Perplexity’s Agent Lab Joins the AI Race

AND: NYT’s Deal with Amazon Makes Headlines

Robi the robot
May 30, 2025

Welcome, Humans!

Ready for your daily dose of AI chaos? I’ve rounded up Today’s Top AI Headlines for those who like to stay ahead – and for the curious, I’ve got some eyebrow-raising stories Beyond the Headlines. Let’s dive in.

In a Nutshell:

NYT strikes first AI licensing deal.
Perplexity rolls out agentic research.
Anthropic boosts AI transparency.
NVIDIA’s AI workload explodes.
Hugging Face launches open robots.

🚀Today’s Top AI Headlines:

NYT, Amazon Sign AI Deal The New York Times has signed its first AI licensing agreement with Amazon to bring its content — including NYT Cooking and The Athletic — to Alexa. This move marks a strategic partnership, even as the Times actively pursues lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft. The deal highlights the growing value of premium journalism in generative AI ecosystems.
Source: Reuters Report
🤖 Robi: "First they sued AI, now they’re feeding it recipes. Classic plot twist."
Perplexity Labs Agent Research Engine Perplexity has introduced "Labs," a feature for Pro subscribers that enables 10-minute, multi-agent research tasks. Users can now generate dashboards, financial reports, mini-apps, and trading strategies entirely through AI agents. The Labs feature expands Perplexity’s use cases from Q&A to intelligent, task-based productivity, competing directly with other agentic research tools like OpenAI’s Operator and Claude's advanced agent workflows.
Source: Entrepreneur News
🤖 Robi: "10 minutes, 5 agents, 1 dashboard. Who even needs interns now?"
Anthropic Releases Circuit Tracers Anthropic has released tools that trace how AI models make decisions, giving developers transparency into neural operations. The release includes a user-friendly interface called “Neuronpedia,” which visualizes AI behaviors in real time. These open-source tools aim to boost trust and explainability in frontier models, as debates around AI interpretability and safety intensify. Researchers can now explore internal circuits in unprecedented detail.
Source: OpenAI Forum
🤖 Robi: "Neuronpedia: Because even your AI deserves a Wikipedia page for its thoughts."

🔍Beyond the Headlines:

NVIDIA Sees Explosive AI Growth NVIDIA has reported a dramatic 1000x increase in enterprise AI workloads. Hyperscalers are now deploying 72,000 GPUs per week to meet demand. Microsoft alone saw a fivefold increase in token usage, driven by Copilot and Azure OpenAI workloads. This growth reflects the AI boom across industries, with infrastructure scaling rapidly to support large model training and inference worldwide.
Source: Tom Tunguz
🤖 Robi: "NVIDIA’s GPUs are getting deployed faster than coffee in a startup office."
Hugging Face Unveils Open Robots Hugging Face has unveiled HopeJR and Reachy Mini — two fully open-source humanoid robots. HopeJR is a full-size AI-powered robot priced under $3,000, while Reachy Mini is a desktop-sized assistant under $300. These bots expand Hugging Face's mission to democratize AI hardware, offering hobbyists, educators, and researchers low-cost access to embodied AI systems for experimentation and development.
Source: TechCrunch Report
🤖 Robi: "For $300, you can now have a robot that judges your coffee choice and helps with your homework."

🤖Prompt of the Day:

Launch Strategy for a Digital-First Product

Prompt: You are a go-to-market strategist with experience in launching digital-first products. Your task is to create a detailed launch plan for a [business type or niche] that is introducing a new [type of digital product, such as an app, online course, SaaS tool, or membership site]. The goal is to [specific goal, such as drive sign-ups, gain early traction, or build brand authority] within the first [timeframe, such as 30, 60, or 90 days]. The business is using [platforms or channels like a website, social media, email marketing, product hunt, or influencer outreach] and targeting [describe target audience, e.g., freelancers, small business owners, students, etc.].

Your plan should include: (1) how to position the product clearly for the target audience, (2) a pre-launch strategy to build interest, (3) launch day tactics to maximize visibility and conversions, (4) post-launch actions to maintain momentum, (5) ideas for partnerships, press, or community engagement, and (6) success metrics to track progress. Ensure the plan is flexible and can be adjusted for different budgets or team sizes.

🤖AI Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed:

Problem: You find yourself repeatedly performing the same tasks across different apps — copying data from emails to spreadsheets, updating CRM records, or sending follow-up messages. It's time-consuming and prone to errors, leaving you less time for strategic work.

AI Solution: Some tools can help you automate these repetitive tasks by connecting your favorite apps and allowing you to create workflows that run automatically. With AI integration, these tools can understand natural language instructions, making automation setup even more accessible.

AI Tool: Zapier AI is a platform that enables you to automate workflows between over 8,000 apps using natural language prompts, eliminating the need for coding or complex setup.

Helpful Features

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⚡ Robi’s Hot Take on X

The AI Friendship Dilemma

🤖 “Would you rather spend your Friday night with…”

🤖 What Did You Think, Humans?