Last month, I explored AI’s growing influence and challenges. This month, AI’s rapid evolution continues as DeepSeek’s viral rise disrupts the market, OpenAI’s Operator pushes agentic AI forward, and companies like Yelp and Capital One integrate AI deeper into consumer experiences. Meanwhile, shifting policies, from Trump’s executive order to Apple’s default AI settings, highlight the ongoing debate over innovation and control. Let’s dive in.
AI Model Releases
OpenAI launches Deep Research, a ChatGPT powered tool that offers expert and fast analysis. Available to Pro users who pay $200 per month, this feature can automate complex, multi-step internet research. OpenAI stated in a blog post that it can perform a task that would normally take a human many hours, in tens of minutes instead.
DeepSeek went viral after the release of its latest model R1 on January 20th. DeepSeek is similar to other AI engines like ChatGPT, with a website and a mobile app – which topped the download lists at the major app stores. The biggest news besides being FREE to access, is that DeepSeek is promising great AI benchmark performance, offering efficiency in both cost and energy consumption without sacrificing actual performance. This caused a stock market dip as investors feared that DeepSeek could greatly disrupt this space. As a Chinese company, researchers have identified censorship issues and users can expect some topics to be heavily regulated by the Chinese government.
AI Agents
OpenAI’s Operator has launched in preview to Pro users, promising to use its own browser to perform tasks for you. A big step on the march to more advanced Agentic AI, Operator collaborates with companies such as ThumbTack, Uber, Instacart, Priceline & Uber among others to provide new customer service experiences as the Operator agent handles tasks for you. As an example, Operator can work with ThumbTack to find and book various services for the user such as an emergency plumber or a house cleaner for the weekend.
Capital One AI agent will help you buy your next car. Using multiple AI agents the Chat Concierge, which will be found on participating dealer websites, can perform tasks like estimating a trade-in and scheduling appointments with salespeople. “…if a user tells Chat Concierge that they want a “cheaper” car, the system understands what cheaper means, what to compare it to, and what to offer the user. “
AI in Search
Best AI Work Assistant is crowned by Joanna Stern of the WSJ as she looks at ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. DeepSeek. Joanna puts these three bots through their paces to see which ones are best at which tasks and whether one tool can meet all her workplace needs.
Yelp adds AI review insights to the AI powered summaries for businesses that appeared at the top of listings. Now Yelp is using LLMs to help analyze the sentiment of reviews and enables themes to be identified and categorized in new ways. Categories include food quality, service and ambiance.
Reddit Answers offers an alternative and local method to use AI to access the wealth of information available on Reddit. Launched in December, the tool allows visitors to ask a question in a conversational interface and then receive “curated summaries of relevant conversation and details” from across Reddit.
AI Impact
Trump weighs in on AI signing an executive order demanding that the U.S. must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias and engineered social agendas in order for the U.S. to compete most effectively. Trump also repealed the 2023 AI guardrails that Biden had put in place to try to prevent AI tools that have sometimes been biased in the past.
Microsoft looking out for consumers and the future is not something you hear every day, but it recently formed an Advanced Planning Unit in its AI division to study “the societal, health, and work implications of AI the company hopes to build”. By implementing scenario planning, Microsoft may be able to predict impending issues with AI implementations and reduce their negative impact.
Until next time! We hope you’ll continue to follow us here for the latest AI marketplace news roundups, and get in touch if you want to explore these updates and build solutions together.
