Need to Know News - April 17th, 2025
In this week's Need to Know News edition:
🤖 Kellanova cuts product development time by MONTHS using AI that predicts food trends before competitors even notice them...
🤖 Sam Altman is secretly building an X competitor that helps users create "viral content" with AI — and Musk should be worried...
🤖 70% of businesses have MORE AI ideas than they can fund — and executives fear the wrong choice could cost them their jobs...
And whole lot more!
A Big Week for OpenAI
OpenAI Launches o3 and o4-mini Models
OpenAI has released o3 and o4-mini, their smartest models yet. These models combine reasoning abilities with full tool access. That includes web search, file analysis, visual reasoning, and image generation.
They're trained to strategically use tools to solve complex problems in under a minute. Tests show they make 20% fewer errors than previous models. Particularly, in coding, math, and visual tasks. They're also better at working with images—analyzing charts and diagrams even when blurry. Both models are available now to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users.
GPT-4.1 Family Arrives in API
OpenAI also launched three new models for developers: GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano. These models beat GPT-4o with big improvements in coding and following instructions. They can handle up to 1 million tokens of context (like 8 React codebases!) and understand it better.
The models were built for real-world tasks like software engineering, analyzing large documents, and handling customer requests with less supervision. GPT-4.1 is 26% cheaper than GPT-4o, while the mini version matches GPT-4o's smarts with 83% less cost.
Full Story
OpenAI Is Building A Social Network
OpenAI is developing a social network similar to X. The project is still in early stages, with an internal prototype featuring a social feed focused on ChatGPT's image generation abilities.
Sam Altman has been quietly gathering feedback about it. The move would intensify rivalries with Elon Musk and Meta, who are pursuing similar AI-social integrations. One key goal is to help OpenAI gather its own real-time data for AI training - something X and Meta already have. The prototype aims to use AI to help users create better, more viral content.
How Food Giants Are Embracing AI to Forecast Recipes, Regulatory Hurdles
Food giants like Kellanova and Ingredion are using AI to solve real business problems. Kellanova uses AI to find substitute ingredients when supplies run low and to track complex regulations worldwide. Ingredion created a digital "twin" of its supply chain to simulate how problems like tariffs would affect their business.
Both companies also use AI to spot upcoming food trends much faster. Tastewise, an AI platform, analyzes billions of data points from social media, recipes, and restaurants to predict what consumers will want next. This is all helping companies develop products months faster than before.
Claude Is Getting A Voice – Three Different Ones!
Anthropic is testing a voice mode for Claude's iOS app with three voice choices: Mellow, Airy, and Buttery. The voice interface lets users upload files, photos, and documents to discuss with Claude. Users can see their uploads right on the voice screen. Anthropic is also quietly developing Gmail and Calendar search tools to join the existing Drive search feature.
The text composer now has a separate reasoning button, matching recent web version changes. These additions, especially voice mode, represent a major upgrade for the Claude App.
Businesses Struggle to Pick the Right AI Use Case: Report
Companies aren't struggling to find AI projects – they're struggling to pick the right ones. A Snowflake survey of 1,900 business leaders found 70% have more AI ideas than they can fund. Over half find it hard to decide based on costs or business impact.
The stakes are high: 71% believe picking the wrong project will hurt their market position, and 60% worry it could threaten their job. Experts recommend focusing on high-value projects first and making AI decisions collaboratively between IT and business teams.
WSJ: Marketers Rush to Give AI Both Creation and Quality Control
The Wall Street Journal reports marketers are increasingly letting AI systems handle both content creation and quality review. Prudential has hired an AI "digital co-worker" to build personalized webpages using customer data. At the same time Opella's AI "factory" generates hundreds of marketing materials daily.
"You're going to relinquish control. It makes too much sense," consultant Noah Brier tells WSJ. Companies are even developing AI quality-checkers for regulated industries. The Journal highlights video as the final frontier. Brands like Puma are experimenting with AI-generated commercials that still need human refinement.
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Grok Gets Personal: Musk's AI Now Remembers Your Conversations
Elon Musk's xAI just gave Grok a memory upgrade that lets it remember details from past chats. TechCrunch reports this new feature helps Grok give more personalized recommendations based on your preferences.
Similar to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, Grok's memory is transparent – users can see what information it stores and delete specific memories. The feature is available in beta on Grok.com and mobile apps (except in the EU and UK) and will come to X soon. Users can turn it off in settings.
Google’s Veo 2 Video Generating Model Comes to Gemini
Google is adding its Veo 2 video generator to Gemini Advanced subscribers. Users can create 8-second video clips at 720p resolution and easily share them to TikTok or YouTube. There's also a cool new feature called Whisk Animate that turns AI-generated images into videos.
All videos come watermarked with Google's SynthID technology. While this helps Google compete with OpenAI's Sora, many artists worry these tools threaten creative jobs - potentially disrupting 100,000 film and animation positions by 2026.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
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