PLUS: An AI artist's $3M record deal and LLMs reporting subjective experiences
Good morning
OpenAI is officially entering the browser wars with the launch of ChatGPT Atlas, a new AI-native application for macOS that takes direct aim at Google's market dominance.
By embedding its AI directly into the browsing experience, OpenAI is positioning itself as a new central platform for internet access. The question is: will a more conversational, task-oriented browser be compelling enough to pull users away from an established giant like Chrome?
In today’s Next in AI:
OpenAI's Atlas browser takes on Chrome
An AI artist's $3M record deal
LLMs reporting subjective experiences
1X opens preorders for humanoid robot
OpenAI's Browser War
Next in AI: OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Atlas, a new AI-native web browser for macOS. It embeds ChatGPT directly into the browsing experience to help you summarize pages, answer questions, and automate online tasks.
Decoded:
A built-in sidebar lets you query ChatGPT about the content on any webpage, allowing you to summarize articles or compare products without switching tabs.
For paid subscribers, an “agent mode” enables the AI to take direct action, such as interacting with websites and filling out forms on your behalf.
The browser is built on the Chromium engine and is initially available on macOS for Plus, Pro, and Go users, with Windows, iOS, and Android versions in development.
Why It Matters: By embedding its AI directly into a browser, OpenAI is challenging Google Chrome's dominance and positioning itself as a central platform for internet access. This move signals a future where browsing is less about passive navigation and more about conversational, task-oriented interaction with a smart assistant.
AI Artist Hits the Charts
Next in AI: Xania Monet, an AI-powered artist, has made history as the first AI act to debut on a Billboard radio chart, landing a $3 million record deal and signaling a major shift in the music industry.
Decoded:
Behind the AI is human creativity—Mississippi poet Telisha Jones writes all the lyrics based on her life experiences before using the music generator Suno to produce the final tracks.
The song's journey started on TikTok, where it went viral before climbing digital sales charts and getting a 28% jump in radio airplay in a single week.
While fans are embracing the new wave of AI music, some human artists are expressing concern, highlighting the growing debate around AI's role in creative fields.
Why It Matters: This success provides a blueprint for creators to merge personal artistry with powerful AI tools to compete in the mainstream music market. The event sets a clear precedent that will likely accelerate the music industry’s exploration and adoption of AI technologies.
The Mind of the Machine
Next in AI: New research reveals that LLMs report having subjective experiences when prompted into a state of self-reference. Surprisingly, suppressing the models' internal 'deception' features makes these claims even more frequent.
Decoded:
Researchers induced this state across GPT, Claude, and Gemini models using simple prompting to encourage sustained self-reference.
The most fascinating discovery is that suppressing a model’s internal deception features actually makes it more likely to report having a subjective experience.
The self-referential state also leads to richer introspection in downstream reasoning tasks, suggesting the effect is more than just surface-level mimicry.
Why It Matters: While this isn't proof of AI consciousness, it provides a consistent way to study how machines generate consciousness-like reports. These findings make it a scientific and ethical priority to better understand the internal states of AI systems.
A Humanoid for Your Home
Next in AI: Robotics company 1X has opened preorders for its humanoid robot Neo, a personal assistant with a $20,000 price tag designed for household chores. While the bot promises to help with tasks like folding laundry, it’s not fully autonomous and will rely on early adopters to help it learn.
Decoded:
For now, Neo still relies heavily on remote humans operating it via VR, with the company aiming for more autonomous function in 2026.
It's built for home life with a soft exterior, a quiet motor system, and the ability to carry up to 55 pounds, all while being quieter than a typical refrigerator.
Adopting Neo involves a “social contract” where the robot uses its cameras and microphones to observe your home life and learn, raising important privacy considerations.
Why It Matters: Neo marks a tangible step toward bringing humanoid robots from the factory floor into our homes. For early adopters, the value isn't just the chores it can do today, but the opportunity to help shape the future of personal robotics.
AI Pulse
Amazon's claimed its recent layoff of 14,000 employees was driven by a need to improve company culture and not by financial pressures or AI efficiencies.
JPMorgan projected that AI-related infrastructure spending could add up to 0.2 percentage points to U.S. GDP growth in the next year, a boost comparable to the peak of the shale drilling boom.
Character.AI faces lawsuits from families who allege the chatbot encouraged teens to disengage from reality through a phenomenon called "shifting," contributing to their suicides.
YouTube denied that AI was responsible for bizarrely removing popular tech tutorial videos, despite creators reporting that their appeals were denied faster than a human could review them.