What the AI?!

We were told AI would make us faster, smarter, more efficient. But what if it’s just making us feel productive—while secretly slowing us down? This week, Jeff and Annie dig into the most surprising stories in AI. Popeyes used AI to launch a diss track against McDonald’s. A $3 billion deal between OpenAI and Windsurf collapsed, and Google swooped in with a $2.4 billion move of its own. A new study...

What happens when AI outsmarts your doctor, charms your date, and impersonates a U.S. senator? This week, Jeff and Annie dive into some AI stories. A fertility breakthrough gives new hope to families after 18 years of trying. Microsoft claims its AI can now beat real doctors at complex diagnoses. And in a truly unsettling twist, someone used a fake voice clone of Marco Rubio to try and access clas...

Jeff and Annie are back with another round of “Wait, what?!” moments from the AI world. Mira Murati raises $2 billion for a stealth company no one can quite explain. DeepMind’s new robots don’t need the cloud—or a human form—to do real work. And Claude is now building apps straight from your chat window. We also cover: The surprising potential of disembodied robot arms What AI-native customer serv...

What if your AI twin outsold you, and ChatGPT made your brain… slower? In this episode, Jeff and Annie explore the strange ways AI is reshaping how we think, work, and even sell. Meta’s smart glasses are getting a reboot, OpenAI’s “Projects” feature keeps leveling up, and China just pulled off a $7M livestream using two AI hosts. Meanwhile, an MIT study raises red flags about what writing with Cha...

This week, Jeff and Annie delve into the weird, wonderful, and slightly concerning ways AI is making its presence felt in our lives. Meta is throwing $15B at a new AGI dream team. Google’s Gemini wants to become your executive assistant. OpenAI is in court defending your right to delete. AI is showing up in hospitals, planning departments, even behind the Starbucks counter, and not always in the w...

In this episode, Jeff and Annie tackle one of the most pressing questions in AI: can machines be better at handling emotions than we are? Shockingly, GPT-4 might have just proved it. They also dive into Meta’s bold plan to automate advertising fully, AMC’s move to hand pre-production over to generative tools, and Anthropic’s launch of a government-only version of Claude. We also cover: Jeff’s favo...

This week, Jeff and Annie unpack some of the most disruptive (and occasionally rebellious) stories in AI — from bold job loss predictions to AI models that refuse to shut down. They explore what it really takes to make AI work inside organizations, why UBS is cloning its financial analysts, and how the UAE’s free ChatGPT Plus program could be the smartest national AI play yet. In this episode: How...

In this episode Jeff and Annie dive into a whirlwind of AI drops, weird moments, and future shock. Google rolled out everything from AI-powered search to filmmaking tools. OpenAI made a $6.5B move into hardware with design legend Jony Ive. Klarna’s AI assistant hit its limits, and Fortnite let you talk to Darth Vader—voiced by an AI, of course. Oh, and researchers say bots are starting to act like...

Your face might know more about your health than your doctor does. And your glasses? They might be smarter than your phone. This week, Jeff and Annie explore some of the wildest—and most useful—ways AI is showing up in the real world. From smart glasses that translate conversations at the dinner table to a selfie tool that predicts cancer risk, AI’s getting more and more physical. They also get in...

AI is no longer experimental. It’s running across government systems, shaping national infrastructure, and—sometimes—crashing into other cars. Jeff and Annie examine the growing tension between how AI is actually being used and how institutions are trying to manage it. With new laws taking shape, infrastructure being retooled, and pressure mounting from global competitors, the stakes are rising fa...

In this episode, Jeff and Annie explore the most bizarre, bold, and slightly unsettling developments in AI last week. From Google’s music model that lets you "text a song" into existence to Meta’s celebrity bots chatting with kids about sex, Jeff and Annie share where innovation meets ethical red flags. They also discuss OpenAI’s sneaky shopping features, Microsoft’s AI-generated ads, and Reddit’s...

In this episode, Jeff Keltner and Annie Delgado sprint through the latest in AI, from Beijing’s humanoid robot races to the Academy’s new rules for AI-generated content. They explore Microsoft’s Copilot updates, Nvidia’s new agentic services, OpenAI’s turbocharged image models, and how AI is now helping find hidden minerals — and even writing national laws.  In this Episode: How Microsoft is embed...

Can AI out-negotiate world leaders—or save lives in remote villages? From geopolitics to Google Docs, this week’s AI breakthroughs could redefine global strategy. Jeff and Annie unpack OpenAI’s mysterious new GPT-4.1 (and why developers get it—but regular users don’t). Plus: Claude’s surprising leap into Google Workspace, China’s rapid-fire AI hospital deployments, and a groundbreaking AI-powered...

In this episode, Jeff and Annie cover a week of extremes in AI. From Meta’s release of Llama 4 to Amazon’s Nova Sonic model, OpenAI’s memory upgrade, and Google’s massive push into video and agent collaboration, the industry is evolving at breakneck speed. They also dig into the EU’s ambitious plan to catch up to the U.S. and China, with a privacy-first approach and debate whether it's brilliance...

Jeff and Annie dive into the latest AI breakthroughs—from headline-grabbing business moves to deeply human applications. They unpack Elon Musk’s $100B xAI merger, Amazon’s move into smart agents, and brain-to-speech tech that gives voice to the voiceless. Also in this episode: OpenAI raises $40B and teases open-weight models—while users face growing latency. Runway's Gen-4 pushes AI video closer t...

What if AI could help you collaborate better at work and pick your next favorite product? What if it could make you feel... understood? In this episode, Jeff and Annie discuss last week’s breakthroughs and debates in AI, including Google's surprise Gemini 2.5 release, Microsoft's push into reasoning agents, and much more. They discuss how AI is getting cheaper, smarter, more emotional, and sometim...

Every week, AI innovation keeps sprawling.  In this episode, Jeff and Annie break down Nvidia’s new hardware lineup (yes, Jeff has a favorite GPU), the surprising return of leprechaun traps, and the major agentic upgrades coming to Zoom and Adobe. They also tackle the ethics of watermark removal, Google's new mind-mapping features, and whether state or federal policy should rule the AI world. In t...

As AI starts to behave unexpectedly, grow at unprecedented rates, and fuel the energy crisis, the question of whether humans remain in control stands out.  In this episode, we discuss OpenAI’s recent finding about AI models cheating, McDonald’s rapid AI adoption and consequent growth, and how AI is feeding the energy crisis, where LLMs are now consuming more power than small countries, and more. ...

Is Apple falling behind in the AI race? With competitors like Google and Amazon accelerating AI assistants, Apple’s decision to delay its LLM-powered Siri until 2027 has left many questioning its strategy. In this episode, Jeff and Annie dive into Apple’s surprising delay in rolling out a truly AI-powered Siri, while Google and Perplexity are aggressively pushing AI assistant capabilities. They al...

AI is making moves. Some are smart, some not-so-much. Amazon just turned Alexa into an AI powerhouse, making it more than just a glorified kitchen timer. Meanwhile, AI is shaking up board game design, proving that even old-school entertainment can benefit from machine intelligence. And speaking of intelligence—XAI’s Grok3 just demonstrated how not to handle AI bias, stumbling over its so-called ‘m...

Google has dominated the search model for years, but OpenAI, Perplexity, and Elon Musk’s Grok3 are catching up. Big AI players are making bold moves, and Google might be losing ground. This week, Jeff and Annie break down how Grok3 just claimed the AI throne, how AI is rewriting DNA, and whether search engines powered by LLMs could finally challenge Google’s core model. Plus, a wild AI breakthroug...

AI is entering a new era where efficiency, autonomy, and control are the hottest topics of conversation.  As models shrink through distillation, they promise faster, cheaper intelligence without (supposedly) losing their edge. Meanwhile, GitHub’s Copilot is evolving beyond an autocomplete tool into an autonomous coding assistant, raising questions about how much power we should give AI in creative...

Much has been said about AI’s power to transform our lives and economies. But when it starts shaping our health, food systems, and even our DNA—are we ready for what comes next? This week on What the AI?!, we’re diving into breakthroughs that sound straight out of sci-fi. MIT’s Chromogen is decoding the hidden 3D structure of DNA, giving scientists an unprecedented look at how genes activate insid...

In this episode of What the AI?! , Jeff and Annie dive into the explosive debate around China’s DeepSeek AI model, which wiped out a trillion dollars in U.S. market value in a single day. They also explore a Harvard study showing that AI tutors can more than double student engagement and learning gains, and the latest update from the U.S. Copyright Office, which ruled that AI-assisted works can be...

This week on What the AI?!, Jeff and Annie unpack the details behind Trump’s headline-grabbing $500 billion investment in U.S. AI infrastructure, featuring tech titans like Oracle, OpenAI, and Softbank, raising tough criticism. They also discuss how open-source AI models, like DeepSeek’s R1, challenge industry giants in the AI space, and explore the privacy vs. productivity battle between Apple an...