Good morning and thank you for joining us again!

Welcome to this daily edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it. Like all editions, this is human curated and edited, and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.

THE FRONT PAGE

Fei-Fei Li and Andrej Karpathy Just Funded an AI That Predicts Your Next Move

TLDR: AI startup Simile raised $100 million to help companies predict human behavior, including what customers might purchase and what questions analysts might ask on earnings calls. The company's backed by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li and Index Ventures.

The Story:

Simile just closed a $100 million funding round led by Index Ventures, with backing from Bain Capital Ventures, A*, Hanabi Capital, and AI heavyweights Fei-Fei Li and Andrej Karpathy. The company's building what it calls a lab to predict people's actions, from guessing what items you'll buy to anticipating which questions get asked during corporate earnings calls. They didn't disclose the valuation, but the investor lineup says everything. Fei-Fei Li pioneered the ImageNet dataset that launched modern computer vision. Karpathy led AI at Tesla and OpenAI. When those two bet on predicting human behavior, companies pay attention. The timing matters too: every business wants to know what customers will do next, what competitors will say, what markets will move. Simile's pitching AI that reads the patterns before they happen.

Its Significance:

This is the natural next step for AI companies: predicting what humans will do before they do it. We've already got AI that recommends what to watch, what to buy, what to read. Simile's taking it further. Not just recommendations based on past behavior, but predictions about future actions you haven't taken yet. The corporate use cases are obvious: retailers want to know what you'll buy, investors want to know what CEOs will say, marketing teams want to know what questions you'll ask. But there's a line between useful prediction and invasive surveillance. When AI gets good at guessing your next move, who controls that information? The company with the algorithm. And when that company's funded by $100 million from venture capital, the incentive isn't to protect your privacy. It's to sell more predictions. The investors didn't back this for better customer service. They backed it because behavioral prediction is worth billions if you can monetize it before regulators catch up. Militaries around the world will also be watching this closely.

QUICK TAKES

The story:

Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets, letting AI agents spend, earn, and trade crypto autonomously. Users set permissions so the AI can manage positions, execute trades, and rebalance portfolios 24/7 without approval for each transaction. The wallets use Coinbase's x402 payments protocol, which has seen 50 million transactions. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicts billions of AI agents will be using crypto for payments within three to five years.

Your takeaway:

AI agents handling money while you sleep sounds convenient until you remember these are the same chatbots that hallucinate facts. Coinbase says you can set permissions, but the whole pitch is that the agent acts without your approval. Your AI detects better yield at 3am and rebalances automatically. Great when it works, catastrophic when it doesn't.The technology's not there yet.

The story:

T-Mobile's launching Live Translation in beta this spring, translating phone calls in real-time across more than 50 languages. The feature works at the network level. No app required, even an old flip phone can use it. Registration for eligible T-Mobile customers opened Tuesday.

Your takeaway:

This is the kind of AI feature that actually solves a real problem without asking you to change your behavior. You don't need a new phone, app, or plan. You just call someone who speaks a different language and the network handles it. The limitation is always accuracy. Machine translation still struggles with idioms and context. But for basic communication, this removes a massive barrier. When translation happens at the network level, it becomes invisible. That's how useful technology should work.

The story:

Real estate service stocks plunged Tuesday as investors panicked over AI disruption. CBRE Group dropped 15%, Jones Lang LaSalle fell 13%, and Cushman & Wakefield slid 15%. Biggest drops since March 2020. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Jade Rahmani called it the "AI Scare Trade," with investors rotating out of "high-fee, labor-intensive business models." The selloff follows similar crashes last week in software, private credit, and wealth management stocks.

Your takeaway:

Wall Street's playing AI disruption whack-a-mole, and real estate services got hit this week. Anthropic releases automation tools, investors panic about which industries get disrupted next, stocks crash. Then analysts say "wait, complex deal-making isn't getting replaced by chatbots tomorrow." The problem is that markets don't price in gradual change. They price in panic. So you get 15% drops in a day because investors assume AI makes brokers obsolete. The market's not wrong about the direction. It's wrong about the timeline.

