This week in AI feels a bit like spring cleaning: OpenAI tidying up your prompting habits, Grammarly throwing out its old interface for a shiny new one, and Google Gemini remembering what you said so you don’t have to. Add in fresh tools, bold CEO takes, and AI sales summit, and the landscape looks both sharper and more ambitious.

In Today’s AI Simplified: 

• Founder’s Insight: What we celebrate defines how we grow. Small wins matter, but if we cheer them as extraordinary, we risk lowering the bar. True celebration should come when we’re closing impactful deals, hitting major product milestones, or creating breakthroughs for customers. Ambition, honesty, and focus—not comfort—drive long-term success.
• AI News: OpenAI releases the GPT-5 Prompting Guide with best practices for workflows, coding, and multimodal interactions. Grammarly gets a major overhaul—new block-based Docs interface plus eight AI agents for grading, citations, feedback, and integrity checks. Meanwhile, Google Gemini now remembers past chats automatically, personalizing responses while giving users privacy controls.
• AI Spotlights: This week’s tool is YesChat.ai, an all-in-one platform combining chat, music, video, and image generation powered by multiple top models. In social buzz, Duolingo’s CEO doubles down on an AI-first culture, balancing innovation with stability. And don’t miss the upcoming AI Sales Summit, where experts will share strategies to harness AI for revenue growth.

What we celebrate as a team defines how we grow.I once joked internally that I’d start putting sad faces under our “closed won” deal notifications with very low ARR. Not because I don’t value every customer — quite the opposite — but because what we choose to celebrate sets the bar for our future.If we cheer small wins as if they are extraordinary, we risk normalizing them. That can blind us to bigger problems:

• Are we lacking large deals because of weak marketing reach?
• Are we struggling to close bigger opportunities due to product or sales gaps?

Small wins should be normality, not the ceiling. True celebration should come when we’re moving the needle in ways that align with our vision — impactful deals, significant product milestones, or breakthroughs that change the game for our customers. It's not about ignoring the little things. It’s about keeping our culture ambitious, honest, and focused on what really drives long-term success. Curious to hear from other founders and leaders: How do you decide what’s worth celebrating in your company?

1. GPT-5 Prompting Guide Released

OpenAI has unveiled a comprehensive GPT-5 Prompting Guide to help users optimize their interactions with the latest AI model. The guide introduces several key features:

• Agentic Workflow Predictability: Enhancements in tool calling, instruction following, and long-context understanding make GPT-5 more effective for complex tasks.
• Controlling Agentic Eagerness: Users can adjust the model's proactivity by setting parameters like reasoning_effort to balance between thoroughness and efficiency.
• Optimizing Coding Performance: GPT-5 excels in generating front-end interfaces, debugging large codebases, and building applications from scratch. The guide emphasizes the use of the new Responses API to retain reasoning context across interactions, reducing redundant computations.
• Multimodal Interactions: GPT-5 supports text, image, voice, and preliminary video processing capabilities, allowing for more dynamic and personalized user experiences.
• Safety and Reliability: Improvements have been made to reduce hallucinations and enhance the overall reliability of the model. The guide recommends using the "safe completions" feature to ensure high-quality, safe responses. 

2. Grammarly Gets a Design Overhaul and Multiple AI Features

Grammarly has launched a redesigned document interface, built on the technology of Coda, the productivity startup it acquired last year. The platform now features a block-based design, letting users add tables, columns, headers, lists, and rich text blocks, alongside a sidebar AI assistant for summarizing text, answering questions, and suggesting improvements.

The company also introduced eight AI agents to support writers, students, and professionals. Key agents include AI Grader, which provides feedback against course rubrics; Citation Finder, which generates sources; Reader Reactions, which predicts audience interpretation; Expert Review, offering field-specific guidance; and tools for plagiarism and AI-generated text detection. These agents aim to guide users without replacing authentic authorship.

Key Highlights:

• New interface: Block-based design with tables, columns, headers, rich text blocks, and an AI sidebar assistant.
• Eight AI agents: Tools for grading, citations, audience feedback, expert review, and content integrity checks.
• Focus on AI literacy: Supports students and professionals in developing practical AI skills while maintaining authentic authorship.

3. Google Gemini AI Gets Smarter with Automatic Memory

Google is rolling out an update to Gemini, its AI chatbot, that allows it to remember past conversations automatically. Users will no longer need to prompt the AI for context—Gemini can recall key details and preferences to personalize its responses.

For example, if you previously asked Gemini for ideas on a YouTube channel about Japanese culture, it might suggest content about trying Japanese food when generating new video ideas in the future.

Privacy and Controls

• Users can disable memory in the app via settings under Personal Context.
• Temporary chats won’t be saved or used to personalize future conversations, and will only be retained for 72 hours.
• Google is renaming “Gemini Apps Activity” to Keep Activity, which will let users opt into sharing a sample of files and photos to improve Google services, while keeping activity off if previously disabled.

Google spokesperson Elijah Lawal emphasized that user control is central, saying, “Our focus has been building a personal AI assistant, and Gemini learning your preferences is key. Equally crucial is giving users easy controls to choose the experience that’s best for them.”

Tool of the week

YesChat.ai — All-in-One Platform with Advanced Models

YesChat is a unified AI platform that combines chat, music, video, and image generation using models like DeepSeek-R1, GPT-o1, GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus. It provides a single interface to access multiple AI capabilities, aimed at streamlining content creation and productivity workflows for writers, musicians, filmmakers, designers, marketers, and developers.

Key Features

• AI Chat: Advanced chatbot capabilities for copywriting, coding, research, and general inquiries. Claude AI offers real-time web search for up-to-date information.
• AI Music Generator: Generates royalty-free music tracks, either instrumental or vocal, based on user input.
• AI Video Generator: Transforms text or images into short videos. Users can extend video length and customize styles.
• AI Image Generator: Produces illustrations, logos, or realistic photos from text prompts.
• Bot Platform: Provides access to specialized AI models for tasks like coding, marketing, research, and writing.

Social Buzz

The C.E.O. of Duolingo Wants to Have a Conversation About A.I.

Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, recently addressed reactions to his earlier announcement that the company would become “AI-first.” He emphasized that the announcement was misunderstood, and that internally the shift was not controversial.

Von Ahn clarified that Duolingo has not laid off full-time employees and has no plans to do so, though the contractor workforce fluctuates based on project needs. He remains bullish on AI, with the team dedicating Friday mornings to experimenting with new AI tools—a practice humorously referred to as “f-r-AI-days.”

Despite the criticism, the company’s AI initiatives continue to progress, with the CEO highlighting experimentation and innovation as central to evolving the platform and improving language learning experiences.

AI Event Pick

AI Sales Summit

📅 September 24-25

The AI Sales Summit is a virtual Sales 3.0 conference focused on leveraging AI to drive revenue and transform sales practices. As sales playbooks evolve rapidly and technology adapts in real time, understanding how to ethically harness AI tools has become increasingly important. The event explores agentic AI, predictive analytics, AI-driven insights, and personalized automations that enhance customer engagement and create sustainable revenue streams.

What to Expect

• Actionable Strategies: Gain practical tactics and best-practice strategies that can be applied immediately to improve sales performance.
• Expert Speakers: Learn from top sales leaders and industry experts about strategies for succeeding in an AI-driven economy.
• Real-time Networking: Connect with peers and speakers via live chat and 1:1 virtual meetings during the event.