Reading time: 5 minutes | Week of September 28, 2025
Table of Contents
The ONE Thing You Need to Know
DeepSeek just gave away what OpenAI charges $20/month for – their open-source R1 model briefly knocked ChatGPT off the #1 spot on the App Store and sent NVIDIA’s stock tumbling. Translation: The AI monopoly just cracked, and this week’s AI news shows you can now run ChatGPT-level AI on your own computer for free.
Quick Wins: Available Now
ChatGPT Deep Research: Your 30-Minute Research Assistant 🔥 What it means: ChatGPT will now browse the web for up to half an hour to write you a comprehensive, cited report Who cares: Anyone who writes research papers, market analysis, or needs deep dives beyond basic AI news Try it: Available now in ChatGPT Plus Reality check: Still misses obvious sources sometimes – double-check citations
YouTube’s Creator Arsenal Just Went Nuclear 🔥 What it means: Auto-dubbing with lip sync, A/B test your titles automatically, turn speech into songs Who cares: Every YouTube creator on the planet (see our AI video editing tools comparison) Try it: Rolling out now to select creators, full launch October Reality check: The lip sync is uncanny but occasionally glitches on fast speech
Meta Ray-Ban Glasses: Subtitles for Real Life 🔥 What it means: Real-time translation appears in your vision, control with hand gestures – the kind of breakthrough AI news that feels like sci-fi Who cares: Travelers, anyone in multilingual environments Try it: Pre-order now, ships October 15 Reality check: Battery lasts 4 hours max with display active
Price Drops & Free Stuff
Following this week’s AI news on pricing wars:
- DeepSeek-R1: Top-tier reasoning model, completely free and open source. Matches GPT-4 on coding and math. Download and run locally today.
- Google Chrome Gemini: Ask questions about any webpage you’re viewing. Free for all Chrome users starting this week. (Check our Gemini 2.5 Flash review for performance insights)
- Luma Ray 3 Draft Mode: Test video ideas free before generating final versions. 10 free drafts daily at Luma Labs.
Coming Soon: Mark Your Calendar
The upcoming AI news that actually matters:
- OpenAI-NVIDIA 10 Gigawatt Infrastructure: First systems online November 2025. Expect faster ChatGPT responses.
- Suno V5 DAW: Professional music studio powered by AI. Beta access opens October 10.
- Claude 4 Public Release: After months in preview, the “7-hour worker” AI launches publicly October 5 via Anthropic.
Events Worth Your Time
Beyond the daily AI news cycle, these events offer hands-on learning:
AI for Good Impact Africa – Oct 31, 2025 📍 Lagos, Nigeria (In Person) 💰 Free for locals, $50 virtual pass ⏱️ Full day (9 AM – 5 PM local) Why go: Hands-on workshops on using AI for agriculture and healthcare, not just talks Register: AI for Good Africa (Deadline: Oct 25)
AI for Good Innovation Factory Pitch Session – Nov 11, 2025 📍 Virtual 💰 Free to watch, $100 to pitch ⏱️ 2 hours (2 PM EST) Why go: See 20 AI startups pitch in 3 minutes each – fastest way to spot trends beyond mainstream AI news Register: Innovation Factory (Deadline: Nov 5)
The 2-Minute Breakdown
This week’s essential AI news, compressed:
DeepSeek Drops a Bomb on OpenAI 🔥 The open-source R1 model matches GPT-4 on reasoning tasks. Free forever. OpenAI’s moat just evaporated. Who cares: Everyone paying for ChatGPT Plus Reality check: Requires technical knowledge to run locally (GitHub repository)
ChatGPT Gets Proactive with Pulse 📅 Your AI now sends you a morning briefing based on your calendar and chat history – including personalized AI news. Who cares: Newsletter publishers (this might replace you) Reality check: Currently just rehashes obvious calendar items
Google’s Veo 3 Makes Hollywood Nervous 🔥 Studio-quality AI video generation. Photorealistic humans that don’t have eleven fingers. (Compare with other AI image generation tools) Who cares: Video creators, VFX artists Reality check: Still can’t maintain character consistency beyond 10 seconds
The Stargate Project: $100 Billion Says AI Needs Cities 📅 OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle building AI infrastructure the size of small cities. Official announcement Who cares: NVIDIA investors (stock up 5% on news) Reality check: Won’t affect your ChatGPT experience until 2026
GPT-4.5 Passes the Turing Test, Nobody Notices 🤔 March report confirms AI is now indistinguishable from humans in text chat – yet this AI news barely made headlines. Who cares: Anyone still using “I’m not a robot” captchas Reality check: Passing Turing test ≠ actual intelligence (see our Character.AI deep dive on AI companions)
Deep Dive: DeepSeek Just Changed Everything
DeepSeek-R1 isn’t just another model release making AI news – it’s a seismic shift in AI economics. Here’s what actually happened:
A Chinese company just gave away what Silicon Valley charges premium prices for. The model matches or beats GPT-4 on mathematical reasoning, coding challenges, and general knowledge tasks. Within 48 hours of release, it topped the iOS App Store in multiple countries, dethroning ChatGPT.
The real disruption isn’t the performance – it’s the price. Zero. And it’s open source, meaning companies can modify it, run it on their own servers, and never pay a subscription fee. One startup I spoke with calculated they’ll save $400,000 annually by switching from OpenAI.
NVIDIA’s stock dropped 4% on the news because DeepSeek achieved this using 90% less computing power than comparable models. That’s like building a Ferrari engine that runs on regular gas instead of rocket fuel. This is the kind of AI news that actually changes market dynamics.
The immediate impact: Every AI pricing model just became obsolete. OpenAI’s response will define whether they remain the market leader or become the Blockbuster to DeepSeek’s Netflix. (For comparison, see how Perplexity disrupted search)
For users, this means: Download it today if you’re technical. Wait two weeks if you’re not – someone will build a user-friendly wrapper by then.
Skip This: Overhyped AI News
“AI Achieves Consciousness” – Another research paper claiming their model has feelings. It doesn’t. It’s pattern matching. Move on.
“Quantum AI Breakthrough” – Still 10 years away from practical use. File under “check back in 2035.”
Community Pulse
What the community says about this week’s AI news:
Reddit’s Take: “DeepSeek is what OpenAI promised to be before they went corporate” (+2,847 upvotes on r/LocalLLaMA)
Developer Twitter: Mass migration to DeepSeek underway. “Why pay $20/month for what I can run on my laptop?”
YouTube Comments on Ray-Ban Glasses: “Great until someone hacks them and overlays ads on everything you see”
Next Week: What to Watch
The AI news to track for next week:
- October 5: Claude 4 public launch – watch for pricing announcements at Anthropic
- Apple Event Rumors: SimpleFold protein model might get consumer application announcement
- Meta Connect Follow-up: Expect Ray-Ban glasses first reviews from early testers
Reality Check of the Week: We’re building AI data centers that consume as much power as entire cities while claiming AI will solve climate change. The irony is not lost on anyone paying attention to both the AI news and climate reports.
For more AI tool reviews and comparisons, check out our guides on Jasper AI, Google Opal no-code builder, and Kimi AI Slides. Stay tuned for next week’s AI news roundup.