Meta Making Major Investments In AI-Powered Humanoid Robotic Platform
Meta is stepping into humanoid robotics, competing with firms like Nvidia-backed, Figure AI, and Tesla Robotics.
Meta Platforms is assembling a specialized team within its Reality Labs division, led by Marc Whitten, to develop the AI, sensors, and software that could power the next wave of humanoid robots. According to the memo, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth said that the robotics product group would focus on developing consumer humanoid robots with a goal of maximizing Llama's platform capabilities.
Llama refers to Meta’s primary series of AI foundation models, which support a range of generative AI tools across the company's social media platforms. We believe expanding our portfolio to invest in this field will only accrue value to Meta AI and our mixed and augmented reality programs, Bosworth said.
How is Meta planning to advance its robotics work?
Marc Whitten, former CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has joined Meta as vice president of robotics, Reuters reported quoting Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth. Bloomberg News reported the hiring first.
Meta has also appointed John Koryl as vice president of retail. Koryl, the former CEO of second-hand e-commerce platform The RealReal, will focus on boosting direct sales of Meta’s Quest mixed reality headsets and AI wearables, including Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, developed in partnership with EssilorLuxottica.
Unlike Tesla which is manufacturing its own Optimus robot, Meta's initial play is to become the backbone of the industry similar to what Google's Android did for smartphones. The company has already started talks with robotics firms like Unitree Robotics and Figure AI. With plans to hire 100 engineers this year and billions committed to AI and AR/VR, Meta is placing a major bet on humanoid robots as the next leap in smart home technology.
More on Meta’s AI-powered robotics platform on Yahoo Finance
Reasoning Models Are Remaking Professional Services | AI + a16z
In this episode of AI + a16z, a16z partner Alex Immerman sits down with Hebbia founder and CEO George Sivulka to discuss the potential for reasoning models and AI agents to supercharge knowledge-worker productivity — and the global economy along with it.
As George explains, his customers are already saving significant time and and effort on important, but monotonous, tasks, and improved models paired with savvy users will continue to reshape how industries including finance, law, and other professional services operate.
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How I Feed My Files To A Local AI For Better, More Relevant Responses
Msty is one of the best apps for interacting with the Ollama local AI tool and it contains a feature you'll want to use to help provide contextuality to its responses.
For a few weeks, I've been using Msty for research purposes. One of the main reasons I chose this route is that I like the idea of keeping those interactions isolated to my local machine. Thanks to Msty and Ollama, that's a fairly easy task.
One Msty/Ollama feature that has intrigued me is the ability to add your own content to what's called a Knowledge Stack, which can enable you to integrate local data sources to enhance the AI's ability to provide more relevant and contextual responses. Once you've added a document stack, Msty can then serve as a smart assistant with knowledge of whatever it is you deem worth knowing. Once you've created a Knowledge Stack, Msty indexes it with a separate model to be used for a chat session.
Think about it this way: You've written several documents about a particular topic and you want to use them to fuel your AI chats. With Knowledge Stacks, this is not only possible -- it's easy.
You can add different items to a Knowledge Stack, such as:
Files (PDF, CSV, MD, JSON, EPUB, DOCX, RTF, and TXT)
Folders
Obsidian vaults (from the Obsidian note-taking app)
Notes
YouTube transcripts
The process is much simpler than you might think and the results are impressive.
More on creating your first Knowledge Stack using Ollama and Msty
LangChain RAG: Optimizing AI Models For Accurate Responses | Erika Russi
Curious about optimizing your AI models? Join IBM Data Scientist Erika Russi as she demonstrates how to leverage LangChain RAG to keep your large language models up-to-date. Learn practical steps for setting up a retriever, creating a knowledge base, and enabling your models to answer complex queries.
Wayne Rasanen’s Award Winning DecaTxt 3 | A One-Handed Keyboard
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The DecaTxt 3 uses a unique "chord" system, similar to a piano. By pressing different combinations of the two keys at each fingertip, you can generate any letter or symbol.
