IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The give & take of AI

When Silicon Valley giants and scrappy AI labs cross paths, the story usually ends with one swallowing the other. But not this time. Meta just inked a deal with MidJourney, the cult-favorite lab behind some of the most striking AI-generated visuals out there, to bring its “aesthetic technology” into Meta’s future models and products. Announced by Alexandr Wang, who now leads Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs, the partnership isn’t just a licensing play; it includes a technical collaboration between teams. MidJourney’s David Holz was quick to stress the lab’s independence (“no investors” and still community-backed), even as lawsuits from media giants swirl in the background. The exact terms are still hush-hush, but the takeaway is clear: Meta is betting on MidJourney’s creative firepower, while MidJourney gets a heavyweight partner without giving up its rebel roots, a rare win-win in today’s AI power games.

For years, publishers have watched their work fuel AI systems without seeing a cent in return. Now Perplexity is trying to flip that script. The company just launched a program that lets publishers earn a cut of revenue whenever their content drives traffic or answers queries inside Perplexity’s Comet browser and AI assistant. Backed by an initial $42.5M pool funded through a $5/month subscription tier, publishers would pocket 80% of the share, while Perplexity keeps the rest. It’s a different play from OpenAI and Google’s headline-grabbing lump-sum licensing deals: instead of one-off payouts, this is ongoing revenue tied directly to usage. No publishers have been officially named yet, but if the model sticks, it could signal a new way for media to coexist with AI rather than fight it in court.

In the meantime, Google Cloud is stepping into blockchain with the Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), now live on a private testnet. Positioned as neutral infrastructure for financial institutions, GCUL promises Python-based smart contracts, programmatic payments, onchain commercial bank money, and always-on capital markets. Unlike rival chains from Stripe or Circle, Google says anyone can build on it, and CME Group is already piloting tokenized assets. Accessible via a single API and built with compliance at its core, GCUL is shaping up as Google’s big move into web3 finance, though the full launch date is still under wraps.

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SUBSTRATES
What else is on the radar?

AI

• Elon Musk launched Macrohard, a new xAI venture powered by the Colossus 2 supercomputer, aiming to unleash coding and image agents that mimic rival products through virtual simulations. In other news, Elon Musk opened up xAI’s Grok 2.5, making the conversational AI model available on Hugging Face to boost transparency, developer access, and new ways for brands to experiment with custom AI integrations.

• Google’s Gemini AI image model levels up with a ‘bananas’ twist, reportedly powering the viral anonymous AI image editor “nano-banana” taking social media by storm.

• Anthropic launches a preview of Claude for Chrome, a browser AI for Max plan subscribers that can assist with tasks while keeping safety checks in place, competing with Perplexity, OpenAI, and Google’s browser AI integrations.

• ElevenLabs launches v3 (alpha) API, bringing more expressive options, improved controls, a Dialogue mode and support for over 70 languages.

• Netflix rolls out guidelines for generative AI in content production, framing the tools as “valuable creative aids” while spelling out the rules partners must follow when using them.

WEB3

• Metamask issues MetaMask USD, its native stablecoin.

• Wyoming rolls out FRNT, the first-ever state-backed U.S. stablecoin, pegged to Treasuries with its yield going straight into funding public schools instead of corporate pockets.

• Ethereum finally broke its 2021 record, hitting a new all-time high of $4,879 after Fed Chair Powell hinted at rate cuts.

• The Trump-linked DeFi project, World Liberty Financial, is set to release its first batch of tokens on September 1, unlocking 20% of allocations from the $0.015 and $0.05 rounds.

• Donald Trump Jr. joins Polymarket as Strategic Advisor, while his fund, 1789 Capital, also invests in the platform.

• ️Gemini launches an XRP credit card with Ripple offering cashback in XRP and no annual or foreign transaction fees, while adding RLUSD as an optional base currency.

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