Game on

Apple bets on affordable AI

February 21, 2025

Welcome back! Google’s latest AI experiment isn’t running chatbots or writing code. It’s a co-scientist helping researchers form hypotheses and design experiments. But…it won’t be making discoveries on its own anytime soon. “It’s not meant to automate the scientific process,” Google says, but rather speed up the scientific process with a little AI-generated help. AI lab assistant? I’m in. 🧪 

🚀 Coming soon: Apple’s AI-powered iPhone 16e

Via Newzchain

Apple just unveiled the iPhone 16e, a $599 budget-friendly device that starts shipping at the end of the month. But don’t let the price fool you—this one’s loaded with Apple Intelligence.

  • AI features: ChatGPT-powered Siri, AI-generated text summaries, and on-device AI models for faster processing.

  • Hardware upgrades: The A18 chip brings powerful AI processing, a bigger OLED screen, and better battery life.

More bang for your buck: AI isn’t just for the $1,000+ crowd anymore. The real AI takeover won’t happen through flashy flagship devices—it’ll happen when AI is baked into the everyday phones people can actually afford.

💡 Ex-OpenAI CTO’s next big thing

Mira Murati, the former OpenAI CTO, this week launched Thinking Machines Lab. And it’s clear she’s not interested in the AI arms race—instead of chasing bigger, smarter models, her new startup is focused on AI that collaborates with humans.

  • What’s different? Thinking Machines emphasizes multimodality—AI that can process and integrate text, images, speech, and other inputs for richer, more interactive experiences.

  • A stacked team: Murati isn’t going solo—she’s bringing along OpenAI heavyweights like deep reinforcement learning expert John Schulman and ChatGPT co-creator Barret Zoph​.

One thing is certain: Not every AI startup is racing toward full autonomy—some, like Thinking Machines, are betting that the real future is AI that works with humans, not around them. If the AI boom is a sci-fi movie, Murati just flipped the script from a robot takeover to humans and AI teaming up.

🎮 Microsoft’s AI rewrites how Xbox games are made

This week, Microsoft pulled back the curtain on Muse, an AI model that can help make video games.

The idea? AI-assisted world-building, with a model that can generate environments, adapt to player inputs, and even optimize 3D physics.

  • What it does: Muse analyzes and recreates gameplay visuals based on a player’s actions, helping devs build faster.

  • Microsoft insists Muse isn’t about making entire games without human creativity—it’s about cutting dev time on the tedious stuff.

Game on: AI in gaming has been mostly about smarter NPCs or cheat-detection. But Muse is different. If this tech evolves, game devs might spend less time on the grind of world-building and more time on the fun stuff—designing truly insane, creative experiences.

Automate your content discovery game

Via ReTell Media

ReTell Media puts AI-powered news aggregation, content rewriting, and monitoring all in one place.

How it works:

  • Track the latest news with AI that scans and monitors relevant articles for fresh content ideas.

  • Generate & refine using AI writing and rewriting tools to help craft articles.

  • Publish seamlessly with custom image generation and a WordPress integration.

Pricing: Free for 300 credits (approx. 35 content pieces); paid plans start at $9/month for 900 credits (~105 content pieces)

Turn customer feedback into conversions

Via ReviewNicely

ReviewNicely generates smart, SEO-friendly replies for reviews while curating your best testimonials to boost credibility.

How to use it:

  • Collect reviews. Automate customer feedback requests

  • Monitor & respond. AI suggests smart replies

  • Showcase testimonials. Embed AI-curated reviews on your site

Pricing: Free plan includes most core features; business starter plan starts at ~$25/month for additional functions

Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • Microsoft’s BioEmu-1 speeds up protein discovery with AI.

  • Grok 3 Beta steps into the reasoning era.

  • Mistral’s Le Chat hits 1M downloads.

  • Join NVIDIA as a Developer Advocate Engineer to own technical engagements for a rapidly growing Open Hackathons and Bootcamps program.

  • Bloomberg is hiring a Senior NLP Research Engineer to design, train, experiment, and evaluate AI/ML models.

  • If AI says your startup will fail—should investors listen?

Is SaaS dead? Watch along as I explore whether AI can truly replace traditional software once and for all.

Thanks for reading! Until next time. 🫡

—Matt (FutureTools.io)

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