This Week in AI

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Today’s show:

The US government won’t let you use the most powerful releases from US AI labs… but a Chinese lab is giving away their latest frontier model for free.
This week, we’ve got three AI CEOs building in image generation (Victor Perez of Krea), mobile agents (Div Garg of The AGI Company), and enterprise governance (Andrew Berman of Runlayer). Together, they’re breaking down what’s really happening underneath all this chaos, and why the industry’s more focused on “minimum viable intelligence” over breaking benchmarks.
Guests
Victor Perez on X: https://x.com/viccpoes
Krea AI: https://www.krea.ai/
Krea 2 Raw and Turbo on Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/krea/Krea-2-Raw
Div Garg on X: https://x.com/divgarg
The AGI Company: https://theagi.company/
Andrew Berman on X: https://x.com/berman66
Runlayer: https://www.runlayer.com/
Relevant Links
Anthropic: “Introducing Claude Sonnet 5”: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-5
Z.ai: GLM-5.2: https://docs.z.ai/guides/llm/glm-5.2
Yuchen Jin X post: “GLM-5.2 is the open source Claude moment”: https://x.com/Yuchenj_UW/status/2071278256817574297
TechCrunch: GPT-5.6 restricted rollout coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/26/openai-limits-gpt-5-6-rollout-after-government-request-says-restrictions-shouldnt-be-the-norm/
AndroidWorld benchmark on GitHub: https://github.com/google-research/android_world
The Information Higgsfield valuation article: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-video-startup-talks-quadruple-valuation-5-billion
Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF): https://aaif.io/
Tomasz Tunguz: “When AI Costs More Than The Engineer”: https://tomtunguz.com/ai-spend-breakeven-2029/
Fortune Runlayer raise coverage: https://fortune.com/2026/06/24/exclusive-vinod-khosla-felicis-runlayer-nanit-30-million-enterprise-ai/
Gusto: https://gusto.com/
Timestamps:
0:00 Making sense of US AI policy
5:09 Tiny Action Models vs. LLMs
7:02 Runlayer, AGI Inc, and computer-use agents
10:05 What does "trusted access" really mean?
12:37 Why Krea open sourced its image model
22:21 BREAKING: Claude Sonnet 5 is here
26:00 GLM-5.2 is the open source Claude moment
31:58 Personalization and corporate ontology
41:25 Can we trust Higgsfield's numbers?
50:39 Distillation: The threat is real
58:01 Agentic personhood and corporate rights
1:03:19 Everyone's AGI timeline and p(doom) score
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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Today’s show:
*When we think of “Physical AI,” most of us conjure images of humanoid robots and self-driving cars. But there’s a lot more to the category than just breakdancing Chinese bots and Waymos, from excavators autonomously digging tomorrows worksites, to a robot the size of four pizza boxes deploying to the ISS.
Guest host Alex Wilhelm sits down with three founders in the trenches of the Physical AI Space:
Boris Sofman of Bedrock Robotics, which builds autonomous construction equipment
Jeff Hawke of Odyssey, a frontier AI lab specializing in world models for robotics and video games
Ethan Barajas of Icarus Robotics, designers of the free-flying Joy robot that will join the ISS crew in 2027
Guests:
Boris Sofman on X: https://x.com/bsofman
Bedrock Robotics: https://bedrockrobotics.com/
Jeff Hawke on X: https://x.com/jeffrey_hawke
Odyssey: https://odyssey.ml/
Ethan Barajas on X: https://x.com/ethanbarajas11
Icarus Robotics: https://www.icarusrobotics.com/
Relevant Links
Bedrock Excavators Remove 65,000 Cubic Yards of Dirt: https://www.enr.com/articles/61982-bedrock-robotics-excavators-remove-65-000-cubic-yards-of-dirt-on-southwest-project
