Imagine for a second an AI, one that finishes
those really complex Excel tasks, but in seconds.
Well, our sources suggest it's not just theory
anymore. It's reportedly here. And actually beating
human experts at it. That's the kicker. We're
digging into AI agents today. Yeah. From those
spreadsheet wizards to this tiny AI that seems
to kind of think like a brain. Get ready for
some big shifts. Welcome back to the Deep Dive,
everyone. Today, we are really unpacking your
latest sources, focusing hard on the cutting
edge of AI agents. Okay, let's get into it. Yeah,
let's do it. Our mission, like always, is navigating
this really fast -moving AI landscape. We try
to boil down what matters most for you. Think
of it as your shortcut, you know, understanding
where AI is heading and how it's changing work,
like right now. We'll kick off with an AI agent
that's making some serious waves in finance.
Then we'll kind of zoom out, look at how AI is
shaping other areas, video creation, corporate
strategy, that sort of thing. And finally, we've
got this really surprising new AI architecture.
Honestly, it could change everything we thought
we knew about building intelligent systems. It's
pretty wild. Okay. Let's jump right into segment
one. Our sources are calling it an Excel revolution.
Big words. Yeah. And it centers on this new spreadsheet
native AI agent. It's called Shortcut. Right.
And this isn't just like a fancy macro. No, not
at all. It's way beyond that. This agent, it
actually builds entire financial models, fills
out data. And gets this one shots tasks, tasks
usually given to junior analysts. Exactly. There's
this demo where it auto populated a whole discounted
cash flow model, a DCF. Which is. Pretty complex
stuff, yeah. Totally. And it did it using raw
data, just pulled straight from SEC filings,
no human input. Wow. So it handles the data gathering,
the formatting, the formulas, everything. The
whole workflow. Data, formatting, formulas, checking,
all in one go. It's kind of like watching a whole
team work, but super fast, like a bot. Okay,
that's impressive. What about performance? How
does it stack up? Well, the sources detailed
these benchmarks. They put shortcut up against
actual junior analysts. From like... Top firms.
Yeah. Private equity, banking, consulting, product
roles, the big leagues. OK. And here's the kicker.
Shortcut reportedly won eighty nine point one
percent of the time. Eighty nine percent scored
by managers from those firms. That's what the
sources say. It's pretty dominant. OK, well.
Any other comparisons? It also apparently beat
the ChatGPT agent in 90 % of head -to -head tests.
90%. Okay. Got to add the usual caveats, right?
Early benchmarks, maybe fuzzy criteria for winning.
Sure. Absolutely. Need to see more verification.
But the buzz, it's definitely there. Oh, yeah.
Finance influencers calling it a ChatGPT moment
for Excel. You can practically hear the jaws
dropping in finance departments. It really makes
you think about that warning from Dario Amadei,
you know, about... potentially half of junior
office jobs just vanishing because of AI. Because
this isn't just automating one cell, it's full
task automation. Right. It's the whole process,
getting data, building the model, writing analysis,
even exporting it. It's a huge shift, like machines
and factories. But now it's bots, one -shotting
spreadsheets. Makes you really consider the skills
we'll need going forward. So with shortcuts showing
this kind of power, What does this really mean
right now for those detailed, repetitive financial
analysis tasks? Is it a total rewrite? Oh, absolutely.
It signals a clear shift. Yeah. That routine
spreadsheet grunt work. It's automatable now,
plain and simple. Okay, so shortcuts shaping
up Excel, but that's just one piece, right? Exactly.
The sources show a much bigger picture. AI's
capabilities are expanding everywhere. The industry's
shifting fast. So moving beyond spreadsheets,
what else is happening? Well... For one, we're
seeing more complex systems. Take Claude, right?
They've added this sub -agents feature. Sub -agents.
