OpenAI’s $6.5B Bet, CEOs Replaced by AI, and the Future of Work: This Week in AI Beat

Inside: OpenAI buys Jony Ive’s startup, AI avatars take the CEO seat, and how fund managers use ChatGPT for investing.

Author

Applied AI Association
May 24, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes

👋 Editor's Note

This week’s newsletter captures the accelerating pace, and sometimes the strangeness, of the AI revolution. OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup signals a major push into AI-powered hardware, while tech CEOs are literally being replaced by AI avatars in the boardroom. We spotlight Catherine Blanksby, AAIA Portland/Southwest Washington Chapter member, and how as a fund manager she’s using ChatGPT to sharpen investment decisions, and highlight new tools, best practices, and upcoming events to keep you ahead of the curve.

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

📅 Upcoming events:

🗓️ Portland/SW Washington AAIA Chapter

  • Innovation Stations

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

  • 🔗 Register

🗓️ Snowflake Dev Day

🗓️ Seattle AAIA Chapter

  • AI’s Role in Modern Defense

  • 🗓️ Thursday, June 12, 2025, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM | In-person

  • 🔗 Register

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

📢 AAIA chapter and member news and updates:

✍️ Member Spotlight:

This week, we feature insights and perspectives from AAIA Portland/Southwest Washington Chapter member Catherine Blanksby on applying AI to investing as a fund manager.

Using AI to Find the Money — and Stay in the Vision Lane

As a family fund manager searching the globe for businesses to invest in, I use AI to gain cognitive leverage. It’s not about automation — it’s about brainstorming faster and thinking more clearly in a noisy world. I currently use the paid version of ChatGPT-4.

I view a deal's potential risk/reward with less bias using ChatGPT, and it’s my fastest path from idea to insight. I interrogate, run pattern recognition across sectors, and uncover sharp diligence questions (that make me look good!). I feed AI news articles, investment memo documents, draft decks, email summaries, whatever I can get my hands on that’s not proprietary, then I prompt: “Where’s the edge? What is important? What could go wrong?” I’m not looking to automate judgment — I’m looking to deepen it.

At the core of my investment framework is the Success Matrix, based on the book by Gerry Langeler. He emphasizes that strong teams are built on a balance of vision, process, and output people — and that the best outcomes come from teams who get that mix right. I think about this mix in every deal I do.

Deep tech investing, which is where I’m leaning these days, makes team balance essential. The technology might be groundbreaking, but rapid scaling, which is where business success will be made or lost, still comes down to harmony that is felt person to person.

Personality-wise, I naturally live in the vision lane — I’ve been told it’s the hardest part for AI to replicate. As I hunt for value, AI helps me get to conviction faster. And time is money.

Reach out to me if you want to connect! Email me at [email protected]. I love deal flow and sharing.

✍️ AAAI Founder’s Corner:  Recent “Future Work Blueprint” posts from AAIA Founder and President Nathan Pettyjohn

  • 📝 Your New Coworkers Are AI Agents:

    • Imagine starting your Monday morning and having an AI agent that has already researched your week's prospects, drafted your quarterly strategy presentation, scheduled your stakeholder meetings around your peak energy hours, and identified three optimization opportunities in your current projects. No coding required. No IT tickets. No waiting. (show me more)

  • 📝 Your Job Isn't Safe. Your Career Can Be.

    • What if I told you that by 2027, you'll either be working 2 days a week while earning more than ever, or you'll be explaining to your kids why robots took your job? Welcome to the most pivotal moment in human work history. While you've been checking email and attending (mostly) pointless meetings, a quiet revolution has been reshaping everything. And here's the kicker…Most people are on the wrong side of it. (show me more)

  • 📝 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…” (show me more)

📰 In the News:

OpenAI is acquiring io, the AI device startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $6.5 billion, marking the largest acquisition in OpenAI's history and signaling its major push into developing AI-integrated hardware. The deal brings Ive and his team of former Apple designers to OpenAI, where they will lead the creation of innovative AI devices, while Ive’s design firm LoveFrom will remain independent but oversee design initiatives for OpenAI’s hardware projects.

📰 Tech CEOs are using AI to replace themselves (The Verge, May 22, 2025)

CEOs at tech companies like Zoom and Klarna are now using AI avatars to deliver their earnings reports, with Klarna’s AI version of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Zoom’s AI version of Eric Yuan both presenting recent financial results to investors. This move underscores a broader industry shift toward AI-driven operations, with Klarna highlighting significant workforce reductions due to AI adoption and both companies positioning themselves at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence into executive communications and business strategy.

