Google tackles AI’s payment problem

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Google just launched a brand new solution to one in all the largest trust problems with AI agents — how you can allow them to safely handle your money.

With the brand new AP2 open protocol creating secure digital contracts for each AI purchase, the infrastructure rails for autonomous commerce to go mainstream can have finally arrived.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Google’s protocol for AI agents to make purchases

• OpenAI rolls out teen controls for ChatGPT

• Turn syllabus into organized lecture notes with Notion AI

• YouTube ships latest AI tools for creators

• 4 latest AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

GOOGLE

💵 Google’s protocol for AI agents to make purchases

The Rundown: Google just introduced the Agent Payments Protocol, a brand new open framework that allows AI agents to securely make purchases on a user’s behalf, with backing from over 60 financial and tech giants.

The small print:

• AP2 creates secure digital contracts called “mandates” that confirm user authorization before an agent completes a transaction.

• Real-time purchases require dual approvals, with users signing an “Intent Mandate” for searching and a “Cart Mandate” to finish a payment.

• The framework supports traditional cards, bank transfers, and stablecoins in collaboration with Coinbase and other crypto firms.

• Major backers include American Express, Mastercard, PayPal, Salesforce, and Intuit, with the technical specs published openly on GitHub.

Why it matters: We’re arriving in the intervening time when AI agents turn out to be autonomous shoppers, and having secure, trusted payment rails is a critical step for a mainstream leap. Google’s protocol helps facilitate the accountability gap that comes with AI handling user money, with a spread of corporations already on board to extend adoption.

TOGETHER WITH AIRIA

🛡️ Deploy AI without security risks

The Rundown: Airia is an enterprise AI platform that allows organizations of all sizes to confidently deploy AI with advanced security control, comprehensive data protection, and automatic risk management  — ensuring AI initiatives are each powerful and guarded.

With Airia, you may experience:

• Built-in AI safeguards for runtime prompts, data leakage, and prompt injections

• Scalable compliance that maintains regulatory standards (SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR)

• Granular control and visibility for security policies, access control, & more

Start constructing secure AI today.

OPENAI

🛡️ OpenAI rolls out teen controls for ChatGPT

The Rundown: OpenAI just announced latest changes to guard teenage ChatGPT users, with CEO Sam Altman detailing measures like automatic age detection and restricted versions of the assistant for minors.

The small print:

• OpenAI is constructing tech that may estimate users’ ages through usage patterns, defaulting to teen restrictions when uncertain.

• Latest parental controls will enable account linking, customization, and notifications to a parent or authorities during perceived mental health crises.

• Teen accounts will even block explicit and self-harm chats, even in creative uses— with Altman saying he doesn’t expect everyone to agree with the tradeoffs.

• Altman noted that “a few of (OpenAI’s) principles are in conflict”, with the brand new decisions aiming to search out a balance between freedom, safety, and privacy.

Why it matters: It’s been a summer of troubling headlines regarding AI’s involvement in mental health situations, and these moves come amidst each regulatory scrutiny and user lawsuits. But given the quantity of chatbot options (including open-source/private models) and workarounds, that is unfortunately a problem that isn’t going away easily.

AI TRAINING

🤓 Turn syllabus into organized lecture notes with AI

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn how you can transform a plain course syllabus right into a lecture notes database using Notion AI, generating a ready-to-use study system in seconds as a substitute of spending hours manually creating your semester setup.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Notion.so, create a brand new page, and hit space to open the AI input window

2. Import your syllabus file (PDF or text) and add it to the page as a plain doc

3. Use this prompt: “Let’s make a study guide for this course. Make sure to include a database where I can take notes on each week’s lecture”

4. Review the AI-generated database with pre-filled weekly rows, columns for lecture dates, topics, key concepts, review status, and notes sections

Pro Tip: Don’t just stop with one syllabus. Try importing syllabi for all your courses. The more you experiment with prompts (like asking for various database views or adding tags), the more powerful this technique becomes.

