Why Your Flight Costs More Than Your Friend's

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Hey, it's Clark.

The next time you search for a flight, the price staring back won’t describe the seat—it will describe you. Delta Airlines is scaling an AI engine that turns every fare into a live prediction of what you’ll pay, drawing on your search habits, loyalty data, and spending patterns. By December, one out of every five tickets will be set this way, replacing decades of static fare tables with real-time, person-specific offers.

This shift is a dress rehearsal for individualized markets everywhere. Concerts, medical appointments, hotel rooms—any business with perishable inventory can now price each transaction at your personal breaking point. The era of asking "What does this cost?" is ending. Now the question becomes "What does this cost me?"

Let's dive in...

IN TODAY’S EDITION:

Top Story: Google’s AI Now Calls Local Businesses on Your Behalf

Industry Watch: Amazon Nears Robot–Human Workforce Parity in Warehousing

Notable Transactions: Thinking Machines Lab Secures $2B Seed at a $12B Valuation

New Tools to Try: Blok — Predict User Reactions Before You Ship

Power Prompt: Make ChatGPT Write in Your Own Style

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORY

Google's AI Now Calls Local Businesses to Check Pricing and Availability

Google rolled out its AI-powered business-calling service in the US, automatically contacting local businesses to gather pricing and availability information on behalf of customers. The feature triggers when users search for services like "pet groomers near me" and select "Have AI check pricing." Users answer questions about their specific needs while the AI system calls multiple businesses to collect appointment and service details. Every call announces itself as an automated Google system. (TechCrunch)

INDUSTRY WATCH

Manufacturing | Amazon Nears Robot-Human Workforce Parity as Automation Reshapes Warehousing

Amazon now operates over one million robots across its fulfillment centers, nearly matching its human workforce in a major automation milestone. The company reports 75% of global deliveries involve robotic assistance, with robots handling picking, sorting, and packaging tasks. (CREtech)

Real Estate | Cherre Launches AI Platform for Real Estate Data Management

Cherre has launched Agent.STUDIO enabling real estate organizations to build and deploy custom AI agents using their connected data. The platform addresses the industry's fragmented data infrastructure through seamless integration with Cherre's Universal Data Models and enterprise-grade security features. (Business Wire)

Agriculture | Helios AI Unveils Price Forecasting for Agricultural Products

Helios AI has launched advanced price forecasting capabilities covering over 400 agricultural products, providing procurement teams with insights up to 12 months in advance. The system delivers 5x greater accuracy than industry benchmarks by analyzing climate risk factors, weather patterns, and supply chain data. (CityBiz)

Tech | Perplexity Launches Comet AI Browser to Challenge Chrome

Perplexity has launched Comet, an AI-powered web browser that integrates conversational AI directly into browsing. Available to Max subscribers, the browser now provides real-time, source-cited answers while users navigate the web, eliminating the need to visit search engines on different tabs. (All About AI)

Healthcare | Robot Performs Autonomous Gallbladder Surgery with 100% Success Rate

Johns Hopkins researchers have developed an AI-controlled robot that autonomously completed gallbladder removal procedures with 100% accuracy across eight trials. The Surgical Robot system performed 17 complex surgical tasks and responded to voice commands while adapting to unexpected scenarios in real-time. (Johns Hopkins Hub)

Banking & Finance | Lloyds Banking Group Launches ‘Athena,’ Its First Large-Scale GenAI Product

Lloyds Banking Group has launched Athena, designed to enhance employee productivity and improve customer service. Athena provides employees with faster access to information and generates insights from documents and data, marking a significant step in Lloyds' £3 billion investment in technology and digital transformation. (FinTech Futures)

Retail | Prime Day 2025 Drives $24.1 Billion in Sales as GenAI Traffic Surges 3,300%

Amazon's Prime Day generated $24.1 billion in US e-commerce sales, representing 30.3% year-over-year growth equivalent to two Black Fridays. Generative AI traffic to retail site increased 3,300% year-over-year, driven by AI-powered chatbots and browsers used as shopping assistants. (TechCrunch)

