AR Glasses Surge, Parenting in the AI Age, and the Future of Enterprise AI: This Week in AI Beat

Inside: From AR’s next wave to practical AI in healthcare, plus parenting tips for the digital era, catch up on the latest in applied AI.

Author

Applied AI Association
May 17, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes

👋 Editor's Note

AI is transforming every corner of business and daily life, from the rapid rise of AR glasses and AI-powered note takers to major shifts in healthcare, education, and global policy. This issue covers how small language models and proprietary data are redefining enterprise AI, highlights global moves like Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN initiative, and shares practical advice for parenting in the age of AI. Whether you’re a business leader, developer, or parent, you’ll find timely insights and resources to help you stay ahead in our fast-changing world.

Have something to share with the global AAIA community? Send your news, tools, or events to [email protected].

📅 Upcoming events:

🗓️ India AAIA Chapter

  • AI/GenAI: The Double-Edged Sword of Innovation, with keynote speaker: Anup Purohit

  • 🗓️ Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 3:00PM - 6:00PM IST | In-person, Mumbai

  • 🔗 Register

🗓️ Seattle AAIA Chapter

  • Manufacturing Reimagined: AI-Powered Innovation

  • 🗓️ Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 3:30PM - 5:30PM PST | In-person

  • 🔗 Register

🗓️ Portland/SW Washington AAIA Chapter

  • Innovation Stations

  • 🗓️ Thursday, June 5, 2025, 6:00PM - 8:30PM PST | In-person

  • 🔗 Register

🗓️ Snowflake Dev Day

🗓️ STACKxDays, the premier event for senior developers, presented by the VR/AR Association and the Applied AI Association

💻🧑‍🏫 Recent event recordings:

AAIA’s BrightTALK page to watch on-demand recordings of previous online events

AAIA’s YouTube page

View the complete AAIA Events calendar

📢 AAIA chapter and member news and updates:

▶️ Brian Hamilton, President of the Applied AI Association (AAIA) Portland/Southwest Washington Chapter, and his wife, Adrienne, post YouTube video: “10 Golden Rules for Parenting in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”

Parenting in the digital age is more complex than ever, especially with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI). To help navigate these challenges, Brian and Adrienne have created a valuable YouTube video: “10 Golden Rules for Parenting in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”  In this video, they offer practical guidelines to help children develop critical thinking, fact-checking skills, and responsible engagement with technology and AI. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or simply interested in the impact of AI on families, this resource is packed with actionable insights for raising thoughtful and tech-savvy kids.

  • Their Golden Rules include:

    1. Enforce Stranger-Danger Awareness

    2. Do Not Isolate Yourself

    3. Carpe Diem For Your Future

Check out the video to learn Brian and Adrienne’s additional 7 Golden Rules and join the conversation!

🧑‍💼✍️ AAAI Founder’s Corner:  This week’s posts from AAIA Founder and President Nathan Pettyjohn

  • 📝 AR Glasses - the Next Big Wave

    • “I've just returned from Display Week 2025, where advanced display technologies across numerous applications took center stage. Augmented reality (AR) and extended reality (XR) had a prominent presence throughout the event, with dedicated sessions and impressive exhibits that signal important shifts in this rapidly evolving industry. The wave of AR glasses is coming in a big way…” (more)

  • 📝 12 Top AI Note Takers Powering the Future of Work And Why It Matters

    • “Virtual meeting overload became one of the most talked about topics a few years ago during the pandemic. And remember that phrase, “You’re on mute.”? Well, it became the “word of the year” in 2020. Now fast forward to 2025, and the AI note-takers are taking over…" (more)

  • 📝 🗓️When AI Gets Hired Before You Do - The New Era of Work Is Already Here

    • “This week, I read something that stopped me cold. According to this article, hospitals like Duke Health, Mayo Clinic, and UCLA Health are now “hiring” AI agents to assist with real clinical and operational workloads…” (more)

📰 In the News:

Enterprise AI is shifting toward small language models (SLMs) and proprietary data, with companies like K1 investing in cloud-native software platforms that serve as mission-critical systems of record for sensitive, regulated data. Embedding AI and automation directly on top of these proprietary datasets allows for trusted, targeted, and deeply integrated solutions-driving both revenue growth and operational efficiency for verticals such as finance, legal, healthcare, and education. This strategy is enabling rapid disruption of legacy incumbents and fueling strong growth and liquidity for investors, even amid broader market uncertainties.

Saudi Arabia has launched HUMAIN, a wholly owned company of its Public Investment Fund, to position the Kingdom as a global leader in artificial intelligence by investing across the full AI value chain, including advanced data centers, infrastructure, and Arabic large language models. HUMAIN aims to accelerate AI development and adoption locally and globally, supporting innovation in sectors like energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and finance, while enabling both domestic and international delivery of AI solutions.

