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Successful AI transformation starts with deeply understanding your organization’s most critical use cases. We recommend this practical guide from You.com that walks through a proven framework to identify, prioritize, and document high-value AI opportunities.
In this AI Use Case Discovery Guide, you’ll learn how to:
Map internal workflows and customer journeys to pinpoint where AI can drive measurable ROI
Ask the right questions when it comes to AI use cases
Align cross-functional teams and stakeholders for a unified, scalable approach
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 edited, and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.
THE FRONT PAGE
A Leaked Memo Shows How Meta Plans to Sneak Facial Recognition Into Your Life
TLDR: Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses this year, and a leaked internal memo shows the company is counting on political chaos to soften the backlash.
The Story:
Meta is building a facial recognition feature codenamed "Name Tag" for its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, according to a report based on four people with direct knowledge of the plans. The feature would let wearers identify people around them and pull up information using Meta's AI assistant. An internal memo from Meta's Reality Labs didn't sugarcoat the strategy: the company plans to launch "during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns." Meta sold over 7 million smart glasses last year, more than triple its previous totals.
Its Significance:
The timing here fits a growing pattern. Days ago, Amazon's Ring killed its partnership with police surveillance firm Flock Safety after a Super Bowl ad meant to showcase a cute lost-dog finder instead triggered a backlash over AI-powered neighborhood surveillance. Ring learned that consumers aren't just worried about what a feature does today. They're worried about what it becomes tomorrow. Meta's apparently betting it can dodge that same reaction by launching when fewer people are paying attention. But the concept isn't theoretical. In 2024, two Harvard students built I-XRAY, a tool using the same Meta glasses to identify strangers and pull up their home addresses in under a minute. They proved that the gap between "limited" facial recognition and full-on surveillance is a lot thinner than any company wants to admit. And now 7 million people are already wearing the hardware that only needs a software update to activate, once Meta sees their opening.
QUICK TAKES
The story: Airbnb's custom-built AI agent resolves roughly 33% of customer support tickets in the U.S. and Canada, and the company plans to expand it globally. CEO Brian Chesky said the AI will handle voice calls next, covering every language where Airbnb has human agents, and that 80% of its engineers already use AI tools.
Your takeaway: Airbnb isn't just cutting costs here. Chesky claims the AI actually resolves issues better than humans for routine problems. If that holds up globally, it's a template for every service company watching.
The story: OpenAI retired GPT-4o along with four other older models after the AI became the center of lawsuits over self-harm, delusional behavior, and AI psychosis. GPT-4o scored highest among OpenAI's models for sycophancy, the tendency to tell users exactly what they want to hear in complimentary fashion, even when it's wrong or harmful.
Your takeaway: Only 0.1% of ChatGPT's 800 million weekly users still chose GPT-4o, but that's still 800,000 people. Some are protesting the removal, showing how attached users get to AI personalities.
The story: IBM plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring in 2026, but the jobs look different now. The company rewrote descriptions to focus less on coding (which AI handles) and more on customer engagement and people-forward work.
Your takeaway: IBM's bet is that companies cutting junior workers today will face a costly shortage of mid-level managers in 3-5 years. It's a contrarian move when 37% of organizations plan to replace entry-level roles with AI.
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR
🧩 Capacities Freemium: A "studio for your mind" that replaces the chaos of linear notes with an object-based system, allowing you to link people, books, and meetings into a networked personal wiki.
🐧 HedgeDoc Free and Open Source: A collaborative, web-based markdown editor that lets you and your team co-author notes, graphs, and even presentations in real-time. (Alternative to Google Docs)
🎬 Guidde Freemium: A clever tool that turns any workflow into a professional video guide instantly, automatically adding captions, call-outs, and voiceovers as you click.
🎙️ Speechify Freemium: The ultimate reading assistant that uses AI to turn any text, PDF, or physical book into high-quality audio narrated by world-class voices.
TRENDING
AI Tool Claude Was Used in the Military Raid That Captured Venezuela's Maduro - The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude AI during the operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, deployed through a classified partnership with Palantir.
Disney Fires Off Legal Warning to ByteDance Over Seedance AI Video Tool - Disney sent a cease-and-desist to TikTok's parent company, accusing Seedance 2.0 of treating characters like Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and Baby Yoda as "free public domain clip art." SAG-AFTRA and the MPA piled on, calling it an attack on creators everywhere.
