The memos behind Altman’s ousting

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The November 2023 ousting of Sam Altman may feel like ancient history within the AI world, however the dramatic tech saga just got some juicy latest details courtesy of former OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever.

With a 10-hour deposition as a part of Elon Musk’s lawsuit unearthing 52-page memos on Altman and others, wild merger talks, and more, it’s clear Silicon Valley’s wildest weekend still has secrets to uncover.

In today’s AI rundown:

• OpenAI co-founder’s deposition reveals memos, merger talks

• Wharton AI study shows surging enterprise adoption

• Create on-brand marketing campaigns with Pomelli

• Former xAI researcher targets $1B for human-first AI lab

• 4 latest AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

🍿 OAI co-founder’s deposition reveals memos, merger talks

The Rundown: OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever just disclosed in a court deposition details surrounding Sam Altman’s Nov. 2023 ousting, including a 52-page document of management issues, a ‘Brockman Memo’, and a discussed Anthropic merger.

The main points:

• The Altman removal attempt was considered for ‘a minimum of a yr,’ with Sutskever crafting the 52-page memo detailing patterns of dishonesty and manipulation.

• Sutskever said ex-CTO Mira Murati provided “most” of the evidence, with the deposition mentioning a memo on OAI President Greg Brockman’s conduct.

• The memo claimed Altman “pitted” Murati against Daniela Amodei, the sister of Anthropic leader Dario Amodei, who each worked at OAI prior to Anthropic.

• The deposition also revealed that Anthropic expressed interest in a possible merger in the course of the crisis, with Dario Amodei proposed to guide the entity.

• The testimony emerged in Elon Musk’s lawsuit difficult OpenAI’s restructuring, with Sustkever participating in a 10-hour deposition.

Why it matters: Given OpenAI’s success and Altman’s rise, the November 2023 drama seems like a fever dream — but details proceed to emerge that show how close the industry got here to a radically different landscape. With the important thing players now at their very own rival AI labs, the dynamics of years ago are more likely to proceed to intertwine.

TOGETHER WITH TELY AI

🔎 Are you invisible in AI search?

The Rundown: You’re in a distinct segment industry. Customers search on Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity — but your organization doesn’t show up, because there’s no content answering their questions. Tely AI fixes that by analyzing your industry and site to seek out what people seek for and creates expert-level articles on autopilot. No need for a marketing team.

With Tely AI, you possibly can:

• Start with 60 high-quality articles a month

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• Enjoy full automation for topics, writing, and publishing

• Get discovered by buyers already trying to find your solution

Get leads from Google and ChatGPT on Autopilot.

AI RESEARCH

📊 Wharton AI study shows surging enterprise adoption

The Rundown: Wharton released its annual enterprise AI report, surveying roughly 800 senior decision-makers at U.S. firms and finding that AI usage is surging, with budgets growing and increased optimism concerning the tech across firms.

The main points:

• Top AI business tasks included data evaluation/analytics, meeting summarization, presentation and report creation, marketing content, and brainstorming.

• ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot rank as the highest two most used tools, followed by Gemini, Meta AI, custom or organization-specific models, and Amazon Q.

• Nearly 3/4 of orgs. now measure AI ROI via metrics like productivity gains and incremental profit, with 88% planning budget increases in the following yr.

• C-suite ownership of AI strategy jumped 16 percentage points year-over-year, with 60% of enterprises also now appointing Chief AI Officers.

Why it matters: These are only a couple of nuggets from a massive report stuffed with interesting insights — and despite the doom and gloom surrounding AI job loss and lack of returns, each the numbers (3/4 seeing ROI) and sentiment inside firms appear to be more positive than headlines may suggest.

