It's Wednesday, October 28th. Google's Genie 4 turns a prompt into a world you can walk through, sound included. Grok Bot now makes Pages, stores passwords and uses your phone's apps. Plus a free tool that checks how easy it is for AI shopping assistants to read your store.
In Today’s Top Tools, we spotlight some of the most innovative, creative AI apps that we recommend adding to your stack.
TOOL SPOTLIGHT
1️⃣ Google's Genie 4 Builds A World You Can Walk Through And Talk To
Image from Google DeepMind
Genie 4 is Google DeepMind's new world model. Describe a scene and it builds a place you can explore with your keyboard, with sound and characters who talk back. It's with trusted testers for now, and Google AI Ultra subscribers are next in line.
Google DeepMind shared Genie 4 on October 27. It builds the world as you move through it, along with music, background sound and dialogue. A Gemini 3.8 Flash helper plans each step so events stay on track.
Type a change while the scene plays, like rain rolling in, a new camera angle or a new person, and Genie 4 fits it to what's already there.
Start from a written description or an image, then steer with standard keyboard controls.
Listen as you explore, from wind and waves to characters who respond to what you do.
It's with trusted testers now and coming soon to Google AI Ultra in Project Genie, with a SynthID watermark on everything it makes.
Genie 4 stays steady for a few minutes at a time, and Google says details drift the longer you play. Treat it as a sketchpad, the way testers do. Filmmakers run quick "takes" to try camera angles and lighting, and game makers test a look before writing any code. Google also paired it with Gemini 4 Argon to rehearse Apptronik's Apollo robot playing checkers. If you plan events, design spaces or pitch visual ideas, join the waitlist and see whether a walkable draft beats your mood board.
TOOL SPOTLIGHT
2️⃣ Grok Bot Now Makes Pages, Stores Passwords And Works With Your iPhone
Image from xAI
Grok Bot, xAI's team of always-on AI helpers, picked up a batch of new skills. It can now make Pages, store passwords in an encrypted Vault, and work with Apple apps like Home, Reminders and Calendar. Each one lets the bot reach further into your day.
On October 27, Matt Palmer's walkthrough covered what's new, from Pages and a password Vault to new bot characters and X Spaces.
Ask a bot to make a Page or a video.
Keep passwords in Grok Bot's encrypted Vault, or connect 1Password instead.
Link Apple Home, Reminders, Alarms, Calendar, Contacts and Location so a bot can act on your phone.
Grok Bot is in beta for SuperGrok and Cursor Pro subscribers and up, on desktop and iOS, with its own usage.
Joy’s setup from last week works because each bot has one narrow job and checks with her before acting. These features give bots access to sensitive parts of your day: your logins, your calendar, your smart home. That's useful, and it's also the moment to slow down. Give each bot only the apps its job needs. Put a login in the Vault only when that bot uses it, and keep banking and main email passwords out of the bot's reach. Home access deserves the most care, since a mistake there happens in your actual house.
🎓AIC AUTOMATIONS
🦁 Can AI Shopping Assistants Read Your Store?
Today I'm sharing a free tool I built. It checks the things that make your online store easy or hard for AI shopping assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Mode to read.
More people now ask an AI what to buy, and clear product info helps it understand what you sell. On the Monday newsletter this week, we covered Walmart welcoming AI shopping agents while Amazon blocks them. If you run a Shopify or WooCommerce store, this shows you where you stand.
Here's what it looks like on Allbirds. It scored 98 out of 100.
A live scan of allbirds.com
It runs 13 checks and explains each one in plain English:
Can they get in? Whether your site lets AI shopping assistants visit.
Can they read your products? Price, stock, barcode or SKU, brand and photo on a few of your product pages.
Can they find your products? A public product list and a sitemap.
Do you have an llms.txt? A short welcome note for AI. It's optional and new.
Every check comes back as Good, Could be better, or Needs fixing, with why it matters, plus how to fix it when something's off.
