Contained in the Considering Machines meltdown

Good morning, { AI enthusiasts }. Sam Altman wasn’t just able to welcome back Considering Machines talent — he’d been talking to them for months.

Recent reports reveal last week’s messy split at Mira Murati’s startup had been brewing behind the scenes, with co-founders unhappy with the corporate’s direction and OpenAI positioned to scoop up the pieces when things fell apart.

In today’s AI rundown:

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

The Rundown: Recent details are emerging about last week’s split at Mira Murati’s Considering Machines Lab, in response to the NYT and The Information, including a tense meeting, secret talks with Sam Altman, and a failed acquisition discussion with Meta.

The small print:

Why it matters: What began as a messy departure now looks more like (one other) power struggle that had been brewing for months. With TML struggling to boost at its $50B goal valuation and co-founders pushing for a sale Murati didn’t want, the cracks were already showing — and OAI and Altman were able to catch the fallout.

The Rundown: AI agents are reshaping digital experiences, but securing them requires rethinking identity and access controls built for a human-first world. Auth0 for AI Agents is now generally available, giving developers the whole auth solution for constructing AI agents securely.

Key features include:

Start constructing today.

The Rundown: Google DeepMind hired Hume AI’s CEO and roughly seven engineers as a part of a brand new licensing agreement, marking the most recent acqui-hire move by the tech giant — with Hume’s emotionally intelligent voice tech set to be integrated into Gemini.

The small print:

Why it matters: Voice is quickly becoming one in every of the most important ways people interact with AI — and understanding tone, emotion, and nuance is what separates a useful assistant from a clumsy, clunky one. Plus, with AI wearables and devices getting closer than ever to mainstream, upgraded voice capabilities will change into much more vital.

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn how one can generate a podcast on any topic using Google’s NotebookLM, a system you should utilize to make a substantial dent within the firehose of data you receive every day.

Step-by-step:

Pro tip: “Call in” to ask Qs to the AI podcast hosts by clicking the “interactive” button.

The Rundown: Scroll.ai turns your knowledge base into AI-powered experts that automate the workflows draining your team’s time, with accuracy and depth far beyond generic models.

With Scroll, you’ll be able to:

Try Scroll today and use code THE-RUNDOWN-2026 for 2 free months of the Starter plan.

The Rundown: Runway published research showing that 90%+ of participants couldn’t tell between real footage and image-to-video clips generated by its Gen-4.5 model, with the corporate calling the capabilities a societal “tipping point” for AI media.

The small print:

Why it matters: Low-quality AI videos are already tricking people, and Runway’s Gen-4.5 and other models take things to a brand new level of realism that’s virtually unattainable to detect. Despite a push for verification standards, no fix can solve for a world where “seeing is believing” now not stands.

QUICK HITS

Google DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg posted a brand new ‘Chief AGI Economist’ job opening, saying that “AGI is now on the horizon”.

OAI CFO Sarah Friar floated “value sharing” at Davos, where the corporate would take a licensing stake in discoveries made using its AI, starting with drug development.

Amazon One Medical launched a brand new agentic health assistant in a position to answer questions on personal medical insights, test results, medications, and booking care.

xAI released a brand new update to its Grok Imagine creative suite, now allowing for generations as much as 10 seconds long with improved audio and video capabilities.

Google added its ‘Personal Intelligence’ feature into AI Mode for search, allowing the experience to attach and reference info from users’ Gmail and Photos.

Yelp agreed to acquire AI startup Hatch for $270M, adding tools that automate customer communication for service businesses to its platform.

COMMUNITY

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 Nicole S. within the UAE:

“One small way AI has upgraded my each day routine: turning reading time into movement time. I exploit NotebookLM to create audio summaries from newsletters, PDFs, and URLs. I turn them into an audio file, then listen through short yoga stretch, home tasks, or lunch—giving my eyes a rest while the educational continues.”

How do you employ AI? Tell us here.

See you soon,