Hello there,
Welcome to AI Unplugged. Here are today’s updates:
ChatGPT Images gets a serious upgrade for real creative work
Meta adds Conversation Focus to its AI glasses
Databricks raises $4B, hitting a $134B valuation
Practical tools, resources, and one sharp prompt to decide what to finish, pause, or kill before year-end. ⬇️
NEWS ALERTS
OpenAI has refreshed ChatGPT Images with a new image model, GPT-Image-1.5. It’s now live in ChatGPT and available via the API, signaling a push beyond demos toward real production workflows.
What’s improved
Stronger instruction following, especially for multi-step prompts and iterative edits
Faster image generation than the previous model
Cleaner edits (add, remove, or modify elements) with better context retention
Significantly improved text rendering inside images, including small text
A dedicated Images tab in ChatGPT to create, review, and iterate without losing context
What still breaks
Visual consistency can fail in very complex scenes
Strict brand-lock or identity-critical use cases still aren’t fully reliable
Overall, this update cuts down on re-prompting, micro-fixes, and tool-hopping. Image generation now feels usable for everyday creative work—not just quick experiments.
OTHER NEWS
Meta adds “Conversation Focus” to Ray-Ban and Oakley AI glasses, boosting voice clarity in loud environments.
Databricks raises $4B+ at a $134B valuation to scale data-intelligent applications and expand its AI product portfolio.
PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
💰 Clara — A 24/7 FinOps agent that analyzes cloud and SaaS spend in real time. Free tier available.
🔐 Ancher — Policy-based security and monitoring for AI workflows and autonomous agents.
⚡ Build0 — AI-driven tooling to rapidly generate and ship full-stack applications.
🤖 Agenta — An end-to-end platform for building, deploying, and operating AI agents from prototype to production.
AI MARKET
💰 Funding Rounds
OnCorps AI raised $55M to expand AI-driven workforce automation for enterprise operations.
Ritten raised $35M to scale its AI-powered learning and employee enablement platform.
💼 AI Hiring
Machine Learning Engineer (Personalization) — Spotify | Remote
Senior Manager, Autonomous Vehicle Strategy & Planning — Lyft | United States
PROMPT GUIDE
Year-End Closeout Plan
Purpose: Make hard calls on what gets finished, deferred, or killed before year-end—so nothing drags invisibly into Q1.
Prompt:
Act as my Chief of Staff. Using the update below, produce a Year-End Closeout Plan that makes explicit decisions on what gets finished, paused, or killed before year-end.
Include:
Finish Before Year-End: High-impact items with minimal remaining effort that must be completed now.
Freeze for Q1: Work that should stop cleanly and resume next quarter with clear ownership and scope.
Stop Completely: Initiatives to explicitly end so they don’t create hidden carryover or cognitive load.
Leadership Moves: Two concrete actions I must take this month to remove friction and set Q1 up for execution.
Constraints:
Be specific and decisive.
No hedging, no filler.
Maximum 200 words.
Input:
Update: [paste current priorities, open projects, or team focus areas here]Until next time,
AI Unplugged