☕️ Microsoft Brings xAI's Grok 3 to Azure & More During Build 2025

Microsoft's annual Build 2025 conference kicks off with a myriad of sweeping announcements already, from Grok 3 integration on Azure to official Windows support for Anthropic's MCP.

Other key highlights include:

• US officials scrutinize Apple officials over a deal with Alibaba to bring its AI to Apple's made-for-China iPhones

• MIT backs away from a PhD student's paper on the benefits of AI productivity

• OpenAI's Codex marks the company's first AI agent made for software developers

Join us at AI Tangle as we untangle this week's happenings in AI!

Microsoft becomes one of the first hyperscalers to integrate xAI's Grok 3 into its offer lineup

Early this week on Monday, Microsoft made an official announcement during the first day of its Build 2025 conference to add xAI's Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini AI models to its list of model offerings on its Azure AI Foundry platform. The statement says these versions of Grok are more restricted than those on Musk's X/Twitter social media platform, offering high customization, additional data integration, and governance. While Grok is known for its edgy, unfiltered responses, Microsoft assures users the hosted models will meet "all the service-level agreements Azure customers expect from any Microsoft product."

​But there's more than just that​

Other than the Grok 3 announcement, Microsoft also made a slew of other announcements during the opening day of Build 2025:

• ​Edit on Windows - Microsoft's own command-line text editor

• A new set of API's makes Phi-4-mini usable by web apps on Edge​

• ​NLWeb will allow every website to run AI search for pennies

• GitHub launches a new AI coding agent that fixes bugs on its own

• ​Windows will start supporting MCP, the Anthropic-made "USB-C of AI apps"​

• Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) goes open-source​

US lawmakers begin scrutinizing Apple executives over its deal to integrate Alibaba AI tech into iPhones

US officials have allegedly begun probing Apple's agreement to integrate Alibaba‑powered AI features into iPhones in China, per a report by The New York Times. Lawmakers and Trump administration staff have directly questioned Apple executives about "what data would be shared with Alibaba" and "any commitments to Chinese regulators," to which executives had been "unable to answer most of those questions." Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi warned that the deal is "extremely disturbing" given Alibaba's role in China's military‑civil fusion strategy. Apple has not publicly confirmed the partnership, but Alibaba has.

​

MIT distances itself from a popular paper boasting about AI productivity, scrutinizes the accuracy of the research

​MIT has publicly distanced itself from a paper on AI productivity by former PhD student Aidan Toner‑Rodgers, after an internal review by The Institute's Committee on Discipline found the validity of the data to be unreliable and lacking any confidence in the accuracy of the research. The late 2024 study claimed AI‑assisted teams achieved "44% more new materials," "39% more patents," and "17% more product innovations," but after garnering wider media coverage, those claims were put under scrutiny. MIT has since asked both the author and arXiv to withdraw the unreviewed paper, though it remains up as of writing.

​

OpenAI's Codex is the company's first built-for-programmers AI agent

​OpenAI has launched Codex, an agentic coding tool in research preview that allows developers to delegate routine programming tasks to an AI agent. Accessible via the ChatGPT sidebar alongside the existing Codex CLI tool, Codex runs in isolated containers preloaded with a user's codebase that can follow custom instructions in an optional "AGENTS.md" file. Built on codex-1, a fine‑tuned o3 variant trained with reinforcement learning, Codex transparently documents its reasoning and test iterations. Codex is currently available to OpenAI's Pro, Enterprise, and Team subscribers, with free usage expected in the coming weeks.

​

Nvidia announces custom AI infrastructure tech, synthetic training data for robotics, and more @ Computex 2025

During Taipei's annual Computex event, Nvidia made several announcements, from its Isaac GR00T‑Dreams for generating vast robotics training data, NVLink Fusion to build semi‑custom servers, to RTX Pro Blackwell servers to make the shift from CPU workloads to GPU ones. The company also launched DGX Cloud Lepton, a global cloud network of GPUs with partners like CoreWeave, Foxconn, and SoftBank, for more scalable AI development. These moves come off the back of recent US export rule rollbacks and US President Donald Trump's recent Saudi deal to supply hundreds of thousands of AI processors.

​

Google releases a standalone NotebookLM app for Android a day ahead of its annual I/O conference

​Google has released a standalone NotebookLM app for Android, its AI-powered note-taking and research assistant previously only available on desktop, a day ahead of its annual Google I/O event. The app offers features such as smart summaries, interactive Q&A on documents, and Audio Overviews - essentially AI-generated podcasts with background playback and offline support. Users can create and manage notebooks, upload sources directly from their devices, and enjoy light/dark modes synced to system settings. An iOS version is also expected on Tuesday, with further details expected during the conference itself.

​​​Scottie - Scottie turns plain prompts into working, cloud-run AI agents leveraging top industry models in 5 minutes that can easily integrate into over 200 productivity tools, from Slack to Google Sheets.

​Hexus - Create interactive product demos, videos, step-by-step guides, and more in minutes with Hexus, an easy-to-learn stack for driving engagement and conversion.

​Latitude - Level up your prompt game with Latitude, an open-source engineering platform that evaluates your prompts to chatbots and helps you refine them.

​Bulletpen - Speak naturally, write brilliantly. Bulletpen is an AI-powered app that transforms your spoken thoughts and rambles into polished writing.

How AI Will Remake Every Company (18-min read)

Satya Nadella's bold AI pivot at Microsoft, a company that first cozied up with OpenAI to one that now openly embraces rival tech like DeepSeek, reveals how his company is being reshaped by AI and how it won't stop with just Microsoft.

AI Has Become More Persuasive Than a Person (4-min read)

A multi-university team of researchers recently found that AI can do a better job at changing someone's mind or persuading them than actual humans, even more so when given an inkling of personal information to work with - but there's a catch.

​💼 The Artificially Intelligent Enterprise - How AI Wearables Will Reshape Business

🔮 AI Lesson - Troubleshoot Everything with ChatGPT​

💡 AI CIO - LLM-Based Code Validation for DevOps​

🎯 The AI Marketing Advantage - The Type of AI Agents That Print Money​

📻 AI Confidential Podcast - How AI is Reshaping Enterprise Technology With James Kaplan​​