Odyssey $310M Series B article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/world-model-maker-odyssey-nabs-1-45b-valuation-backed-by-amazon-and-other-big-names/
Icarus “Joyride” Mission announcement: https://thedebrief.org/icarus-is-building-the-robotic-labor-force-for-space-voyager-technologies-is-sending-a-next-generation-zero-gravity-robot-on-a-joyride-to-space/
PROWL: Prioritized Regret-Driven Optimization for World Model Learning: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.18803
NVIDIA Cosmos 3 report: https://research.nvidia.com/labs/cosmos-lab/cosmos3/technical-report.pdf
ISS Columbus Laboratory Module: https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/columbus-laboratory-module/
NASA’s Astrobee flying robot: https://www.nasa.gov/astrobee/
Voyager Technologies: https://www.voyagerspace.com/
Vast Space: https://www.vastspace.com/
Blue Origin’s New Glenn: https://www.blueorigin.com/new-glenn
“Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735
“Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur C. Clarke: https://www.amazon.com/Rendezvous-Rama-Arthur-Clarke/dp/0553287893
Theo Von “This Past Weekend” podcast: https://www.theovon.com/podcast
Anthropic statement on Fable/Mythos suspension: https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access
Timestamps:
0:00 The Year of Physical AI
1:28 Why everyone's bullish on world models
7:03 Physical AI is harder, but probably bigger
9:08 How to think about world models
16:00 When data becomes "adversarial"
25:00 How Bedrock powers autonomous excavators
30:48 Why teleoperation gets a bad rap
39:10 Meet Joy the space robot
41:33 Laser comms coming to next-gen stations
46:29 Why everyone hates data centers
57:33 When does Claude Fable come back?
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X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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SpaceX bought Cursor for $60 billion. Satya Nadella says companies need to stop relying on third party AI models and build their own “token capital.” The focus is shifting from LLMs to the application layer sitting on top of them. Here to unpack what that means are guest experts Ali Ansari (Micro1) and Ryan Daniels (Crosby).Plus we get a sneak peek at their new contract redlining benchmark, a crucial eval for how well LLMs don’t just answer questions about the law, but demonstrate actual legal reasoning.Timestamps:0:00 SpaceX acquires Cursor7:36 Distillation vs. building your own model19:43 Nadella's "Frontier Without an Ecosystem"30:21 AI in the courtroom32:15 Ando: the intriguing new workplace tool1:05:38 Inside Micro1 and Crosby's new benchmark1:07:14Guests:Ali Ansari: https://x.com/aliansarinikMicro1: https://www.micro1.ai/Ryan Daniels: https://x.com/ryanjdanielsCrosby: https://crosby.ai/Relevant Links:Bloomberg: “SpaceX acquires Cursor for $60B”: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/spacex-cements-60-billion-deal-to-take-over-ai-startup-cursorQuinn Thompson “brilliant corporate finance” post: https://x.com/qthomp/status/2066859672749977988Business Insider: “Inside Cursor’s Wild Rise”: https://www.businessinsider.com/cursor-ceo-michael-truell-spacex-elon-musk-anthropic-2026-6Satya Nadella: “A frontier without an ecosystem is not stable”: https://x.com/satyanadella/article/2066182223213293753Joshua Browder’s Do Not Pay: https://donotpay.com/Harvard Magazine: “AI Outperforms Doctors in Emergency Room Tasks”: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/ai/ai-outperforms-doctors-diagnosis-harvard-studyJoshua Kushner “Long Humans” post: https://x.com/JoshuaKushner/status/2065093542809092465Ando: https://ando.so/Nim Ravid on X: https://x.com/Nim_Ravid1Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com

