In partnership with
Welcome Automaters 👋
So OpenAI just rolled out something that’s equal parts "genius safety move" and "slightly creepy digital detective.": An AI Age Prediction feature. Yup, ChatGPT now has an AI bouncer that tries to guess if you’re under 18 without you saying a word.
Here’s the deal: Instead of just asking for your birthday (because we all know how well that works), OpenAI’s new model analyzes "behavioral signals." It’s looking at your usage patterns, how old your account is, and even when you’re online to make an educated guess.
Think of it as a vibe check. If you’re asking for help with Algebra at 4 PM on a Tuesday, the AI might decide you’re a teen and slap on the "training wheels."
So why the sudden crackdown?
Let’s be real: this isn't just for fun. OpenAI is currently facing a mountain of legal heat. After several heartbreaking lawsuits involving teen safety and "dangerously sycophantic" AI behavior, the company is in major damage-control mode.
Now The new "Teen Mode" protections include:
The Big No-Nos: Blocking graphic violence, harmful viral challenges, and romantic roleplay.
Parental Peace of Mind: New controls (dropping late January) let parents link accounts, set "blackout hours," and get pings if the system detects acute distress.
But beyond the safety and legal stuff, there’s a real business reason for the bouncer too.
In plain English: this is all setting the stage for “Adult Mode,” officially landing in Q1 2026. OpenAI’s CEO of Apps, Fidji Simo, says the company is leaning into Sam Altman’s whole “treat adults like adults” mindset. This means verified grown-ups will soon have access to mature content (yes, including erotica).
And since OpenAI isn’t about to trust the honor system for spicy prompts, they’re splitting the experience in two: one ChatGPT with the guardrails firmly on… and another, 18+ version where the velvet rope actually opens.
Also: don’t freak out if the bouncer side-eyes you. If the AI clocks you as a kid but you’re actually a 35-year-old night owl with insomnia and Wi-Fi, you can verify your age through Persona (yep, the same tech Roblox uses). It’s quick—either a selfie or an ID scan, and you’re back inside.
The Big Picture: OpenAI is basically fixing a plane while it’s still in the air. With over 800 million weekly users, even a tiny 1% mistake means 8 million people getting wrongly “vibed” out of the experience.
So the real question is: is an AI-powered age gate better than a pinky promise and good vibes?
We’re about to find out.
Here's what we have for you today
🗣️ Davos 2026: Anthropic and DeepMind CEOs Clash Over AGI Timelines and Job Loss
Guyzzzz, if you weren't paying attention to the Swiss Alps yesterday, you missed the AI equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner blowup—except the "family" members are billionaires and the "dinner table" is a global stage at Davos.
Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei sat down with The Economist for a panel called “The Day After AGI.” Usually, these things are just corporate back-patting and expensive bottled water. But not this time. This was two of the smartest people on Earth wrestling with the "When, Not If" of AGI, and let’s just say, they didn't exactly see eye-to-eye.
Here is the breakdown of the most chaotic hour in AI so far this year:
1. The Timeline Debate
Both CEOs now predict that AGI, (that’s AI that can do everything a human can do at a Nobel Prize-winning level) could arrive somewhere between 1 and 5 years from now. Read that again. If you have a toddler, AGI might be here before they finish kindergarten.
For Anthropic’s Amodei, Well let’s say he’s basically living in the future. He doubled down on his 2026/2027 estimate, saying it’s not "far from reality." His evidence? The feedback loop is already humming. AI is literally helping build the next generation of AI.
DeepMind's Hassabis is the "cautious" one (if you call a 50% chance of AGI by 2030 cautious). He thinks natural sciences are a bigger hurdle because AI still lacks "scientific creativity"—basically, it’s great at math and codes, but it can’t invent a brand-new hypothesis yet.
But there was drama:
Dario Amodei decided to choose violence. In front of world leaders and policymakers, he went nuclear on the Trump administration AND Nvidia for selling advanced chips to China.