Each check explains why it matters
It's free and open source, and you won't need to write any code. Paste this prompt into Claude Code or Codex and your agent sets it up and runs it for you:
Clone github.com/joydai2026-del/ai-shopping-check, make sure Node.js 22 or newer is installed, and scan my store at [your store address] with npm run scan. Then explain the results in plain English, starting with anything marked Needs fixing, and tell me the easiest fix for each one.
Pro tip
Ask your agent to check which AI bots your site blocks. Blocking AI training bots like GPTBot is a fair business choice. Blocking OAI-SearchBot can keep your products out of ChatGPT search, and blocking PerplexityBot does the same for Perplexity.
One way to put AI to work, every week. From Joy Dong
In this section, we feature a few standout opportunities at leading AI companies, non-profits, policy groups, and other organizations.
🔬 Work at a Lab/AI Safety
Roles at frontier labs, safety organizations, and research institutions
RESEARCH SCIENTIST, SCALING RL - Periodic Labs | Menlo Park, CA or Montreal, Canada | $225,000-$350,000 + Equity
SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST, AI BIOSECURITY ASSESSMENTS - SecureBio | Remote | $235,000-$300,000
EVALUATION INFRASTRUCTURE - SpaceXSI (xAI) | Palo Alto, CA | $180,000-$440,000 + Equity
🚀 Work in Industry
Roles at funded AI startups and private companies
AI PRODUCT MANAGER, GROWTH MARKETING - Notion | New York, NY or San Francisco, CA | $191,000-$225,000 + Equity
PRODUCT BUILDER, AI INSIGHTS - Figma | San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; or United States | $169,000-$250,000 + Equity
SENIOR AI ADOPTION LEAD (WEST) - WRITER | San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA | $186,000-$219,000 OTE (SF) + Equity
🏛️ Work in AI Policy / Governance
Roles in government, think tanks, NGOs, and policy organizations
DC SUMMER FELLOWSHIP 2027 - Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) | Washington, DC | $24,500 stipend + travel support
SR. MANAGER, POLICY - Suno | San Francisco, CA or New York, NY | $158,880-$200,000 + Equity
PROGRAM MANAGER, AV SAFETY POLICY & PROGRAMS - Lyft | San Francisco, CA | $108,000-$135,000
🫵 Want your message in front of 200,000 AI builders?
Our partners and sponsors get exclusive placements across the newsletter and access to AIC's in-person network — demo nights, dinners, hackathons, and forums across 180+ chapters.
For all inquiries, send us a note at [email protected].
The AI Collective is built by volunteers across 180+ chapters in 40 countries.
Thank you to the thousands of volunteers around the world who make this work possible. We truly could not do this without you.
PODCAST
🎙️ Live today on The AI Collective Podcast
If today's stories caught your eye, join us live at 9 AM PT on The AI Collective Podcast. Each morning we dig into the top AI news that actually matters for you today, what's happening inside and around The AI Collective, and the experts leading the field.
Our hosts, AJ Green and Catherine McMillan, will be interviewing these guests today:
9:40 AM PT · Michael Maximilien, Founder and CEO at Maximilien.ai and ClawMax.ai. "Dr. Max" built ClawMax, an open-source way to run whole teams of OpenClaw agents, and on Oct 4 he introduced Maximilien.ai, a company model built on one founder and many AI agents. He'll talk about AI agents and the one-person company.
10:10 AM PT · Nicholas Charriere, AI Products at Notion. Nicholas previously founded Mocha (YC S23) and recently open-sourced ari, a local pen-and-paper AI tutor. He'll join us in the VIP slot.
🧑💻 About the Editors
About Noah Frank
Noah is a researcher, innovation strategist, and ex-founder thinking and writing about the future of AI and the workforce. His work and body of research explores the economics of emerging technology and organizational strategy. Outside of AIC, Noah heads research for Centaurian AI.
About Lindsay Gross
Lindsay is an AI engineer, researcher, and writer focused on how AI systems behave in practice and what it takes to make them safe. Her work sits at the intersection of AI safety, governance, and product design, and at AIC she writes about the questions that matter most as these systems scale.
