Tech Brew Ride Home - Dippin Dots

Starting point is 00:00:04 Welcome to the TechBrew ride home for Wednesday, September 30th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough today. Trump got the big AI companies to sign a voluntary, though morally binding, safety accord. Opening Eyes, Deb Day delivered dots, always on agents, plus GPT 6.1 sole and a play to make ChatGPT the new app store. Also, Amazon refreshed the Fire TV Stick 4K. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the companies you invest in. Now you can make your voice heard too. Vanguard investor choice makes it easy to set your proxy voting preference for your eligible Vanguard index funds. Whether you hold a Vanguard fund directly or through another brokerage firm,

Starting point is 00:00:52 all that takes is a few clicks to select your proxy voting preference and be heard on important shareholder topics like executive pay and director elections. Visit vanguard.com slash investor choice to learn more. It's your shares. It's your voice. It's easy. Vanguard investors own shares of our index funds and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. President Trump has released a voluntary AI accord with tech leaders asking companies to partner with external auditors and set up internal controls to monitor AI alignment. Quoting the Times, President Trump summoned the world's most powerful technology executives

Starting point is 00:01:29 to the White House on Tuesday and praised the assembled billionaires as very brilliant minds who wanted to make the world a better place through job creation, the construction of data centers, and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. In the end, convening all of those billions and all of that brainpower did not result in a commitment to formal regulation. Instead, they signed a voluntary agreement to adopt safety policies that include risk reviews, auditing, and evaluations of systems by third parties. They also agreed to adopt Mr. Trump's preferred rebranding of AI as superintelligence. This is going to be all for the good and we're going to have it be nice and safe, Mr. Trump said on Tuesday afternoon, when he and the tech leaders took

Starting point is 00:02:09 questions outside the White House, and they're really going to be policing each other, and that's the way it works. Asked if the agreement would be binding, Mr. Trump said, I think it's morally binding. Inside the White House luncheon, Mr. Trump's seating chart, which he posted on social media, revealed a powerful assemblage of executives who are deeply divided on the need for AI safeguards. The meeting also included top officials such as Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President J.D. Vance, who believe that formalized safeguards would hurt American competitiveness. In the middle of it all was Mr. Trump, who has punted to a group of executives to decide how best to wrangle the rapidly evolving technology or whether it should be

Starting point is 00:02:43 wrangled at all. There's going to be a tremendous self-policing aspect, Mr. Trump said. The one-page document is short on details and relies on the companies to follow through with their promises. It is not an official order and it is unclear. Who would enforce the guidance? It was signed by Mr. Trump and the leaders of Anthropic Google, Meta, Nvidia, Open AI and SpaceX AI. The agreement echoes voluntary safety commitments by AI companies made during the Biden administration. The companies agreed to test their systems for safety and to report safety and security incidents. But the commitments were non-binding and largely lost at the start of the Trump administration when the president rolled back safety requirements. The business leaders invited to the White House on Tuesday included Dario Amadai, the chief executive of Anthropic, who has called federal safety regulations, including the testing of models.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Amo Dai fantastic. Also on the guest list was Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia and a close Trump ally. who has called the safety concerns exaggerated. Mr. Huang has implored the administration and lawmakers to keep a hands-off approach to regulating the industry, saying rules would allow rival China to speed past the United States on AI leadership. When the group appeared with reporters, the president called Mr. Huang a very handsome guy and asked him to speak. We're going to advance this technology that is so consequential to humanity, so consequential to the future prosperity of our nation, Mr. Huang told reporters, we're going to do it responsibly and safely.

Starting point is 00:04:09 Others invited to the luncheon included Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, Alex Karp, the chief executive of Palantir, Sundar Pachia of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and Elon Musk of SpaceX AI, end quote. Amazon this morning unveiled a faster, slimmer, $60 fire TV stick 4K, simplified its fire TV stick lineup and announced plans to roll out an upgraded Alexa Plus Living Room Hub in November. quoting Bloomberg. The new product is priced at $59.99 and start shipping Tuesday in the U.S. and a dozen other countries. Availability will expand further in late October. Amazon said in a statement. The company claims that the new device makes apps launch 35% faster and allows content to start playing nearly 20% more quickly than similarly priced 4K streaming sticks from another leading brand. It's also touting the streaming gadget as offering a faster experience than the built-in software on many. smart TVs. The Fire TV Stick 4K includes 8 gigabytes of internal storage is powered by a quad core processor and has both Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity. It supports multiple high dynamic range video formats, though Dolby Vision is excluded. It's efficient enough to be

Starting point is 00:05:29 powered by the built-in USB port on most TVs without needing to be plugged into a wall outlet. With this introduction, Amazon is streamlining its stick lineup to the $40 Fire TV Stick HD, Fire TV Stick 4K and $85 $5 TV Stick 4K Max. The latter provides more storage and faster speeds in addition to the aforementioned Dolby Vision support. All of the devices are frequently discounted by the online retailer.