Japan is seeking to balance strict privacy protections with the need to expand access to medical data for AI-driven healthcare innovation, as the government and legal experts debate new regulations to enable more effective data sharing and use. Cultural caution around personal data and fragmented regulations have slowed progress, but policymakers are now considering standardized frameworks and partially anonymous data sharing to support AI applications in diagnostics and research. While current laws allow limited secondary use of patient data, broader reforms are expected soon to help Japan leverage AI in addressing healthcare challenges such as doctor shortages and rising costs.

Chegg announced it will lay off 22% of its workforce (248 employees) and close its U.S. and Canadian offices to cut costs, citing a sharp decline in subscribers and revenue as students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools like ChatGPT instead of traditional edtech platforms. The company reported a 31% drop in subscribers and a 30% fall in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, and expects these negative trends to continue in the near term. Earlier this year, Chegg sued Google, alleging that Google's AI-generated search overviews are diverting traffic and undermining original content providers like Chegg.

📰 Meta sent cease and desist letter over AI training (Malwarebytes, May 16, 2025)

EU privacy group NOYB has sent Meta a cease and desist letter demanding it halt plans to train AI models on European users’ data, arguing that Meta’s opt-out approach and reliance on “legitimate interests” violate GDPR and other EU laws. NOYB raises concerns about the inability to separate opted-out users’ data, the use of sensitive information, and the lack of informed consent, warning that legal action could follow if Meta proceeds. Meta maintains it offers adequate opt-out options, but faces possible injunctions and class action lawsuits if it does not comply by the end of May.

San Francisco AI startup Anthropic, valued at $61.5 billion, faced legal trouble after its lawyer used the company's own chatbot, Claude, to generate citations in a court filing, resulting in several errors including fabricated article titles and misattributed authors. The mistakes were acknowledged by Anthropic’s legal team as “embarrassing and unintentional,” attributing them to Claude’s AI-generated “hallucinations” and promising new review procedures, though not ruling out future use of the chatbot. Music publishers suing Anthropic over copyright infringement argued these errors undermine Anthropic’s credibility in the ongoing case, highlighting broader concerns about the reliability of generative AI in legal proceedings.

The term “AI agent” has become a buzzword in tech, but even leading investors at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) admit there is no clear or agreed-upon definition, with products labeled as agents ranging from simple automated prompts to ambitious efforts at human replacement. While some startups market agents as substitutes for human workers, the technology needed for true autonomy-such as persistent memory and independent problem-solving-does not yet exist, and current systems face major technical hurdles. The a16z team suggests that, for now, an AI agent is best described as a reasoning, multi-step large language model with decision-making abilities, but skepticism remains about whether agents can or should fully replace humans in the foreseeable future.

Klarna, after aggressively replacing human customer service agents with AI chatbots to cut costs and halve its workforce, is now reversing course and hiring humans again due to a noticeable drop in service quality and customer satisfaction. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski acknowledged that prioritizing cost over quality led to poorer customer experiences, and the company now promises customers will always have the option to speak to a real person, albeit through a remote, gig-style workforce. This shift highlights that despite AI’s efficiency, most customers still strongly prefer human interaction for support, and that investing in quality human service is now seen as essential for Klarna’s brand and future.

📰 This Week’s Amusing Read: Students Are Humanizing Their Writing—By Putting It Through AI (Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2025)

Students are increasingly using AI tools to make their academic writing appear more human in order to avoid accusations of cheating. This has led to a technological arms race in schools, with teachers deploying AI detection software while students use AI to bypass it. The result is a cycle where both sides rely on AI to prove the authenticity and originality of student work.

🛠️ 📘 Tools and Reports Spotlight

Philips' 2025 Future Health Index report finds global healthcare systems are under severe strain, with long patient wait times leading to worsening health and clinician burnout. Artificial intelligence is seen as a powerful solution to improve care delivery and efficiency, but significant trust gaps-especially between clinicians and patients-threaten to slow adoption and progress. The report urges urgent action to build trust through transparency, education, and robust safeguards, as AI could potentially double patient capacity by 2030 if implemented responsibly.

The OpenAI Model Selection Guide provides practical frameworks and real-world examples to help technical practitioners choose and deploy the right model-such as GPT-4.1, o3, or o4-mini-based on specific workload needs and industry scenarios. It compares model strengths (e.g., GPT-4.1 for long-context analytics, o3 for deep reasoning, o4-mini for fast, cost-effective logic) and offers decision trees, checklists, and code samples for rapid prototyping and production deployment. The guide includes detailed use cases, like building agentic systems for legal document Q&A, and emphasizes adapting model selection to accuracy, cost, and reasoning requirements for each application.

Much of what we read in articles and on LinkedIn is either overly promotional, speculative, demo-oriented, or too technical, making it difficult to find clear, practical insights. Sequoia Capital’s podcast series features thoughtful interviews with leading AI researchers and builders, exploring new technologies and their real-world impact on business and society. We recommend giving it a listen or watch.

If you have an event, newsworthy story, industry insight/report, or AI tool to share with AAIA members, please email the details to [email protected].

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Until next time!