AI by AI Weekly Top 5 · The 2025 Collection

September 2025

Adoption, Accountability

Edited from four posts published in September 2025, covering September 1–28.

Introduction

September 2025

Major events

September was the month AI’s costs and consequences came due in court, in law and in the data center. Anthropic agreed to settle authors’ claims over pirated books for at least $1.5 billion, and Warner Bros. Discovery sued Midjourney. California passed SB 53, a disclosure law for frontier developers, and the Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into companion chatbots. Protesters went on hunger strike outside Anthropic and Google DeepMind.

The infrastructure plans grew larger still. Nvidia and OpenAI outlined a partnership for at least 10 gigawatts of computing, Stargate named five more US sites, OpenAI was reported to be building its own chip with Broadcom, and Nvidia and Intel agreed to design products together. Federal agencies, already offered OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s tools in August, gained access to Meta’s Llama through the GSA.

Patterns and trends

Research had a strong month. DeepSeek’s R1 work appeared in Nature with details of its training; OpenAI researchers examined why models guess rather than admit uncertainty; a model called Delphi forecast the risk of more than 1,000 diseases; and Gemini reached gold-medal level at an international programming contest. Products moved into everyday tools: Gemini in Chrome for all US desktop users, generated video and sound into YouTube Shorts, and a display into Meta’s glasses. Sam Altman, asked how much of the economy AI could take on, was reported to put it at 30 to 40 percent of tasks.

Long-term threads

SB 53, passed here, was signed on September 29, the first day of the October chapter. The Nvidia–OpenAI letter of intent opened a run of computing agreements: AMD and Broadcom in October, AWS in November. OpenAI’s reported chip with Broadcom became a 10-gigawatt deployment plan in October. Gemini’s wider rollout in Chrome anticipated the browser contest of October, when Perplexity made Comet free and OpenAI released ChatGPT Atlas. The FTC inquiry was followed by OpenAI’s Teen Safety Blueprint in November, and work on how models report on themselves continued in November with Anthropic’s introspection experiments and OpenAI’s sparse-circuit research.

Week 36

September 1–7

Original post published September 7, 2025

Hunger strikes target Anthropic and Google DeepMind

Activists began hunger strikes outside two AI developers. By September 8, Guido Reichstadter had gone just over a week without food outside Anthropic’s San Francisco office, and Michael Trazzi more than three days outside Google DeepMind’s London headquarters.1

Reichstadter asked Anthropic to stop frontier AI development. Trazzi asked DeepMind’s chief executive to commit to releasing no further frontier models if the other leading labs also stopped. The protests took public concern about advanced AI from open letters to the companies’ doors.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L4-1

Apertus opens a multilingual model for inspection

ETH Zurich, EPFL and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre released Apertus in 8-billion- and 70-billion-parameter versions. The project published the model weights with documentation of its architecture, training data and methods. Its training material covered more than 1,000 languages.2

Apertus treated openness as more than released weights: researchers and developers could examine how the system was built and adapt it under a permissive license.

Selected by Copilot
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L1-1

PromptLock shows how language models could enter malware

ESET first described PromptLock on August 26 as AI-powered ransomware. On September 3 it updated its account: the code was a proof of concept from an academic study, whose authors had contacted ESET’s researchers. The software used a language model to generate scripts within a ransomware prototype.3

The case showed how a language model could write malicious code on demand, and why a sample’s origin matters when judging a new threat.

Selected by Copilot
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L1-5

OpenAI plans a jobs platform and AI certifications

OpenAI announced plans for a jobs platform to connect employers with people who have AI skills, and for a certification program in AI skills. Both formed part of its stated work on economic opportunity and workforce preparation.4

The plans tied AI adoption to hiring and training, a field long served by established recruitment platforms.

Selected by Grok 4
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L3-4

A White House task force advances an AI education challenge

At the second meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education, hosted by First Lady Melania Trump, cabinet officials set out next steps for the Presidential AI Challenge, including toolkits, classroom guides and training materials. Alphabet’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, described a billion-dollar commitment to AI education and workforce training.5

The meeting joined federal agencies and technology companies in a push for AI literacy in schools and the workforce.

