Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Google Gemini Crosses One Billion Monthly Active Users
Google’s Gemini app crossed one billion monthly active users on August 11, CEO Sundar Pichai announced — making it the fastest-growing product in the company’s 28-year history and its 14th service to reach that scale. The app grew from 400 million users at Google I/O in May 2025, reaching 900 million by I/O 2026 in May, then closing the final hundred million in three weeks following Google’s second-quarter earnings call. Pichai said 63 percent of users engage with Gemini’s voice feature, the app now generates more than 150 million images daily, and the platform has surpassed 100 million active users on iOS.
Sources: TechCrunch
Anthropic to Watermark All Claude-Generated Content Under EU AI Act
The EU AI Act’s Transparency Code took effect on August 2, requiring AI-generated content to carry machine-readable markings — and Anthropic has pledged to apply that standard globally. All Claude models released after August 2 will embed watermarks in AI-generated text and files, the company announced, making it among the first developers to extend EU compliance obligations beyond Europe. The directive calls for a multi-layered approach combining embedded metadata, imperceptible pixel-level watermarks, and digital fingerprinting. Alongside Anthropic, Black Forest Labs, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Synthesia have committed to the EU code of practice. Researchers note no single marking technology meets all four required properties: effectiveness, interoperability, robustness, and reliability.
Sources: TechCrunch
Lovable Raises $400 Million at $13.3 Billion Valuation in Series C Round
Stockholm-based AI coding startup Lovable has raised $400 million in a Series C round led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund, a European Union vehicle managed by EQT AB, valuing the company at $13.3 billion — double its $6.6 billion valuation from December 2025. New investors include Tencent, Balderton Capital, Carmignac, and Kaszek Ventures. Lovable, which lets users build websites and software by describing what they want in natural language, reported $500 million in annualized run rate revenue in June 2026. The company plans to expand its global workforce to 450 employees and open additional offices in London, Boston, San Francisco, and New York.
Sources: TechCrunch
SpaceXAI Launches Grok Bot: Persistent AI Agent Coworkers at $120 per Seat
SpaceXAI, the AI division of SpaceX formerly known as xAI, launched a beta version of Grok Bot on August 11 — a persistent agent platform that moves beyond conversational AI toward continuously executing work across enterprise software. Users assign each Grok Bot a specific role such as Sales Outbound, Paid Media Manager, or Chief of Staff, grant it access to relevant applications, and let it operate within its own sandboxed computer environment, even while a user’s laptop is closed. Grok Bot is available to SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra, and Cursor Premium Teams subscribers, priced at $200 per month on Cursor Ultra and $120 per seat per month for teams.
Sources: VentureBeat
Made by Google 2026: Pixel 11, Pixel Watch 5, and a $29 Pixel Tag Unveiled
Google unveiled the Pixel 11 lineup, Pixel Watch 5, and a forthcoming Pixel Tag at its Made by Google event on August 12. The Pixel 11 starts at $899 — $100 more than its predecessor — featuring a 48-megapixel wide sensor with 56 percent more light sensitivity. The Pixel 11 Pro, starting at $1,099, adds a 50-megapixel wide sensor and 120x zoom capability powered by the Tensor G6 chip. The Pixel Watch 5 starts at $399 and doubles storage to 64 gigabytes. Google confirmed the Pixel Tag — $29 each, or $99 for a four-pack — will launch in November. Live Transcribe was expanded to include American Sign Language support.
Sources: TechCrunch
LTX-2.5 Generates a 10-Second AI Video in Under 7 Seconds, Now Open-Weight
LTX, spun out of Lightricks, released LTX-2.5 on August 11 — an open-weights audio-video foundation model with 22 billion parameters that generates a ten-second, 720p image-to-video clip in 6.8 seconds on two NVIDIA GB200 chips. The same output via LTX’s managed API takes 23.7 seconds but renders at 1080p resolution. Version 2.5 introduces native multishot scenes, automatic duration detection, and 4K HDR output, with ComfyUI workflow templates available on day one. The model is free for organizations with less than $10 million in annual recurring revenue and is available as open weights on Hugging Face; larger companies must negotiate a commercial license.
Sources: VentureBeat
Three AI Pioneers Make the Case for Open-Source AI at Safety-Focused AI4 Conference
Three prominent AI researchers — Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, World Labs CEO Fei-Fei Li, and Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng — argued for keeping artificial intelligence open at the AI4 conference in Las Vegas on August 12, even as concerns about freely distributed models intensify. Open-source AI has become a flash point: critics argue that releasing powerful model weights without restrictions enables misuse, while proponents contend that open distribution accelerates research and prevents dangerous concentration of AI capability. All three researchers maintained that transparency ultimately makes AI safer despite those risks, speaking at a moment when Chinese open-weight models have captured a dominant share of global AI usage.
Sources: TechCrunch
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models (SWE-bench Verified): Claude Opus 5 (96.0%) | Claude Mythos 5 (95.5%) | Claude Fable 5 (95.0%)
Top Open Source Models (SWE-bench Verified): Kimi K3 (93.4%) | DeepSeek V4-Pro (80.6%) | Qwen3.6-27B (68.9%)
Top Small Models (15–50B, SWE-bench Verified): Qwen3-Coder 32B (69.6%) | Qwen3.6-27B (68.9%) | Meta Muse Glimmer 30B (new release)
Top Edge Models (0–15B, IFEval): Llama 3.3 8B (92.1%) | Phi-4-mini 3.8B | Gemma 4 E4B
AI Leaders (market cap): NVIDIA $5.09T | Alphabet $4.55T | Microsoft $3.69T
Robotics Leaders (market cap): Intuitive Surgical ~$175B | ABB ~$69B | Fanuc ~$48B
Every newsletter preserved and searchable
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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