It’s Monday, July 28th. See how Washington plans to win the AI race, get a first peek at GPT-5, and relive the highlights from our SF chapter’s AI Research Roundtable.
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U.S. launches sweeping AI Action Plan
News: The Trump administration released "Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan", a 28-page blueprint outlining over 90 policy actions to solidify U.S. global dominance in artificial intelligence. The strategy reflects input from over 10,000 public comments and marks a sharp pivot in federal policy.
Details:
The plan is anchored in three pillars: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and expanding AI diplomacy, while also stripping away perceived regulatory roadblocks.
Specific actions include expedited data center construction, promotion of open-source AI, repeal of legal barriers, and incentives to boost adoption.
A new requirement mandates government contractors ensure "ideological neutrality", barring "woke" or partisan AI models.
The White House frames the AI boom as an "industrial revolution, information revolution, and renaissance all at once".
Critics argue the plan favors Big Tech and cuts essential oversight, potentially sidelining responsible AI standards.
Why it matters: This strategy reflects the administration’s willingness to prioritize global competition and AI market leadership over regulatory caution. It positions the U.S. to challenge China directly by embracing deregulation and fast deployment, but not without controversy.
Altman signals GPT-5 is on the horizon
The News: OpenAI is expected to launch GPT-5 in August. CEO Sam Altman teased the release during a podcast with Theo Von, calling it a leap forward in AI reasoning.
The details:
GPT-5 will merge top-tier language generation with o3-style reasoning into one unified system - no more switching models for logic vs. creativity.
Altman called testing it a “here it is” moment, saying the model solved complex problems instantly and made him feel “useless compared to the AI.”
He also confirmed GPT-5 won’t include the math stack used to win OpenAI’s recent IMO gold—so it’s powerful, but not omnipotent (yet).
Separately, OpenAI will release its first open-weight model since 2019 by end of July - delayed for safety checks, now ready to shake up open-source innovation.
Why it matters: This is the moment we’ve been building toward. GPT-5 isn’t just smarter - it’s aware of what you need. It doesn’t ask you to pick a model or tool. It reads the prompt, understands the context, and routes to the right capability -language, logic, function calling, whatever - automatically. That’s a new interface for human thought. And releasing that in the same window as the first open-weight model in six years? That’s not coincidence. That’s OpenAI flipping the table. One model that adapts to your needs. One that gives the dev world the raw engine to build freely.
🌁 SF Bay Area: Manus “AI for Everybody”
One thousand RSVPs. A packed house. Hours before we kicked things off, OpenAI dropped Agent Mode. We didn’t flinch…we pivoted. In real time, we tore up the script and livestreamed to the world a historic first: OpenAI Agent vs. Manus Fellow, head-to-head.
We put Agent versus Agent on stage, live and unrehearsed. Both systems rebuilt decks, parsed market feeds, and closed paperwork while founders and engineers timed every step. Manus finished the tougher prompts first, triggering rapid-fire questions and whiteboard sprints where guests traded beta links and mapped new integrations. By the end, the crowd agreed: if work is truly for everybody, AI is about to do the heavy lifting.
The takeaway? In AI, speed is survival. Adaptability is a superpower. You can plan for months—and everything can still change overnight. The winners will be the ones who build fast, flex hard, and show up ready to ship.
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About Noah Frank
Noah is a founder, innovation strategist, policy researcher, and community builder at the edge of AI. His work blends governance, product strategy, and revenue design to keep transformative tech aligned with human progress.
About AJ Green
AJ Green is a founder, writer, VC scout, chairman, and respected community leader in the AI and startup space. A former athlete turned tech entrepreneur, AJ is on a mission to make AI the great equalizer scaling startups, connecting ecosystems, and turning disruption into opportunity.