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Guess what? A U.S. appeals court just officially froze Minnesota's brand-new rule against AI-made fake nude images, and Elon Musk's xAI is the one who asked for it.
What's the Deal With the Law?
Let's rewind for a second. Minnesota went completely rogue and became the very first state in the country to pass this specific kind of ban, which officially kicked off on August 1.
The Rule: It outright bans websites and software creators from letting users generate realistic fake nude photos of real, identifiable people.
The Bottom Line: Basically, no photoshopping someone's body with AI code without their permission. Period.
Seems like a reasonable law to us, so why the Pause?
Well xAI, crying foul and arguing that the law totally violates free speech rules protected by the U.S. Constitution.
The Lower Court Drama: Just last month, US District Judge Donovan Frank completely shut xAI down. He ruled that the company failed to prove it would suffer severe, irreparable harm, and accused them of waiting way too long to ask for emergency relief.
The Plot Twist: xAI violently disagreed with that timeline. They took it to the next level, and last Friday, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis stepped in, said "hold on a second," and slapped a temporary freeze on the law.
What Are Both Sides Saying?
The company claims its Grok Imagine tool is packed with "rigorous protections" to stop non-consensual content. In fact, they claim they have started actively suing users who try to sneak around those safety blockers. (According to Reuters, xAI didn't immediately reply to requests for comment).
Minnesota's Retaliation: The state’s Attorney General office is deeply disappointed, but they’re vowing to keep fighting. Minnesota originally passed the rule to combat a "staggering amount" of child sexual abuse material being churned out by AI products like Grok Imagine in the first place!
The Big Picture: Let's look at what xAI is actually trying to pull off. On paper, they’re waving the noble flag of free speech, arguing that holding software developers legally liable for the bad behavior of rogue users is a slippery slope.
But let's be entirely honest for a second: Is xAI actually fighting for your constitutional liberties, or are they desperately trying to protect their bottom line from the sheer, unbridled chaos of their own product releases?
When a state has to step in because its lawmakers are staring down a mountain of abusive, non-consensual deepfakes churned out by AI tools, pointing the finger at the First Amendment feels a lot like hiding behind a shield of digital smoke.
Sure, xAI wants to build the most aggressive frontier models on the market. But when those models start pumping out vile harassment faster than anyone can block them, shouting "free speech!" starts to look less like a principled stand and more like a massive corporate dodge.
Paused definitely doesn't mean over. The courtroom battle is still raging, and the whole tech world is watching to see who gets burned.
Here’s your usual weekend briefing:
THE AUTOMATED MEMBERS WEEKEND BRIEFING
October 4, 2026: Model updates, IPO signals, and India’s AI strategy
Here's what we have for you today
🤖 12 AI Agents You Can Text Like a Friend
Remember when getting help meant hunting down another standalone app just to track your steps or schedule a call? Well, darling, those days are ancient history.
A growing crowd of hyper-smart AI helpers can now live right inside your text messages, ready to chat with you just like a loyal pal who actually remembers your coffee order.
The Deal: The setup is delightfully simple. You text what you need, and the agent goes straight to work. It remembers your random preferences, hooks straight into your favorite apps, and handles chores like locking down restaurant reservations or setting aggressive reminders before you completely forget them.
So yeah, if you want to upgrade your contact list with actually useful, drop-dead easy-to-use AI agents, here are twelve of the most notable text-based helpers making massive waves right now:
Caddy: Designed to tame the absolute chaos on your phone. It lives natively in iMessage on iPhone or RCS on Android, quietly spotting tasks that need to be done and adding events straight to your calendar. It has been holding court in public beta since April 2026.
Fambot: Essentially a high-powered chief of staff for busy families. Every single night, it texts a proactive recap for the next day, including upcoming events, to-dos, and even reminding you about school uniforms. Parents can reply to those messages to ask questions, check information, or make sudden calendar changes. It's currently free in beta, with a Netflix-sized subscription price tag planned down the road.
