🧙‍♂️Wizard of Oz AI Film Experience

Hey TEDchats Fam!

Happy Thursday! Imagine watching a movie where the walls, ceiling, and floor all become part of the story. That’s exactly what’s happening to The Wizard of Oz, and AI is making it possible. Catch this story and more in this week’s top AI news.

✅ EXPLORE TEDCHATS AI PRO

Expert-crafted ChatGPT prompts, guides, and tools designed to help you save time and get better results—whenever you’re ready to dive deeper.
→ See What’s Inside

📣 TOP AI NEWS

Wizard of Oz Steps Into the 21st Century

Starting August 28, the Las Vegas Sphere will debut its first classic film experience: The Wizard of Oz, with tickets available on Ticketmaster. Far beyond a standard screening, the 1939 classic has been reimagined using AI to upscale the original footage. Through a technique called outpainting, each frame is extended with newly generated scenery and visual context. The result is a seamless, wraparound experience designed to fill the Sphere’s massive 160,000-square-foot screen. Thousands of experts from Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, Sphere Studios, Magnopus, Warner Bros. Discovery, and more collaborated for months to bring this cinematic milestone to life (see Google’s announcement).

ChatGPT Gets Smarter About Teaching Students

OpenAI has launched Study Mode, a new feature in ChatGPT designed to encourage deeper learning by asking students questions instead of giving instant answers. The tool aims to strengthen critical thinking skills and is now available to Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users, with Edu subscribers getting access in the coming weeks. While it’s easy to switch back to regular mode, OpenAI hopes motivated students will use this feature to truly engage with material. The move comes as the Trump administration encourages schools to adopt AI education more widely, following initial resistance in classrooms (see OpenAI’s announcement).

Anthropic’s AI Boom Faces Ethical Strain

Anthropic is reportedly close to securing a massive $3–$5 billion funding round led by Iconiq Capital, which would skyrocket its valuation to $170 billion, according to Bloomberg. This would bring it close to three times its $61.5 billion valuation from a March funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Talks have also included sovereign wealth funds like Qatar’s and Singapore’s GIC, despite internal concerns about ethical implications. CEO Dario Amodei acknowledged in a leaked memo that balancing values with capital demands is proving challenging (read more).

🛠️ THIS WEEK’S AI COMBO: 1 PROMPT + 1 TOOL

⚡️ MIND SPARK

📹 Google’s Video Learning Upgraded: Google is rolling out Video Overviews in NotebookLM, its AI-powered note-taking and research tool. This new feature transforms raw notes, PDFs, and images into visual summaries—ideal for explaining data, abstract concepts, and processes. It builds on the earlier Audio Overviews by offering a customizable, visual learning experience (see Google’s announcement).

🧠 Meta Rethinks "Open" AI Strategy: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is signaling a major shift in how the company will release its AI models, as it pivots toward what he calls “personal superintelligence.” While Meta has long positioned its Llama models as a cornerstone of open-source AI, Zuckerberg now acknowledges that future safety concerns may limit what’s shared publicly (see Zuckerberg’s post).

🔌 Tesla Bets Big on Samsung Chips: Tesla has inked a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to produce its next-generation AI6 chips at Samsung’s new Texas fab. The chips are expected to support Tesla technologies, including its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system, humanoid robots, and data centers. Elon Musk hinted that actual spending could exceed $16.5 billion as production scales (see Musk’s announcement).

🎨 AI ART

Want More AI News?
Pro members get exclusive stories and smarter context, so you always know what matters and why → Get access