What's that? It lets you build basically teams
of agents. They can tackle multiple tasks at
the same time working in parallel. So you give
it a project and it kind of assembles its own
digital team. Pretty much. Imagine that for complex
workflows. And then there's this thing called
JSON prompting. Sources are calling it the most
underrated AI skill of 2025. Yeah, JSON prompting.
it sounds technical but it's basically a way
to give ai really precise instructions so it
knows exactly what you need exactly structured
instructions leads to reliable answers and crucially
no hallucinations turns models like gpt gemini
claude into consistent reliable agents super
important for professional use okay makes sense
what else we're also seeing ai just blend into
everyday tools more google search is ai mode
yeah it can now see homework You can upload a
PDF or just use your camera. And ask AI mode
for answers based on it. Yep. Makes research
or figuring stuff out way faster. And ChatGPT
has that new study mode. Right. Like a personalized
tutor in your pocket. Adaptive lessons, the works.
Feels like a real study partner. Interesting.
What about the creative side? Runway just launched
Aleph. It's a new video model. In -context video
generation. Multitask visual stuff. So better
AI video tools. Letting creators do wilder things,
basically. More control, more flexibility for
imaginative content. And then there was that
story about Meta. Oh, yeah. The poaching attempt.
Wild story. They reportedly tried to hire away
like half the staff from Thinking Machines Lab.
A top research group. And Zuckerberg himself
was apparently messaging people. Offers over
a billion dollars mentioned. Yeah. Not one person
left. Wow. Tells you a lot about what top AI
talent actually wants, doesn't it? Yeah. It's
not just the money. Meanwhile, you've got the
National Science Foundation, the NSF, putting
serious cash into AI research. $100 million.
That's significant. And they're partnering with
big names, Simons Foundation, NIST, Capital One,
Intel. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's not just about
apps. It's foundational stuff. Material science,
new tech, pushing boundaries in the physical
world with AI's help. Okay, let's connect that
back. If we look at that meta poaching attempt
failing. What does that tell us about the AI
talent market beyond just the insane money? It
really says top AI talent seeks more than just
cash. They want meaningful work, innovative places,
real frontier stuff. All right, let's shift gears
slightly. How about a quick round of some new
AI tools and maybe some industry quick hits,
stuff that's changing things day to day? Yeah,
let's do it. Rapid fire. First up. Kasi AI. Kasi
AI. Turns long videos into short viral clips.
It finds the good bits automatically. Think AI
content strategist for creators. Big time saver.
Potential reach booster. Okay. Useful. Next.
Cache Scene. Removes backgrounds. Enhances photos
instantly. Super common task. Now super fast.
For designers. Or just, you know, touching up
photos. Andy. And Immersity for mobile. Turn
your flat 2D images into immersive 3D videos.
Kind of cool for making more dynamic content
right on your phone. Neat. What about layout
.dev? This one's for developers, designers maybe.
Turn simple ideas like a sketch or just text
into working prototypes really fast. So speeds
up that early ideation phase. Massively. Could
really accelerate getting projects off the ground.
Okay, those are some tools. Any quick industry
news bites? Yeah, a few. Zed AI released a model
cheaper than DeepSeek. Yeah. And it's free to
download. Shows things are getting more accessible,
maybe more decentralized. Interesting. What else?
Meta's going to let job candidates use AI during
coding tests. Really? Yeah. Kind of acknowledging
it's just part of the workflow now. Pretty pragmatic.
Makes sense. Google. They revealed an internal
site, AI Savvy Google, for their non -tech employees.
Just trying to get everyone up to speed on AI.
Smart internal education. Good idea. Anthropic.
They published research on using automated agents
to audit other AI models. AI auditing AI. Yeah.
Crucial for safety, reliability, making sure
these things behave, especially as they get more
autonomous. Definitely important. And finally,
Spotify. Just hinting at a more conversational
voice AI interface down the line. You know, chat
with your AI DJ about playlists based on your
mood. Kind of like talking to a friend. So all
these different tools and updates. Yeah. How
do these smaller things impact us, you know,
directly? They basically bring powerful AI into
everyday stuff, often behind the scenes. Makes
digital life smoother, more intuitive. Okay.
Fascinating stuff. Before we get to maybe the
most mind -bending part, this new AI architecture,
let's just take a quick moment for our sponsor.
