AI News - November 2025

An overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on November 13th 2025 (meetings are second Thursday of month, 1400-1500, St John's Church Centre, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury, UK - all welcome). Note that this is a summary to act as background as the topics are discussed in detail at the meeting itself. We sometimes have extended meetings where we demonstrate other AI products and services.

The 'Introduction to AI' course we run in Chipping Sodbury now uses these News sessions to replace the original classes 5 and 6 as the topics in them (humanoid robots, self driving cars, ethics, futures) are now 'news' not 'futures'.

[1] Google Gemini Veo 3 for short voiced video

As demonstrated in the clips used to promote this session, Midjourney (or other) images can be animated with given spoken dialogue that is lip-synched for amusing effects. At the moment a standard Gemini subscription at about £19 a month gives three video clips a day, along with use of the usual Gemini Chat.

Another example.


[2.1] Tesla leading in world EV sales Sept 2025

This is a good starting point for much of the following discussion. Why are Tesla leading?
[a] Teslas are well made and affordable (Model 3 UK price now £39,990 at Nov 2025)
[b] Tesla is well advanced towards offering 'AI self-driving' capability.

[2.2] Tesla leading in world EV sales Sept 2025

A guy who does Uber using a Tesla with Full Self Driving takes some British visitors on a ride and they react amusingly.

Another example showing a typical local journey using the latest Tesla Full Self Driving

[2.3] Cybercab rollout proceeding quickly

This is a video showing the full driverless version, no steering wheel or pedals, being shown at an exhibition in China. meanwhile the expansion across the USA continues (with an on-board safety person).

[2.4] Many other self-driving solutions are emerging

This is Zoox, a very different approach

Zoox has a pretty small footprint as yet!

[2.5] And there will be many other types of self-driving vehicles

Apparently in many Chinese cities the roads are becoming clogged with delivery vehicles like these


[3.1] Solving the AI Power problem by putting AI Data Centres in Space

Space is big with very few planning restrictions, plus solar power is available 24/7. This makes it a great place to build AI Data Centres. Elon Musk and others have been outlining their plans. This fits with existing plans for a solar base to make launch easy.

[3.2] Amazon's Jeff Bezos also has a rocket company and plans for AI data centres in space

Amazon Web Services is one of the biggest providers of cloud data centres, so it is no surprise that he also supports this idea.


[4] PowerPoint may finally have an AI based competitor - Gamma

They describe this as an anti-PowerPoint that makes presentation content very efficiently. Apparently they make $100 million annually with huge potential to grow. The website is https://gamma.app/.


[5.1] Humanoid Robots are coming ever faster

Elon Musk is building a USA factory to produce 1 million Optimus robots by 2030, with apparently longer term plans for a 10 million per year production facility. Of course, things need to scale to get there but by 2027 large numbers should be being produced. The video below is, of course, AI. Soon it will be reality.

[5.2] The company 1X is now marketing robots for domestic use

The catch is that they are teleoperated, so in effect you are giving an unknown stranger remote access to your home. They could, for example, open drawers and take pictures without permission. The company meanwhile gains lots of training data for the time when the robots become autonymous.

[5.3] Robot retail outlets are ramping up in China

This one is in Wuhan. It shows the wide range of humanoid robots (and dogs) already available for purchase.

[5.4] Robot.com promoting available robotic products

Their message is that robots are available and useful now. See their website www.robot.com/ for more.

[5.5] Huge datasets of humans doing useful things are valuable

To train humanoid robots you need vast amounts of video of humans doing factory and domestic tasks. One company, Egocentric-10K, offers 10 thousand hours of over 2 thousand factory workers in action. Not sure that even AI could learn much from this particular example video.


[6.1] AI driven job losses: "I think reality will hit very hard in 2026"

Google's Mo Gawdat discusses how the process of job loss to AI and robotics will develop. Distinguishes between the replacement of brains and the replacement of muscles.

[6.2] Some humanoid robots may look very human

An example of how difficult it may become to tell humans and robots apart

[6.3] Some humanoid robots may walk in a very human way

Here notice the elegant way of walking

[6.3 continued] Once soft coverings are used and human shapes, things become confusing. This is the same Xpeng robot. The CEO had to get some parts of the clothing cut off to prove there was no real woman inside.


[7] Giga.AI for company client call centres

The video shows how companies can transfer call centre workload to their AI system. Obviously has huge potential, and has significant job loss implications.


[8] Marble gives instant world building

Just released system for creating, editing and sharing 3D worlds - see website at marble.worldlabs.ai/


[9] Grok and Grok Imagine continue rapid improvement

Grok is a very effective chat tool and Grok Imagine continues to impress with videos like the content shown below, and remains free.


[10] UK waiting for approval for self-driving

Tesla Full Self Driving is now available (or soon will be) in the USA, China, Australia and South Korea. Given the lives it will save, it is definitely time for the UK to speed up.


... and finally

[11] Humans will soon "Feel the ASI (Artificial Superintelligence)"

Ex-DeepMind Researcher Misha Laskin suggest that, as Go players learned from AlphaGo's 'Move 37', humans will soon learn new ways of thinking from ASI