Grok-4 beats OpenAI and Google | Meta's $200 mil comp | Ferrero to buy Kellogg

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July 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

11th July 2025

Performance leap: xAI’s Grok 4 reportedly “crushed” reinforcement learning tests, achieving near-perfect SAT and GRE scores across subjects like math, physics, humanities, and engineering.
Specialist model: A variant called Grok 4 Code focuses on software development and programming tasks, highlighting the trend toward specialized AI models.

What’s new: Gemini can now convert still images into short, 8-second 720p videos with AI-generated audio, including dialogue, ambient sound, or music.
Availability: The feature is now live on the web and rolling out to mobile this week for Pro and Ultra users in over 150 countries.
Impact: Brings creative video generation into mainstream AI tools while raising questions about content authenticity and misuse.

What’s coming: OpenAI is preparing to launch a Chromium-based browser with a built-in AI assistant called Operator that helps with browsing, booking, and form-filling tasks.
Why it matters: This browser could challenge Google Chrome’s dominance by giving OpenAI more control over how people access and interact with the web—while deepening user engagement with ChatGPT-style tools.

Who: Ruoming Pang, former head of AI foundation models at Apple (overseeing Siri, email summaries, Genmoji).
What: Joins Meta’s new “Superintelligence Labs” with a compensation package reportedly in the tens to low hundreds of millions over several years.
Why it matters: Highlights the intensifying war for AI talent among tech giants, as Meta aggressively builds its AI leadership team to bolster its Behemoth/AGI ambitions—poaching also from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Scale AI.

Bitcoin surged to around $112,676, marking a fresh record and signaling sustained bullish momentum.
Ethereum also set new milestones, buoyed by growing institutional adoption and inflows into spot ETFs.
The surge follows a U.S. Senate hearing on digital‑asset regulation, amid ongoing debates over legislative versus regulatory frameworks for crypto markets.

Deal announced: Italian snack giant Ferrero (known for Nutella) plans to purchase breakfast cereal maker WK Kellogg for approximately $3.1 billion.
Market impact: WK Kellogg shares jumped over 50% post-announcement, reflecting investor optimism.
Strategic context: This follows Ferrero’s past M&A moves and accelerates its expansion into North American cereal brands.
Why it matters: Adds cereal—and scale—to Ferrero’s sweet- and snack-focused portfolio, leveraging WK Kellogg’s established brands and distribution channels.

Till next time.