PRESENTED BY WISPR FLOW

🗣️ Don’t type, just speak

The Rundown: Wispr Flow finally delivers no-edit confidence: 4x quicker than typing, letting you dictate emails, docs, and DMs in real time. AI edits on the fly — cleansing filler words, fixing grammar, and formatting perfectly as you speak. It even works in Cursor and Windsurf, auto-tags your files, and understands your code’s variables.

With Wispr Flow, you’ll be able to:

• Dictate emails, docs, and code 4× faster

• Get AI-polished, perfectly formatted text

• Use it in every single place: Slack, Notion, ChatGPT

• Auto-tag files and understand code context

Try Wispr Flow and upgrade how you’re employed today.

YOUTUBE

🎥 YouTube ships latest AI tools for creators

The Rundown: YouTube just dropped over 30 latest creator tools at its Made on YouTube event, including AI-powered editing and clipping features, the addition of Veo 3 Fast in shorts, auto-dubbing, and more.

The small print:

• Google’s Veo 3 Fast model launches free for Shorts creators, with the flexibility to generate 480p videos with matching audio from text prompts.

• Auto dubbing expands to incorporate lip sync tech that animates speakers’ mouths to match translated audio across 20 languages.

• YouTube’s AI now mechanically clips engaging moments from long-form videos into vertical Shorts, helping podcasters and creators repurpose content.

• Ask Studio arrives as an analytics chatbot that answers performance questions and suggests data-driven optimization strategies for channels.

• Edit with AI turns raw footage into polished first drafts, adding transitions, music, and voiceovers.

Why it matters: AI tools have obviously been an enormous accelerator for content creation, and YouTube has been quick to enable the tech for its tens of millions of creators on the platform. Having its parent company, Google, consistently on the frontier across each image and video models also doesn’t hurt for guaranteed, consistent upgrades.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🎥 HeyGen Video Agent – Turn prompts into publishable, finished videos

• 🚀 Gamma 3.0 – AI presentation tool, with latest agentic capabilities, and more

• 🗣️ Monologue – Voice dictation app to work faster without breaking flow

• 🤖 ChatGPT – Latest customization features, including personality options

📰 The whole lot else in AI today

OpenAI hired former xAI finance chief Mike Liberatore as its latest business finance officer, coming only a month after his departure from Elon Musk’s rival AI startup.

Microsoft announced a brand new $30B investment in U.K. AI infrastructure, with Google also revealing a $6B investment into the country’s AI economy over the following two years.

Walt Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. filed a brand new lawsuit against Chinese creative startup MiniMax, claiming its Hailuo model infringes on copyrighted IPs.

Workday announced a $1.1B acquisition of AI startup Sana, aiming to remodel the platform into the “latest front door for work”.

Tencent released Hunyuan3D 3.0, a brand new upgrade that features more precise following of input images, professional-grade detailing, and HD modeling outputs.

Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman announced that the corporate is shedding 250 employees and remodeling into an “AI-first” organization, aiming to return to “startup mode.”

COMMUNITY

🤝 Community AI workflows

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Phillip W. in Bossier City, Louisiana:

“I’m using Midjourney + HeyGen to advertise my book. Using Midjourney, I generated the image of one in all my characters, Lucia, then uploaded it to HeyGen as an Avatar. I then added speech to the Avatar and had her talk concerning the book from her perspective. I posted it to Facebook, helping creatively advertise my book.”

How do you utilize AI? Tell us here.

🎓 Highlights: News, Guides & Events

• Read our last AI newsletter: OpenAI, Anthropic reveal how users use AI

• Read our last Tech newsletter: Google joins the $3T club

• Read our last Robotics newsletter: Zoox’ driverless robotaxi service

• Today’s AI tool guide: Turn any syllabus into lecture notes with Notion AI

• RSVP to next workshop @ 4PM EST Friday: Construct reliable AI assistants

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown