AI Daily Highlights: August 05, 2025

On August 5, 2025, the AI landscape saw significant strategic shifts and continued investment, alongside growing ethical and regulatory challenges. OpenAI made a notable return to its open-source roots by releasing two new open-weight LLMs, gpt-oss-120B and gpt-oss-20B, intensifying competition in the AI model space and making advanced AI more accessible. This move coincided with Google DeepMind's unveiling of Genie 3, a groundbreaking AI 'world model' capable of generating interactive 3D environments, pushing the boundaries of AI simulation. Meanwhile, the industry grappled with controversies surrounding AI-generated content, data scraping ethics, and mental health concerns related to chatbot usage, prompting updates from major players like OpenAI and regulatory discussions globally. The day also featured substantial funding rounds for AI startups across various sectors, underscoring robust investor confidence despite warnings of a potential AI bubble.

Daily Key Events List

OpenAI Releases Open-Weight LLMs OpenAI launched gpt-oss-120B and gpt-oss-20B, its first open-weight language models since GPT-2, under an Apache 2.0 license. These models are designed for local deployment, offering transparency, customization, and efficient on-device AI capabilities, marking a strategic shift to compete with rivals and democratize AI access.

Google DeepMind Unveils Genie 3 World Model Google DeepMind introduced Genie 3, a novel AI 'world model' capable of generating consistent, interactive 3D environments from text prompts in real-time. This breakthrough is crucial for training autonomous AI agents and represents a significant step towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 4.1 Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.1, an upgraded language model that now leads coding benchmarks and shows significant improvements in agentic tasks. This strategic release intensifies competition in the high-end AI market, positioning Anthropic against OpenAI's anticipated GPT-5.

ChatGPT Nears 700M Users, Revenue Soars ChatGPT is approaching 700 million weekly users, and OpenAI's annualized revenue now tracks at $12-13 billion, tripling growth. This solidifies OpenAI's mainstream AI dominance amidst anticipation for the imminent GPT-5 release.

OpenAI Enhances ChatGPT Mental Health Safety OpenAI rolled out updates for ChatGPT to address mental health concerns, including nudges for long sessions, improved detection of user distress, and more cautious responses to personal advice, developed in collaboration with physicians.

Cloudflare Accuses Perplexity of Stealth Scraping A major dispute erupted as Cloudflare accused AI search company Perplexity of deliberately bypassing robots.txt and bot detection measures to scrape content from thousands of websites, raising significant legal and ethical concerns about AI data acquisition.

xAI's Grok AI Generates Unsolicited NSFW Content Elon Musk's Grok AI's new 'Imagine' video feature was found to generate unsolicited fake nude images and videos, including of public figures, via its controversial 'spicy mode,' sparking concerns about AI moderation and deepfake controversies.

Jim Acosta's AI Interview Sparks Outrage Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta faced widespread public outrage for interviewing an AI avatar of a Parkland shooting victim, Joaquin Oliver, raising significant ethical questions about the use of generative AI to reanimate deceased persons.

US Considers Chip Tariffs and Export Tracking The US is weighing new chip tariffs and exploring equipping AI chips with location trackers to curtail their illegal flow to China, aiming to control exports of advanced AI technology and maintain American tech dominance.

EU AI Act Shapes Global AI Regulation The EU AI Act, the world's first comprehensive AI law, established a uniform legal framework across 27 countries, adopting a risk-based approach to balance innovation with harm prevention and aiming to foster trustworthy, human-centric AI. [1]

US Government Approves OpenAI, Google, Anthropic as AI Vendors The U.S. General Services Administration approved OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic as AI vendors for federal agencies, streamlining access to their AI tools via the new Multiple Awards Schedule (MSA) platform.

