Inception raises $50M for diffusion code models

Our 225th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!

Recorded on 11/16/2025

Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee

Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai

Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/

In this episode:

• New AI model releases include GPT-5.1 from OpenAI and Ernie 5.0 from Baidu, each with updated features and capabilities.
• Self-driving technology advancements from Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI’s IPO highlight significant progress in the automotive sector.
• Startup funding updates include Incept taking $50M for diffusion models, while Cursor and Gamma secure significant valuations for coding and presentation tools respectively.
• AI-generated content is gaining traction with songs topping charts and new marketplaces for AI-generated voices, indicating evolving trends in synthetic media.

Timestamps:

• (00:01:19) News Preview
• Tools & Apps
• (00:02:13) OpenAI says the brand-new GPT-5.1 is ‘warmer’ and has more ‘personality’ options | The Verge
• (00:04:51) Baidu Unveils ERNIE 5.0 and a Series of AI Applications at Baidu World 2025, Ramps Up Global Push
• (00:07:00) ByteDance’s Volcano Engine debuts coding agent at $1.3 promo price
• (00:08:04) Google will let users call stores, browse products, and check out using AI | The Verge
• (00:10:41) Fei-Fei Li's World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial product | TechCrunch
• (00:13:30) OpenAI says it's fixed ChatGPT's em dash problem | TechCrunch
• Applications & Business
• (00:16:01) Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan | TechCrunch
• (00:18:06) Baidu teases next-gen AI training, inference accelerators • The Register
• (00:20:50) Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to exit and launch own start-up
• (00:24:41) Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Tool From Making Purchases - Bloomberg
• (00:27:32) AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says  | TechCrunch
• (00:29:33) Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text | TechCrunch
• (00:31:14) Coding assistant Cursor raises $2.3B 5 months after its previous round | TechCrunch
• (00:33:56) China's Baidu says it's running 250,000 robotaxi rides a week — same as Alphabet's Waymo
• (00:35:26) Driverless Tech Firm Pony AI Raises $863 Million in HK Listing
• Projects & Open Source
• (00:36:30) Moonshot's Kimi K2 Thinking emerges as leading open source AI
• Research & Advancements
• (00:39:22) [2510.26787] Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work
• (00:45:21) OpenAI Researchers Train Weight Sparse Transformers to Expose Interpretable Circuits - MarkTechPost
• (00:49:34) Kimi Linear: An Expressive, Efficient Attention Architecture
• (00:53:33) Watch Google DeepMind’s new AI agent learn to play video games | The Verge
• (00:57:34) arXiv Changes Rules After Getting Spammed With AI-Generated 'Research' Papers
• Policy & Safety
• (00:59:35) Stability AI largely wins UK court battle against Getty Images over copyright and trademark | AP News
• (01:01:48) Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; orders it to pay damages | TechCrunch
• (01:03:48) Microsoft's $15.2B UAE investment turns Gulf State into test case for US AI diplomacy | TechCrunch
• Synthetic Media & Art
• (01:06:39) An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All | Whiskey Riff
• (01:10:59) Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won’t be the last | CNN
• (01:13:34) ElevenLabs’ new AI marketplace lets brands use famous voices for ads | The Verge

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