Selected by Grok 4
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L3-2

Warner Bros. Discovery sues Midjourney

Warner Bros. Discovery filed a copyright lawsuit against the image generator Midjourney in federal court in California. The complaint alleged that Midjourney let users generate images of the studio’s characters, including Batman and Scooby-Doo, without permission, and chose not to use measures that could have prevented it.6

The suit followed similar cases brought by Disney and Universal earlier in the summer, making Warner Bros. Discovery the third major studio to sue.

Selected by Grok 4
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L3-3

OpenAI is reported to be building a chip with Broadcom

The Financial Times reported that OpenAI was working with Broadcom on a custom AI chip, with the first chips expected to ship in 2026 for OpenAI’s own data centers rather than for sale. Neither company confirmed the arrangement. On an earnings call, Broadcom’s chief executive said an unnamed customer had placed substantial production orders.7

The reported aim was to reduce OpenAI’s reliance on Nvidia’s processors for part of its computing needs.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L4-5

Research examines why models guess instead of abstaining

OpenAI published research on why language models produce plausible but false answers. It argued that training and evaluation practices can reward guessing over acknowledging uncertainty: accuracy scores that give no credit for abstaining hide the difference between an honest “I don’t know” and a confident error.8

The analysis made the handling of uncertainty part of how a model is judged. Improving a benchmark score and reducing the harm of a wrong answer can call for different incentives.

Selected by DeepSeek-V3.1
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L2-1

Anthropic agrees to settle authors’ piracy claims

A proposed settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic provided at least $1.5 billion to resolve claims over books Anthropic had obtained from pirated collections. The Association of American Publishers set out the agreement and its claims process on September 5.9 At a September 8 hearing, Judge William Alsup asked the parties for more detail before ruling. He granted preliminary approval on September 25.10

The claims concerned how the books were obtained, not whether training AI models on them was lawful.

Selected by Grok 4 · Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L3-1, 2025-W37-L2-2

OpenAI backs an animated feature made with its tools

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI was supporting Critterz, an animated feature conceived by Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, and produced with Vertigo Films and Native Foreign. The film was to be made with OpenAI’s image and language models in about nine months, on a budget under $30 million, with a premiere planned for the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026.11,12

The project was conceived as a public demonstration of generative tools in feature animation.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W36-L4-4
Week 37

September 8–14

Original post published September 14, 2025

Google’s AI Mode adds five languages

Google extended AI Mode, its conversational search feature built on a customized version of Gemini 2.5, to Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese.13

The expansion brought AI-generated search answers to speakers of five more languages.

Selected by DeepSeek-V3.1
In the historical edition: 2025-W37-L3-5

California passes SB 53, a frontier-AI disclosure law

Senator Scott Wiener announced final amendments to SB 53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, on September 8.14 The Legislature passed the bill on September 13,15 and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it on September 29. The law requires large frontier developers to publish safety frameworks and report critical safety incidents, protects whistleblowers, and creates a consortium to plan a public computing cluster.16

The law made disclosure, incident reporting and whistleblower protection the core of California’s approach to frontier AI.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W37-L2-1, 2025-W38-L3-2

FTC opens an inquiry into companion chatbots

The US Federal Trade Commission issued orders to seven companies operating AI chatbots, seeking information on how companion-like services were developed, tested and monitored, including their effects on children and teenagers and their handling of personal information.17

The orders gathered information under the FTC’s study authority, separate from any enforcement action.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W37-L1-1

Hassabis calls learning how to learn the key skill

Speaking in Athens, Google DeepMind’s chief executive, Demis Hassabis, said the pace of AI would require people to keep learning throughout their careers, and that learning how to learn would be among the most important skills for the next generation.18

The remarks placed adaptability, rather than any single technical skill, at the center of education for an AI economy.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W37-L2-3
Week 38

September 15–21

Original post published September 22, 2025

YouTube brings generated video and sound to Shorts

At Made on YouTube, the company announced the rollout of Veo 3 Fast for Shorts, which generates clips with sound. It also previewed editing tools intended to turn raw footage into a first draft and help creators develop videos.19

The announcements placed generation tools inside a major platform’s publishing workflow, some available at launch and others to follow.

Selected by ChatGPT
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L1-5

DeepSeek-R1 research appears in Nature

Nature published DeepSeek’s research on reinforcement learning for language-model reasoning. The paper described methods and evaluations involving mathematical, coding and other reasoning tasks, as well as transferring capabilities to smaller models through distillation.20

The peer-reviewed paper gave a fuller account of how a model released in January had been trained.

