'Critterz' tests AI's Hollywood takeover

PLUS: The AI prompts that actually work for readers

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Years after “Critterz” was born with help from DALL-E, Chad Nelson’s and OpenAI’s AI-infused animated film is targeting a Cannes Film Festival debut — with a production schedule and budget fit for the AI era.

With AI animation heading to the big screen, the question may not be whether the tech is up for the task… But whether audiences are ready to embrace creative works that are openly using AI in the process.

In today’s AI rundown:

  • OpenAI backs ‘Critterz’ animated AI film

  • AI voice agents boost blood pressure monitoring

  • Automate Gmail drafts with Zapier and Google Sheets

  • The AI prompts that actually work for readers

  • 4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

Image source: The Wall Street Journal

The Rundown: OpenAI is throwing its resources behind "Critterz," an AI-generated animated feature that aims to prove AI can help create strong films while cutting Hollywood production costs and timelines.

The details:

  • The team hopes to complete the feature in 9 months with a sub-$30M budget, compared to typical animated films requiring 3 years and much higher budgets.

  • OpenAI plans to provide its ‘tools and computing resources,’ including GPT-5 and image generation models, targeting a Cannes Film Festival debut in 2026.

  • Human actors will voice characters, with artists creating initial sketches that GPT-5 and image models transform into the final animations.

  • OpenAI creative specialist Chad Nelson developed the characters over three years, initially using DALL-E to create the first iteration of the film.

Why it matters: AI’s disruption of Hollywood is already underway, but it’s been more of a hush-hush integration of tools, with large swaths of both creatives and consumers still taking a strong anti-AI stance. We’d bet on Critterz successfully hitting its timeline and goals, but the audience's embrace of an openly AI film will be the tougher hurdle.

TOGETHER WITH SANA

The Rundown: Unleash your team’s potential by automating workflows across 100+ platforms with Sana Agents. Cloudberry’s CFO cut a week’s work to hours, and Piab saw ROI in weeks across 1,500 employees in 20 countries — using Sana Agents to make enterprise automation effortless and secure.

With Sana Agents, you can:

  • Automate workflows across 100+ apps, including email, Teams, Slack, Salesforce, and your databases

  • Slash operational overhead by 10-20x

  • Ensure enterprise-grade security with zero data leakage

AI & MEDICAL RESEARCH

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: A new study from Emory University tested utilizing AI voice agents to assist senior citizens in taking and reporting their blood pressure over the phone, helping both raise satisfaction and reduce costs by nearly 90%.

The details:

  • Conversational AI agents reached 85% of the 2,000 patients by phone, with 60% successfully taking blood pressure readings in English or Spanish.

  • Agents automatically escalated cases to nurses when readings exceeded thresholds or patients reported symptoms like chest pain or dizziness.

  • The AI obtained readings from 1,939 patients with outdated records, boosting quality scores from 1 to 4 stars while cutting costs by 88.7% vs. human nurses.

  • The average satisfaction score was above 9/10, despite researchers expecting resistance to automated healthcare interactions from older demographics.

Why it matters: This study hits at the center of a few trends: AI’s coming role in healthcare (and eldercare in particular), and the continued growth of voice agents in customer service. In the future, adding an AI vision tool like Gemini Live to walk seniors through processes will bring remote patient care to a new high-tech level.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to automatically create Gmail drafts from Google Sheets data using Zapier, turning hours of repetitive email work into a single automated workflow that runs whenever you add new contacts.

Step-by-step:

  1. Open Zapier.com and click "Create a Zap" — this fresh start gives you full control over each step

  2. Set up your Trigger: Select Google Sheets → "New Spreadsheet Row" event → Connect your Google account and pick your spreadsheet (always hit "Refresh & Find New Records" to catch the latest data)

  3. Create your Action: Choose Gmail → "Create Draft" (not auto-send, so you can review) → Connect Gmail and set up your template with dynamic fields from the sheet

  4. Configure the draft: Map the "To" field to the email column, add your subject line, use HTML for body copy to embed links, and format professionally

  5. Test by adding new rows to your sheet and clicking "Run", drafts will instantly appear in Gmail, then save and name your Zap

Pro Tip: The simplest workflows often save you the most time — this Zap is a huge time-saver in handling email communications without burning hours in Gmail.

PRESENTED BY FIN

The Rundown: Building prototypes with AI has never been easier. But reliably delivering quality products? That's where most teams hit a wall. Join AI experts from Intercom's Fin AI Group and industry leaders for an unscripted deep dive into what it really takes to build frontier AI products.

This exclusive event covers:

  • Insights from experienced AI leaders on what's working and what's breaking

  • How to design frontier AI products through technical deep-dives and case studies

  • Real insights from Intercom's Fin AI Group on building production AI

COMMUNITY CORNER

Image source: @Itslipsadas on X

The Rundown: We asked the AI community on X to share the AI prompts that actually transformed their work or life, with some of our favorite and most insightful submissions featured below.

The details:

  • @ralphbrooks created a board of advisors prompt asking personas for advice, with an AI Elon Musk providing first-principles analysis for unexpected insights.

  • @Xyster fed entire company histories, financials, and competitor research into one mega-prompt, then asks for concrete 1, 3, and 6-month action plans.

  • @MrXSeek flipped the script by asking the model to write its own optimal prompt first, then used that refined version to complete the actual task.

  • @Itslipsadas’ prompt pushes deeper into goals by having AI pose questions to break through circular thinking patterns.

Why it matters: The common thread? Some of the best results come from prompts that force models to think systematically rather than just respond. Plus, as @MrXSeek points out, today’s AI models are great prompt writers — have it help spin up your next detailed prompt before starting a task.

QUICK HITS

  • 🧊 Tripo 3.0 - Turn text or images into production-ready 3D assets

  • 🎥 Capcut AI Suite - Create, edit, or remix content with AI

  • 🔎 AI Mode - Google’s AI-powered search, now available in new languages

  • 🗣️ Qwen3-ASR - Alibaba’s new speech recognition model

Exclusive AI Rippling x Cursor Event, Sept 16: When every hire is a 10x hire — Parker Conrad & Michael Truell reveal the hyper-scale playbook. Save your seat.*

Anthropic published a blog endorsing California’s SB 53 bill, which would require AI companies to publish AI safety frameworks and transparency reports.

Google introduced learning tools to NotebookLM, including customizable flashcards and quizzes, redesigned reports, and interactive notebooks for academic textbooks.

Alibaba released Qwen3-ASR, a speech recognition model with strong accuracy and the ability to handle multilingual voices, singing, accents, and text prompts.

Cognition announced a new $400M fundraise that brings the Devin-maker’s valuation to $10.2B, coming on the heels of the company’s acquisition of Windsurf.

Google expanded AI Mode to new languages, including Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese, to provide locally relevant search experiences.

*Sponsored Listing

COMMUNITY

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Joshua R. in Newburyport, MA:

"I turn life stories into full-fledged songs in hours — not weeks — by teaming up with AI. ChatGPT helps me craft vivid, personal lyrics and develop song concepts, while Suno transforms those words into studio-quality tracks with instruments, vocals, and arrangements. It’s like having a hit songwriter and a full band on call 24/7, letting me capture inspiration the moment it strikes."

How do you use AI? Tell us here.

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Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer—the humans behind The Rundown

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