Starting point is 00:05:55 Bundled with the FireTV Stick 4K is a redesigned remote control with more tactile buttons and an asymmetric shape that makes it easier to tell when you're holding it right side up. The remote has gained a customizable button, a convenience previously limited to FireTV's more premium remote that can be mapped to open a specific entertainment app or adjust settings. The new Fire TV remote will be available as a standalone purchase for $15 with an aluminum

Starting point is 00:06:21 version to follow in early 2027 that adds backlit buttons and a Find My Remote feature, end quote. Amazon also said that Fire. Amazon also said Fire TV now offers integrated live content for more than 40 apps like YouTube TV and DirecTV and plans a music app with podcasts and concerts in the fall. OpenAI held their developers conference yesterday and unveiled a bunch of stuff, but we'll get to all of that in another segment. First, let's talk about what got most of the headlines. What are dots? And what does OpenAI want you to do with them?

Starting point is 00:07:00 Quoting the verge. Open AI is responding to meta's buzzy muse AI with agentic helpers of its own. Dots during its dev-day keynote on Tuesday, Open AI announced that Dots will serve as always on AI assistance. that can do, quote, nearly anything across connected apps in the background while learning your preferences over time. The company's capable GPT6 Astro model powers dots, which use their own cloud computer to access a web browser and more than 4,000 supported apps. You can interact with a dot through a text message-like interface that's similar to the one offered by Muse, as well as hop on a voice call with it from chat GPT on the web desktop or mobile. Dots can also connect to Microsoft

Starting point is 00:07:41 teams and Slack where they will carry over the context from your sessions on other apps and devices. It will soon be able to talk to you over text message as well. For now, you can only create one dot, though OpenAI plans to allow users to deploy multiple agents at once. Once you give your dot a task, it will message you with updates and questions while it works. As an example, OpenAI says a developer working on an app could ask their dot to use customer feedback to build and test updates while presenting them with a video showing its changes. Meanwhile, a content creator could have their dot review and interview transcript, find moments to clip, create new shows, and write social posts. You can follow along with your dots progress by accessing

Starting point is 00:08:21 its cloud computer. Dots also learn while they work, allowing them to personalize their output and come up with other tasks to complete before you even think to ask, according to OpenAI. You and your colleagues can also work with your dot in chat GPT space, a new collaborative workspace in the app. The launch of dots comes just weeks after Meta rolled out mute. a customizable AI assistant capable of browsing the web, making purchases, generating documents, tracking goals, and more. Even as its source and popularity, concerns are growing over its safety, with one user saying it handed out their address to a buyer on Facebook marketplace without

Starting point is 00:08:55 their knowledge. Open AI says dots come with built-in rules for when to act independently, but you can set custom ones that block certain actions or dictate when it should ask for permission. Dots come with an auto review feature as well, which OpenAI says they'll use to verify whether an action complies with custom rules and safety requirements. This also allows dots to determine which tasks to hand off to users like changing a password. Starting today, OpenAI is rolling out dots to chat GPT Pro, business premium, and enterprise users. OpenAI is also testing a feature that lets companies create specialist dots to handle specific roles inside organizations.

Starting point is 00:09:32 OpenAI notes that conversations with your dot won't count towards chat GPT usage limits. In the future, you'll be able to add more dots and scale the output of each dot by either increasing its speed or the total amount of work it can take on per month, Open AI says, end quote. Introducing the Pod 6 from 8 sleep. What makes it different from the Pod 5? Think of this as an engine upgrade. Pod 6 is 50% smaller than the previous generation, packs nine times more sensors and delivers more powerful active heating and cooling. The pod can now read more of what your body is actually doing overnight and feeds a better signal into autopilot. New sizes include twin and twin XL and members see up to 34% more deep sleep. Use code ride home at 8Sleep.com slash tech brew

Starting point is 00:10:26 ride home for a special offer. The pod six starts at $1,99 and you can have 30 nights to try it at home. Return it if you don't love it. Teams that struggle to scale aren't falling behind because their lacking headcount or budget, it's because critical knowledge isn't documented. That's what today's sponsor, Scribe, was built to fix. When specialists or experts leave your team, their knowledge disappears too. That's where Scribe comes in. Scribe is a specialized intelligence platform trusted by 94% of the Fortune 500. It captures workflows in real time and automatically generates the documentation for how your company works with no manual writing. It automatically redacts sensitive information like names and account numbers from screenshots. Plus, your team can launch

Starting point is 00:11:13 real-time on-screen guidance showing exactly where to click step-by-step inside the actual tool. And these captured workflows give your AI agents real context so they can operate on how work actually happens, not guesses. Learn more at Scribe.com. Slash ride home and mention TechBrew Ride Home for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot how slash ride home. Here's all the other stuff from OpenAI Dev Day Beyond Dots. OpenAI released GPT6.1 Sol saying it nearly matches Astra on agenetic coding and professional work at one-fifth of Astra's standard prices in work and Codex. They priced GPT6.1 Sol at $2 per 1 million input and $10 per 1 million output tokens, the same as GPT6 Sol and Claude Sun at 5.5 and says it performs well on safety tests.