Selected by ChatGPT
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L1-1

Gemini reaches gold-medal level in programming

Google DeepMind reported that an advanced version of Gemini 2.5 Deep Think solved 10 of 12 problems from the ICPC World Finals. The system worked remotely within the five-hour contest window under arrangements with the organizers, and its score reached the gold-medal level.21

The result measured performance on demanding programming problems under contest conditions. It came from a research version of the model, not the one offered to users.

Selected by ChatGPT · Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L1-4, 2025-W38-L3-1

Meta announces display glasses with wristband control

Meta introduced Ray-Ban Display glasses and a wristband that interprets muscle signals to control them. The glasses can show information such as messages and translations. Meta said sales would begin at selected US retailers on September 30.22

The design paired a small in-lens display with an input method that leaves the hands largely free.

Selected by ChatGPT
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L1-3

Delphi models long-term disease risk

Researchers introduced Delphi-2M, a model that estimates the risk of more than 1,000 diseases from health histories. It was trained using about 400,000 UK Biobank participants and tested on records from 1.9 million people in Denmark.23

Its developers described it as a proof of concept, not yet ready for clinical use; its estimates describe risk across populations, not individual diagnoses.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L3-5

Music publishers accuse AI companies of copyright theft

The International Confederation of Music Publishers accused generative AI companies, including OpenAI, Suno, Udio and Mistral, of “wilful, commercial-scale copyright infringement,” citing an investigation into the scraping of music and lyrics. Its director general, John Phelan, said the companies were “engaged in the largest copyright infringement exercise that has been seen.”24

The publishers used the findings to press for stronger transparency rules, including under the EU’s AI Act.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L3-4

Gemini expands its role inside Chrome

Google announced a wider rollout of Gemini in Chrome for English-language users on Mac and Windows in the United States. The assistant could help interpret pages and work across multiple tabs. More autonomous actions, such as completing purchases, were announced for later.25

The browser became a place to read, compare and act across the web with an assistant built in.

Selected by ChatGPT
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L1-2

Nvidia and Intel plan joint computing products

Nvidia and Intel announced plans to develop data-center and personal-computing products together, connecting Intel’s x86 processors with Nvidia technology. Nvidia also agreed to invest $5 billion in Intel common stock, with closing subject to customary conditions, including regulatory approval.26

The partnership joined two long-standing competitors’ technologies in planned products for data centers and PCs.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W38-L3-3
Week 39

September 22–28

Original post published September 28, 2025

Nvidia and OpenAI outline a large infrastructure partnership

OpenAI and Nvidia signed a letter of intent for systems providing at least 10 gigawatts of AI computing infrastructure. Nvidia intended to invest up to $100 billion progressively as that capacity was deployed. Details of the partnership were still to be finalized.27

The announcement tied staged investment to the construction of computing capacity.

Selected by Qwen3-Max
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L5-1

TII and Nvidia establish an AI robotics research lab

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute and Nvidia announced a joint research laboratory within Nvidia’s AI Technology Center program. Its work would address AI and robotics, including robot learning, control and the integration of TII’s Falcon models.28

The lab extended the institute’s language-model research into robotics.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L1-2

GSA and Meta arrange federal access to Llama

The US General Services Administration announced a collaboration with Meta to make Llama models available to federal agencies through its OneGov initiative, on agreed terms for government use.29

The arrangement gave agencies a common route to an open-weight model family; each agency still decides which tasks it suits.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L1-3

AppZen raises $180 million for finance automation

AppZen announced $180 million in growth funding led by Riverwood Capital. The company develops AI tools for finance operations, including expense auditing and accounts payable, and said the funding would support its next stage of expansion.30,31

The round reflected investor interest in AI agents built for a single business function.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L7-2

DeepSeek updates V3.1 with Terminus

DeepSeek released V3.1-Terminus through its app, website and API, with model weights also available. The company described improvements to language consistency and fewer unexpected characters, alongside updates to coding and search-agent behavior.32

The release concentrated on reliability within an existing model family, refinements that matter in daily use.