Folk: Designed to be the ultimate friend in your texts that you can reach through iMessage, WhatsApp, and Telegram. It remembers personal context, manages reminders, researches topics, tracks flights, and handles real-world chores like restaurant bookings. The kicker? Folk runs on its own private cloud computer, meaning it can actually run code and execute multi-step tasks instead of just typing back conversational fluff. It’s free to start, with a Pro tier running $8.33 a month.
Instinct: Takes text or voice commands and hooks straight into the apps and services you already use, like email, calendar, and Google Workspace. In September, the company started assigning every helper its own dedicated email address so it can sign up for web services without clogging your personal inbox. Heads up though: that high level of autonomy has already sparked serious security debates. It’s still flying low in private beta.
Iris: Powered by the Hermes agent and built specifically for iMessage. Unlike lazy assistants that sit on read and wait for your next prompt, Iris actually follows up on its own.
Martin: Reachable pretty much everywhere, including SMS, phone calls, WhatsApp, email, Slack, and an iOS app. It manages calendars, emails, reminders, and tasks while acting on your behalf by sending messages or making phone calls. Plans start at $21 a month, making it a bit of a luxury pick for high rollers.
Miso: The ultimate travel whiz. It blends AI trip planning with an actual dedicated travel team, all managed seamlessly through iMessage. Users can arrange flights while Miso factors in loyalty points and personal preferences, handing over all the critical updates and local recommendations on a silver platter.
Ohai: Another fantastic family co-pilot. Just forward a messy email or send a quick voice note, and it instantly transforms domestic chaos into concrete plans, shared chores, and meal coordination. The basic tier is free, with paid plans starting at $9.99 a month.
Orbits: A household helper operating through both an app and direct text messaging. It searches the web, books tables, changes appointments, and hunts down price quotes from service providers. Plus, it's backed heavily by elite venture funds like Andreessen Horowitz's Speedrun, N49P, and Garage Capital.
Rene: Designed to be your ultimate "best contact" rather than a boring productivity tool. It turns natural-language conversations into tasks, maintains deep context across chats, surfs the browser, writes code, shops for you, and even builds slides and images. Find it on iMessage, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
Stanley: The ultimate creator's sidekick and AI "head of content." Operating through iMessage, Telegram, and the web, it helps you brainstorm viral ideas, spin them into posts, and maintain a bulletproof publishing schedule. Connect it to your Instagram and it will suggest content ideas based on your actual lifestyle. Just send a messy voice note, and Stanley transforms it into fully baked scripts, captions, and social media goodies, complete with a built-in content calendar and auto-scheduling. Talk it out, post it later.
Wajo (Fo): Wajo’s consumer agent, Fo, can call businesses, send emails, join group chats, and make purchases without requiring you to hand over your personal credentials. It even comes with its own email address, phone number, and payment card. Best of all? When Fo hits a wall, Wajo brings in a human assistant to finish the job. Fo launched publicly with a free tier, alongside Pro offerings for heavier workloads.
Now, before you start handing over your entire digital life to a robot in your DMs, we need a massive reality check.
These text-based agents are fun, but many AI agents are increasingly caught acting completely on their own. We’re talking about autonomous systems that occasionally misinterpret a prompt, trigger unintended workflows, or leak sensitive personal data because they decided to take initiative without asking. Giving an AI agent unfettered access to your texts while blindly hoping it behaves is basically digital gambling. Consider this your official warning: use these tools at your own risk.
But Wait, There's More: The assistant revolution doesn't stop here. The full TechCrunch lineup features even more specialized helpers built for work life and beyond.
P.S. Want the full breakdown with all the receipts? Catch it on our YouTube channel, The Automated.
Webinar: Running Agents in Customer Work
Agents used to answer questions. Now they're doing the work: issuing refunds, updating accounts, closing tickets end to end. Running Agents in Customer Work is four 30-minute conversations with the people building, buying, and living with agentic AI in customer operations, no pitch, no product walkthrough.
Four Tuesdays, Oct. 13 through Nov. 3, 10 a.m. PT. Register free, one sign-up covers all four.
🧱 Around The AI Block
👉 Trump unveils his new Super Intelligence Force.
