Happy New Year and here's to a successful 2026!
Thank you for being part of the our community—we're excited to keep bringing you the AI insights that matter in the year ahead. Now, onto the good stuff!
In this edition we’ll be covering…
How AI is predicted to reshape the labor market in 2026
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's outlook on AI's next phase
A tutorial on creating infographics from research papers using Nano Banana
4 trending AI signals
3 AI tools to boost your productivity
And much more…
The Latest in AI
AI is Coming for Labor in 2026
The whispers are getting louder. VCs aren't just optimistic about AI anymore—they're predicting a seismic shift in the workforce, and it's happening this year.
According to a recent TechCrunch survey, enterprise investors are bracing for AI to significantly impact the labor market in 2026. The survey didn't even ask about it. VCs brought it up themselves...
What's fueling the predictions:
An MIT study found that 11.7% of jobs could already be automated using current AI technology, and companies are starting to notice.
Employers have already begun eliminating entry-level positions because of AI capabilities, with some firms openly citing AI as the reason for layoffs.
Enterprise VCs predict companies will shift labor budgets toward AI spending. Marell Evans from Exceptional Capital puts it bluntly: "we'll see more human labor get cut and layoffs will continue to aggressively impact the U.S. employment rate."
Battery Ventures' Jason Mendel believes 2026 will be "the year of agents" where software moves from making humans more productive to "automating work itself."
So What?
The script is flipping. We're moving past AI as a productivity tool and into AI as a workforce replacement. Whether these systems actually deliver on the "deep work" promise or just become convenient scapegoats for cost-cutting remains to be seen.
But here's the reality check: venture capitalists who invest billions into AI companies are now openly predicting labor displacement. When the money talks, companies listen…
Industry Intel
Satya Nadella’s Vision for AI…
Microsoft's CEO just dropped his annual outlook, and if you're paying attention to where AI is headed, this one's required reading.
Satya Nadella's end-of-year post isn't your typical corporate cheerleading. He's sketching out what he calls the "next phase" of AI—one where we move from spectacle to substance, from discovery to diffusion. Translation? The party's over. Now comes the real work.
Here’s what Nadella says we need to get right:
We need a new mental model for AI as "scaffolding for human potential" rather than a replacement. The goal isn't slop versus sophistication—it's building a new equilibrium where AI amplifies human capability.
The industry is shifting from standalone models to integrated systems that orchestrate multiple models and agents with proper memory, permissions, and tool usage. This is where the real engineering sophistication comes in.
AI must deliver measurable real-world impact to maintain societal permission. The choices about where we deploy our scarce resources—energy, compute, talent—will define whether this technology serves people and planet or just serves itself.
So What?
Nadella's basically saying the AI hype cycle is entering its "put up or shut up" phase. We've got "model overhang"—capabilities are outpacing our ability to deploy them for actual impact. The companies that win in 2026 won't be the ones with the flashiest demos. They'll be the ones that solve real problems.
And honestly? It's refreshing to see a tech CEO talk about AI needing "societal permission" instead of just inevitable domination. Whether Microsoft walks this talk remains to be seen, but the message is clear: 2026 is the year AI either proves itself useful or gets relegated to the "remember when" pile.
Get Your Hands Dirty!
Turn Research Papers into Stunning Infographics with Nano Banana
Academic papers don't have to look like academic papers anymore.
Thanks to Nano Banana, you can transform dense research PDFs into visual infographics that actually make sense. Perfect for literature reviews, study breakdowns, or just making yourself look smarter on LinkedIn.
Here's how to use it:
Head to Google Gemini.
Toggle on the image generation feature in the interface
Upload your research paper PDF to the chat
Use this prompt:
Create a visually engaging infographic that summarizes this research paper.
Include:
- The main research question and hypothesis
- Key methodology approach
- 3-5 most important findings with supporting data points
- Visual representations (charts, diagrams, or icons) for each major finding
- A concluding insight or "so what" statement
- Use a modern, clean design with consistent color palette
- Make it suitable for sharing on professional platforms
Format this as a single-page infographic that can be understood in under 2 minutes.The AI will analyze your paper and generate a presentation-ready infographic that distills the key points into digestible visual content. You can then download, edit, or share directly from Gemini.
Quick Bites
Stay updated with our favorite highlights, dive in for a full flavor of the coverage!
TechCrunch rounded up the best AI-powered dictation apps of 2025, with tools like Wispr Flow and Willow leading the pack for turning speech into polished text with minimal editing.
Google AI released FunctionGemma, a compact 270M parameter model specifically trained for function calling that achieves 85% accuracy on mobile tasks after fine-tuning.
Adobe and Runway announced a multi-year partnership bringing Runway's Gen-4.5 video model exclusively to Adobe Firefly, marking Adobe as Runway's preferred API creativity partner.
AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio warned that AI systems are showing signs of self-preservation and urged humans to be ready to pull the plug if necessary, criticizing movements to grant AI legal rights.
Trending Tools
🖐️ Manus - Tell it what to create and Manus handles the work, from slides and websites to apps and professional documents, all while you focus on decisions.
🎨 IconBrain - AI-powered app icon generator that creates production-ready icons in seconds across 15+ styles, with one-click background removal and app store export.
🎬 BeautyPlus AI Video Enhancer - Upscale videos to 4K, sharpen details frame-by-frame, and optimize color automatically to transform low-quality footage into professional content.
The Neural Network
Start the year right with these prompts to help you set and achieve meaningful goals. Just plug them into your favorite AI tool!
For Personal Growth:
Help me create a 2026 growth plan: I want to [your goal]. Break this down into quarterly milestones with specific, measurable actions I can take each month. Include potential obstacles I might face and strategies to overcome them.For Career Development:
I'm a [your role] looking to [career goal] in 2026. Analyze current industry trends and create a personalized learning path with specific skills to develop, resources to use, and a realistic timeline for advancement.For Health & Wellness:
Design a sustainable health routine for 2026 based on these parameters: [available time], [fitness level], [dietary preferences]. Create a week-by-week progression plan that builds habits without overwhelming me.For Financial Goals:
I want to [financial goal] by the end of 2026. Current situation: [brief overview]. Create a month-by-month action plan with specific targets, budget adjustments, and checkpoints to track progress.For Creative Projects:
I want to complete [creative project] in 2026. Help me break this into phases with clear deliverables, set realistic deadlines accounting for my [available time], and suggest accountability systems to keep me on track.Until we Type Again…
Thank you for reading yet another edition of the Digestibly Newsletter!
Reyhan
Early AI leader, advises Fortune 500 companies on AI Development, LLMOps, AI strategy, speaks (for fun) on practical AI. Turns cutting-edge theory into workflows teams can ship today.
Kevin
Ex-AWS SageMaker/Bedrock lead. Shipped infra powering 1M+ devices and $2.5M ARR. Obsessed with high-throughput, low-latency systems— and brings that discipline to every Digestibly release.