• Horizon AI
  • Posts
  • Google Earth Now Lets You Reimagine Locations Using AI 🌎

Google Earth Now Lets You Reimagine Locations Using AI 🌎

OpenAI to offer 100,000 researchers free access to its frontier models 🔬

Author

Gina Acosta
July 30, 2026

In partnership with

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Google Earth now lets you generate AI images directly from real-world locations using Nano Banana 2. Whether you want to recreate historical landmarks, visualize a home renovation, or imagine futuristic cities, you can transform any place on the map with a simple prompt.

Let’s jump into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

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

  • OpenAI Launches Free AI Access Program for Academic Researchers

  • Meta Says AI Is Helping It Build New Apps Faster

  • AI Tutorial: Transform any place with AI in Google Earth

  • AI Tools to check out

  • AI Findings/Resources

  • The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

OPENAI

OpenAI Launches Free AI Access Program for Academic Researchers

OpenAI has introduced a new program that will provide free access to its latest AI models for academic researchers, aiming to support scientific discovery across a wide range of disciplines.

Details:

  • The initiative will begin with 10,000 researchers and expand to 100,000 participants by 2027.

  • Eligible researchers in fields such as science, engineering, and mathematics will receive access to the company's frontier models, including its GPT-5.6 family of models.

  • The program is designed to support researchers “take on advanced problems, accelerate discovery, and improve productivity, from preparing grant applications to testing hypotheses.”

  • Each workspace includes business-grade privacy and security protections, and researcher data is not used to train OpenAI's models by default. Participants can also invite up to four collaborators.

  • In addition to model access, the program also includes training, hands-on support, and opportunities to learn from other researchers.

You can learn more about the program and apply here.

TOGETHER WITH ATERA

Run all your IT from one platform, with AI doing the legwork

This one is interesting.

Atera pulls RMM, patching, and ticketing into one platform, and their AI Copilot works the problem alongside you: triaging issues, generating scripts, pulling insights from your live setup, and more. You stay in control; it makes the work move.

30-day free trial, too.

META

Meta Says AI Is Helping It Build New Apps Faster

Meta says advances in AI are allowing its teams to develop and launch new consumer apps more quickly, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirming that several additional products are already in development.

Details:

  • Zuckerberg said AI is helping Meta speed up product development, enabling the company to test and release new standalone apps much faster than before.

  • Recent launches include dedicated apps for Facebook Groups, Marketplace sellers, Instagram photos, as well as experimental products such as an AI-powered bedtime stories app and a gaming app.

  • Meta says large language models are improving its content recommendations, making existing apps more engaging while also helping new products gain users more efficiently.

  • The company also uses AI internally to analyze content, detect trends, evaluate quality, and assist engineers in testing and improving recommendation systems.

Zuckerberg says the "new consumer products" are "releasing soon," with even more to come as the company keeps using AI to rapidly experiment with new ideas and scale the ones that gain traction.

AI Tutorial

Transform any place with AI in Google Earth

  1. Open an existing project or create a new one in Google Earth on web.

  2. In the toolbar, click Create image. This will capture your current map view to be used as the base image input for generation.

  3. In the box, describe the changes you want to visualize. Be as specific or creative as you like. For example:

  • "Visualize this empty lot as a community park with a playground and walking trails."

  • "Show this street with more trees and dedicated bike lanes."

  • "Render this hillside with a small solar farm installation."

  • "Imagine this downtown area with futuristic buildings."

  1. Once generated, the new image will be displayed, showing your prompted changes.

  2. To refine the result, click Refine image and add a new text prompt to update the image.

  3. To keep your generated image, click Save to Project. This will add the image as a media attachment to a placemark within your Google Earth map project.

AI Tools to check out

💥 Chronicle: Create high quality AI presentations.

🧠 Productize Your Mind: Turn your course into a suite of custom, branded AI tools for your students. For coaches, consultants, educators & creators.

⭐ Poster: Generate poster concepts, social graphics, and marketing visuals from a text brief, then refine the result with the supporting routes and tools.

🗣 Krisp: Voice AI for meetings. For teams, call centers, and developers.

👉 Mexty: Build blocks, microlearning, and full courses with AI.

TOGETHER WITH LIQUID

The first way to trade directly inside Claude and ChatGPT

Superintelligence used to be locked inside billion-dollar quant firms whose algorithms quietly took advantage of everyone else. 

Co-Invest puts it right in your chat window. Analyze markets, manage risk, and execute trades, all inside Claude and ChatGPT. 

The institutions built the game, Co-Invest gives you a way to beat them.

AI Findings/Resources

📚 Agentic AI – Complete course for beginners

😅 Remember to take the AI prompt out of your speech, prior to reading it aloud.

🏆 Forbes 2026 AI 50 List: The most promising AI businesses

🔊 You can get more work done from anywhere with ChatGPT Voice — try this setup.

🤔 Is that AI agent worth it? Agentic economics and the modern operating model

The latest in AI and Tech

As part of a series of updates to reduce the volume of low-quality AI-generated posts on the platform, LinkedIn is introducing a button that lets you flag a post as something that "Seems like AI slop."

Google says it fixed 1,072 security vulnerabilities across the latest two Chrome releases, surpassing the total number of bugs patched over the previous two years combined. The company credits its internal AI tools, including Gemini, for helping identify and resolve vulnerabilities more quickly.

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has reached a $35 billion valuation after raising $3.5 billion, exceeding its original fundraising target. The company's rapid growth follows the launch of its Kimi K3 model, which has attracted significant attention for its performance.

Passengers can use voice commands for tasks such as adjusting the cabin temperature or getting local recommendations during their ride. The company says Gemini operates independently from the autonomous driving system.

Okta has agreed to acquire Permiso Security, an AI identity security startup, in a deal reportedly valued at around $200 million. Permiso develops tools that help organizations detect threats involving cloud identities, AI agents, and other machine identities.

That’s a wrap!

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

We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's email!

Your feedback helps us improve our content

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

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

See you in our next edition!

Gina 👩🏻‍💻