JANUARY 21, 2026

TODAY: ​Lots of Davos AI highlights today, as well as a look at the 55 US-based AI companies that raised $100 million or more in 2025. We also examine the continuous threats and uncertainty that AI is presenting to the labor market, and whether CEOs are really happy with the return they're getting on their AI investments.

Plus: a tool that turns your website into an AI app, no coding skills required. That, and several more prompts to try out. Let's go!

• PromptCraft: Prompts to Organize Your Gmail, Get More Realistic Portraits, Build CustomGPTs, and Find Compromises
• THE HEADLINES: ​55 US AI startups that raised $100M or more in 2025​; Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge​; ​AI impacting labor market ‘like a tsunami’ as layoff fears mount​
• Tool Spotlight: Noodle Seed Turns Your Site Into an AI App, No Code

TRY THESE! Prompts to Organize Your Gmail, Get More Realistic Portraits, Build CustomGPTs, and Find Compromises

• ​Gmail Label Logic Assistant Prompt: Detailed role prompt for a “Digital Organization Expert” that inspects your email subjects/senders, proposes 5–7 core Gmail labels with naming conventions, and assigns each message. Emphasizes minimal labels, speed, and a clear label map plus categorized email list.
• ​Realistic Skin Portrait Prompt For AI: Highly specific positive + negative prompt for extreme close-up portraits of a Black woman with natural, detailed skin. Covers camera, lens, aperture, lighting, skin texture, and a long list of banned artifacts to avoid plastic, over-retouched, or uncanny results.
• ​Meta Prompt For Building Expert CustomGPTs: Template system prompt that helps you spin up “expert” custom GPTs or Gemini bots. You specify the domain and perspective (e.g., Atkins Diet, Bill Slawski-style SEO, Mike Mentzer-style training) and the instructions constrain answers to that worldview.
• ​Omega-N Directive For Low-Drama Reasoning: Long system prompt that defines “Omega-N” scenarios: boring, reversible, non-catastrophic outcomes. It instructs the model to avoid irreversible moves, humiliation, and foreclosing future cooperation, emphasizing rollback paths and structural mercy over dramatic, extreme recommendations.

HIGHLIGHTS: ​55 US AI startups that raised $100M or more in 2025​; Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge​; ​AI impacting labor market ‘like a tsunami’ as layoff fears mount​

1. ​AI cannot automate science – a philosopher explains the uniquely human aspects of doing research (The Los Angeles Post)
2. ​Microsoft CEO Nadella on How AI Can Change Workflows (YouTube)
3. ​Micron To Buy Taiwanese Chip Fab For $1.8 Billion As AI Drives DRAM Demand (Investors)
4. ​China’s AI Boyfriend Business Is Taking On a Life of Its Own (WIRED)
5. ​Arm CEO Rene Haas: AI models will become ‘very domain-specific’ in the future (YouTube)
6. ​UK exposed to ‘serious harm’ by failure to tackle AI risks, MPs warn (The Guardian)
7. ​Anthropic and Teach For All launch global AI training initiative for educators (Anthropic)
8. ​Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: ‘Unprecedented’ how much AI compute is being consumed right now (YouTube)
9. ​Scaling AI: Now Comes the Hard Part (World Economic Forum)
10. ​Citi has quietly built a 4,000-person internal AI workforce (Business Insider)
11. ​What Using AI for My Mom’s Cancer Taught Me (American Enterprise Institute)
12. ​Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon on AI’s Next Big Thing (MarketWatch)
13. ​Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge (The Register)
14. ​Last year, AI hype wowed Davos. This year, leaders are obsessing over how to use the technology at scale (Fortune)
15. ​Shipping AI Chips to China Would Be a ‘Big Mistake,’ Anthropic CEO Says (YouTube)
16. ​Palantir CEO Says AI To Make Large-Scale Immigration Obsolete (Slashdot)
17. ​Humans&, a ‘human-centric’ AI startup founded by Anthropic, xAI, Google alums, raised $480M seed round (TechCrunch)
18. ​Bristol Myers Squibb Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance AI-Driven Early Detection of Lung Cancer (Bristol Myers Squibb News)
19. ​Nvidia Stock Falls. ‘The Honeymoon Is Over for AI.’ – Barrons.com (Moomoo)
20. ​Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on AI: The cost of inference has to come down (YouTube)
21. ​G42 Introduces Digital Embassies and Greenshield to Make AI Sovereignty Portable (g42.ai)
22. ​AI Inference Startup Baseten Raises $300 Million and Gains Backing From Nvidia (PYMNTS.com)
23. ​Nasdaq Survey: What Top Business Leaders Think of AI (Nasdaq)
24. ​Where are the robots? As AI gets physical, Canada falls behind (YouTube)
25. ​Top 10 AI Stocks For 2026 (Seeking Alpha)
26. ​Databricks AI Days - 38 AI Events Worldwide (Free) (Databricks)
27. ​BlackRock’s billionaire CEO warns AI could be capitalism’s next big failure after 30 years of unsustainable inequality after the Cold War (Fortune)
28. ​AI chatbots upended their lives. They found support from each other (WVIA)
29. ​CoreWeave CEO Mike Intrator: AI will continue to pay dividends for the next 100 years (YouTube)
30. ​More AI Tools and Resources Approved and Available for Campus (UARK News)
31. ​AI impacting labour market ‘like a tsunami’ as layoff fears mount (CNBC Africa)
32. ​How AI can elevate human potential, if the industry gets it right (World Economic Forum)
33. ​Young workers most worried about AI affecting jobs, Randstad survey shows (Reuters)
34. ​South Korea’s “AI Squid Game:” a ruthless race to build sovereign AI (Cybernews)
35. ​Thousands of Companies Are Driving China’s AI Boom. A Government Registry Tracks Them All (WIRED)
36. ​Types of AI Agents: Definitions, Roles, and Examples (Databricks)
37. ​More AI means a higher need for cybersecurity: CrowdStrike CEO (Yahoo Finance)
38. ​Here are the 55 US AI startups that raised $100M or more in 2025 (TechCrunch)
39. ​IBM Study: AI Poised to Drive Smarter Business Growth Through 2030 (IBM Newsroom)
40. ​How to Colorize and Restore Old Photos With Generative AI (World News)
41. ​From Potential to Performance: How Leading Organizations Are Making AI Work (World Economic Forum)
42. ​Britain needs ‘AI stress tests’ for financial services, lawmakers say (Reuters)
43. ​Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick calls for AI rivals to center “humanity” (Axios)
44. ​CSU goes all in on AI, partnering with Microsoft to create RamGPT (Boulder Daily)
45. ​AI’s $15 trillion prize will be won by learning, not just technology (World Economic Forum)

Noodle Seed Turns Your Site Into an AI App, No Code

Noodle Seed helps you turn your existing website into a branded, conversational “AI app” without coding—so customers can discover your business, ask questions, and take actions (like browsing, booking, or buying) through chat-style interfaces.

It’s designed to get you published in the OpenAI Store and expand your presence across popular assistants (including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and more), while keeping your business content and knowledge in one place. It also emphasizes data ownership, with security/compliance work noted as in progress.

Learn More: Noodle Seed​

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