When the Machine Opens Its Eyes

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🌟 Good morning,

The world’s spinning with stories, breakthroughs, and a whole lot of curiosity waiting to be unlocked. Today’s your canvas — splash it with bold moves, bright thoughts, and maybe a touch of magic.

_{—Let’s make it count!}

SYNC PICKS
5 Tools to Automate

1. MindPal: Get started with AI multi-agent workflow templates

2. Gallabox: Go from leads to deals on WhatsApp

3. MGX: Chat with the AI team leader, product manager, architect, engineer, and data analyst 24/7 to create websites, blogs, shops, analytics, games, or anything else you want to try.

4. CodeFast: Everything you need to build your SaaS or any online business—even as a complete beginner.

5. Waxwing: AI can only give you output, Human + AI gives you outcome

🦄 Startup Spotlight
The AI startups betting big on next

At this year’s Google Cloud Next in Vegas, the tech giant didn’t just unveil new toys like the Ironwood AI chip and Gemini 2.5 Flash—it also flexed its growing influence by announcing a who's who of AI startups now building on Google Cloud.

• Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the stealthy startup from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, is on board.

• Anysphere, creator of the $10B-valued code editor Cursor, is using Claude via Google.
  Hebbia, backed by a16z and GV, uses Gemini to help lawyers query dense docs.

• Magic, with backing from CapitalG and Eric Schmidt, is building frontier models on Google GPUs.

• Physical Intelligence, a robotics startup backed by Bezos and Sequoia, brings DeepMind talent to the mix.

• Photoroom and Synthesia round out the list with AI editing tools and avatars, powered by Google’s video and image models.

Google also welcomed VC giant Lightspeed to its partner program, offering portfolio startups up to $150K in cloud credits—sweetening the deal for the next AI breakout. Google’s not just keeping pace with Microsoft Azure and AWS—it’s handpicking tomorrow’s AI titans and giving them the keys to its cloud kingdom.

Funding Roundup

Thatch has raised $40M in a Series B round led by Index Ventures, with backing from a16z, General Catalyst, and ADP Ventures. The funding will help expand its ICHRA-powered platform that lets employees choose and manage their health insurance. This brings Thatch’s total funding to $84.5M as it reimagines how healthcare benefits work for modern workforces.

Safe Superintelligence (SSI), founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, has reportedly raised $2B at a $32B valuation in a round led by Greenoaks. This adds to a previous $1B fund, bringing total funding to $3B. The funding will support SSI’s singular mission: to build a safe superintelligence—its only product in development.

Smallcase raised $50M in a Series D round led by Elev8 Ventures, with backing from State Street Global Advisors, Faering Capital, and others. $29M came as primary capital, valuing the wealth tech platform at around $285–290M post-allotment. The funding will help fuel growth after 2.2x revenue expansion and a 74% drop in losses, signalling a leaner, stronger business ahead.

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TODAY IN AI
Google’s AI is learning to see the world as we do

What happens when you teach an AI to see, hear, read, and understand the world like we do? According to DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis — magic, eventually.

In a revealing chat on Reid Hoffman’s Possible podcast, Demis Hassabis pulled back the curtain on Google’s grand AI ambitions. The future? A seamless fusion of Gemini, Google's flagship multimodal model, and Veo, its powerful video-generating AI. The goal is to build a universal digital assistant that doesn’t just respond to text but genuinely understands the real world — physics, motion, and all.

“We built Gemini to be multimodal from the start,” Hassabis said. But adding Veo’s deep video intelligence is the next logical step — and it may just be what powers the AI of tomorrow. How? Through a hefty diet of YouTube videos.

Yep, that’s right. Veo 2 is learning about gravity, motion, and real-world context by binge-watching YouTube, according to Hassabis. And while Google hasn’t officially confirmed how much YouTube content is feeding the machine, its updated terms of service give it the room to experiment.

The trend is clear: the AI arms race is heading toward “omni” models — systems that can generate and understand everything from Studio Ghibli-style art to natural human speech and physical interactions. With OpenAI, Amazon, and Google all chasing the same dream, the AI assistant of the future may be less chatbot and more co-pilot for life.

SYNC FAST

Netflix is testing an OpenAI-powered search tool that lets users find shows based on mood and ultra-specific queries — not just genres or actor names. The feature is currently live for iOS users in Australia and New Zealand, with plans to roll out in the US soon. It’s an opt-in beta, part of Netflix’s push to enhance discovery using AI beyond its traditional recommendation engine.

Qualcomm has acquired Vietnam’s MovianAI, the genAI arm of VinAI, to boost its AI capabilities across smartphones, PCs, and vehicles. The deal brings in top talent, including ex-Google DeepMind scientist Dr. Hung Bui, to accelerate foundational AI innovation. It also strengthens Qualcomm’s ties with Vietnam’s tech ecosystem.

TECH SYNC
Canva crashes the code party

The design darling has launched Visual Suite 2.0, a bold all-in-one workspace stuffed with AI-powered tools for docs, spreadsheets, presentations, code, and more. With Canva Sheets, users get a creative twist on spreadsheets, blending data with visuals and AI-generated insights. Canva Code, their answer to Copilot and Gemini, lets you build websites and widgets with plain English prompts — no coding required.

But that’s not all — a new AI chatbot serves as your creative copilot, while the revamped Photo Editor introduces pro-level features like object removal and generative backgrounds. With 230M+ users already on board, Canva's betting its all-in-one platform will make siloed software a thing of the past.

MORE TO KNOW

YouTube is exploring a daily timer for Shorts to help users curb endless scrolling.
The unreleased feature would let users set time limits, after which Shorts pause for the rest of the day. It follows a growing trend of digital well-being tools as screen time concerns rise.

ChatGPT became the most downloaded non-game app in March worldwide with 46M installs — overtaking Instagram and TikTok. The spike followed viral image-generation updates and a 148% YoY growth. Experts say it’s not just features but ChatGPT’s rising cultural clout that’s fueling the surge.