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Thursday’s issue is in partnership with…

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🔓 Thursday’s AI Report:

1. 🤯 Microsoft's shock decision

2. 💰 In partnership with Mode Mobile

3. 🚨 Softbank trumps Microsoft in OpenAI deal?

4. 🎯 Anthropic CEO: “DeepSeek isn’t a threat”

5. 🤖 In partnership with EleventhAI

6. ⚙️ Trending AI Tools

7. 🏗️ Practical AI Applications

8. 📑 Recommended Resources

Read Time: 5 minutes

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📈 AI STOCK TRACKER

AI and tech stocks consolidated on Wednesday with the Nasdaq neutral for the session. NVIDIA had another large red day as investors struggled to value the impact of Deepseek. This continued uncertainty will lead to wild price volatility in the AI sector in the coming weeks.

LATEST IN AI

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🤯 Microsoft's shock decision

🚨 Our Report — Microsoft announced that DeepSeek’s viral, powerful AI model, R1—which outpaced ChatGPT downloads and rocked US stock markets earlier this week (causing AI chip giant NVIDIA to drop $600B) because it can be trained at a fraction of the cost of other leading AI models—is available on its Azure cloud platform and GitHub, allowing Microsoft customers to integrate it into their AI applications.

🔓 Key Points:

• Microsoft believes that a key advantage of using R1 “is the speed at which developers can experiment, iterate, and integrate AI into their workflows,” and confirmed they’ll also be able to run R1 on Copilot+ PCs.

• To alleviate concerns, they confirmed that “R1 has undergone rigorous red teaming and safety evaluations, including automated assessments of model behavior and extensive security reviews to mitigate potential risks.”

• It’s unknown if they’ve modified R1 to improve its accuracy—it reportedly provides inaccurate answers to news queries, 83% of the time—and reduce censorship—it refuses to answer 85% of questions related to China.

🔐 Relevance — Microsoft has moved quickly to integrate R1 into Azure and GitHub, which comes as a surprise as, hours after Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David Sacks, announced that DeepSeek had used OpenAI models to train its own (which is a violation of its policies which state you are prohibited from using its “output to develop models that compete with OpenAI”), Microsoft—which is one of OpenAI’s biggest partners/investors—launched an investigation and found that DeepSeek may have exfiltrated data, using OpenAI’s API, in the fall of 2024.

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TOGETHER WITH MODE MOBILE

This tech company grew 32,481%...

No, it's not NVIDIA… It's Mode Mobile, 2023’s fastest-growing software company according to Deloitte.

Their disruptive tech, the EarnPhone and EarnOS, have helped users make and save an eye-popping $325M+, driving $60M+ in revenue and a massive 45M+ consumer base. And having secured partnerships with Walmart and Best Buy, Mode’s not stopping there…

Like Uber turned vehicles into revenue-generating assets, Mode is turning smartphones into an easy passive revenue source.

One important difference? You can invest early in Mode’s pre-IPO offering at just $0.26/share.

They’ve just been granted the stock ticker $MODE by the Nasdaq and the time to invest at their current share price is running out.

*Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com

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🚨 Softbank trumps Microsoft in OpenAI deal?

🚨 Our Report — Multinational Japanese tech conglomerate, Softbank, is reportedly in “advanced talks” to invest up to $25B in OpenAI.

🔓 Key Points:

• According to the Times, this deal—which hasn't yet been finalized—could be part of a larger partnership, which would see Softbank investing over $40B to develop bigger AI initiatives with OpenAI.

• It’s also said to be tied to Trump’s Stargate project, a $100B venture between OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle, that will build AI data centers across the US and could potentially draw up to $500B over the next 4 years.

• It’s thought that the $25B from Softbank could cover OpenAI’s commitment of $15B to Stargate, and also marks the largest amount of funding Softbank has invested since its $16B injection into WeWork, which started in 2017.

🔐 Relevance — If the deal goes through, Softbank will become OpenAI’s biggest, single backer—trumping Microsoft’s measly $13B—and it will also reduce OpenAI’s reliance on Microsoft's computing power after it recently gave up its position as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, perhaps strengthening escalating rumors about a growing, fractious relationship between the two.

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🎯 Anthropic CEO: “DeepSeek isn’t a threat”

• Anthropic’s CEO—Dario Amodei—doesn’t see DeepSeek "themselves as adversaries," as “in interviews, they seem like smart, curious researchers who just want to make useful technology."

• But he does believe that US export controls are more critical than ever—if the US wants to take the lead in AI—but believes that current US AI chip export controls are working to slow the progress of Chinese companies.

• He insists that “DeepSeek’s progress does not indicate a failure of these measures” as, compared to the performance of US models, DeepSeek falls short, when factoring in time frames.

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TOGETHER WITH ELEVENTHAI

Find Out What AI & Automation Can Do for Your Business

Your time is too valuable to be spent on inefficiencies.

What if AI and automation could unlock huge time and cost savings, allowing your team to focus on strategic growth?

In just 3-5 weeks, Eleventh AI’s Audit provides you with:

• Actionable workflow improvements, powered by AI and automation

• An AI roadmap to identify and prioritize high-value efficiency opportunities

• An ROI analysis to forecast cost savings and productivity gains

Our AI audits have identified opportunities that have helped over 100 enterprises save 80,000+ hours of manual work, without the need to hire additional staff.

Curious about the reports we’ve made for others and if your business qualifies too?

TRENDING AI TOOLS

1. ChatNode is for building custom, advanced AI chatbots that enhance customer support and user engagement ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5 (Product Hunt)

2. Plaidera is for AI-powered travel planning for personalized journeys

3. FineVoice creates videos and voiceovers with AI

PRACTICAL AI

LIVE Q&A

Tommorrow! Live Q&A with AI Agent Expert: Jake George

❓ Who: Jake George. Jake is an AI agent expert and founder of Agentic Brain, which builds custom AI agents that understand your business and are trained on cutting-edge data and tactics, so you can automate your pipeline without increasing headcount.

⌚ When: Friday 31st January, at 11 AM EST

🎓 Where: Skool

🙋‍♂️ What: Tomorrow, and every Friday, AI agent expert, Jake George, will be going Live, on Skool, to answer any question you have about AI agents.

‼️For more information about this, and our future Live AI Q&A sessions, visit us at Skool.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

STARTUPS

Name: Hebbia
Value: $136M
Funding raised: $30M

Hebbia is an AI-powered search engine for businesses that connects to a company's database and crawls pages of public and private documents to find answers to queries, making internal research easier and faster.

QUICK HITS

• Zuckerberg unphased by DeepSeek

• This year’s Super Bowl full of AI ads

• DeepSeek having US trademark problems

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