AI Startup Introduces 'Near-Telepathic Wearable' 👀

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Researchers claim to have built a device that offers the “power of telepathy” and lets users communicate without speaking.

Let’s take a look!

Read Time: 4.5 min

Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI

• AlterEgo Claims It Has Made a 'Near-Telepathic Wearable'

• Microsoft to Use AI from Anthropic as Rift with OpenAI Grows

• AI Tutorial: Create PDFs, slides, and spreadsheets with Claude

• AI Tools to check out

• AI Findings/Resources

• The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

OPENAI

AlterEgo Claims It Has Made a 'Near-Telepathic Wearable'

AlterEgo, a Boston-based startup, has introduced what it calls the “world’s first near-telepathic wearable,” a device that lets people issue voice commands to a computer or AI assistant without ever speaking out loud.

Details:

• AlterEgo AI CEO Arnav Kapur demonstrated the device — a headpiece worn around the ears like a hearing aid — in a video, showing how it can take notes, query an AI agent, and even let him communicate in English with a Mandarin speaker through real-time translation.

• According to the startup, this "Silent Sense" technology can allow "silent communication at the speed of thought," enable private communication between two users, provide access to AI technology or Google searches without reaching for a smartphone, translate across languages, and even help those with speech-affecting disorders articulate their thoughts.

• It works by detecting the faint neuromuscular signals your brain sends toward your speech system before words leave your mouth. Importantly, the company emphasizes that it’s not reading raw thoughts.

This kind of technology could be an accessibility game-changer, transforming how we communicate with AI and others. It’s especially impressive as a non-invasive wearable, but for now Silent Sense seems more like a promising concept than a product you’ll find on shelves anytime soon.

Source

TOGETHER WITH ROKU

It’s go-time for holiday campaigns

Roku Ads Manager makes it easy to extend your Q4 campaign to performance CTV.

You can:

• Easily launch self-serve CTV ads

• Repurpose your social content for TV

• Drive purchases directly on-screen with shoppable ads

• A/B test to discover your most effective offers

The holidays only come once a year. Get started now with a $500 ad credit when you spend your first $500 today with code: ROKUADS500. Terms apply.

Get started today.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft to Use AI from Anthropic as Rift with OpenAI Grows

Microsoft is bringing Anthropic’s AI into Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, according to The Information.

Details:

• Microsoft will pay to use Anthropic’s models in Office 365, helping power new features and marking the end of its previous reliance solely on the ChatGPT maker for its productivity suite.

• This comes as Microsoft negotiates a new agreement with OpenAI following its planned for-profit restructuring.

• Although the company isn’t using the move as a negotiating tactic, it is reported that Microsoft leaders believe Anthropic’s latest models perform better than OpenAI’s in certain functions, such as creating aesthetically pleasing PowerPoint presentations.

• The relationship between the companies has cooled, with OpenAI pushing into its own projects, including a jobs platform that could compete with LinkedIn, which has prompted Microsoft to diversify its AI partnerships.

Despite the shift, Microsoft says OpenAI will remain a key partner on frontier models. Still, it’s a clear sign the company is spreading its bets across multiple AI partners while also building its own models.

Source

AI Tutorial

Create PDFs, slides, and spreadsheets with Claude

Anthropic just announced that Claude can now create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slides, and PDFs directly in chat.

Here’s how to turn on this new feature:

1. Go to Claude and log in.

2. Navigate to Settings > Features > Experimental and enable the toggle that says “Upgraded file creation and analysis.”

3. Start a new chat, describe what you need, upload any files if necessary, and Claude will create the output.

Example: “Create a PowerPoint presentation based on the content of this PDF, highlighting the key points, main ideas, and visuals where appropriate.”

4. You can guide Claude through the process via chat, and once finished, download your files.

Claude can also handle other advanced tasks, such as building a financial model in a spreadsheet from raw data or generating reports with charts and written analysis.

Note: This feature is currently available only to Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers, with Pro users gaining access in the coming weeks.

AI Tools to check out

⭐ Poke: Proactive AI assistant that turns your emails into action.

👉 Unframe: It helps enterprises build custom, production-ready AI solutions quickly.

👨‍💻 100 Vibe Coding: Learn to build projects fast with 100 vibe coding challenges.

⏪️ Rewind: It captures your computer while you work - including your meetings - letting you go back to any moment in an instant.

👀 Meeting.ai: Records, transcribes, and creates visual meeting minutes automatically.

AI Findings/Resources

⚡ Three big things we still don't know about AI's energy burden

🔍 GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT is shockingly good at search

🍌 How to build with Nano Banana: Complete developer tutorial

💔 The women in love with AI companions: ‘I vowed to my chatbot that I wouldn’t leave him’

🚙 Porsche shows how they use Apple Vision Pro to demo the internals of their cars

TOGETHER WITH PACASU

How 433 Investors Unlocked 400X Return Potential

Institutional investors back startups to unlock outsized returns. Regular investors have to wait. But not anymore. Thanks to regulatory updates, some companies are doing things differently.

Take Revolut. In 2016, 433 regular people invested an average of $2,730. Today? They got a 400X buyout offer from the company, as Revolut’s valuation increased 89,900% in the same timeframe.

No wonder 10K+ everyday people are taking the chance on Pacaso.

Founded by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso’s co-ownership tech reshapes the $1.3T vacation home market. They’ve earned $110M+ in gross profit to date, including 41% YoY growth in 2024 alone. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

The same institutional investors behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay backed Pacaso. And you can join them. But not for long. Pacaso’s investment opportunity ends September 18.

Invest While You Still Can

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

The latest in AI and Tech

Apple introduces live translation feature for AirPods

Apple’s upcoming AirPods 3 Pro, as well as AirPods 4 with ANC and AirPods Pro 2, will support a Live Translation feature that translates languages in real-time.

At launch, it will work in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, with Italian, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese coming later this year.

Google launches Veo 3 with lower prices, 1080p, and vertical video support

Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast are now stable and production-ready in the Gemini API. Veo 3 now costs $0.40 per second (down from $0.75), and Veo 3 Fast is $0.15 (down from $0.40).

Meta invests $140 million in Black Forest Labs AI for image generation

Meta has signed a multi-year deal with AI startup Black Forest Labs, committing $35 million in the first year and $105 million in the second, to use its image-generation technology.

Founded by creators of Stable Diffusion, Black Forest Labs also partners with Adobe, Canva, and Snap, and projects $300 million in annual recurring revenue for 2026.

Baidu launches ERNIE X1.1

The company claims it rivals U.S. models like OpenAI GPT-5 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro in benchmark tests, and surpasses the DeepSeek R1 update from May.

Unitree Robotics targets $7 billion IPO valuation

The Chinese robotics startup Unitree is planning an initial public offering that could value the company at up to 50 billion yuan ($7 billion), in what would be one of the largest tech listings in the country in recent years.

That’s a wrap!

Thanks for sticking with us to the end! Let’s stay connected on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Not subscribed yet? Sign up here and send it to a colleague or friend!

See you in our next edition!

Gina 👩🏻‍💻