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- Midjourney launches its first video generation model
Midjourney launches its first video generation model
Plus xAI looks to raise $4.3Bn in equity and $5Bn debt
Today’s Highlights:
📰 News: Midjourney launches its first video generation model
💰 Funding: xAI looks to raise $4.3Bn in equity and $5Bn debt
⚡️ Top News Stories:
1. Midjourney has launched V1, its first AI video generation model that transforms images into animated five-second clips via Discord, emphasizing creativity over commercial use with extendable videos, manual prompt control, and a roadmap toward 3D and real-time simulations.
2. Two tech watchdog nonprofits—the Midas Project and the Tech Oversight Project—launched The OpenAI Files, an archival project that compiles documented concerns about OpenAI’s governance, ethics, and leadership, urging oversight in the race toward AGI.
The initiative’s goal is to promote responsible governance and shared benefit, arguing that any organization building AGI should operate with exceptional transparency, ethical leadership, and public accountability proportional to the stakes.
The Files document how OpenAI’s structure shifted from a capped-profit nonprofit to a profit-driven model to appease investors, removing the original 100x profit cap and allegedly compromising its founding mission to benefit humanity.
The project highlights allegations of rushed safety processes, a culture of recklessness, and potential conflicts of interest involving board members and CEO Sam Altman, whose integrity was questioned during a failed internal coup in 2023.
3. Google has fully launched its Gemini 2.5 model lineup, including the new Flash-Lite for cost-efficient reasoning tasks, with updates that streamline pricing and reinforce the Pro model’s dominance in coding and complex AI applications.
4. Google’s AI Mode now supports real-time voice conversations, allowing users to ask complex questions, get spoken responses, and continue the dialogue while multitasking, powered by a custom Gemini model and set to expand with camera-based queries.
5. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that generative AI will reduce some corporate roles, signaling a broader workforce transformation as AI tools automate tasks and reshape the nature of work across the company.
6. OpenAI is preparing for advanced AI models to reach high capabilities in biology, proactively implementing safety, monitoring, and policy systems to prevent misuse while enabling breakthroughs in medicine, biodefense, and public health.
7. Google, OpenAI and other major AI firms are cutting ties with Scale AI following Meta’s acquisition, fearing proprietary data exposure, which has sparked a wave of industry exits and major opportunity for competing data-labeling platforms.
OpenAI, a longtime client, has officially begun phasing out its relationship with Scale, citing the need for more specialized data sources to support advanced models, a decision reportedly in motion even before the Meta deal.
Competitors like Snorkel AI, Labelbox, Turing, and Invisible Technologies have reported a surge in interest, with some seeing “tens of millions” in potential deals as clients seek to diversify data-labeling vendors.
8. Reddit debuted its new Reddit Community Intelligence™ platform at Cannes Lions 2025, introducing two AI-powered tools—Reddit Insights and Conversation Summary Add-ons—that analyze 22+ billion user conversations to provide real-time strategic marketing intelligence and enhance ad performance by embedding authentic community perspectives.
9. Adobe has launched its Firefly app for iOS and Android, enabling mobile users to generate and edit images and videos from text prompts using Adobe’s own Firefly models and third-party AI models like OpenAI’s GPT image, Google’s Imagen 3 and Veo 2, and Flux 1.1 Pro—all with on-the-go features such as generative fill and expand.
10. TikTok’s upgraded Symphony Creative Studio now offers AI-powered tools to convert static images or text prompts into short-form video content, with early adopters like YOOX and American Eagle reporting improved ad performance and marketing efficiency.
11. In response to the rising risks of autonomous AI agents, Yoshua Bengio—founder of LawZero and a foundational figure in modern AI—has proposed “Scientist AI,” a non-agentic safeguard that predicts and blocks harmful AI actions using conservative moral reasoning grounded in democratic consensus.
12. Despite Meta offering compensation packages over $100M to lure top AI talent, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says none of his best employees have defected, criticizing Meta’s approach as driven by money rather than mission and innovation.
💰 Top Funding News:
1. xAI is raising $4.3Bn in equity alongside a $5Bn debt round after spending nearly all of its $14Bn in previous funding, with its valuation ballooning to $80Bn despite rapid burn to support resource-heavy AI products like Grok.
2. In a major nod to the potential of AI-enabled solo ventures, six-month-old Base44 — a profitable vibe-coding startup — was acquired by Wix for $80M in cash, boosting Wix’s no-code platform with a tool that turns text prompts into full-stack apps.
3. Multiplier, which acquires service firms and scales them using AI to boost efficiency and profitability, raised a $27.5M Seed and Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Ribbit Capital, with participation from SV Angel.
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