The generative AI landscape has been redrawn in just six months, with some products skyrocketing in popularity while others faded into obscurity. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has released its latest Top 100 Generative AI Consumer Apps, revealing a fiercely competitive market where only the most innovative products are thriving.

Key Takeaways from the Report:

🔹 ChatGPT’s Comeback – After a plateau, OpenAI's flagship chatbot has seen explosive growth, doubling its weekly active users to 400 million in just six months. Major updates like GPT-4o and Advanced Voice Mode have driven this surge.

🔹 DeepSeek’s Rapid Rise – The Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek emerged as a major challenger, reaching 10 million users in just 20 days, outpacing ChatGPT’s early growth. Its success is fueled by strong performance on reasoning benchmarks and its accessibility in regions where OpenAI’s services are restricted.

🔹 AI Video is Here – Video models like Hailuo, Kling AI, and Sora have propelled AI-generated video from experimental to mainstream usability. Each model is carving out its niche, with Sora excelling in versatility, Hailuo in prompt adherence, and Kling in advanced controls like camera movement and lip sync.

Google has introduced AI Mode Search, a new experimental feature powered by Gemini 2.0, designed to make search more conversational and intelligent. Unlike traditional search, AI Mode generates detailed, full-page responses, breaking down complex queries, analyzing real-time data, and supporting follow-up questions.

Currently available to Google One AI Premium subscribers ($19.99/month) in the U.S., AI Mode integrates directly into Google Search, allowing users to activate it via an "AI Mode" button or a "Go deeper" shortcut in AI Overviews.

This move signals Google’s shift towards AI-driven search, competing with tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. While still in its early phase, AI Mode could transform search into an interactive AI assistant, offering richer visuals, deeper insights, and real-time analysis.

🔹 Why it matters: AI Mode enhances Google Search by providing synthesized answers, multimodal capabilities (text, images, voice), and an evolving chat-like experience. As Google refines the feature based on user feedback, future updates may include trip planning, research summaries, and tech troubleshooting.

For now, access is limited, but Google plans to expand AI Mode over time.

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) has launched Agentforce 2dx, a major upgrade to its AI-powered digital labor platform, bringing proactive and autonomous AI agents into business workflows. Unlike traditional AI chatbots, Agentforce 2dx enables AI agents to work in the background, responding dynamically to data and business needs without constant human intervention.

Key Enhancements:

🔹 Proactive AI Agents: Work autonomously, trigger actions based on data changes, and integrate into any workflow.

🔹 Low-Code & Pro-Code Tools: New AI-assisted features help developers quickly configure, test, and deploy AI agents.

🔹 AgentExchange Marketplace: A hub for pre-built AI agent components, accelerating deployment across industries.

🔹 Industry Impact: Companies like Adecco, OpenTable, and Vivint are already leveraging Agentforce to boost efficiency, automate processes, and improve customer interactions.

With Agentforce 2dx, Salesforce aims to redefine automation, helping businesses scale and innovate faster in the rapidly growing $6 trillion digital labor market. 🚀

OpenAI has officially launched GPT-4.5, its newest and largest AI language model, available as a research preview for ChatGPT Pro users. The company describes it as its “most knowledgeable model yet”, with enhanced writing abilities, improved world knowledge, and a more refined personality.

Despite these advancements, OpenAI clarifies that GPT-4.5 is not a frontier model, meaning it lacks groundbreaking new capabilities. Internal documents suggest that while it boosts efficiency over GPT-4 by 10x, its performance is inferior to o1 and o3-mini models in certain areas.

The model aims to improve pattern recognition, problem-solving, and programming skills, making interactions feel more natural. However, OpenAI has reportedly removed certain references to its limitations from official documents following an earlier leak.

Stripe, the global fintech leader, has launched a new tender offer valuing the company at $91.5 billion, offering employees and early investors another opportunity to sell shares. This move brings the company closer to its 2021 peak valuation of $95 billion, but also suggests that its long-anticipated IPO may be delayed further.

Stripe’s Rapid Growth and Market Resurgence:

Founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, Stripe has grown into one of the world’s most valuable fintech firms, providing payment processing solutions for millions of businesses, including Amazon, Shopify, and OpenAI. The company processes over $1 trillion in transactions annually and has a strong foothold in digital commerce, subscriptions, and enterprise payments.

Despite valuation fluctuations—dropping to $50 billion in 2023 before rebounding—investors remain confident in Stripe’s market position. The latest tender offer follows a similar one in 2024 at a $70 billion valuation, showing an upward trend.