Our 233rd episode with a summary and discussion of last week’s big AI news!
Recorded on 01/30/2026
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai
In this episode:
Google introduces Gemini AI agent in Chrome for advanced browser functionality, including auto-browsing for pro and ultra subscribers.
OpenAI releases ChatGPT Translator and Prism, expanding its applications beyond core business to language translation and scientific research assistance.
Significant funding rounds and valuations achieved by startups Recursive and New Rofo, focusing on specialized AI chips and optical processors respectively.
Political and social issues, including violence in Minnesota, prompt tech leaders in AI like Ade from Anthropic and Jeff Dean from Google to express concerns about the current administration’s actions.
Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
Tools & Apps
(00:04:09) Google adds Gemini AI-powered ‘auto browse’ to Chrome | The Verge
(00:07:11) Users flock to open source Moltbot for always-on AI, despite major risks - Ars Technica
(00:13:25) Google Brings Genie 3 ‘World Building’ Experiment to AI Ultra Subscribers - CNET
(00:16:17) OpenAI’s ChatGPT translator challenges Google Translate | The Verge
(00:18:27) OpenAI launches Prism, a new AI workspace for scientists | TechCrunch
Applications & Business
(00:22:55) AI chip startup Ricursive hits $4B valuation 2 months after launch
(00:24:38) AI Startup Recursive in Funding Talks at $4 Billion Valuation - Bloomberg
(00:27:30) Flapping Airplanes and the promise of research-driven AI | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:35:34) Qwen3-Max-Thinking debuts with focus on hard math, code
(00:38:26) China’s Moonshot releases a new open-source model Kimi K2.5 and a coding agent | TechCrunch
(00:46:00) Ai2 launches family of open-source AI developer agents that adapt to any codebase - SiliconANGLE
(00:47:46) Tiny startup Arcee AI built a 400B-parameter open source LLM from scratch to best Meta’s Llama
Research & Advancements
(00:52:53) Post-LayerNorm Is Back: Stable, ExpressivE, and Deep
(00:58:00) [2601.19897] Self-Distillation Enables Continual Learning
(01:03:04) [2601.20802] Reinforcement Learning via Self-Distillation
(01:05:58) Teaching Models to Teach Themselves: Reasoning at the Edge of Learnability
Policy & Safety
(01:09:13) Amodei, Hoffman Join Tech Workers Decrying Minnesota Violence - Bloomberg
