OpenAI hires new CEO of Applications

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: OpenAI hires new CEO of Applications

💰 Funding: OpenAI launches $50M fund to support non-profits and community orgs

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Fidji Simo, soon to become OpenAI’s first CEO of Applications, outlined a vision for expanding AI access across domains like health, creativity, and knowledge while assuming key operational duties to help the company build a sustainable business model and democratize transformative technology beyond the elite.

2. AI models from OpenAI and Google DeepMind achieved gold-medal performance in the 2025 International Math Olympiad (IMO), correctly solving five out of six problems in a benchmark traditionally dominated by top high school math students.

3. Reflection AI launched a new AI agent, Asimov, which is designed to deeply understand not just code but the full context of engineering work, including architecture documents, Slack conversations, and project reports.

4. Netflix has begun using generative AI in its original productions, debuting its first on-screen GenAI footage in El Eternauta, where AI enabled a complex building-collapse scene to be completed 10x faster and at lower cost, while also integrating AI across personalization, ads, and production workflows.

5. DuckDuckGo has introduced a new AI image filter that lets users hide generative AI content in image searches using curated blocklists, addressing user concerns about AI-generated “slop” cluttering results, with broader implications for online content quality and control.

6. Meta has refused to sign the EU’s AI code of practice ahead of the AI Act’s rollout, claiming the voluntary framework introduces excessive legal uncertainty and regulatory overreach that could stall frontier model innovation and harm European AI businesses.

7. Perplexity AI, is in talks with Apple and Samsung to pre-install its agentic AI browser Comet on mobile devices, aiming to challenge Chrome’s dominance by capitalizing on preloaded app "stickiness" and usher in a new era of AI-powered browsing.

8. Senators Hawley and Blumenthal have introduced the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act to allow individuals to sue AI companies for training models on their personal data or copyrighted works without consent, a move they say is necessary to hold Big Tech accountable amid growing concerns over unauthorized data use and lack of industry regulation.

9. After the mass leadership exodus to Google DeepMind shattered morale and left Windsurf in turmoil, interim CEO Jeff Wang navigated a weekend of crisis talks that culminated in an employee-first acquisition by Cognition — pairing Windsurf’s go-to-market strengths with Cognition’s engineering talent and preserving equity for all remaining staff.

10. A new Stanford-led study reveals that most leading AI models, including ChatGPT and Grok, have stopped including medical disclaimers in nearly all health-related answers—even for emergency and diagnostic questions—raising concerns that users will trust unverified and potentially dangerous advice from AI chatbots without realizing their limitations.

11. Perplexity AI is betting big on India’s massive, tech-savvy population to close the gap with OpenAI, signing an exclusive Airtel deal to give free Pro subscriptions to 360 million users and growing faster than ChatGPT in active users. 

💰 Top Funding News:

1.  OpenAI has launched a $50M fund to support nonprofits and community organizations using AI to tackle education, healthcare, and economic inequity, acting on the recommendations of a nationwide listening effort that involved over 500 nonprofit leaders and 7 million Americans.

2. Despite a $500Bn White House announcement and joint commitments from SoftBank and OpenAI, the Stargate AI infrastructure project has yet to materialize meaningfully due to internal disagreements, forcing OpenAI to pursue separate deals with Oracle and CoreWeave to meet its massive computing demands.

3. Hyper, which uses AI voice technology to triage non-emergency 911 calls and improve emergency response efficiency, raised a $6.3M seed round led by Eniac Ventures with participation from Ripple Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, VSC Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, and K5 Global.

4. Greptile, which uses AI to deliver deep code reviews that detect bugs and issues like an expert engineer, is reportedly raising a $30M Series A led by Benchmark at a $180M valuation.

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