Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. OpenAI needed a win after a rough stretch of public sentiment — and GPT-5.4 looks like a big one.
The company's new top model outperforms humans on desktop tasks and across 83% of job-specific evaluations, with new highs across math, science, coding, and reasoning to match. OAI researcher Noam Brown's take: "We see no wall."
In today’s AI rundown:
GPT-5.4 beats humans at their own desktops
Netflix acquires Ben Affleck's AI filmmaking startup
Turn an investment memo into a polished slide deck
Anthropic’s early-warning system for AI job loss
4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
Image source: OpenAI
The Rundown: OpenAI just rolled out GPT-5.4, the company’s new top model with major upgrades on desktop tasks, coding, reasoning, science, math, and more — with VP of Science Kevin Weil calling it "our best model ever".
The details:
OAI shipped GPT-5.4 just two days after rolling out 5.3 Instant as the default chat model, available now as GPT-5.4 Thinking for Plus, Team, and Pro users.
The model scored 75% on OSWorld-V, which tests real desktop navigation — 3 points above the human baseline of 72.4% and 2x of what GPT-5.2 managed.
5.4 also supports up to 1M tokens of context and a new x-high reasoning effort setting, letting agents plan and execute across longer tasks that take hours.
GPT-5.4 won or matched against professionals 83% of the time on GDPval, a knowledge-work benchmark across 44 jobs — up from 71% for GPT-5.2.
Why it matters: OpenAI needed a win after a rough week of sentiment, and GPT 5.4 looks like one — with performance that looks to take the next step up the frontier, particularly for desktop use cases to push forward agentic abilities. The launch also comes with a big statement from OAI researcher Noam Brown: "We see no wall”.
TOGETHER WITH AIRIA
The Rundown: Airia delivers unified AI security, orchestration, and governance built for enterprises, accelerating AI adoption. Deploy agents fast while maintaining control, bridging the gap between innovation and compliance.
Dive deeper with Airia’s 2026 State of AI Report, which reveals:
Key insights on enterprise AI adoption trends
Critical challenges and emerging opportunities ahead
A comprehensive guide for navigating AI transformation
NETFLIX & BEN AFFLECK
Image source: Netflix
The Rundown: Netflix just acquired InterPositive, a stealth AI filmmaking company Ben Affleck started in 2022 — bringing all 16 staffers and Affleck himself aboard as senior adviser in a rare acquisition for a streaming giant.
The details:
InterPositive's tech trains models on a production's own footage, then handles post work like relighting, swapping backgrounds, and fixing continuity errors.
Affleck said he was shocked by how much engineering talent was pouring into AI video, "but no artistic, no filmmaking information whatsoever”.
The actor emphasized that his company’s tech is “not generating video from nothing”, instead learning from the existing filmed shots and actors.
Affleck appeared on the JRE Podcast last month, saying he "can't stand" what AI writes, and that the tech would be more of a tool for production workflows.
Why it matters: Hollywood has spent the AI boom either hiding the tech’s use or railing against it, but an Oscar-winning industry leader putting his reputation on a tool could go a long way to shifting sentiment. For all the “AI killed Hollywood” X posts, the real upgrades come from the production workflow aspects Affleck is addressing.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: In this guide, you will learn how to use Manus to turn a structured investment memo into a professional, ready-to-present slide deck in Google Slides. You can try this with any type of memo with structured, formulaic sections.
Step-by-step:
Start with a memo PDF with sections like: market analysis, team background, business diligence, traction, SWOT analysis, and deal dynamics. We used Sequoia’s 2014 DoorDash memo for our test
Go to manus.im and sign up, then click New task > Create slides, attach your PDF, and prompt: “Turn this investment memo into a slide deck”
That’s it. Manus will create the deck for you, and it usually will one-shot the layout. You can edit or present the deck in Manus, or ask it to update it for you
When done, you can download your slides as PPTX, PDF, or click “Convert to Google Slides,” and it will save the deck perfectly in Google Slides for you
Pro tip: Attach an example deck with your memo and tell Manus to style your new deck in the same way.
