AlterEgo Lets You Talk to AI Silently

Welcome to another edition of AI PlanetX.

Talk to AI without sound via Boston startup; Google Veo 3 lowers video costs by 50%; Claude takes on Excel and PowerPoint.

• Hottest AI News

• Top AI & SaaS Tools

• AI Tutorial: Turn Product Photos into Professional Ads

• Top AI & Tech News

• AI Art Spotlight

• Prompt of the Day: Prompt That Exposes AI Product Secrets

• AI Video Tutorial

• F-R-E-E AI Course of the Day: Writing and Coding with OpenAI Canvas

Hottest AI News

Alterego

Boston Startup Lets You Talk to AI Without Making a Sound

Boston startup AlterEgo built a wearable that reads nerve signals to capture unspoken words, letting you control a computer or assistant silently—opening fresh options for communication.

Details:

• MIT-trained CEO Arnav Kapur leads AlterEgo, which built a device that reads tiny signals from cranial nerves that trigger speech muscles. It routes responses back through bone conduction. Unlike brain-computer implants, this ear-worn device has no brain contact — it just intercepts speech at the edge of expression. You can mouth words or just think about mouthing them, with little visible cue

• For people with ALS, multiple sclerosis, or other voice-limiting conditions, this could restore communication. By capturing cranial nerve signals without implants, users control which thoughts they share

• Everyday uses are also striking. Send notes in noisy cafés, ask AI in libraries, or give commands without touching your phone. Demos show Kapur taking notes and querying assistants silently, merging quiet speech with digital tools

Human-computer interaction may get quieter—even invisible. As tech advances, our thoughts could link directly with AI, reshaping communication for both necessity and convenience.

Choose the Right AI Tools

With thousands of AI tools available, how do you know which ones are worth your money? Subscribe to Mindstream and get our expert guide comparing 40+ popular AI tools. Discover which free options rival paid versions and when upgrading is essential. Stop overspending on tools you don't need and find the perfect AI stack for your workflow.

Subscribe to Get Your Free Comparison

DeepMind

Google's Veo 3 Generates Vertical AI Videos at 50% Lower Cost

Google announced a major update to Veo 3, its AI video generator, with big gains for developers and clear signals for social platforms. The release prioritizes mobile-first content creation and makes the tech more affordable with significant price cuts.

Details:

• Google’s Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast support vertical video generation in 9:16, built for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and other mobile platforms. Developers can enable it by setting aspectRatio to 9:16 in their API calls, making mobile-first video creation easy

• The update also adds 1080p support, an upgrade from the old 720p limit. At this moment, the higher resolution works only with 16:9 videos. Both Veo 3 models are stable and ready for production use in the Gemini API, signaling commercial readiness

• Pricing has dropped significantly. Veo 3 costs fell from 0.75 to 0.40 per second, and Veo 3 Fast from 0.40 to 0.15. Google showcased these improvements with example videos, including one of a rock climber to highlight both quality gains and cost cuts

This update paves the way for more AI-generated content on social platforms. With vertical video support and YouTube Shorts integration, expect AI videos to spread quickly on TikTok, Reels, and beyond.

Top AI & SaaS Tools

• Claritee (Life-time Deal): Build websites, apps, and landing pages with AI that turns simple prompts into sitemaps, layouts, UI, and real content

• Tripo 3.0: Turns text or images into production-ready 3D assets, using tens of billions of parameters for sharper geometry, cleaner topology, and richer textures [F-R-E-E]

• Novix: AI Co-Scientist automating research's tedious tasks—literature review, coding, experiments, analysis—essentially doing "vibe research" [F-R-E-E]

• Qwen3-ASR: High-accuracy multilingual speech recognition for English, Chinese, and nine more languages with auto-detection, robust audio handling, and custom context [F-R-E-E]

• NotebookLM: Latest update adds study material generation (flashcards and quizzes), more report types, and a forthcoming “Learning Guide” personal tutor [F-R-E-E]

Used by Execs at Google and OpenAI

Join 400,000+ professionals who rely on The AI Report to work smarter with AI.

