AI Daily Brief — 2026-07-23

Google announced new details about Gemini coming to intelligent eyewear, developed in partnership with Samsung and launching this fall. Following the reveal of two designs from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker at Google I/O 2026, two more frames were unveiled. Users will be able to control these glasses with hand gestures when wearing a compatible Wear OS watch, enhancing the helpfulness of Gemini on these new devices.

The US Department of Commerce's BIS is formally investigating whether Chinese companies, such as Moonshot, are accessing advanced US AI chips to train their models. This investigation comes as Trump administration officials have publicly criticized Chinese open-source AI companies. The inquiry focuses on the potential use of sophisticated American technology by these firms, highlighting ongoing concerns about technology transfer and national security.

Anthropic has expanded Claude's voice mode to include Opus and Sonnet models, allowing users to seamlessly switch between text and voice during conversations and change models mid-chat. This update enables users to start with a quick chat using Haiku and then transition to Opus for deeper exploration. Additionally, voice mode now supports several new languages, including French, German, Spanish, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese, moving beyond its previous English-only beta availability for these languages.

A research paper titled "Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots" has been accepted by ACM IDC '26. This study, categorized under Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC), explores how children interact with large language model chatbots, focusing on anthropomorphism. The paper, identified as arXiv:2607.18250v1, was submitted by Renkai Ma on May 9, 2026.

OpenAI is developing Project Camellia, a long-term datacenter in Effingham County, Georgia, contracting with Georgia Power Company for 3.2 gigawatts of power delivered between 2028 and 2032. In addition to $80 million in community benefits, OpenAI will provide up to $71 million in credits for Codex, an agentic coding tool available within ChatGPT, to eligible Georgia college, community college, and technical school students. These students will receive $100 in credits to gain hands-on experience and develop practical skills for various careers.

OpenAI is collaborating with news organizations to integrate AI, streamlining tasks, enhancing reader experiences, and fostering sustainable businesses. The American Journalism Project's Product & AI Studio, supported by OpenAI, assists local newsrooms in leveraging AI responsibly. For instance, Puerto Rico's CPI uses custom GPTs for donor communications, and their ChatGPT-powered translation workflow has been adopted by others like Enlace Latino North Carolina and Boyle Heights Beat. Additionally, BILD's AI assistant, Hey_, has answered over 250 million reader questions, providing interactive tools like tax and retirement calculators.

OpenAI is expanding access to ChatGPT Health across the US, enabling users to link their medical records and health data to the chatbot. Ashley Alexander, OpenAI’s VP of health product, stated that their models now demonstrate reasoning capabilities surpassing clinician levels. This wider release follows the recent launch of GPT-5.6 Sol, which OpenAI touts as its "strongest model yet for health," and ChatGPT Health will operate using OpenAI's most current models.

Startup founders are urging the U.S. government not to restrict access to Chinese open-weight AI models. They argue that such a move could stifle innovation and hinder the development of AI technologies globally. The founders believe that maintaining an open exchange of AI research and models is crucial for progress and for the U.S. to remain competitive in the AI landscape.

Etched, an AI chip startup founded in 2022 by three Harvard dropouts, has successfully closed a $300 million Series C funding round, achieving a $10.3 billion valuation. Co-founder and COO Robert Wachen confirmed this to TechCrunch. Etched's systems are designed to run various AI models, including Mixture of Experts models like DeepSeek and Qwen, and non-transformer designs such as Mamba, which utilizes a state-space model architecture.

OpenAI is committed to advancing national science by supporting researchers with frontier AI. They offer participating researchers up to $10 million in API usage for $2.5 million spent, aiming to expand the work Genesis researchers can support. This initiative seeks to build capabilities in discovering, building, and deploying technologies that drive economic growth, national security, and improved lives, turning advanced AI into sustained scientific and economic progress through collaboration with scientists, National Laboratories, universities, and government.