AI Research
Research-driven reporting, benchmark breakdowns, paper explainers, and AI research tools.
Get the daily brief on AI, workflows, and the signals shaping how teams operate.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe in one click.
What this topic covers. AI research moves fast, but most reporting on it strips away the methodology. This topic keeps the evidence, the benchmarks, and the limitations in view.
Why it matters. Research claims shape funding, product launches, and policy narratives. If the evidence is weak or misread, the downstream conclusions are weak too.
Coverage

Chinese AI Models Are Now Over 100x Cheaper Than Anthropic
DeepSeek V4-Flash costs about 105x less per benchmark task than Claude Fable 5, while Alibaba's Qwen3.5 Flash is more than 170x cheaper on output tokens. The gap is turning inference cost into a competitive weapon.

GEO Has a Measurement Problem, Not a Hack Problem
A new critical survey of AI search research undercuts most of the tactical playbook. For US growth teams, the real decision is who owns measurable answer engine optimization, not who knows the next formatting trick.

Anthropic Moves From AI Research Tools Into AI Drug Discovery
Claude Science and an internal drug pipeline put Anthropic on both sides of the biopharma transaction, and directly in the path of Isomorphic Labs and OpenAI

Which Jobs Are Safest and Riskiest From AI? The Most Authoritative Research of 2026
Anthropic, Goldman Sachs, the WEF, and the IMF have all released major findings this year. Here is what the data actually says about who is exposed, who is protected, and what is already happening.

Claude Opus 4.7 vs GPT-5.5: The Honest Flagship Breakdown
Both dropped within seven days of each other in April 2026. Here's what the benchmarks, pricing, and real-world tests actually show.
Practical guides

How to Fix Codex Usage Limits: 7 Token-Saving Methods, Verified
Seven popular Codex token-saving tricks, checked against benchmarks and OpenAI's own docs, so you know which ones actually move the needle.

How to Set Up Hermes Agent: The Self-Improving AI That Runs 24/7
Install Nous Research's open-source autonomous agent locally or on a VPS in under 20 minutes, complete with model setup, Telegram gateway, and code snippets
Tools to evaluate
NotebookLM
NotebookLM is Google's source-grounded research assistant, powered by Gemini, that answers questions strictly from documents, websites, and videos the user uploads. It generates outputs like audio overviews, video overviews, slide decks, infographics, mind maps, and study guides from those sources, with inline citations back to the original material. A June 2026 update added agentic source discovery and a secure code-execution environment per notebook.
Midjourney
Midjourney is an AI image and video generator that turns text prompts into artistic visuals through its web app. It is built by a small, self-funded research lab and is known for a distinctive, painterly aesthetic rather than strict photorealism. The tool also supports image-to-image references, character consistency, and short video animation from generated stills.
Semrush
Semrush is a digital marketing platform built around keyword research, competitor analysis, site audits, and backlink tracking. It pulls from a large proprietary database covering billions of keywords and domains, and recently expanded into AI search visibility tracking across tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush in April 2026. The platform is organized into separate toolkits for SEO, content, advertising, social, local, and AI visibility, which can be purchased individually or bundled.
ChatGPT
OpenAI's conversational AI assistant covering writing, coding, research, and agentic tasks across a free tier and multiple paid plans.
Gemini
Google's multimodal AI assistant with native integration across Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Sheets, and a 1M token context window on paid plans.
Perplexity
An AI-powered search engine and research tool that provides conversational answers with cited sources, changing how we discover information.
The AI brief for people adapting to changes in work
Join readers tracking AI news, workflow shifts, and practical tools they can use to adapt faster.