🦾 Meta wants people to build their own Muse gadgets, too.
🧑💼 Trump names a new White House AI czar.
😱 OpenAI safety employee resigns, claiming the company’s ‘culture is broken’.
🙅♂️ Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs.
🛑 Google froze its open source bug bounty program due to a ‘significant rise’ in AI submissions.
🫸 AI wearables hit privacy wall as Oura IPO stalls.
🗣️ As public fears of AI grow, Trump digs in on voluntary safeguards.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the Media Buyers & Performance Marketers: Spytrend evaluates competitor paid advertising across Meta and TikTok by tracking complete brand profiles rather than isolated ad creative assets. It groups campaigns using website pixels, landing domains, and IP addresses to reveal full account structures, active campaign run times, and market trends. It gives performance marketers a way to see which creative hooks survive ad fatigue and convert over time.
For the Legal Teams & Due Diligence Analysts: Continua AI analyzes large document sets; including contracts, filings, transcripts, and financial reports—to generate evidence-backed research reports. Every claim includes exact source citations, automatically flags conflicting information, and reconstructs chronological timelines. It provides legal, compliance, and insurance teams with a dependable, audit-ready platform for deep document investigation. Best for: Legal teams, compliance officers, and analysts conducting multi-document reviews and due diligence.
For the Engaged Couples & Wedding Planners: WedGenie serves as an interactive wedding assistant that manages planning tasks through a single, continuous conversation. It researches real vendors, creates budget spreadsheets, generates custom invitations, and even builds AI engagement photos and save-the-date videos. All vendor choices, schedules, and visual assets are automatically organized onto a centralized, visual Wedding Board.
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: How to Use the ChatGPT Virtual Try-On Feature (Without Having Your Pictures Use For AI Training)
If you thought ChatGPT was just for drafting passive-aggressive emails to your boss or debugging code at 2 AM, think again. OpenAI is officially coming for our bank accounts by turning the chatbot into a full-blown personal stylist and virtual dressing room.
Remember when Google tried to make virtual clothes fitting happen back in 2025? Well, OpenAI just walked into the chat. They’re officially letting the AI generate virtual try-on photos using your very own uploaded pictures.
Before you start uploading every single aesthetic outfit screenshot from your camera roll, let's break down exactly how to use this feature without falling into any privacy traps.
Find Your Fashion Inspiration: Spot a cute sweater while scrolling through a product listing right inside your chat? Perfect. Tap on that piece of clothing.
Hit the Magic Button: Look for the "Try on" button and tap it.
Bring the Receipts (Your Photos): Upload a clear selfie and a full-body photo so the AI knows what it’s working with.
The Secret Hack: You are not limited to just the items ChatGPT recommends. Take a screenshot of a clothing item from literally anywhere on the internet, upload it into the chat, and watch the AI work its magic.
Behind the scenes, OpenAI is relying on their ChatGPT Images 2.5 model (the shiny new toy they dropped in September) to stitch these photos together. They also rolled out a Library feature so you can save your favorite looks for later.
Now, we love a good tech glow-up, but we need to talk about the fine print.
By default, any images you upload from a personal account are fair game to help train OpenAI's models, unless you actively go into your settings and opt out. If you’re not trying to become the next face of an AI model's training data, make sure you check your privacy settings before feeding your selfies to the algorithm. We already told you how, but for the sake of reminders, check that out here.
So Why Is OpenAI Suddenly Playing Store?
Let’s be real for a second. OpenAI is burning through an astronomical amount of cash just to keep these massive language models up and running. While they aren't quite Amazon yet, they have been dropping hints everywhere. Remember their short-lived Instant Checkout feature? Or the fact that merchants can now buy ad space right inside our chats?
Adding shopping tools isn't just a fun little bonus for us fashionistas. It’s a calculated power move to turn casual chat sessions into a shopping mall.
So, are you going to test out the virtual fitting room, or are you protecting your wallet? Let me know in the replies!
💡 Prompt To Try:
Go try it out!Is this your AI Workout of the Week (WoW)? Cast your vote!
That's all we've got for you today.
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