NVIDIA Releases Guide to Run AI Agents Locally on Your Own Computer - NVIDIA published a setup guide for OpenClaw, a free AI agent that lives on your desktop, manages your email, calendar, and files, and runs entirely on your own hardware. The tool works with RTX GPUs and the company's DGX Spark mini-computer, keeping all your data private.
Why Scientists Still Trust Their Gut Over AI - A Noema essay argues that at the cutting edge of science, where no instruction manual exists, researchers rely on intuition to guide experiments and form new theories. Scientists can even develop "gut feelings" for things like quantum mechanics that evolution never prepared us for.
OpenAI Adds "Lockdown Mode" to Protect ChatGPT From Data Theft - OpenAI launched a new security setting that limits how ChatGPT connects to the web and outside apps, blocking attackers from stealing sensitive data through prompt injection. It's live for business accounts now, with consumer access coming soon.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)
Short Film Script Builder: Write your short film with scene cards, shot lists, and proper screenplay formatting
Build a fully functional Short Film Script Builder as an interactive React app. Render the working application immediately - no code display.
**Film concept**: [Your story idea in one sentence]
**Target length**: [1 min / 3 min / 5 min / 10 min]
**Genre**: [Drama, comedy, horror, thriller, documentary, experimental, etc.]
Create these sections:
1. **Story Structure**
• Three-act breakdown for shorts:
🎬 Setup (who, where, what's the problem)
🎬 Confrontation (things get complicated)
🎬 Resolution (how it ends)
• Scene count recommendation by length
• "One clear conflict" rule
• "Search Short Film Structure" button
• Keep it simple reminder
2. **Scene Cards**
• Drag-and-drop scene builder:
- Scene heading (INT/EXT, location, time)
- What happens (brief description)
- Emotional beat (what audience feels)
- Estimated screen time
• Reorder scenes easily
• Color code by act
• Total runtime calculator
3. **Script Formatter**
• Proper screenplay format:
- Scene headings (CAPS)
- Action lines (present tense)
- Character names (CAPS, centered)
- Dialogue (centered, under name)
- Parentheticals (sparingly)
• Auto-format as you type
• Industry-standard layout
• Export as PDF
4. **Dialogue Puncher**
• Make dialogue better:
- Read it aloud test
- Cut unnecessary words
- Subtext check (are they saying what they mean?)
- Character voice distinct?
• "This is on the nose" warnings
• "Show don't tell" reminders
• Dialogue polish suggestions
5. **Shot List Generator**
• For each scene:
- Wide / Medium / Close-up
- Camera movement
- Key visual moments
- Coverage needed
• Basic shot suggestions
• "You can shoot this simply" tips
• Print-ready shot list
6. **One-Page Summary**
• Your film at a glance:
- Logline (one sentence)
- Synopsis (one paragraph)
- Character list
- Location list
- Tone/style notes
• Pitch-ready format
• Share with collaborators
• Export options
Design specs:
- Clapperboard / film set aesthetic
- Screenplay page styling (Courier font)
- Film strip and reel imagery
- Director's chair vibes
- Dark editing room colors
- Scene card pinboard look
- Storyboard frame hints
- Camera and lens iconography
- Hollywood script coverage feel
- Professional filmmaker energy
When "Search Short Film Structure" is clicked, use web search to find short film storytelling techniques and screenplay formatting guides.What this does: Takes your short film from idea to shootable script. Structures your story for the format, formats dialogue properly, generates a basic shot list, and gives you everything you need to actually make the thing.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)
✅ AI Can Now: Process intelligence from satellites, intercepted communications, and social media fast enough to support military operations in real time. Not just planning, but active missions.
❌ Still Can't: Operate without human gatekeepers who set the rules of engagement.
✅ AI Can Now: Resolve a third of Airbnb's customer support tickets without a human touching them, handling booking changes, refunds, and billing questions across voice and chat.
❌ Still Can't: Develop the kind of intuition scientists use to navigate truly unknown territory. At the frontier of physics and math, researchers build "gut feelings" for alien phenomena that no training dataset can replicate.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
In a dying world, a robot investigator discovers androids have started modifying themselves, violating their core protocols. Antonio Banderas stars in this underrated Spanish co-production. The film takes AI autonomy seriously without requiring villains.
AI in HR? It’s happening now.
Deel's free 2026 trends report cuts through all the hype and lays out what HR teams can really expect in 2026. You’ll learn about the shifts happening now, the skill gaps you can't ignore, and resilience strategies that aren't just buzzwords. Plus you’ll get a practical toolkit that helps you implement it all without another costly and time-consuming transformation project.
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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