The AI Beacon

The $100B AI Power Move, a 1M-Token Upgrade, and Why Everyone’s Watching Sonnet 4

Hey, it’s David and welcome to this week’s edition of the AI Beacon. This week might feel slow at first glance, less noise, a bit more breathing room. But in the background, a few heavy moves are quietly shifting the AI landscape. Saudi Arabia just locked in a series of deals that might change where the next big AI breakthroughs happen, and this is to the tune of $100 billion. At the same time, there’s an unusual amount of hype around Anthropic’s next model, Sonnet 4. Normally, I don't like...

3 months ago • 3 min read

AI Power Plays: Figma’s Bold Move, OpenAI’s $3B Acquisition, and a Talking CV?

Hey, it’s David and welcome to this week’s edition of the AI Beacon. It’s been a busy week, and if you’ve noticed the design community geting louder, there’s a good reason. Figma just dropped some serious updates at Config 2025, and designers are either celebrating or sweating. One of the standout features is Figma Make, a new AI-powered tool that turns designs into functioning websites. It’s part of a bigger shift we’re seeing, where design platforms like Figma and Canva are jumping into...

3 months ago • 2 min read

Duolingo, GPT, and the Bar Exam; AI’s quiet takeover

Hey, it's David and welcome to this week's edition of the AI Beacon. I keep thinking about the idea of “AI in the background.” Not as a loud assistant, but as quiet infrastructure, making things easier without taking the praise. And we’re starting to see it everywhere. This week’s drop is full of those quiet shifts: WhatsApp testing privacy-conscious AI, OpenAI walking back a personality tweak, Claude showing what devs really want from AI. The U.S. government is pushing agencies to build...

3 months ago • 2 min read

Stop chasing AI trends, try this instead

Hello Reader, I'm David and welcome to AI Beacon, a weekly signal in a world of AI noise. This newsletter is built around one simple idea: useful AI, applied. Since 2022, I've tried nearly every tool, skimmed most new papers within days of release, and watched wave after wave of innovation. And here's the truth: most AI content is hype, not help. That's why I created AI Beacon, to spotlight real-world use cases, practical workflows, and tools you can actually plug into your day-to-day work....

4 months ago • 2 min read