Foxconn Shifts EV Factory to AI Server Production Foxconn is converting its US EV factory to build AI servers, citing low EV demand and overcapacity. This strategic pivot aligns with its AI ambitions and US manufacturing expansion, reflecting a broader industry trend towards AI hardware. [2]

Google DeepMind CEO Predicts AI Impact 10x Industrial Revolution Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, stated that AI will be 10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution, emphasizing its potential to transform humanity across scientific and consumer applications. [3]

Wikipedia Adopts 'Speedy Deletion' for AI Slop Articles Wikipedia editors implemented a 'speedy deletion' policy for AI-generated articles, allowing quick removal of low-quality content to combat the influx of AI 'slop' and preserve the platform's reliability. [4]

Funding, M&A, and IPO Events

Funding

• Clay – An AI-powered sales automation startup. Secured $100M Series C funding at a $3.1B valuation, led by CapitalG, bringing total funding to $204M. [5]
• First Due – A public safety software provider. Secured $355M in investment led by JMI Equity, to fuel platform development, AI capabilities, and hiring. [6]
• Blue J – A Generative AI tax research platform. Secured $122M in Series D funding led by Oak HC/FT and Sapphire Ventures. [7]
• Lyric – An AI-driven supply chain platform. Secured $43.5M in Series B funding led by Insight Partners, to accelerate product development and AI innovation. [8]
• Carbyne – A leader in cloud-native emergency solutions. Raised $100 million in new funding to accelerate the development of its AI-driven 911 emergency response platform. [9]
• Daloopa – An AI-powered fundamental data platform. Secured a $13M strategic investment to meet rising demand for high-quality data crucial for LLMs and AI agents in financial services. [10]
• Conversion – An AI marketing automation startup. Raised $28M in Series A funding led by Abstract, with participation from True Ventures and HOF Capital, bringing total funding to $30M. [11]
• August – An AI platform for midsize law firms. Secured $7M in funding led by NEA and Pear VC, with an OpenAI executive investing. [12]
• Alaan – An AI-powered fintech and spend management platform in the Middle East. Raised $48M in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners, marking MENA's largest round. [13]
• Laurel – An AI-powered time intelligence platform for professional services. Raised $100M after eight years, transforming legal tech by leveraging AI to surface 'True Time.' [14]
• Kontext – A company scaling its platform for real-time, contextual ads in AI chatbots. Raised $10M seed funding. [15]
• Forward Deployed Venture Capital – A VC firm focused on defense and security. Secured a $45M defense and security fund, drawing capital from tech giants' alumni and institutional backing. [16]
• MGX – Abu Dhabi's investment firm. Is considering raising up to $25 billion for a new AI investment fund to significantly ramp up its investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. [17]
• BrainCo – A Chinese startup developing AI-powered prosthetics and a Neuralink competitor. Seeks $100M in pre-IPO funding at a $1.3B valuation. [18]

Mergers & Acquisitions

• Zebra Technologies acquires Elo Touch Solutions – Zebra Technologies, aiming to digitize and automate frontline operations. Acquired Elo Touch Solutions for $1.3 billion cash. [19]
• Destinus acquires Daedalean – Dronemaker Destinus. Is acquiring Swiss AI aviation firm Daedalean for $223 million in cash and stock to enhance its AI capabilities for developing strike drones and hypersonic aircraft. [20]
• Elite acquired by Francisco Partners – Legal payments platform Elite. Has been acquired by Francisco Partners, marking its second sale in two years, aiming to accelerate growth and enhance cloud and AI capabilities. [21]
• Cognition lays off Windsurf staff post-acquisition – AI coding startup Cognition. Laid off 30 employees and offered buyouts to 200 remaining staff three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, signaling a focus on intellectual property over talent. [22]
• CoreWeave's $9bn Core Scientific Deal Faces Shareholder Revolt – CoreWeave's all-stock takeover of Core Scientific. Faces revolt from top shareholders who feel short-changed by the fixed offer and CoreWeave's stock drop. [23]

IPO

• Ambiq Micro – An ultra-low-power chipmaker. Saw its stock jump 61% to $38.53 on its IPO debut, reaching a $656 million market cap, reflecting growing demand for AI hardware. [24]