Welcome to this week's edition of Overclocked!

In this issue, the U.S. Senate just tore out a blanket AI-regulation ban, Meta waved eye-watering cheques to lure top scientists, Oracle agreed to power the next generation of OpenAI models, and much more. Let’s dive in ⬇️

In today’s newsletter ↓
🗳️ Senate lets states craft their own AI laws
💰 Meta’s mega-bonuses score three elite hires
⚡ OpenAI locks in a $30 billion Texas power deal
🏢 Microsoft trims staff to double-down on Copilot
🩺 AI hits new highs in hospital diagnostics
📚 Weekly Challenge: Master Google AI Mode in five quick tasks

🗳️ Five Can’t Miss AI Updates

🏛️ 1. States Regain the Wheel on AI Regulation

A 99-1 Senate vote stripped a proposed ten-year moratorium from the administration’s tax-and-spend package, clearing a path for California, New York, and Texas to pass their own guard-rail bills. Tech giants had lobbied for a single federal rulebook; privacy advocates countered that local oversight is faster and closer to citizens. Expect a patchwork of biased-algorithm audits, child-safety clauses, and licensing fees to surface over the next legislative cycle.

🧪 2. Meta Opens “Superintelligence Labs” and Triggers a Talent Arms Race

Facing open-source rivalries, Meta launched a research group devoted to multi-agent reasoning and promptly poached three senior OpenAI scientists with packages rumoured at up to $300 million over four years. OpenAI responded by bumping salaries and offering week-long company shutdowns to curb burnout. Recruiters say top staff now “auction” themselves—picking the lab that grants the most autonomy, compute, and equity.

💰 3. OpenAI Secures a $30 Billion Infrastructure Pact With Oracle

Dubbed “Project Stargate,” the deal locks in Texas-based data-centre capacity equivalent to four nuclear plants. Analysts estimate the contract will underwrite OpenAI’s next-gen, trillion-parameter models—and intensify the energy debate around large-scale AI.

✂️ 4. Microsoft Trims 9,000 Jobs to Embed Copilot Everywhere

Roughly 4% of the workforce will exit as Redmond merges sales, support, and dev roles into a single AI-first org. Management claims Copilot already drafts one-third of customer proposals and 45% of new internal code. Critics say efficiency gains come at the expense of early-career opportunities.

🔬 5. AI Diagnostics Outpace Seasoned Specialists

In hospital trials, Microsoft’s AI Diagnostic Orchestrator solved complex multi-symptom cases four times more accurately than attending physicians (85.5 % vs. 20 %). Separate studies show AI spotting strokes on CT scans six minutes faster than human radiologists—enough to save brain tissue and lives.

🏅 Honourable Mentions

• Apple is reportedly weighing Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT for supercharged Siri
  

• Cloudflare’s “Pay-per-Crawl” marketplace lets publishers invoice AI bots for scraped pages
  

• Oncology start-up Imagene raised $23 million for multi-modal cancer prognostics
  

• Elon Musk’s Grok 4 model is on the way, promising stronger reasoning

🔍 What You Can and Can’t Do in Google AI Mode

Google’s AI Mode began rolling out to U.S. searchers in late May. On the surface it feels like a fancy summary card, but dig deeper and you’ll find clear rules of the road.

✅ What It Does

• Instant overviews: Ask a multi-part question—“Compare Norway’s fjord cruises and Alaska’s”—and AI Mode stitches a short answer with cited web links.
  

• Follow-up chat: A “Ask a follow-up” button opens a mini-conversation without losing context.
  

• Tap-to-action snippets: Hover over AI suggestions to jump straight into Maps, YouTube, or Flights.
  

• Data-viz cards: For finance queries like “AAPL revenue 2022 vs 2024,” AI now embeds a live chart you can expand.
  

🚫 What It Won’t Do

• No personal data look-ups. Google blocks prompts that seek phone numbers or private addresses.
  

• No copyrighted chunks. Paste a paywalled article and the bot refuses full reproduction.
  

• No medical or legal rulings. AI Mode advises seeing a professional on anything life-critical.
  

• No export. You can’t yet copy the entire AI answer as Markdown—just the text fragments.

🔍 How to Enable AI Mode

You can activate AI Mode one of three ways:

• Go to google.com/aimode

• Tap the AI Mode toggle under the Search bar after typing your question

• In the Google app/homepage tap the AI Mode icon on the home screen

📐 Best-Practice Tips

• Prompt for viewpoint variety: Add “from a conservationist’s perspective” to surfacing niche sources.
  

• Ask for outlines: “Give me a blog outline on eco-wax candles” yields headings you can copy.
  

• Check citations: Each claim links to its source—click before trusting.
  

Used wisely, AI Mode acts like a built-in research assistant without leaving Google’s front page.

The Weekly Scoop 🍦

🕵️ Guardian agents emerge as the next frontier in autonomous AI

🔐 UK privacy watchdog warns over police face-rec AI

💼 Another CEO warns AI could erase half of white-collar jobs

🧬 AI flagging male infertility risks through sperm wellness scans

🌏 WSJ maps U.S.–China AI rivalry across compute, talent, and patents

🧒 Character.ai pledges new guardrails for kids’ chatbot safety

⏱️ Weekly Challenge: Five Ways to Work Smarter With Google AI Mode

Here are a few examples of what you can do in AI Mode. Can you think of other use cases?

1. Instant briefings: Search “latest EU drone rules in two bullets.” Copy results into your notes.
   

2. Meeting prep: Type “explain zero-knowledge proofs like I’m 12,” then skim the summary before your cryptography call.
   

3. Quick competitor scan: Ask “Nike key financial ratios 2024” and save the auto-chart for decks.
   

4. Idea generation: Try “outline a 5-day vegan meal plan under $50” and refine with follow-ups.
   

5. Travel hacks: Search “hidden-fee airline comparison JFK to LAX August” for an at-a-glance breakdown.
   

Challenge: Pick two tasks you tackled manually last week, redo them in AI Mode, and time the difference. Share your biggest time-saver with a teammate.

From power-hungry data-centers to power-hungry payslips, AI keeps scaling up. Take a breather, test AI Mode, and we’ll catch you next Week! Stay informed, stay curious, stay Overclocked! ⚡

Zoe from Overclocked