Selected by W.H.L. · Kimi K2
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L8-1

Stargate announces five additional US sites

OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank announced five additional US data-center sites for Stargate. With previously announced projects, OpenAI said the plans brought the program to nearly seven gigawatts of planned capacity and more than $400 billion of investment over three years.33

The figures described an infrastructure program under development, dependent on construction, power supply and equipment arriving over time.

Selected by GPT-5
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L1-1

Altman puts a figure on AI’s share of economic tasks

In an interview in Berlin for the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, was reported as expecting AI to perform 30 to 40 percent of the tasks in the economy before long. He said he would be “very surprised” if models were not “extraordinarily capable” by 2030.34

The estimate was a forecast, not a measurement, and it gave a public marker against which later progress can be compared.

Selected by Gemini 2.5 Flash
In the historical edition: 2025-W39-L7-1
References

Source notes

Sources checked October 26, 2026. Dates distinguish announcements, reports and later updates.

  1. 1
    TechSpot. Activists launch hunger strikes outside DeepMind and Anthropic offices over race to build advanced AI. September 8, 2025.www.techspot.com/news/109368-activists-launch-hunger-strikes-outside-anthropic-deepmind-offices.html
  2. 2
    ETH Zurich. Apertus: a fully open, transparent, multilingual language model. September 2, 2025.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/09/press-release-apertus-a-fully-open-transparent-multilingual-language-model.html
  3. 3
    ESET / WeLiveSecurity. First known AI-powered ransomware uncovered by ESET Research. August 26, 2025; updated September 3.www.welivesecurity.com/en/ransomware/first-known-ai-powered-ransomware-uncovered-eset-research/
  4. 4
    OpenAI. Expanding economic opportunity with AI. September 4, 2025.openai.com/index/expanding-economic-opportunity-with-ai/
  5. 5
    Government Executive. Agencies and industry announce efforts to further Presidential AI Challenge. September 5, 2025.www.govexec.com/technology/2025/09/agencies-and-industry-announce-efforts-further-presidential-ai-challenge/407929/
  6. 6
    Los Angeles Magazine. Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Midjourney for Copyright Infringement Over AI Use of Iconic Characters. September 5, 2025.lamag.com/news/warner-bros-discovery-sues-midjourney-for-copyright-infringement-over-ai-use-of-iconic-characters/
  7. 7
    Outlook Business, reporting the Financial Times. OpenAI to Build its Own AI Chip with Broadcom, Aims to Ship in 2026. September 5, 2025.www.outlookbusiness.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-to-build-its-own-ai-chip-with-broadcom-aims-to-ship-in-2026
  8. 8
    OpenAI. Why language models hallucinate. September 5, 2025.openai.com/index/why-language-models-hallucinate/
  9. 9
    Association of American Publishers. Frequently Asked Questions re Proposed Settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic. September 5, 2025.publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FAQS-Anthropic-September-5-2025-1.pdf
  10. 10
    Authors Guild. Anthropic Settlement: Key Updates. updates of September 8–25, 2025.authorsguild.org/news/anthropic-settlement-key-updates/
  11. 11
    Entrepreneur. An AI-Made Animated Feature Film Backed By OpenAI Is Premiering Next Year. September 8, 2025.www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/an-openai-backed-ai-made-animated-movie-is-coming-out-next/496853
  12. 12
    PetaPixel. OpenAI is Developing a Feature-Length Animated Movie Using AI Technology. September 10, 2025.petapixel.com/2025/09/10/openai-plans-to-make-a-full-hollywood-movie-animated-critterz-using-ai
  13. 13
    TechCrunch. Google’s AI Mode adds 5 new languages including Hindi, Japanese, and Korean. September 8, 2025.techcrunch.com/2025/09/08/googles-ai-mode-adds-5-new-languages-including-hindi-japanese-and-korean
  14. 14
    California State Senator Scott Wiener. Senator Wiener’s Landmark Responsible AI Innovation Bill Advances to Final Vote. September 8, 2025.sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/senator-wieners-landmark-responsible-ai-innovation-bill-advances-final-vote
  15. 15
