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Use This Google Maps Trick to Find Cheaper Gas 🗺️
Microsoft Releases New MAI-Image-2 Image Model
Gina Acosta
March 20, 2026
In partnership with
Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,
Gas prices can vary a lot, even within the same area. Instead of guessing or stopping at the closest station, we show you how to use Google Maps' new AI-powered features to find real-time prices and get smarter recommendations that save you time and money.
Let’s jump into it!
Read Time: 4.5 min
Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI
Microsoft Launches MAI-Image-2 With Major Boost to AI Image Realism
Perplexity Launches Health Feature With Apple Health Data Integration
AI Tutorial: Find the Cheapest Gas Using Google Maps
AI Tools to check out
AI Findings/Resources
The Latest in AI and Tech 💡
AI News
MICROSOFT
Microsoft Launches MAI-Image-2 With Major Boost to AI Image Realism
Microsoft launched a second-generation version of its AI image model. The new MAI-Image-2 debuted in fifth place on the Arena.ai text-to-image leaderboard, trailing only models from Google and OpenAI.
Details:
The model focuses heavily on photorealism, generating images with natural lighting, accurate skin tones, and realistic environments.
It also improves text generation inside images, making it useful for posters, infographics, and visual content where typography matters.
The model can handle both realistic scenes and more complex creative outputs like surreal visuals and detailed compositions.
Microsoft says the model was developed with input from photographers, designers, and visual storytellers to better match real creative needs.
It’s currently rolling out across tools like Copilot and Bing Image Creator, with early access also available through the MAI Playground. API access is being offered to select enterprise partners, with broader developer availability expected soon.
TOGETHER WITH GLADLY
88% resolved. 22% stayed loyal. What went wrong?
That's the AI paradox hiding in your CX stack. Tickets close. Customers leave. And most teams don't see it coming because they're measuring the wrong things.
Efficiency metrics look great on paper. Handle time down. Containment rate up. But customer loyalty? That's a different story — and it's one your current dashboards probably aren't telling you.
Gladly's 2026 Customer Expectations Report surveyed thousands of real consumers to find out exactly where AI-powered service breaks trust, and what separates the platforms that drive retention from the ones that quietly erode it.
If you're architecting the CX stack, this is the data you need to build it right. Not just fast. Not just cheap. Built to last.
PERPLEXITY
Perplexity Launches Health Feature With Apple Health Data Integration
Perplexity has introduced Perplexity Health, a new feature that connects users’ health data to provide more personalized answers to medical questions.
Details:
Perplexity Health connects to Apple Health, Fitbit, Ultrahuman, Withings, and electronic health records from over 1.7 million care providers, with Oura and Function integrations coming soon.
It tracks trends across biomarkers and presents insights through a personalized dashboard.
When users ask health-related questions, answers will be based on their medical records, lab results, and wearable data.
The feature also works with Perplexity Computer (Perplexity's AI agent tool), allowing it to use health information to generate personalized plans like fitness routines or nutrition guidance.
Perplexity says that Perplexity Health draws from "premium medical literature" and that it has set up an advisory board of healthcare experts to review accuracy and safety.
Perplexity Health is rolling out first to Pro and Max users in the U.S., with the company emphasizing that health data is encrypted, user-controlled, and not used to train its AI models.
AI Tutorial
Find the Cheapest Gas Using Google Maps
Google Maps has gotten increasingly more useful thanks to recent AI updates. With the new Ask Maps conversational experience, users can now ask complex, real-world questions and get smarter recommendations than ever.
Open Google Maps on your phone.
Select "Ask Maps" and type: "Where's the cheapest gas near me?"
Google Maps will give you the best options near you. From there, you can pick the best one based on distance, price, and convenience.
You can also use the "Search along route" feature to locate gas stations within a specified distance from your current route.
This gives you options that might be slightly off your path but still convenient enough to stop without going out of your way, so you don't have to make a separate trip for cheaper gas.
The savings add up over time, and this is just one use case of Maps' new AI-powered capabilities. Now you can just ask and get useful answers that would previously require a lot of research to find.
AI Tools to check out
👀 Guideless: Turn clicks into AI-narrated guides.
👉 Tines: AI orchestration platform for security and IT teams. Integrate agents, teams, and tools with speed and control.
⚙️ Turbotic: Turn ideas into automations in minutes.
🔍 Gojiberry: Find & contact high-intent leads With AI.
💥 Notra: Turn your daily work into publish-ready content.
TOGETHER WITH GLADLY
88% resolved. 22% loyal. Your stack has a problem.
Those numbers aren't a CX issue — they're a design issue. Gladly's 2026 Customer Expectations Report breaks down exactly where AI-powered service loses customers, and what the architecture of loyalty-driven CX actually looks like.
AI Findings/Resources
🦞 How China is getting everyone on OpenClaw, from gearheads to grandmas
🔨 A developer on GitHub just built TaxHacker a self-hosted AI accounting app that processes receipts and invoices automatically
🔮 Online bot traffic will exceed human traffic by 2027, Cloudflare CEO says
The latest in AI and Tech
Users will now be able to publish original tracks made with the company's AI technology on the platform. Businesses and creators with paid subscriptions can then use Music Marketplace to select songs for ads, games, videos, or other commercial work, with earnings flowing back to the original creator.
Three people affiliated with server maker Supermicro have been arrested and charged with orchestrating a scheme to illegally divert AI servers worth $2.5 billion to China, according to U.S. authorities.
The company says the model is “much better at following prompts, 5x faster, has native 2K modes, improved text rendering and the best personalization, sref, and moodboard performance ever.”
The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but said the acquisition will bring Astral's suite of developer tools into the startup's AI coding system, Codex.
The feature, which lets users turn their research and notes into personalized, fully animated "cinematic" videos, was previously only available to Google AI Ultra ($250/month) subscribers.
That’s a wrap!
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Gina 👩🏻💻