Another AI Newsletter: Week 52, '25
Your five-minute AI brief: Google tunes for function calling, GPT-5.2-Codex advances the cyber frontier, Ray3 makes AI video editable, banking banks on agents, and New York enacts the RAISE act
Major Product / Tool Releases
FunctionGemma
Dec 19, 2025 | FunctionGemma
Why it matters:
Google is signaling that serious agents do not need massive cloud models. FunctionGemma proves that small, open, function-aware models can deliver fast, private, and predictable behavior directly on user devices.
Ray3 Modify
Dec 19, 2025 | Ray3 Modify
Why it matters:
Luma AI is unlocking AI video for real production teams. Editing existing footage instead of generating from scratch makes AI usable inside actual post-production workflows where quality, continuity, and control matter.
Your Year with ChatGPT
Dec 23, 2025 | Your Year with ChatGPT
Why it matters:
OpenAI is strengthening emotional retention, not just utility. Personalized recaps turn ChatGPT into a habit and a relationship, reinforcing its role as a long-term personal AI layer.
OpenAI Audio Models
Dec 22, 2025 | OpenAI Audio Models updates
Why it matters:
This expands AI beyond text-first interactions. By improving speech input, speech output, and audio understanding in a unified model family, OpenAI is turning voice into a first-class interface for assistants, agents, and real-time applications.
Breakthrough Research
Parallel Token Prediction (PTP)
Dec 24, 2025 | Parallel Token Prediction
Why it matters:
PTP attacks one of the biggest remaining bottlenecks in language models: token-by-token decoding. By predicting multiple dependent tokens in parallel without losing expressiveness, this work points to a future where large models get dramatically faster without sacrificing quality.
NitroGen
Dec 19, 2025 | NitroGen
Why it matters:
NitroGen shows that scale alone can produce generalist embodied intelligence. Training on tens of thousands of hours of gameplay yields agents that transfer to entirely new games, strengthening the case that simulated environments can bootstrap real-world action intelligence.
AnyTask
Dec 19, 2025 | AnyTask
Why it matters:
AnyTask removes humans from one of the most expensive parts of robotics: task design and data collection. Automating both with foundation models accelerates sim-to-real learning and brings general-purpose robot manipulation much closer to practicality.
Real-World Use Cases
Suncorp
Dec 23, 2025 | Suncorp multi-agent AI rollout
Why it matters:
Suncorp shows what enterprise AI looks like after experimentation ends. Moving from isolated tools to reusable, multi-agent workflows has already saved thousands of hours, proving that agentic AI can deliver measurable operational value at scale.
AWS & Microsoft (Banking)
Dec 22, 2025 | Agentic AI in banking
Why it matters:
This is the clearest signal yet that agentic AI is moving into regulated, high-stakes industries. By positioning agents as orchestration layers for compliance, customer service, and operations, cloud providers are turning AI into core banking infrastructure.
NIST (Manufacturing & Critical Infrastructure)
Dec 22, 2025 | NIST AI centers launch
Why it matters:
Government-backed deployment is a turning point for applied AI. By funding dedicated centers for manufacturing and critical infrastructure, NIST is accelerating real-world adoption while shaping safety, standards, and trust at the foundation level.
Agentic AI
GPT-5.2-Codex
Dec 19, 2025 | GPT-5.2-Codex
Why it matters:
This marks a shift from code completion to long-running autonomous execution. GPT-5.2-Codex is designed to plan, reason, and operate across large codebases, making AI agents viable for real migrations, refactors, and security-sensitive workflows.
Anthropic Introduces BLOOM
Dec 21, 2025 | BLOOM research paper
Why it matters:
BLOOM tackles one of the hardest problems in agentic systems: long-horizon planning under uncertainty. By explicitly modeling branching outcomes and refining plans through iterative self-evaluation, BLOOM moves agents closer to reliable multi-step reasoning rather than brittle, linear execution.
OpenAI Agent Skills
Dec 23, 2025 | OpenAI Codex Skills
Why it matters:
Reusable agent skills turn agents from brittle demos into composable systems. Standardizing task modules allows agents to reliably execute multi-step workflows, accelerating the transition from prompt-driven tools to autonomous software systems.
Thought Leadership
12 Predictions for the 2026 AI Reckoning
Dec 19, 2025 | Forbes
Why it matters:
This frames 2026 as the year AI hype collides with governance reality. As inference costs collapse and agents become always-on, companies that invested without controls will face real operational, legal, and trust failures.
PwC AI Chief on the Next Phase of Enterprise AI
Dec 19, 2025 | AOL
Why it matters:
This is an execution reality check from inside the enterprise. The message is clear: the limiting factor for AI is no longer model capability, but organizational readiness, skills, and the ability to operationalize change at scale.