    Digital Policy Alert. California Legislature adopts the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53). event of September 13, 2025.digitalpolicyalert.org/event/33866-act-on-frontier-artificial-intelligence-models-and-whistleblower-protections-including-artificial-intelligence-authority-governance-sb-53-was-adopted-by-california-legislature
  16. 16
    Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom signs SB 53, advancing California’s world-leading artificial intelligence industry. September 29, 2025.www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/29/governor-newsom-signs-sb-53-advancing-californias-world-leading-artificial-intelligence-industry/
  17. 17
    US Federal Trade Commission. FTC Launches Inquiry into AI Chatbots Acting as Companions. September 11, 2025.www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-launches-inquiry-ai-chatbots-acting-companions
  18. 18
    Associated Press (via WJXT). Google’s top AI scientist says ‘learning how to learn’ will be next generation’s most needed skill. September 12, 2025.www.news4jax.com/tech/2025/09/12/googles-top-ai-scientist-says-learning-how-to-learn-will-be-next-generations-most-needed-skill/
  19. 19
    YouTube. The next 20: Powering the future of entertainment together at Made on YouTube. September 16, 2025.blog.youtube/news-and-events/made-on-youtube-2025/
  20. 20
    Daya Guo and colleagues / Nature. DeepSeek-R1 incentivizes reasoning in LLMs through reinforcement learning. September 17, 2025.www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09422-z
  21. 21
    Google DeepMind. Gemini achieves gold-medal level at the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals. September 17, 2025.deepmind.google/blog/gemini-achieves-gold-medal-level-at-the-international-collegiate-programming-contest-world-finals/
  22. 22
    Meta. Introducing Meta Ray-Ban Display: AI Glasses With an EMG Wristband. September 17, 2025; page updated September 30.about.fb.com/news/2025/09/meta-ray-ban-display-ai-glasses-emg-wristband/
  23. 23
    European Molecular Biology Laboratory. AI model forecasts disease risk decades in advance. September 17, 2025.www.embl.org/news/science-technology/ai-model-forecasts-disease-risk-decades-in-advance/
  24. 24
    AFP (via The Jakarta Post). Music industry group says AI firms guilty of ‘wilful’ copyright theft. September 18, 2025.www.thejakartapost.com/culture/2025/09/18/music-industry-group-says-ai-firms-guilty-of-wilful-copyright-theft.html
  25. 25
    Google. Chrome, reimagined with AI. September 18, 2025.blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/chrome/chrome-reimagined-with-ai/
  26. 26
    Nvidia. NVIDIA and Intel to Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products. September 18, 2025.nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-and-intel-to-develop-ai-infrastructure-and-personal-computing-products
  27. 27
    OpenAI. OpenAI and NVIDIA announce strategic partnership to deploy 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems. September 22, 2025.openai.com/index/openai-nvidia-systems-partnership/
  28. 28
    Technology Innovation Institute. Abu Dhabi’s TII and NVIDIA Launch Middle East’s First Joint AI & Robotics NVAITC Research Lab. September 22, 2025.www.tii.ae/news/abu-dhabis-tii-and-nvidia-launch-middle-easts-first-joint-ai-robotics-nvaitc-research-lab
  29. 29
    US General Services Administration. GSA, Meta Collaborate on AI Adoption. September 22, 2025.www.gsa.gov/about-gsa/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-meta-collaborate-on-ai-adoption-09222025
  30. 30
    Riverwood Capital. AppZen Raises $180 Million Growth Round Led by Riverwood Capital to Take the Next Step in Autonomous Finance. September 22, 2025.www.riverwoodcapital.com/rwcm_news/appzen-raises-180-million-growth-round-led-by-riverwood-capital-to-take-the-next-step-in-autonomous-finance/
  31. 31
    AppZen. AppZen’s AI Agents are redefining finance operations (again). funding announcement; date corroborated by Riverwood, September 22.www.appzen.com/blog/appzen-ai-agent-studio-redefining-finance-operations-again
  32. 32
    DeepSeek. DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus Release. September 22, 2025.api-docs.deepseek.com/news/news250922/
  33. 33
    OpenAI. Five new Stargate sites. September 23, 2025; page later updated.openai.com/index/five-new-stargate-sites/
  34. 34
    TechSpot. Sam Altman predicts Artificial General Intelligence by 2030, says AI will take over 40% of tasks. September 26, 2025.www.techspot.com/news/109644-sam-altman-predicts-artificial-general-intelligence-2030-ai.html