In partnership with
Welcome Automaters, 👋
So listen up: The real gap in 2026 isn't between people who know about AI and people who don’t. It is between the folks who see the wave coming and the ones who get hit by it.
Most content out there helps you stay "informed," which is usually just code for "here is a mountain of noise to stress you out." Very little helps you think clearly and act with confidence. That is why we built The Automated. Our members aren’t just playing with prompts for fun; they are building actual leverage. It is about signal, structure, and systems, delivered at your pace.
Choose Your Track ⚡️
Whether you are an investor, operator, or builder, we have a lane designed for your specific speed:
📰 The Briefing | $9.99 / month
The Vibe: Your "Signal Layer." This is for the people who want to understand what actually matters without the hype or the info-overload.
The Goods: Weekly exclusive takes from Tak Lo, early access to upgraded Workout of the Day (WoD) videos, and clear framing around those tricky "what comes next" effects.
The Bottom Line: If timing is everything to you, this is how you keep your edge sharp.
🎓 The Classroom | $19.99 / month
The Vibe: Turning understanding into capability. This is where you get high-impact 4K lessons and practical frameworks from one of Asia’s leading AI educators.
The Goods: Everything in The Briefing, plus weekly deep dives and 30-minute direct access calls with Tak (a $200 value, y’all). Oh, and you get an ad-free version of the newsletter.
The Bottom Line: This is for the folks who want usable mental models and real structure, not just news updates.
🧪 The Lab | $39.99 / month
The Vibe: Where ideas get tested, not just explained. The Lab is for the builders who want to see how the sausage is made in real time.
The Goods: Everything in The Classroom, plus the "fastest" access to early drops, raw "inner monologue" footage of our experiments, and live sessions with the team.
The Reality Check: This is not polished. It’s raw process, judgment, and iteration as it happens.
Why Upgrade? 🚀
Information is everywhere. Perspective and lived experience are not. We don’t just tell you that AI is changing the world (we have all heard that enough, right?). We help you understand where and how it actually matters for your bank account and your decisions.
The best way to predict the future isn’t to guess it. It is to understand exactly how it is being built.
Upgrade when you’re ready. Build at your pace.
Here's what we have for you today
😵 Scam-Prone Search, A Lobster Joins OpenAI, and Pentagon Drama.
This weekend was a literal fever dream y'all. We have three updates that are going to make you do a double-take, so instead of picking just one, we are giving you the quick hits on the chaos so you can pick your favorite flavor and dive in!
1. Google AI: The Scammer's New Best Friend
Remember when Google’s AI told you to put glue on pizza? That was cute. Harmless. Even meme-worthy. Well, the vibes just shifted from "funny glitch" to "financial nightmare."
According to fresh info from Wired, the bad guys have officially leveled up. They have figured out how to hijack Google AI Overviews and are injecting fake phone numbers directly into those sleek summary boxes.
The Trap: You search for "Delta Airlines support" or "Apple customer service." Google’s AI confidently serves up a number. You call it, but instead of a helpful agent, you get a scammer ready to "help" by stealing your credit card info.
The scary part? Scammers have reverse-engineered how Google's AI sources information. They create networks of interconnected fake websites that all repeat the same false information, essentially creating a fake "consensus" that tricks Google's AI into believing the lies are true. It’s basically a coordinated disinformation campaign
And it's not just phone numbers. These manipulated AI Overviews are:
Directing users to phishing sites disguised as legitimate customer service portals
Promoting counterfeit products as authentic recommendations
Spreading financial scams wrapped in helpful-looking advice
Even pushing malicious software downloads disguised as official company tools
The Pro-Tip: Never call a number from an AI Overview without double-checking the official site first. Also do not fully trust anything in the summary box. Google is currently playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole with these guys, but the scammers are moving faster. So until the "AI’s Brain" learns how to spot a liar, stay safe out there.
2. The Lobster Goes to OpenAI 🦞
Peter Steinberger, the developer behind the viral OpenClaw project, just officially joined OpenAI. And if you are wondering why a guy with a lobster mascot is a big deal, buckle up.
In just three weeks, OpenClaw went from an indie "playground project" to 100k+ stars on GitHub and 2 million visitors. Why? Because it doesn't just chat. It actually does things. And by that we mean: Booking a flight, making restaurant reservations or even joining a social network full of other AI assistants. It could even help you find love.
The Move: Sam Altman personally recruited Peter to lead the next generation of "Personal Agents." This signals Phase 2 of the AI era: moving from AI that talks to AI that acts.
The best part? OpenClaw isn't being killed off. It will live in an open-source foundation while Peter builds the future of agents at OpenAI. Talk about a career speedrun.
3. Anthropic vs. The Pentagon: The $200M Standoff
This story has everything: special ops, a $200 million contract, and a fundamental fight over who actually controls AI.
It turns out U.S. forces used Claude to help plan the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. The catch? Anthropic had absolutely no idea. Now, the Pentagon wants "mission-agnostic" AI—meaning they want to use Claude for anything from drone targeting to mass surveillance.
The Standoff:
Anthropic says absolutely not. They’ve built Constitutional AI for a reason and it’s not for autonomous weapons (that can decide to kill without human oversight) or mass surveillance. Because uncontrolled military AI is how you get Skynet
The Pentagon says play ball or we’ll give this $200M to Google, OpenAI or xAI, who are being WAY more flexible about military use cases.
The Bigger Picture:
This fight is about more than just one company and one contract. It's about the future of AI governance:
Should AI companies have ANY say in how their models are used?
Can you build "Constitutional AI" with safety principles and then hand it to the military with no strings attached?
