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AI giants pressure Capitol Hill
PLUS: OpenAI taps Instacart CEO in new leadership expansion
Zach Mink & Rowan Cheung
May 09, 2025
Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Some of the AI industry's most powerful players just delivered a unified message to Congress: Reduce regulations now or risk losing the global AI race to China.
With top execs from OpenAI to CoreWeave pushing the government for infrastructure investments and lighter controls, tech giants are now wielding national security concerns as their most powerful political weapon yet.
Reminder: Our next workshop is today at 4 PM EST — join to learn advanced prompting techniques for better AI responses. RSVP here.
In today’s AI rundown:
AI leaders push for looser regulations
OpenAI expands leadership with Instacart CEO
Create engaging social carousels with Gamma
Alibaba's Zerosearch teaches AI to search solo
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
AI REGULATIONS
Image source: PBS Livestream
The Rundown: Tech execs from OpenAI, Microsoft, AMD, and CoreWeave testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, calling for reduced regulations, improved infrastructure, and expanded market access to help the U.S. keep its AI lead over China.
The details:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman characterized AI as potentially "bigger than the internet," urging lawmakers to support critical infrastructure investments.
Microsoft's Brad Smith warned that U.S. AI chip export restrictions could push customers toward Chinese alternatives, hurting global adoption of U.S. tech.
AMD CEO Lisa Su also warned that strict export controls could backfire, saying other technologies will "come to play" if American options aren't available.
The executives united on calls to boost federal AI R&D, improve AI workforce skills, modernize the electric grid, and streamline permitting.
Why it matters: The AI race is being positioned as a broader battle for supremacy between the U.S. and China, and tech giants see overregulation as a barrier to moving fast enough to maintain the lead. The balance between pro-innovation policies, safety risks, and global power dynamics is a complex needle to thread.
TOGETHER WITH INNOVATING WITH AI
The Rundown: Innovating With AI’s “The AI Consultancy Project” gives you the frameworks, playbooks, and client‑ready templates needed to turn “interesting AI ideas” into a revenue‑generating business — helping you ride the wave of an AI consulting boom expected to grow by 8x this decade.
In this program, you will:
Gain the tools and frameworks to find clients and deliver top-notch services
Follow a 6-month plan to build a 6-figure AI consulting business
Join a 700‑strong cohort where some members landed their first AI client in 72 hours
OPENAI
Image source: Loic Le Meur / Creative Commons
The Rundown: OpenAI just announced the hiring of Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as its CEO of Applications, creating a new leadership position that will oversee the company's product offerings and business operations.
The details:
Simo will lead a new Applications division that combines OpenAI's existing business and operational teams responsible for bringing research to market.
She will report directly to CEO Sam Altman, who said the hire will free him up to increase his focus on research, compute infrastructure, and safety systems.
Simo has served on OpenAI's nonprofit board for the past year and has also spent a decade at Facebook, focused on its app and advertising business.
The move comes following the startup’s decision to stop its for-profit shift and amidst a major global expansion of its Stargate project.
Why it matters: This high-profile hire is right in line with OpenAI's transition from a research lab to a multi-faceted global organization. While Altman remains at the helm, bringing in an experienced executive like Simo suggests the company is scaling leadership for its next major evolution to a worldwide powerhouse.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Gamma's new AI-powered Social feature to transform simple ideas into professional and engaging social media carousels — with just a few clicks.
Step-by-step:
Visit Gamma, select “Social” from the creation options, and adjust the number of cards.
Enter a specific, detailed prompt about your carousel topic and click "Generate outline."
Adjust the number of cards and customize your design by selecting from available themes and AI image generators.
Review each card, make any necessary edits, and click “Generate” to finalize.
Pro tip: Check out our exclusive workshop on creating stunning, on-brand content fast with Gamma here. Additionally, full Rundown University members enjoy a free monthly Gamma Pro plan.
PRESENTED BY FREEPIK
The Rundown: Upscale Conf is bringing together the brightest minds in AI-powered creativity for two immersive days of inspiration, experimentation, and networking at SF JAZZ on May 20-21.
The two-day experience features:
Talks and workshops by industry experts like John Maeda, Gmunk, Comfy, and more
On-stage live AI music generation with immersive experience
Opportunities to connect with fellow global innovators from design, art, and tech
Get your tickets now with 50% off, exclusive to The Rundown AI readers.
ALIBABA
Image source: Reve / The Rundown
The Rundown: Alibaba researchers introduced ZeroSearch, a technique that teaches AI systems to search for info without using real search engines — cutting training costs by 88% while matching or outperforming the models trained with actual search APIs.
The details:
ZeroSearch removes the need for expensive search engine API calls during training by using an LLM to simulate search results.
A "curriculum-based rollout strategy" gradually lowers the quality of these simulated documents, progressively challenging the AI to refine its reasoning.
The approach avoids the high API costs and unpredictable document quality associated with training AI on live commercial search engines.
In testing, ZeroSearch was able to match or outperform models trained with real search engines, while reducing costs by nearly 90%.
Why it matters: As we’ve seen in robotics, using simulations for training data is proving to be both an effective and cheaper option. Techniques like ZeroSearch could eliminate a major financial barrier for smaller labs competing with tech giants, while also giving better control over how models learn to find and process information.
QUICK HITS
🔌 Anthropic Web Search API - Connect Claude applications to the web
🤖 Medium 3 - Mistral’s new low-cost, high-performance model
📊 Le Chat Enterprise - Mistral’s AI assistant for business environments
🎨 Figma Make - Turn designs into interactive prototypes with prompts
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reportedly in talks with OpenAI to integrate AI into the drug development and review process.
Meta is appointing former staffer Robert Fergus as the new head of its Facebook AI Research Lab, as he returned to Meta this year after a five-year stint at DeepMind.
Amazon is reportedly developing its own AI coding app, code-named ‘Kiro’, which will leverage agents for developer tasks and feature multimodal capabilities.
Shopify released a new upgrade to its Sidekick AI assistant, integrating new reasoning capabilities and free image generation tools for merchants on the platform.
Augment Code unveiled Remote Agent, allowing developers to delegate coding tasks to cloud-based AI assistants that continue working even when laptops are closed.
Amazon launched Enhance My Listing, a new AI-powered tool that helps sellers maintain and optimize product listings on the platform.
Hugging Face released Open Computer Agent, a free (but slow) computer-using agent to tackle simple multi-step tasks.
COMMUNITY
Join our next workshop this Friday, May 9th, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll you’ll be equipped to prompt with precision and creativity across any AI tool and improve AI responses.
RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
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That's it for today!Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you. |
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team
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