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Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. Sam Altman is going back-to-back in the headlines this week—going from cryptic posts to crystal clear claims: OpenAI now knows how to build AGI, and they’re not stopping there.
With superintelligence and powerful agentic AI on the horizon, everything we thought we knew about the future might be about to change, sooner than many anticipate.
In today’s AI rundown:
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Altman: ‘Confident we know how to build AGI’
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Samsung goes all-in on AI at CES 2025
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Convert any topic into a research-backed article
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Study: AI phishing achieves alarming success rates
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4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
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Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown
The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just a new blog titled ‘Reflections’, revealing that the company believes they now know how to build AGI — and is now setting its sights on developing superintelligent systems.
The details:
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Altman stated that OpenAI is “now confident we know how to build AGI”, also predicting that the first AI agents will join the workforce in 2025.
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OAI is now aiming for superintelligence, which Altman says may revolutionize scientific discovery and “massively increase abundance and prosperity.”
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Altman also addressed the November 2023 leadership crisis, describing his sudden firing as “a big failure of governance by well-meaning people.”
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The blog Altman’s cryptic post about the technological singularity that we highlighted in yesterday’s newsletter.
Why it matters: While many will question or write off the ambitious claims, there has undoubtedly been a recent shift of confidence from employees within OpenAI and other top AI labs about AGI and superintelligence — and if accurate, their timeline could mean a complete reshaping of industries and change far sooner than many anticipate.
TOGETHER WITH HUMANX
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The Rundown: HumanX 2025 is the premier AI event of 2025, bringing together industry leaders, innovators, and decision-makers to explore the future of artificial intelligence and its impact across industries.
Register by Jan. 14 and access VIP benefits including:
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Real-time access with Alani AI, your event assistant
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Exclusive travel benefits like Uber credits and suite upgrades
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Priority seating at onsite Q&As with speakers from OpenAI, Google Cloud, and Amazon
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A chance to win a free badge for HumanX 2026 in San Francisco
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SAMSUNG
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Image source: Samsung
The Rundown: Samsung its new “AI for All” tagline at CES 2025, introducing a comprehensive suite of new AI features and products across its entire ecosystem — including new AI-powered TVs, appliances, PCs, and more.
The details:
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Vision AI brings features like real-time translation, the ability to adapt to user preferences, AI upscaling, and instant content summaries to Samsung TVs.
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Several of Samsung’s new Smart TVs will also have Microsoft Copilot built in, while also teasing a potential AI partnership with Google.
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Samsung also the new line of Galaxy Book5 AI PCs, with new capabilities like AI-powered search and photo editing.
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AI is also being infused into Samsung’s appliances, art frames, home security equipment, and other devices within its SmartThings ecosystem.
Why it matters: Samsung’s web of products are getting the AI treatment — and we’re about to be surrounded by AI-infused appliances in every aspect of our lives. The edge will be the ability to sync it all together under one central hub, which could position Samsung as the go-to for the inevitable transition from smart to AI-powered homes.
AI TRAINING
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The Rundown: Stanford’s new AI research tool helps users generate comprehensive, research-backed articles by scanning multiple sources and presenting balanced perspectives.
Step-by-step:
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Visit the STORM research .
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Enter your topic (be specific but concise).
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Wait a few minutes while it gathers the latest information across hundreds of websites.
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Review the generated content containing a comprehensive summary, key developments, and multiple perspectives.
Bonus tip: Use Google’s NotebookLM to convert your research into a podcast format for easier consumption and sharing.
PRESENTED BY INNOVATING WITH AI
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The Rundown: Innovating with AI’s new program, AI Consultancy Project, transforms AI enthusiasts into professional consultants — tapping into a market projected to reach $54.7B by 2032.
The 6-month program delivers:
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Proven frameworks for client acquisition and service delivery
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A step-by-step path to six-figure consulting income
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Students who land their first AI client in as little as 3 days
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AI RESEARCH
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Image source: Midjourney / The Rundown
The Rundown: A new study from Harvard just that AI systems can conduct fully automated phishing campaigns as effectively as human experts, with the systems achieving success rates over 50%.
The details:
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Researchers tested four campaigns: a standard phishing attempt, human experts, fully AI-automated, and an AI with human oversight.
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The AI-generated phishing emails achieved a 54% click-through rate, matching human attackers and far surpassing traditional spam’s 12% success rate.
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The AI system fully automated both reconnaissance and email creation, accurately profiling 88% of targets using public web data.
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AI campaigns reduced costs by up to 50x over manual attacks, with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o and o1 all crafting content despite safety guardrails.
Why it matters: We’ve entered a new era of AI-powered social engineering, and the world is very unprepared for how persuasive scam and phishing attempts will be. The combo of high success rates, low costs, and scalability is the perfect storm for bad actors — and guardrails likely won’t be able to stop the flood thats coming.
QUICK HITS
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👁️ – Quickly extract content from PDFs, PPTs, and images
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⚙️ – Easily embed RAG into your product
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🍞 – Turn any open-source AI model into a monetizable API
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🤑 – Build, test, and deploy pricing models with AI agents and no-code
💼
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🚗 – Software Engineer, TaaS Infrastructure
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🤖 – AI Training Infrastructure Engineer
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📈 – Director, FP&A
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🏗 – Product Design Engineer, AI Infrastructure
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Former Sora lead Tim Brooks two new jobs to build out his team at Google DeepMind focused on AI world simulation, with plans to apply the tech to areas like visual reasoning, embodied agents, and interactive entertainment.
Apple plans to update its AI notification summaries iPhone feature after the BBC reported multiple instances of false news summaries, including fabricated stories about athlete victories and celebrity announcements.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration the first comprehensive draft guidance for AI-enabled medical devices, establishing recommendations across development and deployment — with over 1000 devices already authorized.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that the company is currently losing money on its $200/month o1 pro subscription model due to higher than anticipated usage.
Google a new AI-powered TV system, leveraging Gemini to create automated news summaries from online sources and YouTube.
HubSpot the acquisition of Frame AI, with plans to integrate its conversation intelligence capabilities into the company’s Breeze AI platform to transform customer interactions into actionable data insights.
COMMUNITY
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Join our next workshop on Friday at 1 PM PST and learn how to use AI coding tools to bring any idea to life with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor.
RSVP . Not a member yet? Join on a 14-day free trial.
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See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team
