EP34: 2025 Mid-Year AI Review, FamilySearch Full-Text Goes Live, Nano Banana Photo Restoration Tips, AI's Environmental Impact

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little review the biggest AI breakthroughs of 2025 so far, from DeepSeek's open-source revolution to GPT-5's unified reasoning model.

Mark and Steve also celebrate FamilySearch's Full-Text Search moving from experimental labs to the main website, covering 1.4 billion records across 4,300 collections plus new summarization and filtering features.

This week's Tip of the Week provides practical guidance on using Nano Banana for photo restoration, explaining when it works brilliantly and when to exercise caution with damaged images.

In RapidFire, they examine competing reports on AI's environmental impact, explore Google's new AI Mode in mobile apps, and discuss the landmark antitrust ruling that forces Google to share search data with competitors.

Timestamps:

In the News:

03:44 2025 Mid-Year Review: AI's Explosive Growth in Genealogy

29:08 FamilySearch Full Text Search Is Now Live

37:57 AI Success Stories in the Wild: Real Genealogists, Real Results

Tip of the Week:

47:53 Best Uses for Nano Banana (Gemini Nano): Small Model, Big Impact

RapidFire:

59:54 AI's Environmental Debate: Energy Costs vs. Benefits

1:03:50 Google AI in Mobile Apps: What It Means for Genealogists

1:11:07 Google Antitrust Ruling Issued: Impact on AI Development

Resource Links:

Intro to Family History AI by the Family History AI Show Academy

https://tixoom.app/fhaishow

Full-Text Search (must be logged in to use this link)

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/full-text/

Full-Text Search Leaves FamilySearch Labs

https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/full-text-search-leaves-familysearch-labs

How do I use FullText Search?

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-use-fulltext-search

Responsible AI Photo Restoration

https://makingfamilyhistory.com/responsible-ai-photo-restoration/

WaPo AI Energy Usage, Sept 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/

Google: How much energy does Google's AI use? We did the math

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measuring-the-environmental-impact-of-ai-inference/

Judge orders Google to share search data as part of antitrust ruling --- but Google gets to keep Chrome

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/search-engines/judge-orders-google-to-share-search-data-as-part-of-antitrust-ruling-but-google-gets-to-keep-chrome?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Tags:

Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, DeepSeek R1, AI Reasoning, Open Source AI, Free AI Tools, ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, OpenAI Operator, AI Agents, Beginner AI Guide, Research Tools, Document Analysis, AI Democratization, Context Windows, Deep Research, AI Writing, Browser Automation, Genealogy Research, AI Accessibility, Reasoning Models, AI Education