Starting point is 00:12:11 Opening I announced new features for Codex, including reusable cloud development environments, a refreshed Codex CLY, a new code review experience, and more. They unveiled Decisions API, which returns predefined answers with confidence scores available in limited preview with no pricing details. They expanded ChatGPT plugins with interactive panels and file viewers, launched a plugin creator tool, and added MCP events support for plugin automations. They reopened signups for their $200 a month pro tier, halved API credits per dollar to encourage pay per use, and committed to not reinstating the five-hour cap. And they unveiled a $500 per month pro plan offering its highest usage allowance and access to its new ultra-fast tier

Starting point is 00:13:01 with up to eight times faster token generation in Codex. But let's do a bit more on what GPT space is, which we mentioned in the previous segment, quoting and gadget. Co-workers will be able to set up chat GPT spaces where they, chat GPT and dots, their new personal AI agents that OpenAI is offering up, can tap into shared information. The company says users can keep files that they and their colleagues upload, as well as what they generate using chat GPT organized in a team space to make it easy to find what they need. This feature will be available for those on Open AIs Pro, business, and enterprise plans.

Starting point is 00:13:39 first on the ChatGPT desktop app and the web before arriving on mobile. Aligned with that, a plugin for meetings can take notes and generate summaries, including action items, and add those to a space. The tool deletes the audio that it captured once the notes are generated. This plugin will initially be available on the ChatGPT desktop app for MacOS for those on Pro and business plans with access for enterprise users to follow. Perhaps to ward off concerns that opening I might use files uploaded the spaces, which may well-contained sensitive information for training purposes, the company says its private intelligence

Starting point is 00:14:13 system, quote, helps businesses use frontier AI with greater confidence that their data is protected. In addition, chat GPT will be available on Slack and Microsoft Teams for those on business and enterprise plans. Users can mention at chat GPT in channels, DMs and threads to, for instance, generate slides based on a conversation. With permission from admins or users, the chatbot can hook into tools that they connect to Slack and teams. quote. So what do all of these announces amount to? Quoting TechCrunch.

Starting point is 00:14:46 The focus of OpenAI's Dev Day on Tuesday may have been on its agentic assistance known as Dots or its new AI models, but combined the company's announcements pointed toward a bigger plan, a disruption of the traditional app store model. Taken together, today's announcements turn ChatGBTBT itself into the place where software can be discovered, launched, and used by people and agents alike. In addition, OpenAI introduced a way for people to bring their chat GPT identity with them while also allowing them to use their existing AI allowance in third-party apps. This isn't the first time OpenAI has experimented with how apps could operate within its familiar chatbot interface,

Starting point is 00:15:22 but the current vision feels more fleshed out than before. For starters, the company is turning chatGPT itself into a surface for launching apps. The chatbot, which the company says now has 1.2 billion weekly users, has yet to fully capitalize on its potential as a discovery. every mechanism for finding and using apps that work with AI. To change that, ChatGPT will begin to make app suggestions within the flow of conversation when it recognizes that a particular app could help the user complete their task. From there, the user will be able to connect the app and begin using it directly within ChatGPT.

Starting point is 00:15:54 This is also aided by the expansion of ChatGPT's plugin architecture, which now supports extensions. This allows app developers to build interactive panels where users can work with their tools while they're chatting with chat GPT. This essentially turns the apps and services that users would have previously used via the web or through a native desktop or a mobile app into something that's operated directly within chat chvety. Developers that sign on with the system can build AI native versions of their apps through chat chvety the same way they would through the open web or a mobile app store. As more and more discovery happens through AI chat, it's a distribution channel that's hard to pass up. Users get an incentive to use that channel too because sign in with chat

Starting point is 00:16:33 which EBT will let them bring their AI allowance with them. OpenAI has 16 launch partners on this effort, including Cognition's Devin, Notion, Versel, T3, OpenClaw, and Dactyl, but plans to add more soon, it says. In a demo at OpenEI's Dev Day event, the company showed off how its own new meeting app could work inside chat chadbd showing upcoming meetings from the user's calendar. Here, the user could easily choose to use AI to take meeting notes, then receive a summary of follow-up items when the meeting wrapped. In another example, users would work with design-focused apps like those from Figma and Adobe to work on revisions of their current project or use a particular feature that would have

Starting point is 00:17:12 otherwise required a standalone app. The apps can be shared with others like work colleagues in the lightweight websites chat GTPT now produces. From these chat GPD sites, a user's coworker could sign into the app with their own credentials and permissions making the software experience personalized to them. Beyond turning chat GPT into an app. discovery tool where users connect with apps directly. Open AI's embrace of agents is gently pushing users into a new era where they don't have to think as much about which app to use

Starting point is 00:17:40 or why relying instead on their AI agent's suggestions. This system could give Appmakers another way to reach customers outside of Apple and Google's app stores. For instance, users could subscribe to a service through the App Maker's website, then connect that account to chat GPT or Codex for their agent to use. Open AI has not said, however, that these features would eliminate the need for separate third-party subscriptions or other charges, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Dippin Dots

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