Is there a middle ground between "AI companies control everything" and "governments get whatever they want"?
What happens when AI safety principles clash with national security?
Where things stand now: As of now, the standoff continues. The Pentagon is conducting a "comprehensive review" of their AI partnerships. Anthropic is holding firm on their principles even with a massive payday on the line. And the clock is ticking—because China and Russia aren't waiting for us to figure out our AI ethics debates before they deploy military AI at scale.
The irony: Anthropic literally built Claude to be "Constitutional AI", meaning it follows principles and values baked into its training. Now they're in a fight with the actual U.S. government over what those principles mean in practice.
This is the AI ethics debate moving from academic papers to real-world consequences. And it's happening RIGHT NOW. Overall, This weekend proved we are in the middle of three different futures.
AI being weaponized by scammers, agents becoming our new personal assistants, and the government fighting for control of the "robot brain" to weaponize it.
Welcome to AI in 2026 y'all. Stay safe (and seriously, don't trust those phone numbers),
P.S. If you work at Anthropic, OpenAI, or the Pentagon and want to spill more tea... our DMs are wide open.
AI in HR? It’s happening now.
Deel's free 2026 trends report cuts through all the hype and lays out what HR teams can really expect in 2026. You’ll learn about the shifts happening now, the skill gaps you can't ignore, and resilience strategies that aren't just buzzwords. Plus you’ll get a practical toolkit that helps you implement it all without another costly and time-consuming transformation project.
🧱 Around The AI Block
🥰 The AI dating apps promising to find your soulmate.
🔌 OpenAI removes access to sycophancy-prone GPT-4o model.
😳 OpenAI President's Trump Donations Spark Internal Revolt.
🙅♂️ Hollywood brands ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 'blatant' piracy tool.
💰 Makers of AI chatbots that put children at risk face big fines or UK ban.
🤦♀️ ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the Smart Students: Edubrain AI lets you snap a photo of any tough problem (math, science, or even history) and get an instant, patient breakdown. It feels less like a search engine and more like a private tutor that explains the "why" behind every step.
For the Visionary Filmmakers: Filmpitch turns a single sentence into a professional "Project pitch" for your next movie or series. It generates the synopsis, character sheets, and a visual mood board, essentially building a Hollywood-ready pitch deck in seconds.
For the Gift-Givers: Lullaby.ink writes and illustrates personalized children's books by weaving a child’s name and photo into a custom story. The AI handles the entire layout and cover design, giving you a print-ready PDF in minutes (or a physical hardcover that could be delivered to you).
For the Efficiency Obsessed: ClickUp (AI Brain) is a "Heavy Use" powerhouse that acts as a central nervous system for your team. Its built-in AI summarizes hours of meeting notes, predicts project delays, and can even answer questions about your entire company's knowledge base.
Hope these tools help you reclaim some of your time today!
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: How To Create Stunning Slides With Gamma AI
Y’all, we need to talk about Gamma. Because if you are still manually dragging text boxes around a slide, you are officially living in the past.
Gamma has now crossed over 400 million assets generated and serves over 70 million users. The wild part? You don’t need to know a single thing about design to make a deck that looks like it costs $5,000. Just type a prompt, and boom. AI builds the entire thing in under a minute.
Step 1: Sign up and grab the "Goodies" Head to gamma.app and snag your 400 free AI credits. Click "Create New AI" and choose your flavor: Generate (AI does the heavy lifting), Paste (fix your messy notes), or Import (rescue those old slides).
Step 2: Let the AI "Brain" take over Type one sentence describing what you need. (Example: "A 10-slide deck about why my cat should be President.") The AI will spit out an outline. Tweak it if you want, or pick a gorgeous theme from the gallery, and hit "Generate." You’ll watch the magic happen in about 60 seconds.
Step 3: The "Polish" Phase This is where it gets fun. Click any text to edit it, or hit the sparkle icon (✨) to ask the AI to rewrite it for you. You can type "/" anywhere to insert videos, charts, or even embed a TikTok. Want to change the whole vibe? Swap themes with one click and the AI realigns everything instantly.
Step 4: Share and Export Present in full-screen mode right from your browser or share a live link. If you have to go "old school," you can export to PowerPoint, PDF, or PNG images.
The Automated Pro Tips:
Use the AI Agent: Gamma's new "Agent" is basically a design partner. You can literally tell it "make this slide more visual" or "add a timeline," and it handles the layout changes while you watch.
The "Magic" Import: Don't delete your old PowerPoints. Import them into Gamma and let the AI give them a modern, 2026 glow-up.
Embed Everything: Since Gamma is web-native, you can embed Google Drive files, YouTube videos, and interactive charts that actually move.
Everything you need to know:
You start with 400 credits (a deck usually costs around 40).
It works for more than just slides. You can generate landing pages, documents, and social posts too.
The AI handles the "white space," the fonts, and the color palettes. You just bring the ideas.
The Bottom Line: If you are still fighting with slide templates in 2026, you’re doing it wrong. Gamma turned presentation-making into a conversation, and the results are honestly better than what most pros can do manually.
💡 Prompt To Try:
Act as a world-class presentation designer and strategist, and create a high-impact presentation about [TOPIC] for [AUDIENCE]. The goal is to help the audience [PRIMARY RESULT — e.g., invest, understand, take action].
Constraints:
-Length: [X slides]
-Tone: [confident / bold / inspiring / data-driven / playful]
-Include: strong hook, clear narrative flow, visuals per slide, minimal text
-Add: headline + 3–5 bullet points + suggested visual for each slide
Include storytelling elements, powerful stats (if relevant), and a strong closing CTA.Is 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.
