🚀 Create full-stack web apps without coding

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn methods to use Google’s latest Firebase Studio to construct and deploy complex web applications — without writing a single line of code —through AI-powered prototyping.

Step-by-step:

1. Visit Firebase Studio and log in along with your Google account.

2. Describe your application intimately within the “Prototype an app with AI” section.

3. Review and customize the AI-generated app blueprint (name, features, colours).

4. Test your prototype, make adjustments if needed, and click on “Publish” to deploy.

Pro tip: Upload sketches or images of your app design to assist the AI higher understand your vision. Also, for more advanced customization, click the “Switch to code” button in the highest right corner.

PRESENTED BY TAVUS

🗣️ AI that speaks — and shows up

The Rundown: A Tavus avatar appeared in a NY courtroom, sparking a national debate — and showcasing a groundbreaking future where AI doesn’t just speak, but visually represents and communicates effectively at scale.

With Tavus, you’ll be able to:

• Construct real-time video agents and generate realistic videos immediately via easy APIs

• Create agents with 30+ languages, natural expressions, and tool-calling capabilities

• Deploy versatile video agents anywhere human interaction occurs

Start constructing video agents today.

GOOGLE DEEPMIND

🧠 DeepMind’s shift to ‘experiential’ AI learning

The Rundown: DeepMind researchers published “Welcome to the Era of Experience”, proposing AI development that moves beyond human-generated training data with “streams” that permit AI learn from real-world interactions and environmental feedback.

The small print:

• Authored by RL legends David Silver and Richard Sutton, the paper argues that human data training caps AI’s potential and prevents truly latest discoveries.

• Streams would allow AI to learn repeatedly with prolonged interactions relatively than transient Q&A exchanges, enabling adaptation and improvement over time.

• AI agents would use real-world signals like health metrics, exam scores, and environmental data as feedback, relatively than counting on human evaluations.

• The approach builds on techniques that helped systems like AlphaZero master games, expanding them to handle open-ended real-world scenarios.

• The researchers suggest this shift could enable AI to find solutions beyond current human knowledge while still maintaining adaptable safety measures.

Why it matters: As AI approaches the bounds of what it may learn from human-generated data, this pivot to experience-based learning could unlock more advanced capabilities — moving beyond imitating human knowledge towards truly autonomous (and superhuman) learning and discovery.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🧠 Gemini 2.5 Flash – Fast, cost-efficient model with controllable reasoning

• 🎞️ Google Whisk Animate – Turn images into eight-second animated clips

• 🎥 Wan 2.1-FLF2V – Alibaba’s open-source first and last frame video model

• 📽️ Camera Angle Concepts – Control the video POV with Luma’s Ray2 model

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🧵 Figure AI – Softgoods Developer

• 🛠️ Shield AI – Prototype Technician

• 💸 Palantir Technologies – Financial Analyst

• 📊 Databricks – Product Designer

📰 Every part else in AI today

Third-party testing and internal evaluations revealed that OpenAI’s latest o3 and o4-mini models hallucinate significantly greater than older models.

Google launched a new edition of Gemma 3 with ‘Quantization-Aware Training’, enabling the 27B version to run on consumer GPUs with maintained performance.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the corporate has spent “tens of thousands and thousands of dollars” in compute on users saying “please” and “thanks” to its AI models.

Wikipedia’s parent, Wikimedia Foundation, partnered with Google’s Kaggle to publish a dataset for AI developers to discourage scraping of the corporate’s platform.

MIT published a “sequential Monte Carlo” approach that generates AI code efficiently, allowing small models to outperform larger ones by axing unpromising outputs early.

OpenAI introduced a brand new Flex processing option, halving API costs for o3 and o4-mini models in exchange for slower responses.

COMMUNITY

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Join our next workshop on Wednesday, April twenty third, at 1 PM EST with Mel, Creative Director at Gamma. By the top of the workshop, you’ll know methods to turn raw ideas into polished, on-brand presentations using Gamma’s powerful AI storytelling tools.

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See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team