Delivered daily, it breaks down tools, prompts, and real use cases—so you can implement AI without wasting time.

If they’re reading it, why aren’t you?

Join 400K+ pros

AI Tutorial

How to Turn Product Photos into Professional Ads with Google’s Nano Banana

Marketing visuals no longer need expensive photoshoots or long production timelines. With Google’s Nano Banana model (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image), you can create polished ad mockups and even animated concepts in minutes — for just a few cents per image.

1. Open Gemini

   Go to Gemini. From the main dashboard, select “Tools.” Find “Create Images” and turn it on. This enables the Nano Banana model (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image).

2. Prepare product photo

   Choose a high-quality image of your product with a clean background. Upload the image directly into the tool. In the prompt box, type something like:

   “Generate professional ad mockups featuring the attached product in different real-world environments such as billboards, public transport posters, magazine covers, and digital screens. Ensure realistic lighting, natural shadows, and professional composition.”

3. Generate ad visuals

   The model will automatically insert your product into realistic advertising spaces.

   Notice how it adjusts the lighting, shadows, and perspective so your product looks naturally placed in each environment.

4. Experiment with variations

   Run multiple prompts to generate different creative concepts.

   Try swapping environments (bus stops, airports, storefronts, lifestyle settings) to see how your product looks across diverse placements.

5. Transform sketches into colored art

   Upload black-and-white line drawings or hand-drawn sketches.

   Nano Banana will add accurate colors while keeping the original character structure and proportions intact.

6. Go from images to video

   To animate your generated ads, toggle on “Create videos with Veo.”

   This feature transforms your still images into short animations with sound.

   The rendering process takes about 2 minutes.

7. Preview and refine

   Review the outputs carefully. If you need adjustments (like color tones, text overlay, or environment style), refine your prompts and re-generate.

Note: Generate multiple variations of the same concept at once and compare them side by side to spot the strongest creative direction.

Top AI & Tech News

• Anthropic’s Claude can create and edit real Office files — Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slide decks — and can also make documents and PDFs

• OpenAI researchers say LLM hallucinations happen because training and evaluation methods reward guessing instead of admitting uncertainty

• Firefox is introducing a “shake to summarize” feature on iPhone that uses Apple Intelligence (on-device AI for iPhone 15 Pro or newer with iOS 26) to generate short summaries of the webpage

• Cognition raised $400M at a $10.2B valuation, following its acquisition of Windsurf and signaling strong momentum for the Devin maker

AI Art Spotlight

Model: Midjourney V7

Prompt:

A polished chrome hamburger rests on a gleaming silver platter. The top and bottom buns are a flawless, reflective metal, mirroring the surrounding space. Sandwiched between the metallic buns are vividly colored, realistic ingredients. A perfectly melted slice of cheese is a bright yellow, the patty is a rich, dark brown, and the lettuce is a crisp, vibrant green. A thick slice of red tomato and a few purple onions are also visible, their colors popping against the burger's sleek chrome exterior. The entire platter is set on a solid, ornate gold table, creating a striking contrast of textures and materials --ar 9:16 --profile 2stastq 2bmgaxv --v 7

Prompt of the Day

Reverse Engineering Prompt That Exposes AI Product Secrets 😮

This prompt reverse-engineers any AI product by analyzing observable patterns to reveal the probable system architecture, data flows, and LLM integration strategies behind successful platforms like ChatGPT or Midjourney.

Top AI Video Tutorial

5 Simple (but Weird) ChatGPT-5 Tricks to Get a 10x Better Response

Complimentary AI Course of the Day

Collaborative Writing and Coding with OpenAI Canvas

Master OpenAI Canvas to write and code smarter. Learn targeted edits, inline feedback, reading-level tweaks, final polish, code review, and bug fixing—right inside Canvas. Build step-by-step projects: a simple game, Python from plot screenshots, and SQL databases from architecture images.