Welcome back, Insider. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivered an action-packed CES keynote, featuring everything from self-driving car tech to on-stage droids. But it was the company's next-generation chip architecture that took center stage. Literally…it took up the entire stage.
Today: Alexa becomes a chatbot, learn how to dictate anywhere on your computer with AI, and get the latest prompts and trending social posts.
The Essentials
1. Nvidia launches next-generation AI chip architecture: At CES 2026, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the Vera Rubin platform, calling it the new "state of the art" in AI hardware. The Rubin platform — Blackwell’s successor — uses six chips in one supercomputer to deliver 5x faster inference and 3.5x faster training than Blackwell, all while using 10x less cost per token. Huang confirmed Vera Rubin is "in full production" and will ramp up in the second half of 2026, with major cloud providers already slated to deploy Rubin systems.
2. Amazon brings Alexa to the web, challenging ChatGPT and Gemini: Also at CES, Amazon unveiled Alexa+, a web-based chatbot for its Alexa assistant. The chatbot will reportedly focus on families, tackling tasks like controlling smart devices, updating shared calendars, and handling requests across Amazon’s other offerings. Alexa+ is free during Early Access, then free for Prime members or $19.99/month without. Notably, Amazon has also invested $8 billion in Claude owner, Anthropic.
3. Turbulence brews at Meta as it rushes to catch up in AI race: The social media giant is reportedly planning to release two new AI models in early 2026: an image/video generator codenamed "Mango" and a text model called "Avocado” — but friction is mounting at Meta’s AI division. Yann LeCun, Meta's former chief AI scientist, departed in November and has since criticized the company’s AI strategy. At least three researchers have left Meta's AI team since its launch, with some returning to OpenAI after brief stints.
The Headline
DeepSeek just published new research — the last time it did, a model followed that shook the market
DeepSeek’s newest paper. DeepSeek’s researchers just introduced a new training framework: Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections (mHC). Wei Sun, an AI analyst at Counterpoint Research, called the technique a "striking breakthrough," while Omdia's chief analyst said it could have a "ripple effect across the entire AI industry." But what makes this framework so special?
Solving a scaling issue. When AI models get bigger, they often crash mid-training because signals between layers can spiral out of control. These mid-training crashes waste valuable time and resources, but mHC offers a solution. MHC lets researchers train bigger AI models safely by constraining how information moves between layers — so signals stay stable at any scale.
Does this actually work? The mHC framework has been tested on models up to 27 billion parameters, but not the frontier-scale models where training failures are most costly. Some analysts believe DeepSeek might deploy a new model featuring the research in the coming months.
The implications. While US labs pour billions into GPUs and data centers, DeepSeek is betting on efficiency. Its last model, R1, matched OpenAI's performance at a fraction of the cost — a disruption that erased nearly $600 billion from Nvidia's market capitalization. If the scenario repeats itself, 2026 could bring another shock to the market.
The Edge
Turn novelty into your competitive advantage: How to dictate anywhere on your computer with AI
Download Wispr Flow for Mac or Windows and install.
Open the app and sign in.
Click into any text field, hold your hotkey, talk, and release to insert text.
Mac default: Fn
Windows default: Ctrl + Win
To match tone with your writing style, open Flow Hub → Style, pick a context tab (Personal, Work, Email, or Other), and choose your vibe (Formal, Casual, Very Casual, or Excited).
We recommend Casual for friendly, clean phrasing with lighter punctuation. Your choice applies everywhere you dictate on the desktop.
Download Wispr Flow and stop letting the keyboard bottleneck your brain.
Productivity
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Ready to Use
High-Clarity Rewrite
Prompt: Take the text below and refine it for clarity, tone, and flow while preserving the original meaning, intent, and key details.
Remove awkward phrasing, redundancy, and filler
Improve sentence structure and transitions
Make it sound natural, confident, and human-written (not AI-ish)
Do not add new ideas, facts, or opinions
Maintain the original voice and level of formality
Constraint: Keep the final version under [X] words.
Output: Return only the improved text—no explanations or commentary.Landmark Infographics
NanoBanana Prompt: “Create an infographic image of [LANDMARK], combining a real photograph of the landmark with blueprint-style technical annotations and diagrams overlaid on the image. Include the title “[LANDMARK]” in a hand-drawn box in the corner. Add white chalk-style sketches showing key structural data, important measurements, material quantities, internal diagrams, load-flow arrows, cross-sections, floor plans, and notable architectural or engineering features. Style: blueprint aesthetic with white line drawings on the photograph, technical/architectural annotation style, educational infographic feel, with the real environment visible behind the annotations.”Whenever you’re ready to take the next step
AI won't replace you. Someone who knows how to use it will. This free 5-day course teaches you the essentials: effective prompts, automation fundamentals, and when agents beat workflows. Ready to level up?