Perplexity’s Comet Redefines Browsing with Built‑In AI
With xAI's Grok 4 launch and Nvidia's $4 trillion milestone in tow
TLDR; In today’s Signal
Nvidia Hits Historic $4 Trillion Market Cap
OpenAI Readies AI-Powered Browser to Take on Chrome
Perplexity Launches Comet—A Bold Move into AI-Powered Browsing
xAI’s Grok 4 Heavy Raises the Bar
AWS Unveils In‑Row Heat Exchanger to Cool Nvidia AI GPUs
Blok Simulates User Behavior to Help Build Better Apps
OpenAI Finalizes $6.5B Acquisition of Jony Ive’s IO
Nominal Raises $20M Series A to Bring AI Agents into ERP Systems
THE AI SIGNAL PICKS
Nvidia Hits Historic $4 Trillion Market Cap
Nvidia became the first US company to reach a $4 trillion market capitalization, fueled by its dominance in AI chips and surging demand amid the AI boom. Nvidia’s stock hit an intraday high of $164, pushing its value past $4 trillion. Nvidia’s GPUs have evolved from gaming and crypto to become the backbone of AI infrastructure, especially in data centers
OpenAI Readies AI-Powered Browser to Take on Chrome
OpenAI is set to launch an innovative AI-powered web browser in the coming weeks, built on Chromium. The new browser embeds ChatGPT-like capabilities directly into the browsing experience, aiming to reshape how users navigate the web—starting by reducing reliance on traditional search and clicks.
Samsung Debuts Gemini-Powered AI Features in One UI 8
At the Unpacked event, Samsung announced One UI 8 (based on Android 16), featuring deep integration with Google’s Gemini and a host of new AI-powered tools, bringing conversational and creative AI to its upcoming foldables and flagship devices.
Reid Hoffman Defends ‘Crazy’ AI Pay—Says Game-Changing Talent Justifies It
LinkedIn co-founder and ex OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman defended Silicon Valley's astronomical AI compensation packages at the Sun Valley Conference, arguing that if a single hire can spark breakthroughs, like curing cancer, a nine-figure deal starts to make economic sense. Hoffman acknowledged that compensation offers reaching hundreds of millions, like the rumored $100M Meta signing bonuses, seem wild—but reflect growing competition for the world’s top AI minds.
THE BIG LEAP
Perplexity Launches Comet—A Bold Move into AI-Powered Browsing
Signal Scoop: Perplexity AI has unveiled Comet, an AI-powered web browser that integrates conversational agents directly into browsing, aiming to rival Chrome and Edge, and it’s now available to Perplexity Max users at $200/month on an invite-only basis.
The Full Picture
Comet isn't just for searching, it uses AI to summarize content, compare products, book meetings, and manage workflows, all through conversational commands.
The browser supports Chrome extensions, runs on Windows & macOS, and stores data locally to maintain user privacy and avoid training on personal info.
Initially available only to Perplexity Max subscribers (“Comet-invite” during summer), broader access will follow.
Comet is funded by Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, SoftBank, and others—but faces criticism from publishers like News Corp and Dow Jones over content usage, leading to a new publisher partnership program.
Comet squarely challenges Chrome’s 68% global market share and competes directly with Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari—taking advantage of growing demand for AI-enhanced browsing
What You Can’t Miss
Comet does more than search, it completes tasks, managing emails, shopping, and workflows autonomously. With local data storage and no personal data training, it positions itself as privacy-first. Support from Nvidia, Bezos, and SoftBank highlights investor confidence boosts the credibility of Comet.
xAI’s Grok 4 Heavy Raises the Bar with PhD-Level Reasoning and Multi-Agent Brains
Signal Scoop: xAI has unveiled Grok 4 and its flagship model, Grok 4 Heavy—a powerful, multi-agent architecture that may rival or surpass today’s most capable AI systems. With benchmark-topping performance and advanced reasoning, Grok 4 is positioned as a major leap forward in xAI’s quest to build superintelligence.
The Full Picture
Grok 4 achieves a 25.4% score on the “Humanity’s Last Exam” benchmark—surpassing Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s o3-high.
Grok 4 Heavy (a multi-agent architecture) hits 44.4%, using agent consensus to boost reasoning.
Musk claims it operates at a PhD-level across subjects, asserting “most PhDs would fail where Grok 4 would pass.”
Excels at reasoning, coding, and mathematics—Musk claims “most PhDs would fail where Grok 4 would pass.”
Integrated with real-time web access, multimodal inputs (text, images, audio), and voice assistant capabilities.
Launch streamed live on X with over 1.5 million viewers.
Musk hinted at future ambitions: AI discovering new technologies by year-end, and new physics within two years.
What You Can’t Miss
Grok 4’s leading benchmark scores bolster credibility in xAI's ability to rival OpenAI and Google. Grok 4 Heavy’s approach signals the next wave in AI reasoning: collaborative agent architectures, heralding a new wave in the latest AI systems. Grok 4 Heavy sets a new benchmark record, showing how multi-agent models might shape the next era of AI.
ON THE AI EDGE
AWS Unveils In‑Row Heat Exchanger to Cool Nvidia AI GPUs
To support ultra-dense Nvidia AI GPU servers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has developed its own In‑Row Heat Exchanger (IRHX)—a custom cooling solution combining liquid and air cooling that avoids building new data centers or using excessive water
Blok Simulates User Behavior to Help Build Better Apps
Blok lets product teams create AI personas that simulate real users, enabling companies to test app features before writing a single line of code. Instead of deploying A/B tests live, you can run virtual experiments and predict outcomes in minutes.
Allen Institute Launches FlexOlmo
The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) has introduced FlexOlmo, a revolutionary LLM architecture that empowers data owners to include—and later remove—their data from a model even after training, setting a fresh standard for data control and AI ethics
AI START-UP NEWS
OpenAI Finalizes $6.5B Acquisition of Jony Ive’s IO to Launch AI Devices
OpenAI has officially closed its all-stock $6.5 billion acquisition of IO Products, the AI hardware startup led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. The deal brings 55 IO designers into OpenAI and sets the stage for debuting its first AI-first device, marking a major step toward building its own hardware ecosystem
Nominal Raises $20M Series A to Bring AI Agents into ERP Systems
Nominal, a YC-backed startup founded in 2023 by former Cognigo founders, has raised $20 million in Series A funding, bringing its total to $30 million. The round is led by Next47 and Workday Ventures, with participation from Bling Capital, Hyperwise, and others.
YC‑Backed AI Search Startup ZeroEntropy Lands $4.2M Seed
ZeroEntropy a Y Combinator–backed startup developing the next layer of AI-powered search, has landed $4.2 million in seed funding. The company uses a refined retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) API to deliver more contextually intelligent results.
NEW TOOLS, NEW POSSIBILITIES
Vimcal: A calendar app with social profiles and time zone support.
Hunyuan: Video editing tool to make high quality videos
Genmo Mochi-1: Create videos from text with AI
Cursor: AI code editor for making high impact code
Adobe Firefly: Image generator for making high resolution images
Notion AI: Automates tasks, summarizes text, and aids writing
AI CAREER HORIZON
Jobright.ai: AI Engineer, New Grad & Entry Level (Remote, U.S)
Lensa: Machine Learning Engineer - Foundational Models (Remote, U.S)
Ever.Ag: Data Scientist, Machine Learning (Remote, U.S)
Prompt Engineer Collective: Generative AI Innovator (Remote, U.S)
Elevate your experience. Join our community
Please help us get better and suggest new ideas at ceo@theaisignal.com