xAI goes gaming, Salesforce Agent wars & more (October 13, 2025)

Good morning,

From Microsoft’s new AI-powered privacy feature to Salesforce’s Agentforce launch and xAI’s recruitment spree, today’s headlines reveal how competition is intensifying across every AI layer. Enterprise giants are racing to secure their edge through infrastructure, automation, and innovation, while the next wave of AI products moves closer to consumers’ daily lives.

Let's dig in👇

🚀 New Launches

🌍 xAI Recruits Nvidia Engineers to Develop Next-Gen World Models

xAI is hiring top Nvidia engineers to accelerate development of its world modeling platform for generative environments. The system aims to simulate realistic virtual worlds, merging gaming, training, and autonomous systems into a shared simulation ecosystem. If successful, this could position xAI as a foundational player in next-gen immersive AI and digital twin technologies.

📊 Salesforce Announces Agentforce 360

Salesforce has launched Agentforce 360 globally to embed generative agents across its cloud suite and link human, AI, and data in one trusted system. The platform already counts 12,000 customers and integrates conversational AI within Slack to boost productivity across workflows. As enterprise AI intensifies, Agentforce 360 could become a linchpin in Salesforce’s bid to lead digital labor adoption.

💾 Microsoft Adds AI Facial Recognition to OneDrive

Microsoft quietly added facial recognition features to its OneDrive cloud storage service, allowing automated tagging and organization of photos. The feature can only be disabled three times per year, raising eyebrows among privacy advocates and compliance teams. It signals a larger shift in enterprise cloud AI, where personalization and surveillance are starting to blur.

💰 Money Moves

📰 Open AI and Broadcom to Deploy Custom AI Accelerators

OpenAI and Broadcom announced plans to jointly design and manufacture new custom AI accelerators beginning in the second half of 2026. The collaboration signals OpenAI’s intent to reduce reliance on Nvidia and optimize compute efficiency for its expanding model ecosystem. This partnership could shift the competitive dynamics of AI hardware, aligning with the industry trend toward vertically integrated AI infrastructure.

📢 Deloitte and Oracle Accelerate Agentic AI with Zora AI™

Deloitte and Oracle have teamed up to launch Zora AI™, an agentic system aimed at accelerating automation in smart factories and enterprise operations. The partnership blends Deloitte’s consulting expertise with Oracle’s cloud ecosystem to drive industrial-scale intelligence. As enterprises race to adopt AI-driven agents, Zora AI positions both firms as leaders in practical, human-machine collaboration.

👥 Meta Hires Andrew Tulloch, Cofounder of Thinking Machines

Meta has recruited Andrew Tulloch, cofounder of the Filipino AI firm Thinking Machines, to strengthen its global AI infrastructure strategy. Tulloch, a key figure in distributed computing, will focus on scaling Meta’s in-house models and developer platforms. The move underscores Meta’s ongoing AI arms race against OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI—anchored by a renewed focus on deep technical leadership.

🧰 Tools of the Day

→ Traycer AI - Plan-first AI coding for real codebases
→ Orchids - The AI Full Stack Engineer
→ SigmaMind AI - Build enterprise-ready voice/chat AI agents

✍️ Prompt of the Day

“You’re my AI integration consultant. Review my current business workflow [paste it] and identify 3 processes that can be automated using AI agents. For each, provide the ideal tool or API, expected efficiency gain, and implementation timeline.”

⚡ Quick Hits

→ Former Apple CEO calls OpenAI Apple’s first true competitor in decades.
→ OpenAI’s GPT-5 reduces political bias by 30%.
→ Sora 2 OpenAI’s SOTA video model now available via API.
→ Perplexity presses pause on ads: recalibration of monetization strategy.
→ Perplexity CEO ditches slide decks for AI-powered pitches.
→ My Wonder launches screen-free AI device for kids, raises $300K in pre-seed.
→ Noma Security named SINET16 Innovator for agent security platform.

🧾 TLDR

AI momentum is accelerating across every dimension, hardware, enterprise software, and consumer products. Microsoft’s controversial facial recognition rollout marks a new privacy crossroads, while Salesforce and Deloitte double down on enterprise automation. Meanwhile, Meta’s strategic hire and xAI’s simulated worlds show how talent and imagination remain the ultimate differentiators.

Cheers,
David