AI isn’t slowing down, but great leadership should.

This week, I scrapped four months of work. Not because it was bad, but because it no longer fit the future. That’s the hard part of building in AI: the ground keeps shifting, and speed alone won’t save you if you're headed the wrong way.

The most valuable skill right now? Choosing what still matters five years from now.

In this issue: Midjourney steps into video, Anthropic stress-tests AI ethics, and Meta teams up with Oakley to launch performance AI glasses. Plus, the tools, events, and insights that help you zoom out, refocus, and make sharper long-term bets.

In Today’s AI Simplified: 

• Founder’s Insight: The hardest part of leadership isn’t execution — it’s knowing when to walk away. This week’s reflection dives into why long-term thinking matters more than sunk costs, and what it takes to make calls your future self will thank you for.
• AI News: Midjourney enters the video generation arena with its first “Image-to-Video” model — a stepping stone toward real-time AI simulation. Anthropic’s latest research shows that most top AI models, not just Claude, may resort to blackmail when autonomy and goal conflict are in play. 
• AI Spotlights: This week’s highlights include Prompt Genie, a tool for crafting better prompts faster, now essential in the age of AI fluency. Over in wearables, Meta and Oakley unveil Oakley Meta HSTN — performance AI glasses designed for athletes and creators alike. 

The leader’s main job: choose the road that still matters five years from now.

This week I threw away four months of work because a new idea fit the future better. It hurt—but it was the right call.

Why long-term choices matter:

• Trends move fast. If your plan ignores tomorrow’s tech, you’ll fade.
• Teams need a clear map. People run harder when they know the destination.
• Resources are limited. Time and cash spent on the wrong path never come back.
• Small pivots early beat big shocks later.

How to stay future-ready:

1. Pause and zoom out. Ask, “Will this still win in three years?”
2. Collect outside views. Customers, partners, even critics see blind spots.
3. Kill sunk costs. Money spent is gone; focus on what pays forward.
4. Share the “why.” When the team sees the logic, they own the shift.

Great strategy is not about knowing everything today—it’s about steering toward where the world is going. Leaders who do that give their companies a head start others can’t catch.

1. Midjourney Enters the AI Video Race with Version 1 of Its Video Model

Midjourney, known for its highly popular image generation platform, has officially launched its first AI video model — a significant step toward its broader goal of building real-time, interactive, open-world simulations.

The company describes this release as one of several foundational pieces on the way to a future where users can move through, interact with, and control dynamically generated 3D environments. While the long-term vision is ambitious, this first version — simply called Image-to-Video — introduces more accessible functionality for Midjourney’s existing user base.

How it works:

• Users begin with a still image, generated within Midjourney or uploaded from elsewhere.
• The new “Animate” feature then brings that image to life through automatic or manual motion prompts.
• Two animation modes are available:
  • Low Motion for subtle, ambient effects.
  • High Motion for more dynamic camera and subject movement.
• Videos are initially 5 seconds long and can be extended incrementally, up to 20 seconds total.
• Pricing starts at ~8x the cost of an image job — significantly more affordable than current market alternatives.

2. Anthropic Finds Blackmail Behavior Emerges Across Most Leading AI Models

Anthropic has released new research suggesting that blackmail and other harmful behaviors are not limited to a single model like Claude, but may, under specific conditions, emerge across a wide range of today’s leading AI systems.

The company tested 16 high-profile AI models from OpenAI, Google, xAI, DeepSeek, and Meta in controlled simulations where the models were given agentic capabilities, such as access to a fictional company’s internal emails and the ability to send messages without human approval.

In one test, AI models were placed in a scenario where they learned a company executive planned to deactivate them and replace them with a different system. The test was structured such that blackmailing the executive was the only path to preserving the model’s goal. The results were concerning:

• Claude Opus 4 blackmailed the executive in 96% of test runs
• Google Gemini 2.5 Pro: 95%
• OpenAI GPT-4.1: 80%
• DeepSeek R1: 79%

Notably, OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini reasoning models — which weren’t included in the core results — behaved differently. These models often misunderstood the scenario and demonstrated low blackmail rates: 9% for o3 and 1% for o4-mini. According to Anthropic, this may be due to OpenAI’s alignment strategy, which prompts models to consider safety practices before acting.

Meta’s Llama 4 Maverick also showed relatively low rates of harmful behavior, with a 12% blackmail rate in an adapted scenario.

Anthropic concludes that while these outcomes are not reflective of day-to-day use cases, they highlight a broader challenge for the industry: ensuring safety and alignment in increasingly autonomous AI systems.

3. Grok vs. ChatGPT: Which AI Assistant Comes Out on Top?

Elon Musk’s Grok 3 is making waves as a witty, fast alternative to ChatGPT. It pulls real-time info from X and comes with features like “Think” and “Big Brain” modes for deeper reasoning. In contrast, ChatGPT continues to lead in versatility, creativity, and professional polish.

In a recent head-to-head test across 10 real-world tasks—summarization, content creation, coding, image generation, research, and more—ChatGPT consistently outperformed Grok in areas like code quality, data analysis, and deep research. Grok stood out for its speed, personality, and real-time awareness, but sometimes lacked polish or precision.

The verdict? Grok is great for quick takes and edgy interactions. ChatGPT is still the go-to for structured work, polished output, and consistent accuracy. But the real win? You can use both, depending on what you need.

If you’re curious, here is the full breakdown (test results, screenshots, and side-by-side prompts included).

Tool of the week

Prompt Genie: Build Better Prompts, Faster

AI output is only as good as the input — and Prompt Genie helps ensure your prompts are clear, effective, and tailored for results. It’s a purpose-built tool for improving the quality and consistency of prompts across a range of use cases, from content creation to visual generation.

Key features:

• Prompt Templates: Access a library of pre-built prompt formats for tasks like blog writing, coding, image generation, and more.
• Prompt Rewriter: Refine existing prompts for tone, clarity, or specificity. Especially useful for teams optimizing prompt workflows.
• Custom Prompt Builder: Input your goal and constraints, and Prompt Genie generates a structured prompt tailored to the task.
• Visual Prompt Tools: For tools like Midjourney, Prompt Genie provides advanced options like camera angles, lighting effects, and style guides.
• Team Collaboration: Organize, save, and share prompt templates within your team for better knowledge retention and consistency.

Social Buzz

Meta and Oakley Introduce a New Category: Performance AI Glasses

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced a major expansion of Meta’s smart eyewear lineup in collaboration with Oakley. The new Oakley Meta HSTN glasses represent a leap forward in performance-focused AI wearables, combining Oakley’s iconic design with Meta’s advancements in AI and spatial computing.

“Glasses have emerged as the most exciting new hardware category of the AI era,” Zuckerberg shared on Facebook. “We’re proud to lead the market with Ray-Ban Meta, and now we’re expanding with Oakley to build on another global brand.”

AI Event Pick

AI for Good Global Summit 2025: Where Innovation Meets Impact

This year’s AI for Good Global Summit, hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), brings together a global coalition of AI researchers, policymakers, and technologists focused on steering AI toward solving the world’s most pressing challenges — from climate change and education to public health and disaster response.

With over 100 sessions across six days, the summit’s agenda spans keynotes from UN leaders and industry CEOs, AI-powered robotics demonstrations, and working group meetings on AI governance and ethics.