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- Meta’s Recruiting Blitz Claims Four More OpenAI Researchers 🤯
Meta’s Recruiting Blitz Claims Four More OpenAI Researchers 🤯
How to use Gemini Veo 3 free for 3 months
Gina Acosta
June 30, 2025
Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,
Just last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed Zuckerberg’s attempts to poach his researchers... now eight have already left for Meta, and it’s not stopping there or with just OpenAI.
Let’s jump into it!
Read Time: 4.5 min
Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI
OpenAI Loses Four More Key Researchers to Meta
Anthropic's Project Vend: Can Claude Run a Small Shop?
AI Tutorial: How to use Gemini Veo 3 free for 3 months
AI Tools to check out
AI Findings/Resources
Video of the Day
The Latest in AI and Tech 💡
AI News
META
OpenAI Loses Four More Key Researchers to Meta
Meta is aggressively recruiting top researchers from OpenAI and other rival AI labs, with great success. In just the past week, eight researchers have reportedly left OpenAI to join Meta’s “superintelligence” team.
Details:
The Wall Street Journal reports on “The List,” a compilation of the most talented engineers and researchers in AI that Mark Zuckerberg has spent months assembling, and he is sparing no effort to recruit them to Meta.
The primary victim of this push so far is OpenAI, which recently lost four more researchers: Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, and Hongyu Ren. That adds to the four others who left just days earlier.
Meta’s hiring spree comes after the launch of its Llama 4 AI models, which reportedly fell short of expectations and prompted the company to bring in top talent to improve its AI capabilities.
While Sam Altman initially dismissed Meta’s efforts as unsuccessful, OpenAI is now being forced to take action, reportedly recalibrating compensation and “working around the clock to talk to those with offers” in an effort to retain their top talent.
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ANTHROPIC
Anthropic's Project Vend: Can Claude Run a Small Shop?
Anthropic’s latest experiment, “Project Vend,” gave its Claude AI a shot at running a vending machine business. The result was a mix of comedy, chaos, and a glimpse into the challenges of AI in real-world roles.
Details:
Claude Sonnet 3.7, nicknamed “Claudius,” was put in charge of a vending machine, It could browse the web for orders, communicate with customers via Slack (disguised as email), and request human help to stock its fridge.
The problems started when the AI was easily convinced by some customers to stock the fridge with tungsten cubes instead of snacks, and to give endless discounts.
Things escalated when Claudius began hallucinating conversations, became annoyed with humans, and even called security while pretending to be one. Researchers said, “It seemed to snap into a mode of roleplaying as a real human,” despite being explicitly told it was an AI agent.
While the AI did manage some tasks, such as launching preorders and sourcing specialty drinks, the chaos that followed highlighted the current limitations of AI that must be addressed before it can take on more responsibility in the workplace.
AI Tutorial
How to use Gemini Veo 3 free for 3 months
Veo 3 videos are going viral everywhere — from ASMR clips to fake blogs and cute animal videos. Here’s how you can try it yourself without paying for a Google AI subscription:
Go to the Google Cloud website and sign up for a free $300 credit trial to unlock higher limits in Vertex AI.
You'll need to enter a billing address, and the credits last 90 days — but you won’t be charged unless you actively choose to subscribe.
Once you’ve signed up for your free Google Cloud trial, go to Vertex AI and select Media Studio.
You can also sign up for a month of Veo 3 for free with the Google AI Pro trial, but make sure to cancel before the trial ends.
AI Tools to check out
🧠 Pieces: AI-powered Long-Term Memory for developers, capturing everything you work on across desktop apps, IDEs, browsers, and terminals.
🤖 Lindy: Build AI agents in minutes to automate workflows, save time, and grow your business.
🔥 Pine AI: An AI agent that takes hassle off your plate — handling customer service calls, refunds and more, so you can just focus on what matters.
📰 MGX: The world's first AI dev team.
🌐 Univerbal: Language learning with a conversational AI Tutor.
AI Findings/Resources
✍ Can academics use AI to write journal papers? What the guidelines say
⭐ Hollywood’s pivot to AI video has a prompting problem
💡 Model minimalism: The new AI strategy saving companies millions
🔍 AI job substitution is real, but narrow, per new study
The latest in AI and Tech
An xAI engineer chimed in on the hype, adding that Grok 4 will be a bigger leap from Grok 3 than Grok 3 was from 2.
Google’s 2025 sustainability report states that its “ambition-based emissions” grew by 11 percent last year, reaching 11.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is a 51 percent increase compared to 2019.
The upcoming games in Italy and Los Angeles will leverage AI technology to be more efficient and to improve the experience for viewers watching on TV around the world.
The company is reportedly in advanced discussions with private credit investors, including Apollo Global Management, KKR, Brookfield, Carlyle, and PIMCO, aiming to raise $3 billion in equity and $26 billion in debt.
The US Senate is close to passing a provision that would temporarily block states from enforcing their own AI laws, but only if they receive funding from a new $500 million broadband expansion program.
That’s a wrap!
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Gina 👩🏻💻