AI TRAINING

🔥 Create on-brand marketing campaigns with Pomelli

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn how one can use Pomelli (by Google Labs and DeepMind) to routinely create your online business identity and generate on-brand marketing campaigns with ready-to-use creatives.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Pomelli, click “Let’s Get Began”, enter your website URL – Pomelli scans and extracts colours, fonts, taglines, tone, and product cues

2. Edit your “Business DNA” summary by adjusting colours, values, and duplicate to match your brand vision – all fields are customizable

3. Prompt the campaign generator: “Create a scary but kind Halloween campaign”, review three variations like “Give them something good” or “Treat yourself, no tricks”

4. Within the creative editor, change headlines, text, fonts, colours, resize for various placements, use “Fix layout” to auto-reflow elements, and add a call-to-action

Pro tip: You should definitely test the conversion rate of Pomelli-generated creatives vs. your previous creatives.

PRESENTED BY TELUS

🛡️ Is your AI security ready for 2026?

The Rundown: AI vulnerabilities are multiplying, and defenses are struggling to maintain up. 2026 will demand daring, proactive strategies — are your systems ready? Join Uncharted: The AI Safety & Security Summit for exclusive insights, proven tactics, and actionable plans to safeguard your organization.

Attend the net summit on Nov. 13 and:

• Gain practical strategies for implementing secure AI solutions

• Study cutting-edge AI security tools and techniques

• Connect with experts shaping the longer term of AI safety

Register now.

HUMAN&

🧠 Former xAI researcher targets $1B for human-first AI lab

The Rundown: Former xAI researcher Eric Zelikman is reportedly set to lift $1B at a $5B valuation for Human&, a brand new startup using unique training methods to develop human-centered AI with a team made up of employees from other frontier AI labs.

The main points:

• The founding team includes Google’s seventh worker, Georges Harik, and veterans from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and DeepMind.

• Humans& goals to create ‘human-centered’ AI via a brand new training method that higher understands users and strengthens capabilities, over replacing them.

• Zelikman pioneered the research behind teaching language models to reason step-by-step before responding, work that later shaped OpenAI’s o1 series.

Why it matters: AI is racing towards models that outthink humans on every task, but Zelikman sees breakthroughs coming from systems that make human teams simpler together, not from superintelligence alone. The big valuation also continues the trend of pre-product, pre-revenue AI startups raising big money.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🎨 Creative OS – Canva’s Visual Suite with design AI, latest tools, and more

• 🎥 LTX-2 Fast – Generate as much as 20 seconds of continuous video

• 🎬 Reve – AI creative platform, now with video capabilities

• 📣 Pomelli – Google’s tool for easily creating on-brand marketing materials

📰 Every little thing else in AI today

Google pulled its Gemma model after reports of hallucinations on factual questions, with the corporate emphasizing it was intended for developer and research purposes.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said AI models are “not conscious” and that research into it just isn’t the “work that folks must be doing”.

Cameo filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for its latest Sora ‘Cameo’ feature, saying the naming will lead users to associate its brand with “rapidly made AI slop and deepfakes.”

AI music platform Udio announced a 48-hour window for users to download their generations, after backlash following changes within the wake of a partnership with UMG.

OpenAI announced the power to buy additional generations in its Sora app, with Sora head Bill Peebles saying they’ll “soon pilot monetization” on the platform.

AI music persona Xania Monet became the primary AI artist to seem on Billboard’s airplay radio charts, coming after signing a multimillion-dollar deal last month.

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 Pam B. in Brazil:

“I exploit AI like a co-pilot plugged into most of my day. ChatGPT for ideation and writing, Claude for cross-checking, Gemini for imagery, Perplexity, and Consensus for more research. I also use AI in Notion and Miro, benchmarking in Semrush, and am at all times testing latest tools each day.”

How do you employ AI? Tell us here.

🎓 Highlights: News, Guides & Events

• Read our last AI newsletter: The brand new rules of AI music

• Read our last Tech newsletter: Altman wants your brain online

• Read our last Robotics newsletter: NEO home bot, now open for preorders

• Today’s AI tool guide: Create on-brand marketing campaigns with Pomelli

• Watch our last workshop: Create custom PPTs with Claude Skills

See you soon,

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