Wednesday's AI roundup: Google's co-founder steps in to steady the Gemini team, Chinese embodied intelligence posts a new global efficiency record, and AI video officially moves from single clips to full narrative. Meanwhile, money keeps flooding into robots — from fingertips to data pipelines.
Top 3 Highlights
1. Brin takes over Gemini team; Gemini 3.5 Pro reportedly scrapped
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has stepped in to run the Gemini team directly — a clear signal the company is unhappy with internal momentum. Reports say Gemini 3.5 Pro has been canceled amid heavy infighting over compute allocation, a reminder that even at Google, model strategy is as much about politics as it is about algorithms.
Source: QbitAI
2. Chinese embodied AI sets a global record — at 30% the cost of Figure AI
A domestic embodied-intelligence system beat global benchmarks with 45% efficiency at just 30% of the cost, sorting 1,816 irregular parcels per hour. The takeaway: the "embodied brain" — not the hardware — is what decides the race, and cost-efficient perception-to-action loops are becoming China's real moat.
Source: QbitAI
3. Seedance 2.5: AI video finally moves from clips to storytelling
36Kr's seven-dimension review of ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 finds real progress — 30-second clips, 50 multi-modal references, and local editing reshape the production workflow. But long-shot character consistency remains the biggest unsolved pain point, and 720p output still blocks pro-grade delivery.
Source: 36Kr
More News
- Ant Group bets on robot fingertips: Ant has poured hundreds of millions into tactile sensing, backing what it calls the world's first "physical interaction brain" — capital is shifting from robot bodies to the sense of touch. QbitAI
- Honor launches the first "robot phone": The Honor Robot Phone is official, priced from RMB 9,999. 36Kr
- Tencent says AI capex is already paying off: President Martin Lau said heavy compute investment is showing clear upside — multiple new apps are performing well, and reselling compute orders could fetch 30%+ profit margins over recent purchase prices. 36Kr
- Westlake Robotics raises RMB 500M in four rounds in six months: The Westlake University spin-off is building a unified full-body model for humanoids, targeting an "embodied GPT moment." 36Kr
- Funloom AI rethinks game creation: Founded by a 25-year-old and valued at RMB 200M, the platform uses AI-native RPGs and interactive films to let anyone build a playable game from a single sentence. 36Kr
- Embodied data infrastructure gets funded: IO-AI Tech, founded by ex-Tencent and Baidu engineers, closed hundreds of millions in funding led by Shunwei Capital for robot data pipelines. 36Kr
Trend Watch
The capital flowing into embodied AI is telling: investors are no longer just funding robot bodies — they're funding tactile fingertips, data infrastructure, and full-body control models. Combined with Tencent openly calling AI compute a profit center rather than a cost line, the theme is clear: the next phase of AI is about grounding models in the physical world — and monetizing the infrastructure that makes it possible.
Disclaimer: This briefing is auto-curated from public sources for informational purposes. Accuracy of linked articles belongs to their original publishers.
