Screenless AI, Shopify's AI store & more (May 22, 2025)

👋 Hey friends,

Today’s drop is a power move from OpenAI and a wave of new agentic tools reshaping how we build, code, and sell online. From Jony Ive’s screenless dreams to Mistral’s compact coding killer, let’s break it down.

🤝 Big Bets & Bold Designs

💸 OpenAI acquires Jony Ive’s secret AI hardware company

OpenAI just dropped $6.5B to acquire "io," Jony Ive’s secretive AI device startup. This all-stock deal brings together Sam Altman’s ambition and the design mind behind the iPhone. Their prototype is reportedly screenless, super sleek, and being described by Altman as “the coolest piece of technology the world will have ever seen.” No device reveal yet, just a 9-minute cinematic tease. The endgame? Reinvent how we interact with AI, beyond screens and keyboards.

🤖 Eric Schmidt says AI is underhyped

In a TED Talk, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt declared AI is “the most significant development in 500 to 1,000 years of human society.” He predicts AI agents will soon run business processes, solve scientific mysteries, and offset population declines by making workforces more efficient. While some warn of an arms race with China, Schmidt remains bullish: humanity + AI = supercharged progress.

🔍 NVIDIA’s new AI video summarizer is wild

NVIDIA debuted AI Blueprint for VSS, a tool that watches hundreds of video streams and condenses hours into minutes. It’s already cutting costs in manufacturing by detecting defects faster and cheaper. Think of it as “time-lapse meets AI quality control.”

🧰 Toolchains & Agent Brains

🧠 Mistral drops Devstral, an open-source coding model that fits on your laptop

French startup Mistral is back to its roots with Devstral, a small but mighty open-source coding model built for agentic software dev. It beats larger models on GitHub issue resolution benchmarks and can run locally on Macs. Bonus: Apache 2.0 license, so you can use it freely.

🛍️ Shopify’s AI storefront builder is here

Shopify’s Summer ‘25 drop includes an AI tool that builds entire online stores from a single sentence. Describe what you want, and it’ll auto-generate the design, images, and layout. Sidekick, their AI assistant, also got a big upgrade, now handling voice chats, screen shares, and even custom discounts.

📄 ChatGPT Deep Research now exports beautiful PDFs

With a new PDF feature in ChatGPT’s Deep Research mode, you can now prompt it to create a full report, complete with citations, and export it as a clean, professional-looking PDF. Great for client deliverables, investor docs, or any time you want AI to do the heavy lifting and still look good.

🛠️ Tools of the Day

• Flow – Google’s new AI video creation platform
• GeometryCrafter – Converts video to depth maps and point clouds
• UnGPT – Makes AI-generated content undetectably human
• Wispr Flow – Turn voice into formatted, typo-free text in 100+ languages

💬 Prompt of the Day

“Rewrite this idea as a tweet, then as a professional LinkedIn post, then as a casual internal email.”

⚡ Quick Hits

• Dell launches AI servers with 256 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra chips
• ByteDance debuts BAGEL, a multimodal foundation model
• xAI unveils real-time Live Search API for Grok
• OpenAI’s Texas data center just scored $11.6B for expansion
• Silicon Valley Bank says AI funds now drive 40% of startup investment
• Evangelical leaders send Trump a letter about AI risks

🧠 TLDR

OpenAI is getting real about hardware, teaming up with Jony Ive to build the next-gen AI device. While Apple catches up in AI, Altman and Ive are already working on a screenless future. While Eric Schmidt says we’re still underestimating AI’s power, NVIDIA, Mistral, and Shopify are making sure we don’t miss what’s coming next.

Whether it’s a storefront, video summary, or full research report, the new age of agents is here. It’s fast, customizable, and increasingly local.

Until next time,
David