Welcome, innovators.

It’s the first-ever edition of “Freakout Friday.” What does that mean?

We’re bringing you an artificial intelligence (AI) story every Friday that’ll turn your head and knock the socks off your feet.

More on that in a little bit…

In today’s newsletter:

• Today’s must-read stories 📰

• KFC brings AI-created snack ideas to life

• Prompt of the day ✍️

Today’s must-read stories 📰 

Polish your emails with Google's Gemini AI 📧

Google's Gmail is enhancing its mobile app with new Gemini AI tools, including a "Polish" feature, allowing users to quickly refine rough drafts into well-crafted emails.

Illinois amends Human Rights Act to regulate AI in hiring 🧑‍💻

Starting Jan. 1, 2026, Illinois will amend the Human Rights Act to prohibit employers from using AI in a discriminatory way and require them to notify individuals when AI is used in hiring decisions.

Understanding AI transformers 🤖

IBM Research and Georgia Tech have developed an open-source web tool, Transformer Explainer, that allows users to interactively explore and understand the neural network architecture behind modern AI.

Together with Aviator

Developers - Deploy without P0s

Deployments work well until something breaks. Once an incident happens, chaos follows (remember Crowdstrike?).

Aviator Releases is a unified dashboard to help teams coordinate releases, cherry-picks, and rollbacks in large code bases while removing any human errors. It integrates with your existing CI/CD systems and GitHub.

Empower your engineers (and even cats 🐱) to take care of releases smoothly and safely with Aviator.

AI artwork of the day 🧑‍🎨 

Miscellaneous resources

• AWS Foundations of Prompt Engineering: This course teaches the principles and techniques of prompt engineering.

• Building Language Models on AWS: This course covers how Amazon SageMaker enables data scientists to efficiently prepare, build, train, deploy, and monitor machine learning models using a comprehensive set of tools and resources.

• Amazon Q - Generative AI-powered Assistant Learning Plan: This learning plan introduces Amazon Q, an advanced AI assistant that accelerates software development and enhances productivity by leveraging internal company data.

• Google Cloud Program: Get up to $350K of free credits*

AI tools 🔨 

• Guidde: Free AI extension to automate onboarding and save time—never spend a minute onboarding again.

• ARC: AI-powered tool for hiring remote developers, designers, and marketers.

• PlayPlay: Save time with AI-powered video creation—create engaging videos in seconds, start your 14-day free trial today.

• Fleak: Streamline AI workflows without the need for infrastructure.

• Village Labs: Eliminate the tedious parts of your day so you can focus on what matters.

Together with Neo4j

Accurate, Explainable, and Relevant GenAI Results

Vector search alone doesn’t get precise GenAI results. Combine knowledge graphs and RAG into GraphRAG for accuracy, explainability, and relevance.

Read this blog for a walkthrough of how to:

• Work with GraphRAG

• Build a knowledge graph

• Take next steps to achieve better GenAI

KFC brings AI-created snack ideas to life

To celebrate International Fried Chicken Day, KFC Philippines decided to let fans live out their fast-food fantasies using Meta’s AI sticker feature. 

Because nothing says “innovation” like letting people play chef from their phones.

For three days in July, fried chicken enthusiasts used the KFC Crave Generator to whip up their dream snacks. 

The idea? 

Post your creation on social media with #KFCInternationalFriedChickenDay and pray it doesn’t look like a deep-fried disaster.

KFC then picked 11 of the most “creative” (read: bizarre) ideas and turned them into actual, edible products. The lucky creators even got to taste their own concoctions — because why not let people eat their own mistakes?

If this feels familiar, it’s because Burger King pulled a similar stunt with its Million Dollar Whopper Contest earlier this year. And, just like Burger King, KFC decided to keep these franken-snacks away from the general public.

But hey, in a world where everything tastes the same, people were just happy to flex their creativity. Maybe next time, these chains will share the weirdness with the rest of us.

Or at least give us something to laugh about.

Prompt of the day ✍️ 

Video editor (create a client feedback log)

How it works:

This prompt guides the creation of a client feedback log by engaging with the user, iteratively refining the log based on evaluations, and integrating key reference insights to ensure a high-quality, user-aligned final product.

Why use it:

Use this prompt to create a feedback log that minimizes miscommunication and streamlines the creative process.

Prompt Example:

{"prompt":"Develop a tailored Client Feedback Log aligned with the user's individual needs, drawing insights from the supplied reference materials. Initiate interaction with the user to obtain essential specifics and resolve any ambiguities. Iteratively refine the Client Feedback Log through consistent evaluations using the given evaluationRubric and gather user input to ensure the end product aligns with the users expectations.}

You can find the prompt in its entirety here.