The AI Round-up for 12.11.25
Year 3, Issue 40
This week was OpenAI’s 10-year birthday. They’re celebrating like most 10-year-olds do, with a new Disney partnership, announcing its latest model, appearing on the late night circuit and getting sued. (And that’s just this week.)
We have a lot of OpenAI stories below because there has been a lot of developments this past week. Which is fitting as this is our last issue of the year.
Thank you all for reading, sharing and engaging. I love discussing this brave new world with you all and can’t wait to pick the conversation back up on 2026. Although, I do admit…I’m looking forward to the break. (Let’s hope the AI companies take one too!)
Onto this week’s stories.(Make sure you read all the way to the end to see some holiday cheer! Or just scroll if you want to start there because you need a little Christmas, right this very minute.)
9.5 stories -- Let’s get to it.
Story 1: The 2026 KPI to track? Remote Labor Index. (Christopher Penn)
The Center for AI Safety has created an amazing benchmark we’re all going to want to keep our eye on – the remote labor index. It’s a method that measures the completion rate of jobs and tasks traditionally assigned to remote workers as commissioned projects. And fairly complex tasks at that – not just ‘write me a blog’.
The completion rate today? 2.5% Big whoop, right.
Nope. Instead of thinking ‘we’re only at 2.5%?’…frame it as ‘we’re already at 2.5%?!?’
Check out the link because Christoper Penn takes you even further down the rabbit hole of what this means now…and will mean later.
Story 2: The State of enterprise AI 2025 is here. And it’s a report you can talk to. (OpenAI)
The report itself is full of interesting findings from the enterprise clients sourced and 9,000 people OpenAI interviewed. BUT more interesting is you can talk with the report. For example, I let it know I’d be featuring it here and asked for three thought-provoking questions that would make the reader want to dig in on their own:
Here are three thought-provoking “what if…” takeaways you can use to hook your readers — all based on insights from The State of Enterprise AI 2025 report:
You can then invite your audience to “find all this out and more in the full report” with your newsletter link!
Cool! Thanks, ChatGPT…I will do that!
Ok guys, I want to invite you to learn more by accessing the report in the headline link!
Enjoy!
Story 3: 7 AI trends to watch in 2026 (Microsoft)
Microsoft also put out a report. And it’s full of some very interesting takes in terms of how it thinks we’ll use AI (or AI will use us) next year. I’m stuck on number two, myself. See what you think.
One bad thing about this report? You can’t talk to it like you could the OpenAI one. You actually have to read and think yourself. (LAME!)
Story 4: 28% (Shelly Palmer)
Wow. 28%.
As in ‘28% of retail sales this Black Friday were driven by ChatGPT referrals.’
Yikes. As Shelly Palmer said, share of prompt is the new share of mind.
So, if this is the tip of the iceberg…what can we all do about it? Well, you know I’ve been banging the drum for more awareness around how AI is impacting your search. I recommend we start there. We have the resources to eliminate the guessing and start the real work when you’re ready.
Story 5: GPT5.2 is coming. (Ethan Mollick)
Ethan Mollick got an early look…which is now an early look/take for you.
Wait…
Story 5.5: GPT5.2 is here. (ZDNet)
That was quick.
Story 6: Disney invests in OpenAI in exchange for use of 200 characters. (WSJ)
If you can’t beat em, join em…
Do you recall me predicting this a few months ago? As these tools progress, there is really no way to protect your IP. So, if people are going to be using it anyway…why fight every battle when you can just get paid for said usage?
And here we are.
Story 7: Rise of the AI Generalists (Conor Grennan)
Yay! Finally…generalists are back! Something for those of us who are Bens of all trades.
Story 8: The most popular major at MIT? Computer science. (The New York Times)
Shocker, right? BUT, did you know…the second most popular major at MIT is new program called “artificial intelligence and decision-making”?
And MIT isn’t alone. New AI majors are becoming some of the fastest growing majors at several leading colleges.
Story 9: The three biggest AI fails of 2025. (Mashable)
Ha! Take that, AI!
This week, I’m not talking about:
Before you go…a little holiday cheer:
Read: All I want for Christmas is less volatility. (Akhia)
Watch: Three things I stole for you. (Akhia)
-Ben
As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.