The AI Round-up: We will own OpenAI!
AI news covering the week of June 29, 2026
Note: There won’t be an AI Round-up next week because I’ll be on the shores of Michigan!
Have we reached the point where AI is just this nebulous category that we’re filing a lot under?
=Something to blame? (“Eh, with AI and everything…”
=Something to worry about? (“And with AI…who knows what will happen?”)
=Something to build around? (“We’re an AI-forward company…”)
=Something to reference? (“Once you account for AI, …”)
Pardon the comparison only five years removed, but I am starting to feel like AI is receiving the ‘then Covid hit’ treatment in a lot of conversations. It does compare in some ways:
We don’t understand it.
=It’s changing form.
=It’s polarizing (some people believe in its impact, others don’t).
=People are afraid of it.
=People aren’t taking the right precautions.
All this to say, AI can be any or all of these things…if you let it. Or you can be proactive in your approach. Be a willing participant in something that is clearly going to impact pretty much everything around you. Take the time to figure out what it is you’re working into the conversation v. just treating it as a filler for whatever soap box you feel like getting on that day.
This isn’t a right or wrong conversation. It’s a willingness to understand conversation. Try to learn, be active and be present in what has already become a transformative moment in our history. (Ok, now I’ll get off MY soapbox…)
Let’s get to it.
Fable is back. Now, what did we learn?
Anthropic announced that Fable is back from government exile. So, what’s different…what did we learn?
Um.
Well…see.
The thing is…we now know…
Eh…
Hey, whatever. Fable is back!
The Tribe has Spoken.
If the tribe was AI, that is.
The 100 most “successful” blogs (defined by blog income) from 2022 have had a rough timing surviving the past three-plus years.
64 of the 100 have declined in some form (some more rapidly than others) and have seen an average of 85% median loss.
Two things:
=Is there a future in this industry?
=What does the future of search responses look like if the answers are an aggregate of…AI?
Does AI Understand ‘What’ You Do?
You better hope so. Otherwise, the chances of your brand/product being returned in a query are slim. I love the word ‘simple’ for so many reasons, but who would’ve thought it’s the best way to write for AI?
Read more: How to get AI to surface your brand (HBR)
Creative writing isn’t dead. It just got a lot harder.
Breaking news: OpenAI suggests a 5% ‘public’ stake.
You remember when you were a kid…you’d open a birthday card and money would fall out. You’d get all excited – money! Yay! I can’t wait to buy Star Wars action figures with this! And your parent reaches across and takes it from you, saying something like ‘I’ll hold on to this’ or ‘That’s going right to savings’.
Why do I feel like that’s what the government is going to do with our OpenAI money?
The Artificial Intelligence Show is a must listen.
Not just this week’s episode (#222) but going forward. And here’s why: as Paul and Mike discuss, this may seem like a political episode…but there’s no longer any separation. There is no way to discuss AI’s impact without realizing what it means for all areas of your life.
You can choose to listen. Or not. But I wouldn’t miss their overviews, careful and thoughtful explanations, or candor for where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Don’t write prompts. Write loops.
If you’re wondering what a loop is, you aren’t alone. Don’t worry, Shelly Palmer breaks it down for us in a recent blog.
If you ever wondered ‘will AI stick around?’ you will want to read this. It’s the future a lot of us have thought about when we really contemplate the impact of AI on work. And reminds us that learning didn’t start and end with LLMs and prompts.
Ethan Mollick concurs. Kinda.
In his new piece ‘The Twilight of Chatbots’ he goes deep on how work is changing. How we’re changing our interactions with AI. And the move from co-intelligence to co-existence.
Some Nopes.
- AI to reduce animated movie costs by 90%. Maybe. (Blooomberg)
- More and more people are doing a digital detox because the Internet sucks now. (Digital Trends)
- Is an AI jobs apocalypse coming? Three economists square off. (WSJ)
- Microsoft the latest to hire/name AI engineers to help you adopt AI faster. (CNBC)
Thanks for reading and supporting this!
-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.