“We Are Living in Times of Great Change”
Dec 23, 2025 | TechRadar
Why it matters:
AWS is positioning agentic AI as a platform shift, not a feature release. By emphasizing tooling, guardrails, and human oversight, it is betting that adoption scales through trust and accessibility, not raw capability alone.
AI Safety
DeepMind Releases Gemma Scope 2
Dec 19, 2025 | Gemma Scope 2 interpretability tools
Why it matters:
This is real safety infrastructure, not policy rhetoric. By releasing advanced interpretability tools that expose internal model behaviors, DeepMind is giving the safety community practical ways to study hallucinations, jailbreaks, and emergent risks in large language models.
OpenAI enhances teen safety policies
Dec 19, 2025 | OpenAI updates teen AI safety guidelines
Why it matters:
Amid growing legislative focus on protecting young users, OpenAI implemented stronger age-based safety rules and content filtering, anticipating regulatory expectations and highlighting how companies are internalizing policy pressures before formal rules are in place.
China Proposes Rules to Regulate Human-Like AI
Dec 27, 2025 | China draft human-like AI rules
Why it matters:
China’s draft rules focus on behavioral and psychological impact, not just model capability. Regulating AI that mimics human interaction reflects a global shift toward impact-based oversight as AI systems move deeper into everyday life.
Industry Investment
Alphabet Acquires Intersect Power
Dec 22, 2025 | Alphabet–Intersect Power agreement
Why it matters:
AI scale is now gated by energy systems, not just compute. By acquiring Intersect Power, Alphabet is securing long-term, grid-scale clean energy capacity while directly investing in U.S. energy innovation, signaling that power infrastructure is becoming a first-order strategic asset for AI growth.
Qualcomm Completes Alphawave Semi Acquisition
Dec 21, 2025 | Qualcomm–Alphawave acquisition
Why it matters:
AI performance increasingly depends on data movement, not just raw compute. By bringing Alphawave’s high-speed interconnect IP in-house, Qualcomm is accelerating its push into data-center and infrastructure AI platforms where bandwidth, latency, and system-level integration define competitiveness.
Nvidia Acquires Groq AI Chip Assets
Dec 25, 2025 | Nvidia–Groq transaction
Why it matters:
Inference latency is now a competitive differentiator. By absorbing Groq’s low-latency architecture and talent, Nvidia is tightening its control across both training and real-time inference, further raising the barrier for challengers in AI hardware.
Policy
Anthropic releases SB-53 compliance framework
Dec 20, 2025 | SB-53 compliance framework
Why it matters:
This is policy turning into execution. By publishing a concrete compliance framework for California’s SB-53, Anthropic shows how frontier AI labs can translate emerging regulation into real engineering workflows, documentation standards, and incident-response processes.
Italy orders Meta to suspend WhatsApp AI restrictions
Dec 24, 2025 | Italy challenges Meta’s WhatsApp AI policy
Why it matters:
This is regulators stepping directly into AI distribution power. By forcing Meta to halt policies that block rival AI chatbots inside WhatsApp, Italy is signaling that AI platform dominance will be governed through competition law, not just content or safety rules.
New York Enacts the RAISE Act
Dec 19, 2025 | New York AI safety legislation
Why it matters:
New York is drawing one of the clearest legal lines yet for frontier AI. Mandatory safety frameworks and incident reporting signal that enforceable AI governance is arriving at the state level, even as federal coordination lags.
Machine Learning
Muons and machine learning peer inside sealed nuclear casks
Dec 23, 2025 | Muons and ML inspect sealed storage casks
Why it matters:
This shows machine learning quietly expanding into critical infrastructure safety. By combining muon imaging with ML models, researchers can non-invasively inspect sealed nuclear waste casks, reducing reliance on costly physical inspections and opening new applications for AI in energy, security, and materials science.
Anthropic open-sources Agent Skills modules
Dec 22, 2025 | Anthropic launches open Agent Skills standard
Why it matters:
Reusable agent skills move machine learning from prompt engineering to composable capabilities. By opening the standard, Anthropic is pushing agents toward interoperability and enterprise reliability, reducing duplicated engineering effort across tools and platforms.
Machine learning sharpens detection of anemia and blood cell abnormalities
Dec 26, 2025 | Springer open-access review
Why it matters:
This review maps how machine learning models are being applied to detect anemia and blood-cell abnormalities using routine lab data and medical imaging. By emphasizing explainability and non-invasive diagnosis, it highlights ML’s growing role in practical, clinically deployable healthcare systems.