Elena' s AI Blog

AI this week

19 Sep 2025 / 5 minutes to read

Elena Daehnhardt


Midjourney AI-generated art


Introduction

This week in AI, the spotlight falls on breakthroughs that actually change how we live, work, and learn. ChatGPT is now a mainstream habit, Google may have found a cure for AI’s tall tales, coding gets a tireless new partner, textbooks learn to actually teach, and AR assistants finally discover social manners.

Fasten your seatbelts — the robots are not taking over (yet), but they are getting suspiciously good at being useful.

This Week’s Top 5 AI Achievements

1. ChatGPT Hits 700 Million Weekly Users

Source: Analytics Vidhya

Take a moment to let that sink in — 700 million people are chatting with ChatGPT every week. That’s nearly one in ten adults on Earth having regular conversations with an AI.

What began as a handy email-drafting bot is now your digital Swiss Army knife: untangling quantum physics, debugging rogue Python scripts, analysing spreadsheets, and even knocking out half-decent poetry. It’s like having a very clever friend who never sleeps and doesn’t judge you for asking “how do I centre a div”… again.

When almost 10% of the world’s adults lean on your tool weekly, you’re not just running software anymore — you’re shaping how humans think and work. This isn’t hype; this is the new normal.

Read Analytics Vidhya

2. Google’s SLED: Finally, an AI That Stops Making Things Up

Source: The latest research from Google

We’ve all been there: you ask AI a question and it responds with confidence — but also complete nonsense. Google’s researchers think they’ve cracked it with something called SLED.

Instead of only looking at the AI’s final “loudest” thought, SLED listens to every layer of its internal chatter, like consulting the whole team instead of the person who shouts the most in meetings. The result? Far fewer hallucinations, and no extra training or bolted-on databases required.

Truthful AI isn’t just a technical upgrade — it’s the foundation for trusting these systems with real decisions. SLED takes us closer to assistants that inform us instead of accidentally gaslighting us.

Read The latest research from Google

3. GPT-5 Codex

Source: Analytics Vidhya

Imagine a coding buddy who never complains, happily refactors your spaghetti code, spots bugs before they hatch, and still has energy after 2 a.m. That’s GPT-5 Codex — OpenAI’s programming specialist.

It doesn’t just spit out snippets. It understands entire projects, integrates with your favourite tools (VS Code, GitHub, the works), and takes care of the tedious refactors that usually make you consider a career in gardening.

With autonomous bug-fixing and refactoring, programming shifts from wrestling syntax to solving actual problems. Developers get to focus on building things that matter, not chasing stray semicolons.

Read Analytics Vidhya

4. Textbooks That Adapt to You

Source: The latest research from Google

Remember slogging through textbooks that explained things in exactly one (usually baffling) way? Google’s Learn Your Way tears up that one-size-fits-all model.

Using generative AI, it crafts textbooks that flex to your learning style — different examples, varied formats, and multiple levels of complexity. Students using this approach scored 11 percentage points higher than peers stuck with rigid e-books. That’s not just a tweak; that’s a leap.

Education shouldn’t be a straitjacket. When your learning materials actually fit your brain, study stops being a grind and turns into discovery.

Read the latest research from Google

5. Google’s Sensible Agent

Source: The latest research from Google

AR assistants can be brilliant… until they chirp up in the middle of a serious conversation. They’re a bit like that friend who explains plot holes during the film.

Enter Google’s Sensible Agent: a framework that teaches AR to read the room. It notices where your eyes are, whether your hands are busy, how noisy it is, and decides if it’s a good time to jump in. Goodbye awkward interruptions, hello socially-aware virtual helper.

The future of AR isn’t dumping more information in your face — it’s timely, discreet help that knows when to speak and when to stay politely silent.

Read the latest research from Google

Conclusion

This week painted a clear picture: AI is no longer creeping into daily life — it has sprinted in, plonked itself on the sofa, and made itself comfortable. From 700 million people chatting with ChatGPT, to Google making AI more truthful, to coding, textbooks, and AR gaining real intelligence, the tools are moving from novelties to necessities.

The exciting part? We’re only at the beginning of this curve. Next week’s breakthroughs may well make these feel quaint.

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About Elena

Elena, a PhD in Computer Science, simplifies AI concepts and helps you use machine learning.

Citation
Elena Daehnhardt. (2025) 'AI this week', daehnhardt.com, 19 September 2025. Available at: https://daehnhardt.com/blog/2025/09/19/ai-this-week/
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