Plus, with a single key press or a combination with the thumb keys, you can access the entire alphabet. This makes learning, using, and mastering the DecaTxt 3 a breeze.
Click here to read more about Wayne Rasanen’s DecaTxt 3, one-handed BLE keyboard
The DecaTxt 3 is a perfect solution for people with hand tremors, poor motor skills, conditions like MS, limb loss, or even vision impairment. It connects via Bluetooth and can be strapped to either hand, making it comfortable and versatile for everyone.
The new 55th Annual R&D Award Winner, DecaTxt 3 will be featured in an upcoming issue of the Florida Alliance for Assistive Services & Technology (FAAST) Newsletter.
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Perplexity Just Made AI Research Cheap, And What That Means For The Industry
Perplexity has shattered the AI market’s status quo today by launching Deep Research, a tool that generates comprehensive research reports in minutes and opens advanced AI capabilities to users at a fraction of typical enterprise costs.
“Thankful for open source! We’re going to keep making this faster and cheaper,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas wrote in a post on X. “Knowledge should be universally accessible and useful. Not kept behind obscenely expensive subscription plans that benefit the corporates, not in the interests of humanity!”
Deep Research is redefining AI pricing — can enterprise AI survive?
The launch exposes a painful truth in AI pricing: Expensive enterprise subscriptions may be unnecessary. While Anthropic and OpenAI charge thousands monthly for their services, Perplexity offers five free queries daily to all users. Pro subscribers pay $20 monthly for 500 daily queries and faster processing — a price point that could force larger AI companies to explain why their services cost up to 100 times more.
Companies have been significantly increasing their AI investments, with enterprise AI spending expected to rise by 5.7% in 2025, despite overall IT budget increases of less than 2%. Some businesses are planning to increase their AI spending by 10% or more, with an average increase of $3.4 million dedicated to AI initiatives. These investments now look questionable as Perplexity delivers similar capabilities at consumer prices.
More on Perplexity’s low-cost Deep Research feature on VentureBeat
Google Veo 2 AI Video Generator Is Free
Google's Stunning AI Video Generator, Veo-2 has finally been released and it's FREE! Although, there are a few interesting catches!
For one, Veo-2 is available via the Youtube App, and is probably more aimed at Youtube Shorts. That said, I do have a solution capturing outputs so you can edit the videos on your own.
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Google’s Gemini AI Assistant Can Now Recall Past Conversations
You can ask it to summarize previous conversations, or pick up a chat where it left off.
Google’s Gemini AI assistant can now recall past conversations to provide more relevant responses if you have a subscription to Gemini Advanced via Google One AI Premium. With the update, you’ll no longer have to recap previous chats or search for a thread to pick up a conversation, as Gemini will already have the context it needs.
You can also ask Gemini to summarize previous conversations and build upon existing projects. Google already widely rolled out the ability for Gemini to “remember” your preferences, but this latest update takes things a step further by letting the chatbot reference discussions from the past.
You can review, delete, and manage your Gemini chat history at any time by selecting your profile picture in the top right corner of the Gemini app and then selecting “Gemini Apps Activity.”
Gemini’s recall feature is rolling out now to Google One AI Premium plan subscribers. You can try out the new recall feature in English on Gemini’s web or mobile app. Google says it plans on bringing the feature to more languages, as well as Google Workspace Business and Enterprise customers in the “coming weeks.”
More on Google Gemini’s new ability to recall on TheVerge
Tips For Building AI Agents | Anthropic AI
In this video, Anthropic’s Barry Zhang (Applied AI), Erik Schultz (Research), and Alex Albert (Claude Relations) discuss the potential of AI agents, common pitfalls to avoid, and how to prepare for the evolving landscape.
Thats all for today, but AI is moving fast - like, comment, and subscribe for more AI news! Thank you for supporting my partners and I — it’s how I keep Neural News free.