For him, it’s absolutely crazy and a LOT like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.
But fun fact: Nvidia literally just dumped $10 billion into Anthropic two months ago. I mean imagine calling out your biggest investor at a gala while they’re still writing the check. Big yikes. It turns out the AI race is so intense that "investor relations" and "diplomatic niceties" have officially left the building.
But in the midst of all that, Hassabis dropped a truth bomb: we aren't there yet. According to him, there are still "missing ingredients" on the road to AGI. Now he didn't list them all, but reading between the lines, we’re talking about:
Long-term reasoning: Systems that don't go off the rails after three prompts.
Real-world verification: AI that knows if its science works in a lab, not just a simulation.
Causality: Understanding why things happen, not just guessing the next word.
So Will We Have Jobs?
This is where the vibes got real different, real fast:
For Amodei : He’s already seeing the impact. He revealed Anthropic engineers "no longer write code; they let the model do it and they just edit." He thinks we're 6–12 months away from AI handling software engineering end-to-end, which could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar roles.
For Hassabis? He’s the optimist. He thinks internship hiring might slow down, but it’ll be compensated by "amazing tools" that unlock new, more meaningful jobs.
Translation: Amodei thinks the entry-level white-collar ladder is being kicked away; Hassabis thinks we’re about to see a transformation where better tools unlock better opportunities.
Who's right? Honestly, probably both. The reality is likely somewhere in the messy middle —some jobs will vanish, new ones will emerge, and a whole lot of people are going to have to learn new skills FAST.
But perhaps the most striking thing they agreed on: They described this moment as "technological adolescence." Basically, humanity is a teenager playing with matches, and the next few years determine if we grow up or... well, don't.
What This Means for YOU
If you’re in tech (especially early-career), the game is changing in real-time. That coding bootcamp you finished last year? Its shelf life just got shorter. That junior developer role you were gunning for? It might not exist in the same form two years from now, well, according to Amodei.
But don't panic yet. Neither CEO said "give up." They said "adapt," and do it fast." The winners in the AGI era won't be the ones who can code the fastest, they'll be the ones who can direct the AI, spot its hallucinations, and bring the human judgment that (for now) the robots can't replicate.
The Davos debate wasn't about if anymore. It was about when—and whether we’re ready for the world to look radically different by Friday.
And spoiler: We aren't, but at least we are having the conversation.
Hiring in 8 countries shouldn't require 8 different processes
This guide from Deel breaks down how to build one global hiring system. You’ll learn about assessment frameworks that scale, how to do headcount planning across regions, and even intake processes that work everywhere. As HR pros know, hiring in one country is hard enough. So let this free global hiring guide give you the tools you need to avoid global hiring headaches.
✍️ Editor’s Corner
Hi Automaters,
I’m super pleased that The Automated is partnering with Max Pog's Community Sprints, Aakash Gupta, Robert-Rami Youssef’s God of Prompts, Paweł Huryn’s The Product Compass, and many more of your favorite AI creators and educators on delivering a practical, FREE conference on developing your AI skills for 2026.
Skip Davos and sign up for the 5000+ attendee conference (8 AM SF/11 AM NYC/4 PM London).
Cheers,
Tak Lo, Editor, The Automated
🧱 Around The AI Block
🤔 Samsung unveils a new AI Bixby—then immediately deletes the whole announcement.
☁️ TikTok owner ByteDance targets Alibaba with AI-led cloud drive.
🗣️ Lawmakers say Britain needs 'AI stress tests' for financial services.
💡 OpenAI says it will pay for energy upgrades at Stargate Sites.
🫁 Bristol Myers partners with Microsoft for AI-driven lung cancer detection.
🦾 Elon Musk says Tesla’s restarted Dojo3 will be for ‘space-based AI compute’.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the Safety-Conscious: Pixalytica – Instead of scanning IDs, you upload a photo, and the AI generates a comprehensive risk report in 20 seconds. It scans 300M+ public sources for mentions, associations, and risk indicators to verify exactly who you’re dealing with.