Apple just paid a rival a billion dollars a year because it could not build Siri itself, and that tells you where the AI platform war actually stands: the edge has moved up the stack, from the model to the agent layer sitting on top of it.

This week's roundtable makes the case that whoever controls that layer controls the experience, and we brought in three founders building it from different angles: Hermes Agent, NotebookLM, and LiveKit. Their through-line is that the harness is temporary, the model keeps eating it, and the people building agents right now are designing for capabilities that do not exist yet.

This week's roundtable:
Jeffrey Quesnelle (Co-founder & CEO, Nous Research, the open source AI lab behind Hermes Agent)
Steven B Johnson (Editorial Director of NotebookLM & Google Labs, co-creator of NotebookLM)
Russ d'Sa (Co-founder & CEO, LiveKit, the open source real-time voice/video infrastructure behind ChatGPT voice mode)

Thank you to our exclusive sponsor: PayPal Open, One Platform for All Business: https://paypalopen.com

Timestamps:
0:00 Cold open
1:08 Welcome to Episode 17
1:40 Jeffrey Quesnelle on Hermes Agent and the open source agent race
5:03 Steven Johnson on NotebookLM, source-grounding, and going agentic
7:32 Why AI got booed at commencement: the first generation raised on ChatGPT
10:48 Russ d'Sa on LiveKit powering ChatGPT, Tesla, Grok, and Salesforce voice
27:50 Apple's $1B Gemini deal and the Siri UX problem
52:49 "Functional AGI, unevenly distributed": where the models actually are
57:24 The harness is temporary: why agent builders design for the next model

Guests:
Jeffrey Quesnelle, Nous Research: https://nousresearch.com | https://x.com/theemozilla
Steven Johnson, NotebookLM (Google Labs): https://notebooklm.google.com | https://x.com/stevenbjohnson
Russ d'Sa, LiveKit: https://livekit.io | https://x.com/dsa

Referenced in this episode:
Nous Research / Hermes Agent: https://nousresearch.com
NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google.com
LiveKit: https://livekit.io
OpenAI ChatGPT: https://openai.com
Tesla: https://www.tesla.com
Grok (xAI): https://x.ai
Salesforce Agentforce: https://www.salesforce.com/agentforce
SAP Joule: https://www.sap.com/products/artificial-intelligence/ai-assistant.html
Apple Intelligence: https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence
Google Gemini: https://gemini.google.com
Anthropic Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code
OpenRouter: https://openrouter.ai

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The future of AI isn't about whether the model is smart enough. It's about whether we can afford to run it. We dug into the AI cost panic, the energy wall that's coming for compute, and why "developers are disappearing" gets the economics exactly backwards.This week's roundtable: Naveen Rao (CEO of Unconventional AI, building brain-inspired analog chips, formerly sold companies to Intel and Databricks) and Alex Finn (founder of Henry Intelligent Machines and Creator Buddy).Thank you to our exclusive sponsor: PayPal Open, One Platform for All Business: http://paypalopen.com/Timestamps:0:00 Cold open1:21 Welcome to Episode 162:44 Is the AI cost panic real, or just "token maxing"?5:08 It's not the intelligence, it's how people use AI9:40 Surgeons vs. shotguns: prompt discipline & matching models to tasks13:10 Naveen's path from Intel and Databricks to Unconventional15:08 Why developers aren't disappearing18:37 How energy overtook CapEx in the cost of compute21:34 The energy wall & getting to 3 orders of magnitude more efficient25:52 AI's PR problem & the data center backlash27:55 China's hunger vs. America's AI boogeyman30:38 Data center taxes, equity stakes & the politics of AI upside37:54 The Anthropic IPO & how these founders actually invest🔗 Guests:Naveen Rao, Unconventional AI: https://unconv.ai | https://x.com/AlexFinnAlex Finn, Henry Intelligent Machines: https://meethenry.ai | https://x.com/NaveenGRao🔗 Host:Alex Wilhelm, This Week in Startups: https://x.com/alex🔗 Referenced in this episode:Unconventional AI (analog chips for AI): https://unconv.aiMosaicML (acquired by Databricks): https://www.databricks.com/research/m...Nervana Systems (acquired by Intel)Creator Buddy: https://creatorbuddy.ioQwen (open-weight model Alex runs locally): https://qwenlm.aiNVIDIA DGX Spark: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/products...Anthropic (filed to go public): https://www.anthropic.comHenry Intelligent Machines: https://meethenry.ai/🔗 Subscribe and follow:Newsletter and all platforms: https://thisweekinai.ai#ThisWeekInAI #AI #UnconventionalAI #NaveenRao #AlexFinn #AnalogComputing #AIcompute #AIenergy #TokenMaxing #AIlayoffs #AnthropicIPO