TOOLS ON OUR RADAR

🔬 SciSpace Freemium: An AI-powered research assistant that simplifies academic papers, summarizes complex findings, and automates citation formatting for students and researchers.

🐧 CryptPad Free and Open Source: A private, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Docs and Office 365 that allows for real-time collaborative editing without tracking your data. (Alternative to Google Docs)

✍️ Wordtune Freemium: An AI writing companion that goes beyond simple grammar checking to suggest complete rephrases, helping you adjust the tone and flow of your sentences.

🎙️ Krisp Freemium: AI-powered noise cancellation software that removes background chatter, sirens, and barking dogs from your calls in real-time, ensuring professional audio on any platform.

TRENDING

Anthropic Promises to Cover Electricity Price Increases from Its Data Centers - Anthropic announced it'll cover electricity price increases that consumers face from its data centers. The company will pay 100% of grid upgrade costs and procure net-new power generation to match its electricity needs. The move comes as AI companies face criticism for driving up energy costs for ratepayers.

Uber Launches AI Cart Assistant That Scans Handwritten Shopping Lists - Uber Eats rolled out Cart Assistant, an AI tool that builds grocery carts from photos of handwritten shopping lists or text commands. The AI populates your cart based on store inventory, prices, and past orders. The feature's live at dozens of major chains including Safeway and Kroger.

Ancient Roman Board Game Rules Decoded by AI - Scientists used AI to figure out the rules of a mysterious Roman board game carved into limestone unearthed in the Netherlands. The AI program Ludii analyzed 100 ancient games, generated possible rule sets, then played against itself to identify variants "enjoyable for humans to play." Researchers cross-checked the rules with wear patterns on the stone to find the most likely gameplay.

MIT Professor: AI for Science is About "Bringing a Better Future Forward in Time" - MIT Associate Professor Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli says AI is hitting a "second inflection point" that'll transform scientific research. His lab uses machine learning and generative AI to discover new materials for batteries, catalysts, and OLEDs. His latest company, Lila Sciences, is building a "scientific superintelligence platform" for life sciences and materials science.

UBS: Humanoid Robots Will Hit Factory Floors in 2027-28 - UBS analysts forecast 30,000 humanoid robot units will ship in 2026, with the real surge coming in 2027-28. Tesla plans to build a 1 million unit Optimus production line starting end-2026. UBTECH plans 10,000 units this year, while Boston Dynamics aims for 30,000 unit capacity in 2028 for its Atlas robot.

TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)

Food & Health Tracker: Log what you eat, spot nutrient gaps, and see how your diet affects your energy and health

What this does: Shows you what you're actually eating vs. what you think you're eating. Tracks nutrients beyond just calories, spots patterns affecting your energy, and gives you simple wins to improve without overhauling everything at once.

What this looks like:

WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)

✅ AI Can Now: Translate live phone calls across 50+ languages at the network level with no app required and works on flip phones

❌ Still Can't: Be trusted with your crypto wallet unsupervised. Coinbase's AI agents manage money 24/7 but nobody's solved the hallucination problem

✅ AI Can Now: Decode ancient Roman board games by analyzing wear patterns and playing millions of games against itself

❌ Still Can't: Stop causing market panic. Real estate stocks crashed 15% this week on fears AI will automate commercial brokers

FROM THE WEB

RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING

Foundation (BBC Radio adaptation) - Audio Drama

Asimov's epic about predicting and shaping civilization's future through mathematics. The psychohistory concept is essentially early thinking about modeling complex systems. The radio adaptation is well produced and captures the sweep of these highly influential novels.

Thank you for reading. We’re all beginners in something. With that in mind, your questions and feedback are always welcome and I read every single email!

-James

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