Meta's AI advantage 📈

Plus: Google signs on to the EU code

August 01, 2025

Welcome back! The hardest part about covering AI tools for a living? I just want to play with them all day. Tweak videos with Aleph, make music with Suno, build games with Claude Code, generate goofy clips with Veo...the list keeps growing. 

If I had an extra hour in the day, I know exactly how I’d spend it: messing around with the cool stuff coming out every week.

If you had a bonus hour just to experiment, which AI tool would you dive into first?

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Zuckerberg bets on AI for your personal life

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event September 25, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel Orbegozo/File Photo

Meta’s latest AI push isn’t about work—it’s about you. In a blog post and video Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a new vision for AI: one focused on personal growth and everyday life, rather than workplace productivity. 

  • Behind the pivot: Meta has launched a new internal division called Meta Superintelligence Labs to pursue this vision, with plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and build massive “superclusters” to support the program. 

  • Plus: Zuckerberg also hinted that smart glasses could be central to making superintelligence truly personal.

  • “I think in the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI—or some way to interact with AI—I think you’re…probably [going to] be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage compared to other people,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday.

Why this angle: Meta is leaning into a growing trend—51% of people already use AI tools for personal rather than work-related tasks. The approach sets Meta apart from competitors like OpenAI that are focused on enterprise adoption.

The bigger strategy: Meta’s vision is ambitious and expensive—the company said it plans to spend up to $72B on 2025 capital expenditures (read: building AI infrastructure).

It’s also triggering a full-blown AI talent war, with reports of Meta offering $100M compensation packages to poach top researchers from OpenAI. If successful, this could reposition Meta from a social media company to the go-to provider of personal superintelligence and the platform for everyday AI interaction.

Google says yes to EU’s AI rules

Google announced Wednesday that it will sign the European Union’s voluntary code of practice for AI, a framework designed to align companies with the region’s upcoming AI Act. The code lays out expectations around safety, transparency, and copyright compliance for general-purpose models. 

  • Why Google signed on: According to Google’s blog post, the company supports the guidelines to ensure European users get “prompt and widespread deployment” of AI tools.

  • Google estimates that fully embracing AI could add €1.4 trillion to Europe’s economy by 2034. 

Still, it noted concerns that overly strict interpretations could hamper innovation and competitiveness—particularly around IP protections and approval timelines.

Not everyone’s on board: Meta refused to sign the code earlier this month, calling it overly broad and legally ambiguous. “Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI,” said Meta global affairs chief Joel Kaplan.

The compliance calculus: As global regulation accelerates, Big Tech faces a choice—play by the EU’s rulebook or push back to protect product velocity. Google’s decision signals a willingness to cooperate, even with reservations, while Meta is betting on a looser regulatory approach, especially in US markets.

Anthropic eyes $170B valuation in massive new raise

Anthropic is in talks to raise up to $5 billion in fresh capital, according to Bloomberg. If finalized, the funding would nearly triple Anthropic’s valuation from March, bringing the tech startup to a jaw-dropping $170 billion valuation.

Money meets morals: Iconiq Capital is expected to lead the round, with potential participation from Qatar’s Investment Authority and Singapore’s GIC. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei acknowledged internal discomfort about the ethics of taking capital from authoritarian-aligned sovereign funds, calling it “a pretty difficult principle to run a business on,” according to a leaked memo viewed by Wired. 

Why it matters: Training, deploying, and scaling cutting-edge models is wildly expensive—and funding pressure is warping even the most safety-focused labs.

While we’re talking Anthropic: It’s now the favorite among enterprise teams. Anthropic claims 32% of the enterprise LLM market by usage, according to a report from Menlo Ventures. OpenAI comes in second at 25%.

From Design to Live Website in Minutes, Not Months

Ready to ditch developer dependencies forever? Framer transforms your design instincts into production-ready websites that look like they cost six figures to build.

This isn't just another website builder. Framer gives you:

  • AI Wireframer Magic: One prompt creates a structured, responsive site with clean sections and pre-filled copy.

  • Scroll Animations Without Code: Craft buttery parallax effects and micro-interactions with simple sliders—zero coding required.

  • One-Click Global Launch: AI translates every page, slug, and meta tag into any language. Go multilingual before lunch.

Whether you're launching a startup or building your portfolio, Framer handles hosting, blazing-fast load times, and SEO while you focus on what matters.

Journal smarter, not harder

DailyMe

DailyMe helps you reflect on your day and track emotional patterns over time.

How you can use it:

  • Get AI-generated prompts to kickstart your daily reflection

  • Spot patterns in your moods over time

  • Surface recurring themes and topics across your entries

  • Connect life events to emotional trends you might miss on your own

Pricing: Free

Your second brain, synced

Messync

Messync connects tools like Google Drive, Notion, and Slack into one searchable workspace, so you can use AI to reveal how your info fits together.

How you can use it:

  • Ask questions across all your tools with natural language search

  • Build semantic knowledge graphs to map how concepts connect

  • Consolidate fragmented docs, chats, and files into one space

  • Collaborate with teammates while your AI assistant keeps track

Pricing: Free

Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • These are the 40 jobs most and lease likely to be replaced by AI, according to Microsoft Research.

  • Tim Cook says Apple is “very open” to AI-related acquisitions.

  • Krea released the open weights for its FLUX.1 AI model, making it publicly available.

  • Manus.im launched Wide Research to deepen understanding of how AI agents scale.

  • OpenAI is launching Stargate Norway, its first AI data center project in Europe.

  • TikTok is introducing new parental controls, fact-checking tools, and AI-powered moderation to improve content safety.

  • Amazon is investing in Fable and launching an AI-powered Showrunner tool for user-created TV shows.

  • Anthropic has joined the CMS health tech pledge to support healthcare interoperability and innovation.

Want a masterclass on Veo 3? I’ve got you covered. Here’s how I’m using it (and how you can too).

That’s a wrap! You weighed in last edition, and nearly half of you said AI-generated models are fair game (just like Photoshop). The future of fashion might be synthetic, and you’re here for it.

See you next week!

—Matt (FutureTools.io)

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