For the Global Communicators: TranslateGemma is a collection of open-source translation models specifically "two-step" trained for elite translation. Covering 55+ languages, they are small enough to run on your laptop but powerful enough to handle complex nuances that standard translators miss.
For the Personal Assistants: Gemini Personal Intelligence lets Gemini reason across all your Google apps at once. You can ask, "When is my flight, and show me the hotel photos I saved," and it’ll pull the data from Gmail and Photos in one single step.
For the Brand Builders: Shutterstock AI Generator is built on tech from OpenAI and Gemini, to allow you generate high-end visuals that are actually commercially licensed.
Hope these tools help you reclaim some of your time today!
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: How To Turn Your Boring Reports into Visual Masterpieces
Ever tried to explain a complex idea and watched someone's eyes glaze over?
Yeah, we’ve been there. But it’s 2026, and if you’re still manually dragging boxes in PowerPoint, you’re doing it the hard way!
Both ChatGPT and Gemini have leveled up their "visual thinking." You can now turn a messy pile of notes into a professional flowchart or a stunning infographic just by asking. It’s so easy, a 10-year-old could use it to map out their Minecraft empire (and honestly, they probably are).
So how do you actually achieve this without breaking a sweat?
Step 1: The "Code" Hack (Best for ChatGPT): ChatGPT is a wizard with Mermaid.js. Together, they transform simple text into clean, beautiful charts.
The How: Ask ChatGPT to, eg: "Write the Mermaid.js code for a flowchart that explains how a bill becomes a law."
The Result: Copy that code and paste it into the Mermaid Live Editor to see a crisp, professional diagram instantly.
Check out the details here.
Step 2: The Direct Visual (Best for Gemini); Google’s Gemini 3 Flash can now "render" certain visuals directly in the chat or export them to Google Slides.
The How: Throw in your prompt, eg: "Create a timeline of the Roman Empire for my presentation and export it to a new Slide."
The Result: Check your Google Drive, and your presentation is already half-finished.
Step 3: The "Polisher" (Using GPTs): Using specialized tools like the Whimsical or Lucid GPTs inside the ChatGPT store also gets the job done.
The Prompt: "Using the Whimsical plugin, create a mind map for a new space-themed video game."
The Result: It builds an editable, gorgeous map you can share with your team.
Limitations to Keep in Mind:
AI is good, but it’s not perfect. Expect to make small manual tweaks to the output.
ChatGPT may lag behind the latest Mermaid.js syntax, especially for newer diagram types, so a bit of guidance helps.
For very complex concepts, don’t expect a flawless diagram on the first pass. Sometimes it takes a second (or third) run.
The Bottom Line: Nobody actually likes manual formatting. In 2026, we let the bots do the heavy lifting. Whether you’re a student mapping out a biology cycle or a pro building a business report, you can now generate diagrams in seconds using ChatGPT and Gemini. It’s basically magic, but with better UI.
💡 Quick Tip of the Day: The "Zero-Draft" Hack
If you find yourself struggling to start a long document, paste your rough, messy notes into an AI and watch it do the work.
Why this works: It kills the "blank page" anxiety instantly without the AI taking over your unique voice
Here’s a Prompt you can try:
Organize the following chaotic notes into a clear, logical outline:
-Use descriptive headings and subheadings.
-Do not write full sentences or paragraphs, only short bullet -points and phrases.
-Preserve my original ideas and intent without adding new content.
-Focus on clarity, flow, and logical groupingIs this your AI Workout of the Week (WoW)? Cast your vote!
That's all we've got for you today.
Did you like today's content? We'd love to hear from you! Please share your thoughts on our content below👇
What'd you think of today's email?
Your feedback means a lot to us and helps improve the quality of our newsletter.
