Google Veo is now #3

Image-to-video rankings shift

Author

Eddie Yoon
June 17, 2025 • Read time: 6 minutes

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Tuesday.

Adobe launches its Firefly mobile app.

Higgsfield releases Canvas, a new tool for pixel-precise inpainting and product editing.

Hailuo 02 arrives.

To see the quality for yourself, check out their X account.

The mysterious "Kangaroo" model on Artificial Analysis is actually Hailuo 02 (0616) from MiniMax, now ranked #2 behind Seedance 1.0 and ahead of Veo 3.

Switching gears:

Remember Total Pixel Space by Jacob Adler, the AIFF Grand Prix winner that sparked a lot of buzz?

The Gold Prize (runner-up) deserves a closer look too.

Out of 6,000 entries, JAILBIRD by Andrew Salter stood out as a surreal and unexpectedly moving short about a chicken sent to human prison.

Watch the Gold Prize winning video. Posted on LinkedIn.

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Generative AI

    It’s wild to think that Andy started at Amazon back in 1997 as an Assistant Product Manager, and now he’s helping guide the company through its next major shift with AI agents.

  • KPMG launches a multi-agent AI platform

    Workbench is built on Azure with 50+ agents live and nearly 1,000 in development, enabling secure, model-agnostic collaboration across audit, tax, and advisory.

  • Google updates its Gemini 2.5 model family

    Gemini 2.5 models are now generally available, including Pro and Flash (stable), with Flash-Lite entering preview. These “thinking models” reason through responses, offering improved accuracy and developer control over how much cognitive effort is applied.

  • Meta to release smart glasses with Oakley and Prada

    The Oakley glasses are aimed at athletes and active users, with weather resistance and a $360 price point. The Prada partnership gives Meta a high-end fashion angle, with thicker frames that help house smart components like mics and chips.

  • Cursor launches $200/month Ultra plan

    Ultra offers 20x more usage for power users who want predictable pricing, and the Pro plan now includes unlimited usage with no tool call limits.

The numbers:

  • Anysphere, maker of the Cursor AI code editor, is reportedly in talks to raise at an $18B–$20B valuation after securing $900M earlier this month.

  • Elon Musk’s xAI is in talks to raise $4.3B in equity funding, on top of the $5B in debt it recently sought from investors.

  • European defense-tech startup Helsing, focused on AI and drone systems, raised €600M (~$693M), boosting its valuation to around $12B in a round led by Daniel Ek’s Prima Materia.

  • Applied Intuition, an autonomous vehicle AI software firm, closed a $600M Series F, valuing it at approximately $15B as it pushes into defense applications.

  • Coralogix, an AI-powered observability platform, raised a $115M Series E at a $1B+ valuation to scale its agent “Olly” and global growth.

  • Horizon3.ai, an autonomous security platform, raised a $100M Series D led by NEA.

  • Nabla, which builds AI copilot agents for healthcare professionals, raised a $70M Series C led by HV Capital.

  • Sword Health, an AI‑powered digital health platform for musculoskeletal and now mental health care, raised $40M at a $4B valuation, led by General Catalyst.

  • Uncountable, an industrial R&D AI platform, closed a $27M Series A led by Sageview Capital.

  • Extend (CrowdView), a document-processing AI startup, raised $17M in a combined seed + Series A round to boost speed and accuracy.

  • Twine, an AI digital employee startup, raised a $12M seed round led by Dell Technologies Capital and Ten Eleven.

  • OmniChat, a conversational AI startup based in Brazil, raised a $9M seed round led by Quartzo Capital and Altitude Ventures.

  • Dreamhub, an AI-native CRM platform for B2B SaaS, raised a $7M seed round backed by founders of MuleSoft, Pardot, and Datorama.

Thought starters:

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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