PRESENTED BY BLAND AI
The Rundown: Soulja Boy just became the first rapper to automate his voice with AI. Bland AI, a voice AI company out of San Francisco, bought his voice to let anyone call him — generating 30M+ views in 24 hours and thousands of enterprise signups.
Even if you don't want Soulja answering your business calls, Bland allows you to:
Clone your best reps' voice to scale their success across your entire business
Deploy AI voice agents that sound human, without adding headcount
Get started for free on a platform trusted by thousands of enterprises
Call Soulja Boy to try it out at (415) 480-0000 or sign up free at bland.ai.
AI RESEARCH
Image source: Anthropic
The Rundown: Anthropic published a study on AI’s job impact, cross-referencing what AI could automate against what people are using Claude for — finding that while mass layoffs haven't hit, the youngest workers in are already getting squeezed out.
The details:
The study uses "observed exposure," a metric that gauges AI job displacement by comparing tasks AI can do to what they are already automating.
Computer programmers top the exposure list at 75% task coverage, followed by customer service reps and data entry workers at 67%.
Roughly a third of the U.S. workforce sits at zero AI exposure right now, largely in hands-on roles like cooks, bartenders, and lifeguards.
No broad unemployment spike has appeared since ChatGPT's launch in 2022, but hiring into exposed fields for 22-to-25-year-olds fell 14% in that time.
Why it matters: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has not been subtle about what he believes is looming on the jobs front due to AI, and we’ve already seen several industry stock prices tank this year following Claude releases. But even with the warnings, the world still feels drastically underprepared for the disruption coming.
QUICK HITS
🗣️ Unwrap Customer Intelligence - Connect your entire organization to the true voice of the customer with AI-driven insights from customer feedback*
🧠 GPT-5.4 - OpenAI's flagship reasoner with native computer use, 1M context
🎞️ Luma Agents - Luma's AI agent for scaling creative output across teams
🎥 LTX-2.3 - Lightricks' video AI upgrade with more detail, cleaner audio
*Sponsored Listing
The Pentagon officially labeled Anthropic ‘supply chain risk’, which the company plans to challenge in court, coming amid reports that both sides had resumed deal talks.
Lightricks released LTX-2.3, an upgrade to its powerful open-source video model, and LTX Desktop, a free local video editor built on the same engine.
Google released an open-source CLI for its full Workspace suite, with 40+ built-in agent skills designed for easy integration into agentic platforms.
Ex-OpenAI chief research officer Bob McGrew is raising $70M at a $700M valuation for Arda, his startup building an AI platform to automate factory floors with robots.
Meta is being sued after an investigation found that overseas contractors reviewing Ray-Ban AI smart glasses footage were seeing nudity and other private user content.
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 Tineke B. in Auckland, NZ:
"I just created a website with AI that's clocked up 5,000 organic visits in less than a week: To find out ferry timetables in Auckland, you had to visit the Auckland Transport website, click numerous links, and then download a PDF (yes, a PDF!) to view the ferry timetables.
This was super annoying for me, so I used Claude to create a site for it. I shared it on a few local FB groups, and it's taken off. Over 5,000 visits in less than a week and 100s of comments on social media thanking me for making people's lives easier. It only took me a couple of hours and has solved a real (first-world) problem for commuters.”
How do you use AI? Tell us here.
Read our last AI newsletter: Amodei torches OpenAI in leaked memo
Read our last Tech newsletter: Apple’s budget iPhone goes AI first
Read our last Robotics newsletter: Waymo has a big problem in Austin
Today’s AI tool guide: Turn an investment memo into a polished slide deck
RSVP to our next workshop on March 12: AI coding bootcamp pt. 1
That's it for today!
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer—the humans behind The Rundown