Sponsor. And we are back. Okay, that revolutionary
architecture we teased. Seriously, this could
shake things up. It challenges some basic ideas
about how we build AI. Right. The sources talk
about something called the Hierarchical Reasoning
Model, HRM, from a group called Sapient Intelligence.
And the key thing, it's tiny, but it uses this
brain -like architecture. That's the buzz. Brain
-like? How so? It's got two main parts working
together. A planner module. That's the slow thinking
part. Strategizing, like planning chess moves.
Okay, thinking ahead. And then a worker module.
That's the fast acting part. Executing with like
how your brain instantly recognizes a face, you
know, quick processing. So they work together
in a hierarchy. Exactly. They plan and solve
in one go, one single forward pass. It's different
from how many big language models work. And you
said it's tiny. Unbelievably tiny. Only 27 million
parameters. 27 million. How does that compare?
GPT -1, the original. 117 million parameters.
HRM is less than a quarter of the size. Wow.
Okay. Tiny size. But what about performance?
This is where it gets crazy. On the ARC -AGI
benchmark, think of it like an AI IQ test for
fluid intelligence. Yeah. HRM scored 40 .3%.
Claude, 3 .7. 21 .2%. Another model, 03 Mini
High, got 34 .5%. Wait. So this tiny model. It
outperformed much bigger ones on this reasoning
test. Significantly outperformed them. Okay.
Are there specific examples? Yeah. And they really
highlight the difference. It solved 55 % of Sudoku
extreme puzzles. And other models? Claude and
OpenAI scored 0 % on those. Zero. Okay. Any others?
It found the optimal path to nearly 75 % of these
really complex 30 by 30 mazes. And the others?
Also 0%. It's not just a little better. It's
solving problems the big guys just can't. Yeah,
I still wrestle with prompt drift myself sometimes,
getting the AI to stay on track. So the idea
of a tiny model having this kind of consistent
step -by -step reasoning, it's really fascinating.
It makes you wonder if we've been too focused
on just scaling up. Whoa, okay, that's... That's
genuinely remarkable. A tiny AI outperforming
models vastly larger, solving problems they can't
even touch. It really does challenge the whole
bigger is better idea in AI scaling. That's kind
of mind blowing. Exactly. It's early days, sure,
and it's not general purpose like GPT yet, but
it suggests advanced reasoning might not require
trillions of tokens or massive compute. So this
raises a huge question then. Could this... brain
-like hierarchical approach fundamentally change
how we build AI in the future? Are we looking
at a different path entirely? It definitely points
towards efficiency and maybe more novel ways
of thinking emerging rather than just relying
on sheer scale. Could unlock AI for new areas,
maybe inspire totally different kinds of intelligence.
Okay, let's try and pull this all together. What's
the big picture here? We've seen AI agents evolve
incredibly quickly from tools to full task automation,
spreadsheets, complex reasoning. Yeah, what strikes
me is just the speed and the variety of innovation.
It's not just about making AI bigger anymore.
It's smarter, more specialized, way more efficient
sometimes, tackling really sophisticated problems
with amazing precision. So connecting it all
up, the signal seems clear. AI is rapidly changing
how we work, how we solve problems, not just
in huge systems, but through these focused, intelligent
agents in our everyday tools and tasks. Absolutely.
It's becoming embedded. So this whole deep dive
leaves us with a final thought, maybe something
for you, the listener, to chew on. As these AI
agents get better and more integrated, what new
roles, what new opportunities actually open up
for humans? Right. How does our own creativity,
our problem solving? How do we adapt and evolve
with these powerful new partners? It's not just
about replacement. It's about partnership, right?
Shifting maybe from doing the task to defining
the problem or overseeing the AI, moving from
rote work to more creative. of ideation. Could
be. We really encourage you to keep exploring
this, keep asking questions, keep thinking about
how all this tech is shaping our collective future
and your own place in it. Thank you for joining
us on this deep dive. Until next time, keep that
curiosity alive. Otiro Music.