ChatGPT introduced a new shopping research feature powered by a specialized GPT-5 mini variant, enabling users to conduct multistep product discovery and receive customized buyer's guides with price, availability, specs, and reviews pulled from the web[4].
Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA professor and director of the UC Digital Cultures Lab, explored the intersection of technology and privacy on Rich On Tech Episode 155, aired January 3, 2026.
Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, discussed on Rich On Tech why many people turn to AI for personal advice and introduced his new app Purpose, designed to provide such advice more safely and responsibly.
AI predictions for 2026 highlight a shift to proactive personal agents that handle multi-step tasks autonomously, as forecasted by Gemini.
Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4 supports up to 1 million token context windows, matching Gemini, and excels in articulate text generation.
Gemini 4 is anticipated with breakthrough multimodal capabilities, PhD-level reasoning, and over 1 million token context windows, set for 2026 launch.
Google plans to fully phase out the old Assistant on most Android devices in favor of Gemini by early 2026.
AI-driven workforce reductions are accelerating, with corporations across sectors explicitly acknowledging that AI now performs work previously done by humans, leading to massive layoffs and a widening gap between AI-native and legacy companies[2].
Sam Altman and Jony Ive are set to release their AI hardware, generating significant buzz, though initial sales are expected to be modest[1].
Apple is reportedly in deep discussions with Google to integrate Gemini into Siri, aiming to finally deliver the advanced Siri and Apple Intelligence features promised nearly two years ago[1].
Anthropic is testing Claude Tasks mode, which separates planning from execution to function as a workflow runner with visible steps and user intervention.[5]