Hey AI Enthusiasts!
Today, we’re diving into some exciting AI updates: OpenAI is staying nonprofit and making a $3B move by acquiring coding startup Windsurf. Plus, Midjourney just launched a powerful new feature called Omni-Reference that gives you more control when creating images.

Let’s break them down.

In today’s insights:

💼 OpenAI drops plan to become a for-profit company

🎨 Midjourney introduces Omni-Reference in V7

🤝 OpenAI to acquire Windsurf for ≈ $3 billion

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OpenAI
🗞️OpenAI drops plan to become a for-profit company

The AI Field: OpenAI will remain nonprofit-controlled and restructure its for-profit arm as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), allowing it to raise capital without compromising its mission.

Details:

OpenAI has officially scrapped plans to become a traditional for-profit company. Instead, it will restructure its for-profit subsidiary into a PBC—an increasingly common model in the AI world. This allows OpenAI to attract major investment while keeping governance in the hands of its nonprofit board.

CEO Sam Altman shared the update in a company-wide memo, reiterating that OpenAI’s goal remains building AGI that benefits all of humanity. The change follows regulatory discussions and comes at a time when OpenAI is under growing public and legal scrutiny—including a lawsuit from co-founder Elon Musk.

Why This Matters: 

• Signals OpenAI’s recommitment to its founding mission and public-good focus

• Keeps long-term alignment with humanity at the center of AGI development

• Puts pressure on other AI labs to balance profit and responsibility

• Highlights a growing trend toward ethical corporate structures in AI

👉 Read more here

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Midjourney
🎨 Midjourney introduces Omni-Reference in V7

The AI Field: Midjourney has launched a powerful new feature in Version 7 called Omni-Reference, allowing users to embed specific characters, objects, or scenes from reference images directly into their AI-generated artwork. This tool offers enhanced control over visual consistency and personalization, marking a significant advancement in AI-driven image creation. 

The Details:

• Use a reference image to guide specific visual elements like characters, objects, or style.

• Available in both the web app (via drag-and-drop) and on Discord using the --oref command.

• Control how strongly the reference image influences the output with the --ow (omni-weight) parameter, ranging from 1 to 1000.

• Especially useful for generating consistent characters, visual stories, or branded content.

How to Use Omni-Reference

On Web:

1. Go to your settings and make sure you’re using Model Version V7.

2. Start a new prompt.

3. Drag and drop an image into the prompt bar.

4. Drop it into the ‘Omni-reference’ bin that appears.

5. Use the slider icon to adjust how strongly the image influences the generation.

On Discord:

1. Use a standard prompt like you normally would.

2. Add --oref [image URL] at the end of your prompt.

3. To control strength, add the --ow [value] parameter (value ranges from 1 to 1000 — higher means stronger influence).

Why This Matters: Omni-Reference is a major step forward in giving creators more control over their AI outputs. It allows for visual consistency across multiple generations, which is essential for storytelling, design, and brand identity. With the ability to personalize outputs using reference images, creators can now produce more intentional and cohesive visuals. It also reduces the need for post-editing and enables faster, more efficient creative workflows — especially for professionals working in content creation, marketing, and product design.

👉 Read more here

OpenAI
🎉 OpenAI to acquire Windsurf for ≈ $3 billion

The AI Field: Bloomberg and Reuters report that OpenAI has struck a roughly $3 billion cash-and-stock deal to buy Windsurf (formerly Codeium), an AI-powered coding assistant that has been courting investors at the same valuation.

Details:

• Deal size & status: About $3 billion; term sheet is agreed, but the transaction has not yet closed. 

• Biggest OpenAI buy yet: It would eclipse last year’s Rockset purchase and mark OpenAI’s largest acquisition to date. 

• What Windsurf does: Provides an AI coding copilot that autocompletes, debugs, and explains code in 20+ languages—positioning it as a rival to GitHub Copilot. 

• Recent fundraising talks: Windsurf was shopping a fresh round at a $3 billion valuation after a $150 million Series B led by General Catalyst that pegged it at $1.25 billion last year. 

• Strategic fit: OpenAI plans to fold Windsurf’s model and telemetry into ChatGPT and its enterprise dev tools, expanding monetisable add-ons for software teams. 
  

Why this matters: Snapping up Windsurf signals OpenAI’s intent to own the full stack of AI-driven software development, not just natural-language chat. The deal gives it a battle-tested coding engine, a paying user base, and data to sharpen GPT-4o’s code-generation skills—just as Microsoft (with GitHub Copilot), Google (with Gemini Code Assist), and startups like Replit are racing to lock in developers. If regulators sign off, Windsurf could become the coding layer inside ChatGPT Enterprise, cementing OpenAI’s position as the go-to platform for both writing and executing code.

👉 Read more here

🎨 Dreamina – AI-powered image and video generator that creates stunning visuals and animations from text prompts, ideal for creators and marketers.

📽️ Kling 2.0 – Advanced AI video tool offering high-quality text-to-video generation with smooth transitions, perfect for professional-grade video content.

🖥️ Qodo – AI coding assistant that streamlines software development with automated code generation and debugging, great for developers.

🎶 Suno – AI music generator that creates full songs from text prompts in seconds, ideal for musicians and content creators needing original audio.

🏰 Tripo AI – Generates 3D models from single images in under a second, perfect for game developers and animators on a budget.

📣 AdCreative.ai – Generates targeted ad copy and designs by analyzing product details, ideal for small businesses running campaigns.

📅 FeedHive – AI-driven social media management tool offering content suggestions and analytics, great for freelancers managing accounts.

✍️ Copy.ai – AI writing assistant that generates social media posts, blog ideas, and marketing copy, saving time for content creators.

🛠️ Apple taps Anthropic’s Claude for Xcode – Bloomberg–Reuters say Apple is partnering with Anthropic to bake the Claude Sonnet model into a new Xcode “AI coding platform,” letting the IDE write, debug, and unit-test code. 

🚀 IBM pitches tools to wrangle fleets of AI agents – CEO Arvind Krishna unveiled new software to help enterprises integrate and manage many generative-AI “agents,” claiming a $6 billion (and growing) AI services backlog. 

🚖 Uber teams with Pony AI on Middle-East robotaxis – Uber will launch Pony AI self-driving cars on its ride-hailing platform in a key Gulf market this year, expanding global robotaxi trials after U.S. and China pilots.  

Golden Nuggets

🧠 OpenAI stays nonprofit and locks in control as it restructures its for-profit arm.

🎨 Midjourney V7 introduces Omni-Reference. giving users image-level control using references.

💸 OpenAI buys Windsurf for $3B and boosting its developer tools with a top-tier coding assistant.

Until next time!
Olle | Founder of The AI Field