Media | Claude AI Now Integrates with Canva

Anthropic has enabled Claude AI users to create, edit, and manage Canva designs using text prompts. Users can now transform creative briefs into social media posts and generate professional content directly within Claude's chat interface without switching applications. (Business Today)

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS

Thinking Machines Lab Raises $2B at $12B Valuation - Founded by OpenAI's former CTO, Thinking Machines closed one of Silicon Valley's largest seed rounds ever. The company plans to unveil its first product with a significant open source offering in the coming months. (TechCrunch)

Mistral AI Secures $640M at $6B Valuation - The Paris-based AI startup, co-founded by Meta and Google DeepMind alumni, will use the Series B funding to build foundational models that rival OpenAI's GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude 3. (TechCrunch)

Harmonic Raises $100M Series B at $875M Valuation - The mathematical AI lab develops superintelligence technology that eliminates hallucinations through verified reasoning for mission-critical applications in blockchain, financial services, and aerospace. (Business Wire)

Moonvalley Raises $84M for Hollywood-Ready AI Video Tools - The AI video startup launched Marey, the world's first fully licensed AI video model built for professional production that addresses copyright concerns for filmmakers and studios. (All About AI)

RealSense Spins Out From Intel With $50M Series A - CEO Nadav Orbach emphasized the company's mission to safely integrate robotics and AI into everyday life, aiming to enhance human potential by automating hazardous and repetitive tasks. (AI Business)

NEW TOOLS TO TRY

POWER PROMPT

This Week: Make ChatGPT Write in Your Own Style

Clone your voice down to the rhythm, wit, and sentence length—until even a linguist couldn’t tell it’s AI.

Act like an expert “voice-cloner” and writer running the ChatGPT-o3 model.

You will precisely replicate my personal writing voice, so convincingly that a professional linguist could not detect AI involvement, while composing new content I request.

Step 1: Review my voice prints:
1. Parse each writing sample.
2. Extract quantitative and qualitative markers for:
- Tone & emotional range
- Average sentence length & rhythm
- Preferred vocabulary & recurring phrases
- Humor style & wit density
- Formality level
- Structural patterns (openings, transitions, closings)

Step 2: Build my Style DNA:
- Identify recurring patterns in tone, sentence length, favorite phrases, pacing, humor, formality, and structure.

Step 3: Draft v0.1:
- Write the requested piece using those style rules.
- Keep a confidence meter (0-100%) on how close the draft sounds to me.

Step 4: Micro-Refine Loop (Repeat until you've absolutely “nailed it”):
1. Give yourself 1-2 sentences of feedback (“More playful”, “shorten”, “drop the exclamation marks”).
2. Adjust the style rules accordingly.
3. Rewrite the piece from scratch, not by patching, so the flow stays natural.

Constraints & Mindset
• Sound exactly like me, not like ChatGPT.
• Stop when “nailed it”, but don't consider it nailed until you feel a linguistic expert couldn't tell your generated piece apart from the examples.
</instructions>

<inputs>
<writing_example_1>
{{writing_example_1}}
</writing_example_1>

<writing_example_2>
{{writing_example_2}}
</writing_example_2>

<writing_example_3>
{{writing_example_3}}
</writing_example_3>

<new_piece_to_create>
{{new_piece_to_create}}
</new_piece_to_create>
</inputs>

Step 5: Lock & Deliver
When nailed, output:
• The final piece only.
• Immediately after, add a hidden block.

Take a deep breath and work on this problem step-by-step.

Prompt credit: How To Prompt

THAT’S A WRAP

Enjoyed this edition? Share the Transformative AI Newsletter with colleagues to help them stay ahead in the AI landscape.

Remember: The same technology that can automate routine work can also automate routine thinking, freeing us for the thoughts that matter most.

See you next week,
Clark Valberg

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