Cognitive Warmup. The closer we get to the Apple iPhone Keynote in September, the more you’ll start hearing these things about expected new features. Some will be true, some not, that’s the way things are. Apple’s AI push, as part of the Apple Intelligence suite, is expected to evolve significantly with iOS 27. There are some rumors that Clean Up, which is already part of Photos, will add more to its arsenal of capabilities – expanding a photo beyond the original frame, enhancing elements like lighting and quality, as well as re-framing a photo to change focus and perspective later. John Ternes will be CEO by the time the iPhone keynote arrives, and don’t expect him to take the AI push lightly. The Google Gemini partnership only lends credibility to an expected trajectory.
20 more years of staying relevant
A few days ago, Google Translate turned 20. This is another Google tool that has stood the test of time (and the ever-changing ecosystem landscape) and remains incredibly relevant. To mark this milestone, Google has added something called pronunciation practice to the Translate app on Android for now. It is currently live in two regions, namely the US and India, and in three languages (English, Hindi, and Spanish).
The key thing here is that it is based on “Ask and Understand” capabilities, and pronunciation practice will use AI to analyze the user’s speech and provide feedback on the best pronunciation. Google also confirmed at this moment that Translate has been using statistical machine learning since 2006, which has rapidly improved over time for fluent and natural translation. Google Translate, at the moment, supports 250 languages and over 60,000 possible language pairs. In terms of usage metrics, across Translate, Search, Lens, and Circle to Search, more than 1 trillion words are being translated every month by users worldwide.
Meta’s humanoid machine idea
Meta is acquiring US-based AI robot startup, Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), as it looks to build out the AI play with machines for high-value labor use-cases. And it has, in the meantime, given us a new term to work with for the next few months (and I’m sure it will also include millions of dollars worth of industry-wide funding) – Physical AGI. Xiaolong Wang, co-founder of ARI, says in a post on We still don’t have a definition in progress for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which has been the AI bros’ favorite term for the past year (tell me I’m wrong, and we have a working definition), but great, let’s go with Physical AGI.
The way it should work, ARI will provide expertise with the models and frontier capabilities needed for humanoid and robot management, while META is likely to focus on the hardware side of things. This is where Meta wants to be seen, competing (or at least operating in the same space) as Amazon and Tesla are already doing. I’m reminded of something Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said last year about creating software that other companies can license.
Lawyer, Microsoft and Trust
Microsoft wants lawyers and everyone in the legal profession to trust its AI inside Word. This is a new legal agent, potentially doing some analysis, summarizing and highlighting. “Instead of relying on generic AI models to interpret orders, the agent follows a structured workflow shaped by actual legal practice, managing clearly defined, repeatable tasks such as reviewing contract clauses against a playbook,” explains Sumit Chauhan, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Office Products Group.
Microsoft says the legal agent understands complex legal documents, can track changes from previous proposals to new versions while maintaining historical logs, and compare versions to spot risks and liabilities. Coincidentally, Microsoft had acquired Robin AI a few months ago – a startup that was building an AI based contract review system.
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