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- 💀 Zuck Unplugs His $70B Dream
Zuck pulled the plug on his VR dream, firing 1,500 people, and just turning Horizon Worlds into a mobile Roblox copy. Meta’s smartglasses are exploding in sales.
What's on FIRE 🔥
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SECTION
In 2026, the bar for being AI proficient has risen, but most of the workforce can barely prompt. And leadership has no idea how dire things really are.
On 1/22, join Section COO, Taylor Malmsheimer, for new data on the highest barriers to adoption, where leverage lies, and key mandates for leaders.
AI INSIGHTS
Four years after renaming Facebook to Meta to bet everything on the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg just did the opposite. Meta:
Laid off 1,500 VR staff from Reality Labs (10% of the unit)
Shut down VR game studios like Armature, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru
Killed many VR features inside Horizon Worlds
At the same time, Meta is doubling down on wearables and AI, with:
$72B in capex for 2025–2026
Acquired AI startup Manus for $2B+
Massive hires like Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang to lead AI strategy
Plans to ship their next-gen LLM (“Avocado”) in Q1
Zuck’s not killing the metaverse but it’s getting a Roblox-style downgrade, instead of building massive, high-fidelity VR worlds no one visits.
And unlike Horizon Worlds, the Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses actually sell. They’re backordered in the US, and tracking toward 10M units earlier than expected. Meta is finally building something people want to wear, not something they forget in a drawer.
AI SOURCES FROM AI FIRE
1. Gemini or ChatGPT: The clear best AI for marketers to boost traffic & sales. How to avoid platform lock-in and build a stack that survives the next 12 months
2. Step-by-step guide to build your automated digital empire from zero with Google AIs. Exact process to launch high-demand AI without spending any money
3. How you can become a high-impact AI content creator & make real money. You don’t need fame or a fancy setup to build a profitable faceless channel fast
4. YouTube cloning hack: Reverse-engineer any viral channel in 10 minutes. Turn any channel into a searchable AI database & uncover what drives views, hooks and retention so you can do the same
NEW AI GUIDE WORTH CONSIDERING
If you’ve ever burned $20 in credits just to get one usable 5-10 second clip… yeah, same. There are way too many “best AI video generators” to trust anyone’s marketing.
Last year, we had maybe 2-3 viable tools. Now, there are literally 10+ platforms all claiming to be the best. So Max (our researcher) spent 7 hours testing every major models currently available. Before we get in, here is the tier system he used:
A-Tier: Mind-blowing quality, worth every penny
B-Tier: Strong tools with clear strengths
C-Tier: Usable but you’ll fight flaws. Only for specific use cases
D-Tier: Honestly? Skip these unless you are desperate or they are free
And to keep it fair, he ran the same test prompt through every model. If you want clean motion, consistent characters, and less AI slop, use this ranking + workflow.
TODAY IN AI
AI HIGHLIGHTS
📝 Is Claude Cowork worth it? We found a comprehensive user review of Cowork. This detailed breakdown offers insights into its real-world utility. Save or read it here.
🛒 Is ChatGPT Plus worth your $20? Actually it’s a fair question especially as the free tier has so much. So here’s a detailed guide comparing Free & Pro plans for you.
💬 Slack dropped a completely rebuilt Slackbot agent that can find info across apps, drafts emails, schedules meetings, all without leaving Slack. Watch it in action here.
⚔️ Musk’s Grok will be integrated into Pentagon military systems while it's banned in Indonesia and Malaysia over sexual imagery). Google’s Gemini is also involved.
🎥 Google just pushed Veo 3.1 live with native vertical video, stronger character consistency for dynamic & natural clips and 4K support. See how it updates here.
😳 Grok’s spicy mode may cross a legal line. Musk said he wasn’t aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok!? But now the California AG is investigating.
💰 Big AI Fundraising: Skild AI, a robot software startup, raised $1.4B from Nvidia & Jeff Bezos. This huge backing shows Skild AI’s growing importance in the AI world.
76+ new and 22+ notable app updates were recently added to the HubSpot Marketplace. This latest wave of innovation isn’t just about new features – it’s a roundup of must-try apps inviting us to make this the most productive year yet.
Must-Try AI & Automation Highlights:
HubSpot connector for Claude: Create and update CRM records, and log activities directly from Claude’s chat window.
HubSpot connector for ChatGPT: Perform deep-research with citations that link conveniently to your HubSpot records or ask everyday questions like “List deals closing this month by deal size.”
Descript: Easily move your AI-generated videos between HubSpot libraries and Descript for faster editing and ROI tracking.
Ready to grow better? Head to the HubSpot Marketplace to explore updated apps and more.
NEW EMPOWERED AI TOOLS
📄 PDF.beauty turns Nano Banana image-based PDFs slides into fully editable PowerPoint files
🔊 Pindrop detects fake voices or videos in real-time during calls & meetings with 99% accuracy
🧠 remio 2.0 builds a zero-effort Second Brain that understands your work as well as you do
⚙️ Vellum builds working AI agents using plain English to do your boring tasks
AI BREAKTHROUGH
Google just launched 2 open models that push medical AI from “research-only” to “actually usable”:
MedGemma 1.5: a smaller, faster multimodal medical model
MedASR: a speech-to-text model tuned for real-world medical dictation
They’re both free for commercial use, already on Hugging Face and Vertex AI. Btw, y’know how earlier versions of medical AI only handled X-rays or random skin photos? MedGemma 1.5 now supports:
High-dimensional scans (CT, MRI, histopathology slides)
Time series of chest X-rays
Anatomical localization (like finding organs in chest images)
Lab report parsing (extracting structured data from PDFs)
EHR Q&A and medical text reasoning
Google also launched the MedGemma Impact Challenge - a Kaggle comp with $100K in prizes. You can remix MedGemma + MedASR to build anything. They even released full tutorials for CT, histopathology, and report extraction.
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The AI Fire Team
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