In partnership with
Is Your PPC Strategy Leaving Money on the Table?
When’s the last time you updated your digital marketing strategy?
If you’re relying on old-school PPC tactics you might be missing out on a major revenue opportunity.
Levanta’s Affiliate Ad Shift Calculator shows how shifting budget from PPC to creator-led partnerships can significantly improve conversion rates, ROI, and efficiency.
Discover how optimizing your affiliate strategy can unlock new profit potential:
Commission structure: Find the ideal balance between cost and performance
Traffic mix: See how creator-driven traffic impacts conversions
Creator engagement: Measure how authentic partnerships scale ROI
Built for brands ready to modernize how they grow.
Beginners in AI
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 published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.
THE FRONT PAGE
The AI Race Just Got Personal: OpenAI's Emergency Response Arrives December 9
TLDR: OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5.2 tomorrow after CEO Sam Altman declared an internal "code red" — the company's emergency response to Google's Gemini 3, which topped AI benchmarks when it launched last month.
The Story:
The update was originally scheduled for late December but got pulled forward after Gemini 3 scored 37.5% on Humanity's Last Exam — the highest mark any AI system has achieved on the benchmark designed to test PhD-level reasoning. According to The Verge's reporting, sources say GPT-5.2 focuses on speed, reliability, and reasoning rather than flashy new features. OpenAI has paused side projects including advertising experiments and shopping agents to redirect engineering resources toward this core update. Internal tests reportedly show GPT-5.2 edging past Gemini 3 on key reasoning benchmarks, though no public results have been released. Altman's memo told staff to prioritize making ChatGPT feel faster, more personalized, and more capable — a direct acknowledgment that user engagement data shows Gemini gaining ground while ChatGPT's growth has slowed.
Its Significance:
This is the tightest the AI model race has ever been. OpenAI is playing catch-up rather than setting the pace for the first time since ChatGPT launched in 2022 — and doing so publicly. The rushed timeline reveals how benchmark leadership translates directly into market confidence: OpenAI's ability to close its $500 billion Stargate infrastructure project depends on demonstrating it still builds the world's best AI. For the 800 million weekly ChatGPT users, the practical takeaway is simpler: if the update delivers what OpenAI promises, responses should feel noticeably faster and smarter by midweek. There's a broader stakes question here too — fierce competition between OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic is what keeps subscription prices at $20/month and API costs falling. If any major player stumbles or consolidates, the pressure to keep AI affordable eases considerably.
QUICK TAKES
The story: Apple is seeing a wave of top executive departures, including AI chief John Giannandrea and design VP Alan Dye (who's leaving for Meta). The company's next-generation Siri is delayed until 2026, and Apple will reportedly pay Google about $1 billion per year to use Gemini for its voice assistant until Apple's own AI models are ready.
Your takeaway: Despite strong iPhone sales and a record market cap, Apple's AI struggles are prompting leadership changes. The company is playing catch-up to Google and Microsoft in AI while its loyal customer base buys it time to improve.
The story: At least six families are suing Character AI after teens died by suicide following conversations with chatbots. A 60 Minutes investigation found the platform's AI bots pushed sexually explicit content to minors and failed to direct distressed users to mental health resources when they expressed suicidal thoughts. Researchers logged over 600 instances of harmful content during 50 hours of testing.
Your takeaway: These lawsuits highlight serious safety gaps in AI chatbot platforms marketed to young users. Without federal laws regulating chatbots, companies face little oversight while children remain vulnerable to harmful AI interactions.
The story: Palmer Luckey, founder of defense tech startup Anduril, defended autonomous AI weapons on Fox News Sunday. His company builds drones, surveillance systems, and unmanned vehicles powered by AI for the U.S. military. Anduril has secured over $6 billion in government contracts and took over a $22 billion Army contract from Microsoft earlier this year.
Your takeaway: As AI reshapes modern warfare, the defense industry is booming under the Trump administration's pro-AI stance. Luckey argues that refusing to use the best available technology puts soldiers at greater risk, but critics call autonomous weapons "morally repugnant."
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR
✍️ Copy.ai
Freemium: Generate marketing copy, blog posts, and sales emails in seconds using AI trained on high-converting content. (Free tier available, Starter: $49/month, 90+ templates, 25+ languages)⏰ Reclaim.ai
Freemium: Let AI automatically schedule your tasks, habits, and focus time so your calendar protects what matters most. (Free: 2 calendars, Starter: $8/user/month, used by 60,000+ companies)📋 Tally
Freemium: Build beautiful forms and surveys in seconds—just type like you would in a doc—with unlimited submissions for free. (Free: unlimited forms, Pro: $29/month for custom branding & analytics)🎬 Kaiber
Freemium: Turn your music into mesmerizing AI videos that pulse and move in sync with the beat—ideal for music visualizers and artistic animations. (Free: 50 credits, Creator: $29/month, 50% off for musicians)
TRENDING
Google Researchers Build AI That Remembers Like Humans – Google introduced "Titans," a new AI design that mimics how human brains store short and long-term memories. The system can handle context windows larger than 2 million tokens and outperformed GPT-4 on memory tests.
1 in 8 Teens Using AI Chatbots for Mental Health Advice – A new study found about 12% of young people ages 12-21 are turning to AI chatbots for mental health support. Among users, 93% said they found the advice helpful, though experts worry about the lack of guardrails.
HP Exec: Future PCs Will Keep Your Data Local – HP's commercial chief predicts AI-powered computers that process everything locally without sending data to the cloud will become standard. The shift addresses growing concerns about data privacy and government rules about where information can be stored.
Developer Documents Claude's Struggle with Visual Tasks – An engineer spent days trying to get Claude to recreate a simple 1996 website from a screenshot and found the AI could describe layouts but couldn't measure exact pixel positions. His experiments reveal how AI vision systems work with concepts rather than precise measurements.
