Google Gemini overtakes ChatGPT on App Stores 🔥

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Google’s “Nano Banana” AI image-generation model has gone viral, propelling its app to the top of the Apple App Store charts, and the company isn’t slowing down as it just rolled out another new model.

Let’s jump into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

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

• Google Gemini Tops Apple App Store Charts and Introduces New VaultGemma Model

• Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue Perplexity

• AI Tutorial: Learn a new language with Google Translate

• AI Tools to check out

• AI Findings/Resources

• The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

GOOGLE

Google Gemini Tops Apple App Store Charts and Introduces New VaultGemma Model

Google Gemini is now number one on Apple’s Top Free Apps chart, surpassing rivals like ChatGPT and Grok in the US.

Details:

• This surge is fueled by the viral Nano Banana AI image-generation model, which has sparked social media trends like the 3D figurine creations.

• According to Google, the model, also known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image Generation, has been used more than 500 million times since its launch on August 26.

• Google Research is also introducing VaultGemma, a one-billion-parameter AI model designed with a focus on privacy. 

• Unlike regular models, it is designed not to memorize or reproduce training data. In theory, this means it could be trained on confidential documents without the risk of them being reconstructed later.

• The tradeoff is performance, with output roughly on par with non-private models from about five years ago.

Earlier this year, ChatGPT went viral with its new image capabilities, reportedly gaining a million users in just one hour, according to Sam Altman. Now it’s Google’s turn, impressing users not only with image quality but also with editing capabilities that seem to rival professional tools like Photoshop.

Source

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PERPLEXITY

Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue Perplexity

Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster filed a lawsuit against Perplexity on September 10 in New York federal court, accusing the AI search startup of copying definitions, scraping their sites, and misusing their brands.

Details:

• The suit claims Perplexity’s “answer engine” duplicates content without permission or proper credit and even attaches Britannica or Merriam-Webster names to incorrect or incomplete results.

• The companies allege that Perplexity’s “answer engine” scrapes their websites without permission and diminishes their revenue by stealing their internet traffic.

• The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction to prevent Perplexity from misusing their content.

This isn’t Perplexity’s first legal challenge. Last year, it faced similar allegations from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. In response, the startup recently launched a new ad revenue-sharing program, which some media companies have joined, including Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times, but legal issues appear far from over.

Source

AI Tutorial

Learn a new language with Google Translate

Google Translate just added Duolingo-style features that let you practice listening and speaking, with the difficulty adjusting in real time.

Here’s how to try it out:

1.  Download the Google Translate app (iOS or Android).

2. Tap the “Practice” icon in the bottom-right corner.

3. Select your native language and the language you want to learn.

For now, the available options are:

• English → Spanish or French

• Spanish, French, or Portuguese → English

4. Set your goal (e.g., travel, daily conversation).

5. Pick a practice scenario or generate your own.

6. Start speaking and listening exercises — the app adjusts difficulty as you go.

AI Tools to check out

📈 Nonverbia: AI sales assistant that reads nonverbal cues

🌐 Geocities: Turn your page into 90s GeoCities masterpiece.

🦾 Lumro: Create, manage and deploy AI agents that handle sales, support and more.

✍ GrimoAI: Cursor for writing.

⏰ Clockwise: AI calendar assistant that helps busy people schedule meetings and automate their calendars.

AI Findings/Resources

😅 Gemini loses its mind after failing to produce a seahorse emoji

🎨 Very impressive AI-generated art timelapse

🤖 Reality is ruining the humanoid robot hype

📧 ChatGPT was tricked into revealing users’ private email data

🔮 How AI will change politics, war, and money

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The latest in AI and Tech

Elon Musk's xAI lays off 500 employees tasked with training Grok.

That is roughly one-third of its data annotation team and is part of a “strategic pivot” announced Friday night.

The company said it will scale back general AI tutor roles while expanding its specialist AI tutor team tenfold. These specialists will focus on areas like STEM, finance, medicine, and safety.

One of Apple's top AI executives is reportedly leaving the company

Robby Walker, Apple’s senior director of the Answers, Information, and Knowledge team, is leaving the company next month, Bloomberg reports.

Walker oversaw Siri until earlier this year and has been with Apple since 2013. His departure comes as Apple’s cautious AI strategy has drawn scrutiny, with slow rollouts of its Apple Intelligence suite and delayed AI upgrades to Siri.

Rolling Stone’s publisher sues Google over AI summaries

Penske Media Corporation, which owns Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, is suing Google over AI-generated Overviews that appear in search results. The company claims these summaries reduce traffic to its sites, cutting revenue and profiting from reporters’ work without permission.

OpenAI to cut Microsoft revenue share

OpenAI reportedly plans to reduce Microsoft’s revenue share from just under 20 percent to around 8 percent by 2030, keeping more funds for its computing costs.

In exchange, Microsoft would receive one-third ownership of the restructured OpenAI entity, though it still won’t hold a board seat.

Tencent hires top OpenAI researcher

The company has reportedly hired Yao Shunyu, a leading researcher from OpenAI, marking one of the most high-profile defections from the US AI sector to China.

The Shenzhen-based gaming and messaging company brought Yao Shunyu on board to work on integrating AI into its services.

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