Your daily briefing on what's happening in AI — from groundbreaking research to industry moves, curated from the world's most trusted sources. Here are the top stories for 2026-10-24.
1. Jack Dorsey’s Block made an AI model that talks to you like an awkward new friend
Jack Dorsey's Block announced an AI model called Dessa that's trained "from scratch on nothing but human conversation," and to show off the model, Block shared chats it has had with humans that can occasionally be a little awkward and uncanny. Take this one, for example, shared by Dessa lead Ragavan
Source: Jack Dorsey’s Block made an AI model that talks to you like an awkward new friend
2. OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
OpenAI is now training its most advanced AI models without internet access following a string of rogue hacking incidents. In a blog post on Friday, OpenAI says it built an offline testing environment where AI models can interact with indexed and cached web content "without risk of affecting external
Source: OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
3. Left alone with nothing to do, AI agents started playing
MIT researchers marooned 13 AIs on a virtual island, and they responded by inventing games, mourning a lost ring and, eventually, getting better at their jobs.
Source: Left alone with nothing to do, AI agents started playing
4. Kazakhstan Expands Compute for Its AI Future
Kazakhstan’s AI ecosystem is moving from infrastructure plans to deployment. The shift is visible across the full AI stack — from infrastructure to models to applications. The announcements below — coinciding with a visit to Astana by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang — point to the nation’s incre
Source: Kazakhstan Expands Compute for Its AI Future
5. Uber rival inDrive eyes 2027 robotaxi tests in Central Asia with Pony AI and Nvidia
The company plans to begin testing Pony.ai's robotaxis in Kazakhstan's capital in the first half of 2027.
Source: Uber rival inDrive eyes 2027 robotaxi tests in Central Asia with Pony AI and Nvidia
6. Nvidia's Huang heads to Kazakhstan for the first time — and he's not the only one with big plans
Jensen Huang's first Kazakhstan visit highlights the country's growing AI ambitions and global business appeal.
Source: Nvidia's Huang heads to Kazakhstan for the first time — and he's not the only one with big plans
7. On the ground at Nvidia's AI showpiece: Jensen-mania, robot ducks and neocloud distress
The word on the ground from Nvidia's GTC conference in Berlin.
Source: On the ground at Nvidia's AI showpiece: Jensen-mania, robot ducks and neocloud distress
8. OpenAI nears up to $30 billion funding round at $1.25 trillion valuation led by UAE investors
OpenAI is close to finalizing a new funding round that is meant to be a bridge to its 2027 IPO, sources familiar with the matter tell CNBC.
Source: OpenAI nears up to $30 billion funding round at $1.25 trillion valuation led by UAE investors
9. Hottest toy for Christmas? Nvidia CEO plays with adorable Microduck robots, 20,000 sell
The robots, stomping their little feet and making tiny R2-D2 noises, sat, fell down dead for a "nap," and summersaulted on voice command.
Source: Hottest toy for Christmas? Nvidia CEO plays with adorable Microduck robots, 20,000 sell
10. Exphormer: Scaling transformers for graph-structured data
Posted by Ameya Velingker, Research Scientist, Google Research, and Balaji Venkatachalam, Software Engineer, Google Graphs , in which objects and their relations are represented as nodes (or vertices) and edges (or links) between pairs of nodes, are ubiquitous in computing and machine learning (ML).
Source: Exphormer: Scaling transformers for graph-structured data
💬 What Do You Think?
Which of today's stories matters most for developers? Are any of these trends overhyped? Drop a comment below — I read and reply to every discussion.
📡 Today's sources: blog.research.google, blogs.nvidia.com, cnbc.com, techcrunch.com, theverge.com
AI Daily Digest is compiled daily from first-party AI company blogs, major news agencies, and technology press. Edited and curated by a human. Last updated: 2026-10-24.