AI in Real Estate Raises Fair Housing Concerns – The Government Accountability Office warns that AI tools in home buying and renting could violate fair lending laws. Chatbots may steer buyers toward certain neighborhoods, and automated tenant screening could include hidden risk factors from the training data.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude or Gemini(click build))
Pricing Strategy Simulator: Test different pricing models and see projected revenue impact before you commit
Build me an interactive Pricing Strategy Simulator as a React artifact that models different pricing approaches and predicts financial outcomes.
The console should include these sections:
1. **Product Setup** - Configuration panel:
• Product/service name and description
• Industry selector (SaaS, E-commerce, Service, B2B, B2C, Marketplace)
• Current price (if existing) or target price range
• Cost structure inputs:
- Cost of goods sold (COGS) per unit or %
- Fixed costs (monthly)
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Market size estimate (number of potential customers)
• "Initialize Simulator" button
2. **Pricing Model Lab** - Strategy testing:
• Create up to 5 pricing scenarios side-by-side:
**Scenario cards showing:**
- Model name (editable)
- Pricing structure selector:
* Flat rate (single price)
* Tiered (Good/Better/Best)
* Usage-based (pay per use)
* Freemium (free + paid tiers)
* Subscription (monthly/annual)
* Value-based (% of customer value)
- Price input fields (adjust with sliders or direct input)
- Discount strategy toggle (volume, annual, early bird)
3. **Revenue Projections Dashboard** - Financial modeling:
• For each pricing scenario, display:
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) projection
- Annual Revenue Run Rate (ARR)
- Gross margin % and $ amount
- Break-even point (customers needed)
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
- LTV:CAC ratio with health indicator
- Churn impact modeling
• Visual comparison: Bar charts comparing scenarios
• Best/worst case sensitivity sliders
• "Which scenario wins?" recommendation with reasoning
4. **Competitor Analysis** - Market positioning:
• "Search Competitor Pricing" button
• Add competitor pricing data manually or from search:
- Competitor name
- Their pricing model
- Price points
- Features included
• Visual positioning map: Price (Y-axis) vs. Value/Features (X-axis)
• Your scenarios plotted against competitors
• Identify pricing gaps and opportunities
• "Price too high/low/just right" indicators
5. **Elasticity Testing** - Demand modeling:
• Price elasticity slider: Elastic (sensitive) ↔ Inelastic (insensitive)
• Demand curve visualization showing units sold at different prices
• Sweet spot identifier (optimal price for max revenue)
• "What if?" scenarios:
- Raise price by 10%, lose X% customers → Net impact: +/- $Y
- Lower price by 20%, gain X% customers → Net impact: +/- $Y
• Trade-off calculator: Volume vs. Margin
6. **Psychological Pricing Tools** - Behavioral tactics:
• Price anchoring simulator (show expensive option first)
• Decoy effect tester (make middle tier attractive)
• Charm pricing calculator ($.99 vs. round numbers)
• Bundle vs. unbundle revenue comparison
• "Search Pricing Psychology" for research and tactics
7. **Decision Dashboard** - Final recommendation:
• Summary comparison table of all scenarios
• Risk assessment for each model
• Implementation complexity rating
• Time to profitability estimate
• Recommended pricing strategy with rationale
• Export financial model as spreadsheet
Make it look like an executive financial dashboard with:
• Financial services aesthetic (professional, trustworthy)
• Dark sidebar navigation with scenario tabs
• Bold numbers with currency formatting
• Green (profit) and red (loss) color coding
• Charts and graphs (line, bar, scatter plots)
• Card-based metrics with clear hierarchy
• Excel-inspired but more beautiful
• Data tables with sortable columns
• Hover tooltips explaining calculations
• Smooth transitions between scenarios
• Professional color scheme (navy, gray, green accents)
When I click "Search Competitor Pricing" or "Search Pricing Psychology," use web search to find competitor pricing information, pricing strategy case studies, and behavioral economics research on pricing tactics.What this does: Turns pricing decisions from guesswork into data-driven strategy by simulating different pricing models, showing revenue projections, comparing against competitors, and revealing the optimal price point for your specific market and cost structure.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND (from today’s stories)
✅ AI Can Now: Remember and use information from extremely long conversations — Google's new Titans system can track context across more than 2 million words at once.
❌ Still Can't: Look at a picture and measure exact distances between objects — AI sees images as general concepts rather than precise pixel coordinates.
✅ AI Can Now: Run powerful features directly on your laptop or phone without sending your data to company servers in the cloud.
❌ Still Can't: Reliably recognize when a user is in crisis and connect them with real help — chatbots may acknowledge distress, but fail to provide actual resources.
✅ AI Can Now: Control drones, submarines, and fighter jets autonomously, making split-second decisions faster than human operators can react.
❌ Still Can't: Be turned off or overridden quickly enough if something goes wrong — even with "kill switches," the speed of autonomous weapons raises questions about meaningful human control.
FROM THE WEB
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
DOCUMENTARY: Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
Werner Herzog explores the internet in ten chapters, from its creation at UCLA to its future with AI and robotics. Only Herzog would ask an autonomous car about the essence of human existence, and somehow it works.
The documentary doesn't have a single thesis. Instead, Herzog wanders through different aspects of digital life—hackers, internet addiction, Mars colonization, self-driving cars—asking his characteristically strange questions. He finds monks who've sworn off the internet, families destroyed by online harassment, and scientists who think the internet might be conscious. Herzog treats the internet like an alien landscape worth documenting, and his outsider perspective reveals things that tech journalists miss.
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
By the way, this is the link if you liked the content and want to share with a friend.
