DeepSeek disruption

Amazon bets big on personalization

March 28, 2025

Welcome back! After more than a year of neglect, Waze is officially dropping Google Assistant on iOS.

The voice support feature had been broken since early 2023, and Google quietly let it die. As Gemini takes center stage, we’re seeing more of these quiet shutdowns. What’s a dropped tech feature that you miss? Reply and let me know.

DeepSeek’s latest model just changed the game

Bloomberg

With no blog post and barely a whisper, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released a 685B parameter model that runs at 20 tokens per second on a Mac Studio.

  • Efficient MoE architecture: Only 37B parameters are active per inference—a huge drop from DeepSeek’s earlier 67B dense model, and far lighter than most western LLMs, which often activate 100B+ at runtime.

  • MIT license: It’s open-source and free to use commercially—no API key, no gatekeeping.

  • Early benchmarks: Beats Claude Sonnet 3.5 across a range of tasks, including reasoning and coding.

What it all means: While US labs keep their best models locked behind paywalls, DeepSeek is building a powerful open ecosystem. Chinese developers now have access to frontier-level models—without the massive capital investment.

“Alexa, back that startup”

Amazon is shifting its strategy. The Alexa Fund, once focused on voice tech and hardware, is now targeting AI-first startups—and it’s already invested in four. Instead of trying to create everything in house, Amazon is betting on the builders. Here’s what each sides gets:

  • For Amazon: A front-row seat to promising agents, multimodal tools, and productivity apps it can fold into the broader Alexa and AWS ecosystem.

  • For startups: Access to Amazon’s internal APIs, AWS credits, and strategic support, giving the startups instant scale, credibility, and cloud infrastructure. And, of course, cash.

The bigger trend: Tech giants are realizing they can’t win this race alone. The next generation of AI may be shaped by partnerships—where giants provide the platforms and startups bring the innovation.

Amazon’s shopping AI wants to know your vibe

This week, Amazon rolled out a new generative AI feature called “Interests,” letting shoppers search the site with more personal prompts like:

  • “Coffee gear for design nerds”

  • “Gifts for introverted extroverts”

The assistant translates vague ideas into actual product categories and notifies you when new, relevant items drop.

Why it matters: The future of search is personalized, contextual, and persistent. Amazon isn’t just helping you find what you want—it’s learning how you think.

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AI research assistant

Abstractify

Abstractify helps researchers and students digest complex academic articles by summarizing dense material and highlighting key points.

How you can use it:

  • Understand lengthy papers in minutes with AI-generated abstracts

  • Highlight important sections automatically for faster notetaking

  • Get citation suggestions based on your topic

 Pricing: Free and paid plans available

Instant website audits for conversions

CRO Benchmark

CRO Benchmark evaluates your site’s landing pages against 100+ data points to identify friction points and optimize for better conversion rates.

How you can use it:

  • Run automated CRO audits to boost performance

  • Benchmark your site’s design and UX against competitors

  • Get actionable suggestions tailored to your traffic patterns

Pricing: Free

Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • Why juggle multiple tools when you can have it all in one? Microsoft Teams Free brings calling, chat, file sharing, and more into a single app—without the price tag.*

  • Claude 3.7 gives economic insights on model use.

  • Pika lets you talk to your younger self.

  • Join Google DeepMind as an Executive Communications Manager to drive strategic messaging for AI leaders.

  • QwenLM drops visual AI that solves problems from video and images.

  • Instacart’s new AI keeps grocery shelves stocked.

  • Garmin’s latest tool brings AI coaching to your workouts.

  • Google Maps remembers your screenshots and helps plan trips better.

*This is sponsored advertising content.

AI note takers are everywhere… but which ones actually work? I tested them all.

What happens when you turn yourself into a game character? I found out.

That’s a wrap! See you next week.

—Matt (FutureTools.io)

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