Welcome to Get The Gist, where every weekday we share an easy-to-read summary of the latest and greatest developments in AI—news, innovations, and trends—all delivered in under 5 minutes! ⏱

In today’s edition:

• Perplexity AI Launches Native macOS App

• Claude AI Can Now Write and Execute JavaScript Code

• Midjourney's New AI Editor Enables Advanced Photo Editing and Re-Styling

• Google Photos Increases Transparency with New AI Label

• And more AI news….

Top Developments

Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI Launches Native macOS App

The Gist: Perplexity AI has launched its much-anticipated native app for macOS, allowing users to access its conversational and search-based AI capabilities directly on Mac devices. This marks a move from the web platform to a dedicated desktop app, aiming for greater convenience and enhanced user experience.

Key Details:

• Known for its precise answers and efficient web content summarization, Perplexity AI enables users to pick specific sources for its searches.

• The Mac app includes Pro Search with text or voice input, Thread Follow-Up, source tracking, and history search, all tailored to help users get quick, reliable information.

• The launch follows Perplexity’s native iOS app and ChatGPT’s macOS app release four months prior. This release also arrives shortly before Apple’s debut of Apple Intelligence on Macs.

• The Perplexity app for macOS is free on the Mac App Store, with an optional Perplexity Pro subscription available for advanced features.

Anthropic

Claude AI Can Now Write and Execute JavaScript Code

The Gist: Anthropic has launched a new analysis tool within Claude AI that can write and execute JavaScript code, enabling it to deliver precise, reproducible answers and generate interactive data visualizations.

Key Details:

• The analysis tool is now available as a built-in feature for Claude.ai, functioning similarly to ChatGPT’s Code Interpreter and leveraging JavaScript for data processing and insights.

• Claude systematically handles data tasks, including cleaning, exploration, and analysis to produce accurate results.

• Specific use cases include marketers enhancing conversions through customer data insights, sales teams analyzing global performance, product managers using customer engagement data for planning, engineers optimizing resource utilization from server logs, and finance teams building financial dashboards from monthly data.

• This tool is available in feature preview for Claude.ai users, with an option to enable or disable it.

Midjourney

Midjourney's New AI Editor Enables Advanced Photo Editing and Re-Styling

The Gist: Midjourney has introduced its External Editor, allowing users to directly modify, retexture, and transform uploaded images in various artistic styles, giving them unprecedented creative control.

Key Details:

• The External Editor enables users to upload images, then add, move, resize, and remove elements, or even fully reskin the image in styles like impressionist or anime.

• Initially available to a limited group of loyal users (those with over a year of membership or 10,000+ generated images), the tool aims to prevent content moderation issues and is rolling out gradually.

• Early users have created notable examples, such as retexturing classic artworks in gothic themes or creatively altering images with modern references.

• Midjourney joins AI platforms like Gemini, ChatGPT (via DALL-E), and others in offering sophisticated image-editing capabilities.

Quick Gist

Siemens and Microsoft have enhanced the Industrial Copilot with Azure OpenAI integration, aiming to boost manufacturing efficiency and innovation, with thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering planning a global rollout by 2025 (Read More).

Infosys launched two specialized small language models—Topaz BankingSLM and Topaz ITOpsSLM—built on the NVIDIA AI Stack to improve enterprise AI capabilities and operational efficiency (Read More).

Zoho has partnered with NVIDIA to enhance its SaaS applications, leveraging NVIDIA's AI for customized large language models, benefiting its 700,000+ global clients (Read More).

NVIDIA and Reliance Industries announced a strategic partnership to build advanced AI infrastructure in India, positioning the country as a future leader in global AI innovation (Read More).

Colle AI plans to integrate xAI's Grok API to add advanced content generation to its multichain NFT platform, enhancing automation capabilities (Read More).

DeepMind introduced the Habermas Machine, an AI mediation tool that achieved a 56% agreement rate in political discussions, highlighting AI’s potential in fostering societal cohesion (Read More).

Google Photos will soon display AI-editing transparency in the Details section, helping users identify images altered with AI tools (Read More).

Meta has developed smaller, faster Llama AI models for smartphones and tablets, facilitating advanced mobile AI capabilities and challenging traditional mobile AI platforms (Read More).

Apple expanded its bug bounty program, inviting researchers to test its Private Cloud Compute system and offering rewards up to $1 million ahead of new AI features in iOS 18.1 (Read More).

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority launched a formal investigation into Google’s $2 billion investment in Anthropic, citing potential market competition risks (Read More).

Meta released quantized versions of its Llama 3.2 1B and 3B models, optimizing them for low-powered devices with an average 41% memory reduction while retaining performance (Read More).

THAT’S IT FOR TODAY!