AI love triangle

Plus: OpenAI puts Oracle in orbit

September 12, 2025

Welcome back! Forget smart speakers. AI is entering the cabinet. Albania just named its digital assistant Diella a “virtual cabinet member” to oversee public procurement. Already helping citizens on the e-Albania portal, Diella will begin reviewing tenders and—step by step—shift decisions out of ministries in an anti-corruption push the prime minister says will make bidding fully transparent.

Would you trust a virtual minister to score government contracts?

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OpenAI Inks $300B Cloud Deal with Oracle

Surging share prices increased Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison’s wealth by around $100 billion Wednesday. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI has agreed to purchase $300 billion worth of compute power from Oracle over five years, starting in 2027. The deal would mark one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed.

The backstory: OpenAI began using Oracle’s infrastructure in 2024 and moved away from relying solely on Microsoft Azure earlier this year. It also joined forces with Oracle and SoftBank on Project Stargate, a $500 billion plan to build domestic data centers. And in a sign of just how hungry it is for compute, OpenAI reportedly signed a separate deal with Google Cloud this spring.

Big picture: Training and deploying frontier models requires massive capacity, and hyperscalers are battling to lock in multi-billion-dollar contracts. OpenAI’s move shows that the path to dominance may be paved less with code and more with compute.

Microsoft Taps Anthropic to Power Office Apps

Microsoft is bringing Anthropic’s Claude models into Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint—ending its exclusive reliance on OpenAI for productivity AI. 

What Claude brings: Claude Sonnet 4 shines in areas like designing sleek PowerPoint slides. Meanwhile, Word might offer sharper writing suggestions, and Outlook may get more natural email management. GitHub Copilot users already see multiple model options; now Office customers will too.

It’s not a breakup: OpenAI remains central to Microsoft’s AI roadmap. The two continue to collaborate on frontier models, and OpenAI still leans heavily on Microsoft Azure for infrastructure. But Microsoft is clearly broadening its bench—from integrating xAI’s Grok to debuting its own MAI-1 and MAI-Voice models.

Why it matters: Diversifying means self-reliance. By betting on multiple providers, Microsoft reduces risk, sharpens performance in niche use cases, and ensures it isn’t tethered to one partner.

Former Anchor Founders Launch Oboe to Reinvent Learning

Nir Zicherman and Michael Mignano, who sold podcasting startup Anchor to Spotify, are back with Oboe. This AI-powered learning app generates lightweight courses on nearly any topic from a simple prompt. The startup is backed by $4M in seed funding (with investors like Eniac Ventures, Scott Belsky, and Tim Ferriss).

What it does: Oboe offers nine formats, including text, visuals, audio lectures, interactive quizzes, and podcast-style conversations. A multi-agent system handles everything in parallel and can generate courses from history to life skills. 

The big picture: Oboe wants to make learning as easy as scrolling TikTok. Instead of rigid curricula, it aims to serve curiosity on demand—from quick primers to deeper dives. The founders are betting they can do for education what Anchor did for audio.

Better Context = Better Results

Everybody knows detailed prompts get better results—but no one has time to type out every bit of context. Why not just say them?

Wispr Flow is smart voice-to-text that helps you work 4x faster in every app. They’re the only dictation that combines:

  • Clean output: edits out filler words, formats text, and captures corrections

  • Personal dictionary: learns your unique names and terms so they’re always right

  • Snippets: creates voice shortcuts for frequently used links, answers, or templates

  • Features for vibe coders: recognizes syntax, variables, developer jargon

  • Cross-platform: available on Mac, Windows, and iOS

  • Enterprise-grade security: with SOC2 Type II and HIPAA compliance

Whether it’s emails, prompts, or code, Flow just makes it faster to get your thoughts out of your head and into your tools. Learn more here.

Read the room, even on Zoom

Nonverbia

Nonverbia interprets tone, body language, and emotional cues in real time across 100+ languages. It gives sales reps live coaching prompts, flags engagement signals, and generates CRM-ready summaries and follow-ups.

How you can use it:

  • Adjust delivery on the fly based on reactions

  • Spot objections and buying signals early

  • Forecast deal risks using behavioral data

Pricing: Free & paid

Professional voiceovers in minutes

Vidvoi

Vidvoi lets you add captions and narration to videos under 90 seconds. Upload a clip, and it auto-generates a script, voiceover, and captions in nine languages.

How you can use it:

  • Produce multilingual TikToks or Reels

  • Add professional narration to ad creatives

  • Scale video production

Pricing: Free & paid

Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • Anthropic gives Claude memory, letting AI recall projects and user preferences.

  • Microsoft and OpenAI renew their partnership with a focus on safety and innovation.

  • OpenAI issues statement clarifying the roles of its nonprofit and benefit corporation.

  • Alibaba debuts Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B, a model built for speed and lower costs.

  • Replit launches Agent 3, an autonomous AI that tests and fixes code automatically.

  • Thinking Machines develops new approach to make LLM outputs reproducible.

  • 7-Eleven tests shelf-stocking and cleaning robots in Tokyo to fight labor shortages.

  • ByteDance unveils Seedream 4.0, an AI image generator to rival Google’s Nano Banana.

ChatGPT just got a cheat sheet. 35 tips you’ll wish you knew on day one.

That’s a wrap! Earlier this week, I asked what you thought of AI influencing your music taste. Nearly half of you (46.8%) said it really depends…you’ll reserve judgment until you actually hear the track.

One person put it best: “I see AI as a tool, not a replacement. I use it to enhance my own music and spark new ideas.”

See you next week!

—Matt (FutureTools.io)

P.S. This newsletter is 100% written by a human. Okay, maybe 96%.