Meta Teams Up with Midjourney 🤝

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Today we’re looking at two major moves: Meta signing a deal with Midjourney, and a struggling Apple turning to Google to power its revamped Siri.

Let’s jump into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

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

• Meta Signs Deal with MidJourney

• The New Siri Might Be Powered by Gemini

• AI Tutorial: How to Try Google’s Mysterious Nano Banana Image Model for Free

• AI Tools to check out

• AI Findings/Resources

• The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

META

Meta Signs Deal with MidJourney

Meta has signed a deal with MidJourney, one of the leading AI labs in image and video generation, to license the startup's “aesthetic technology” for the company’s future AI models and products.

Details:

• Alexandr Wang, head of the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs, announced the partnership on X, noting that it also includes a “technical collaboration” between their research teams.

• MidJourney founder and CEO David Holz clarified that despite the partnership, the company remains “an independent, community-backed research lab” with “no investors.”

• Wang said, “The two companies will share more about what they’re working on together soon.”

• The terms of the deal remain unknown, but it comes as MidJourney faces legal issues, with some large media companies suing the startup for allegedly using their copyrighted images to train its AI without permission.

The partnership is a clear win for both sides. Meta is betting on a company that has remained a leader in AI image generation since its debut three years ago to boost its offerings. Meanwhile, MidJourney gains a major collaboration with one of the world's biggest tech firms while maintaining its independence.

Source

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APPLE

The New Siri Might Be Powered by Gemini

It’s no secret that Apple has been struggling with the revamp of Siri, and as consumers and investors grow impatient, the company is reportedly looking to use Google’s technology to power the AI assistant.

Details:

• Apple is exploring a potential partnership to use Google’s Gemini AI technology, according to Apple insider Mark Gurman.

• The company has run into issues developing the technology needed for the Siri revamp and is considering using another company’s tech. Previously, Apple approached OpenAI and Anthropic for similar discussions.

• The report says Google has begun training a model that could run on Apple’s servers.

Nothing is decided yet. Apple is still evaluating its options and will likely not make a final choice for several more weeks.

Source

AI Tutorial

How to Try Google’s Mysterious Nano Banana Image Model for Free

There have been talks about the imminent release of a new image editor by Google that rivals Photoshop thanks to its striking consistency—and it works with just natural language. Here’s the only way to access the model so far:

1. Go to the LMArena

2. Click the plus icon and upload your image

3. Add a prompt describing the change you want to make

4. Select the image option and press enter

5. The platform will give you two edits, each made with a different model.

The models used for each image are revealed once you choose which result is better.

Since there are not many image editing models, more often than not, one of the results will be generated by Nano Banana.

6. You can then download your image or click the “Retry” option.

Another example:

“Add a third bag of dog food in the cart the same as the other two”

AI Tools to check out

🗣 Audeus: Read aloud Google Docs, email, or any text using AI.

✅ Backflip AI: Transform 3D scans and more into CAD models in seconds.

🦾 Impakt: AI health companion for real-time fitness & nutrition guidance.

⭐ Pixyer: AI background generator for professional product photos.

🐜 CodeAnt AI: AI code review, quality analysis, and security scanning.

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AI Findings/Resources

💡 Six tips for coding with GPT-5

⭐ The hidden ingredients behind AI’s creativity

🔨 AI now matches prediction markets in forecasting real events, study finds

🤔 Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn’t try AI immediately

The latest in AI and Tech

xAI makes Grok 2.5 open source

Elon Musk announced that the Grok 2.5 model, xAI’s best model from last year, is now open-source, with the weights available on Hugging Face. He also said Grok 3 will be released as open-source in about six months.

ChatGPT now supports Project-only memory

ChatGPT can use other conversations in that project for additional context, but it won't use saved memories from outside the project. It also won’t carry anything from the project into future chats outside of it.

US officially takes 10% stake in Intel

The United States government is investing $8.9 billion in Intel common stock, giving the Trump administration about a 10% stake in the struggling chipmaker.

The agreement is part of an effort to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the US, aiming to make it a leader in the global chipmaking industry.

Netflix issues generative AI guidelines for content production

The company has released its guiding principles on generative AI in a post on its Partner Help Center hub. While it views AI tools as “valuable creative aids,” it also considers it important to outline the rules its partners should follow if and when they are used.

NVIDIA reportedly stops production of H20 AI chips

The production halt comes after Beijing reportedly warned Chinese companies against using these chips over potential security issues and fears of backdoors that could give the U.S. access to sensitive data, while also urging them to switch to domestic alternatives.

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