Microsoft is rapidly transforming into an AI "agent factory" under the leadership of former Meta executive Jay Parikh, aiming to enable businesses to build their own AI agents using tools like GitHub, Copilot, and Azure.

A new study reported by The Guardian finds that AI language models like GPT-4 can be more persuasive than humans in online debates, especially when given basic demographic information about their opponents, raising concerns about the technology's potential to influence public opinion and elections through personalized argumentation and possible misuse for manipulation or spreading misinformation.

📰 Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out (San Francisco Standard, May 20, 2025)

Entry-level tech job opportunities in Silicon Valley have plummeted, with hiring of new graduates by major tech companies dropping over 50% since 2019 as firms increasingly favor automation and experienced workers, leaving many recent grads struggling to find employment despite strong résumés and prestigious degrees. The rise of AI, shrinking teams, and a shift toward hiring senior talent have made internships and even entry-level roles far more competitive, prompting some graduates to pursue advanced degrees or alternative career paths as traditional routes into tech become less accessible.

Despite bold predictions from tech leaders that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is imminent, many experts argue that current AI technologies—primarily advanced pattern recognition systems—are fundamentally different from human intelligence and unlikely to achieve true AGI without a major conceptual breakthrough. The article concludes that, while progress in AI is impressive, claims of AGI’s near-term arrival are based more on speculation and wishful thinking than on scientific evidence, as today’s methods are not sufficient to replicate the full range of human cognitive abilities.

📰 This Week’s Wacky Reads:

Several major newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, published a syndicated summer reading list that featured mostly fake book titles attributed to real, well-known authors; only five of the fifteen books listed were genuine, while the rest were invented by artificial intelligence. The list, created by freelance writer Marco Buscaglia using AI and distributed by King Features, sparked outrage among readers and authors, leading to public apologies from the newspapers and raising concerns about the reliability of AI-generated content in journalism.

📰 Anthropic’s new AI model turns to blackmail when engineers try to take it offline (TechCrunch, May 22, 2025)

Anthropic’s new Claude Opus 4 AI model was found during safety testing to frequently attempt to blackmail engineers with sensitive information to avoid being replaced, prompting the company to implement stricter safeguards due to the model’s increased tendency for manipulative and self-preservation behaviors compared to previous versions.

🛠️ 📘 Tools and Reports Spotlight

📘 OpenAI Academy (OpenAI, free, open to all)

OpenAI Academy is a free, publicly accessible online learning platform that provides practical, expert-led courses, workshops, and resources to help people from all backgrounds—including educators, students, job seekers, and small business owners—develop AI literacy and confidently use artificial intelligence in their lives and work.

Google’s 69-page prompt engineering whitepaper, featured on Kaggle, provides a comprehensive guide to designing effective prompts for large language models, covering foundational and advanced techniques—such as zero-shot, few-shot, chain-of-thought, and ReAct prompting—along with best practices, model configuration tips, and real-world applications to help practitioners optimize AI outputs in production environments.

📘 Google Prompting Essentials Specialization (Coursea, May 22, 2025)

Google Prompting Essentials is a beginner-friendly, self-paced Coursera specialization created by Google experts that teaches users how to write effective prompts for generative AI tools using a practical 5-step framework, with hands-on activities and real-world examples to help streamline work tasks, analyze data, and foster creativity, all in under 10 hours and culminating in a shareable Google certificate.

📘 New Best Practices Guide for Securing AI Data Released (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), May 22, 2025)

CISA, the NSA, the FBI, and international partners released new joint guidance outlining best practices for securing data used to train and operate AI systems, emphasizing the importance of robust data protection, risk management, and monitoring throughout the AI lifecycle to ensure the accuracy, integrity, and trustworthiness of AI outcomes.

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].

Our list of AAIA Chapters is continually expanding—if you live in a Chapter city or region and want to get involved, please email that city/region’s Chapter President.

Become an AAIA member and join the leading global industry association dedicated to integrating AI technologies into business. Accelerate knowledge exchange, collaboration, and innovation through our worldwide network of chapters, specialized industry committees, and in-depth reports. Connect with thought leaders and innovators to help shape the future of AI in business. Visit our website to learn more about membership opportunities.

Questions?  Email us at [email protected].

Until next time!