Google dropped Nano Banana 2 (officially Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) and it's a massive leap for anyone creating marketing content. The highlights: 4K image generation in any aspect ratio, consistent character rendering across up to 5 characters, precision text inside images for mockups and infographics, and real-time web knowledge for accurate renderings. All free. People are already generating photorealistic product shoots, YouTube thumbnails, and data visualizations from text-only prompts. If you're paying for stock photography or spending hours in Canva, this just undercut your entire workflow. It's the default in Gemini right now.
Remember when Google's NotebookLM blew everyone's minds with AI-generated podcasts from your documents? They just leveled up: cinematic video overviews. Drop in your source material -- a product catalog, a case study, a client brief -- and NotebookLM will create a custom immersive video from it. They also added custom styles for infographics, so you can turn data into shareable visuals too. If you're not using NotebookLM yet, this is an update that should change your mind.
Microsoft is reportedly building a new Microsoft 365 tier -- possibly called E7 -- that would bundle security, Copilot, and AI agent management into one plan. The wild part? AI agents would hold identities and email addresses just like human employees. Imagine an AI agent that handles your RFP responses, manages your order follow-ups, and has its own inbox your clients can email. That's the world Microsoft is building toward. Whether you love it or hate it, the "AI as a team member, not a tool" framing changes how every business owner should think about staffing and overhead, particularly in sales where fastest reply wins the day. It’s not entirely there yet but it’s one to watch closely!
We've spent over a year building AI directly into the platform you already use every day. AI Product Search is live now -- it reads your client history, project details, and industry, to surface products that actually fit. The skubot Mockup Generator (beta) pulls your decoration settings and client art to render realistic branded visuals on the spot. And in Q2, the Opportunity Bot drops -- analyzing your orders to flag cross-sells, repeat opportunities, and untapped revenue. All SOC 2 compliant, all powered by your business data. See everything that's shipping.
According to Ramp data from 50,000+ companies, Anthropic's Claude has overtaken OpenAI's ChatGPT in U.S. business AI spending. Claude's share surged from under 30% to roughly half of all corporate AI subscription spend in just a few months. This isn't just a leaderboard stat -- it's the opening salvo in what's becoming the defining enterprise AI battle. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and now Perplexity are all making aggressive plays for the enterprise buyer. OpenAI just raised $110B at an $840B valuation to cement its enterprise infrastructure. Microsoft is pricing AI agents like employees. Google is embedding Gemini into every workspace product. And Perplexity just launched Perplexity Computer aimed at enterprise workflows. For promo pros, this matters because (according to our survey) the industry has an over-reliance on ChatGPT. The market is splitting, and the businesses fluent in multiple AI platforms will have a real edge. The enterprise fight is just getting started.
🎬 Canva acquired Cavalry and MangoAI to expand into 2D animation. The design platform every promo team already uses is now a motion content studio. Content is about to get more animated -- literally.
👜 Gucci faced massive backlash after releasing AI-generated ads for Milan Fashion Week.
⚖️ Luminance AI cut contract review time from 150 minutes to 30 minutes for a global manufacturer, with 80% of contracts now handled without legal involvement.
🔪 Jack Dorsey laid off 40% of Block (4,000+ people) saying AI changed what it means to run a company. Stock surged 20%. Skepticism rose even higher.
🤖 We recently set up Claude Cowork with automated tasks to run the research on this newsletter. Every 2 weeks it runs on autopilot to surface the best stories. We got tips on how from this and this.
📋 Notion launched Custom Agents that run autonomously -- triaging inboxes, routing tasks, generating status reports, and answering team questions.
🗣️ Did you know you can humanize Claude’s language with this skill? We tried it. Works. Thanks to Stacie at Printable for the tip!
💬 ChatGPT got a vibe check. GPT-5.3 Instant is now the default model -- smoother tone, fewer refusals, hallucinations dropped ~23% with web search.
💰Cursor hit $2B in annual revenue. The AI code editor is what developers are using to build the next wave of business tools you'll be running on. BTW: We have more on this in an upcoming skucast interview with our VP of Tech, Dileshni, subscribe here to know when it drops!
🚀 Want to know exactly where commonsku's AI is at? Here's the full status page — from live features to what's coming next. Spoiler: skubot is getting very smart, very fast.