Character.AI creates Interactive FaceTime-Style Character Conversations

PLUS: ChatGPT testing Study Together Feature & Google Launches Doppl: AI Virtual Try-On App.

In today’s agenda:

1️⃣ CharactersAI release new model that generates FaceTime-style AI character interactions.

2️⃣ ChatGPT is testing Study Together Feature, collaborative study mode allowing students to invite friends or use AI as study companion.

3️⃣ Google Launches Doppl, experimental app lets you try on any outfit using your photo and creates AI videos.

  • ChatGPT referrals to news sites increased 25x but can't compensate for 69% no-click search rate caused by AI overviews.

  • Isomorphic Labs Approaches First Human Trials after $600M funding round.

MAIN AI UPDATES / 7th July 2025

🎥 CharactersAI Launches Real-Time Video Breakthrough 🎥
FaceTime-style AI character interactions

CharactersAI has unveiled TalkingMachines, an autoregressive diffusion model that generates real-time, audio-driven video of AI characters. Using just an image and voice signal, the system creates interactive video conversations across different styles and identities.

The technology utilizes asymmetric knowledge distillation to convert high-quality video models into blazing-fast generators, achieving real-time performance on just two GPUs.

Key features include flow-matched diffusion, audio-driven cross attention with a 1.2B parameter audio module, and sparse causal attention for reduced latency. The model supports multispeaker interactions with natural turn-taking and maintains quality across infinite-length generation without degradation over time.

📚 ChatGPT Testing Disruptive Study Together Feature 📚
AI-powered collaborative study mode spotted in development

OpenAI is developing a "Study Together" mode for ChatGPT that could transform student collaboration and exam preparation. The feature, first spotted in May and widely noticed by testers recently, appears to allow students to either invite friends to study sessions on ChatGPT or use the AI as a study companion. While the feature isn't currently functional, it could significantly disrupt the education sector by enabling AI-assisted group learning directly within ChatGPT.

👗 Google Launches Doppl: AI Virtual Try-On App 👗
Convert complex documents to clean digital formats

This new open-source tool transforms documents containing tables, equations, images, signatures, and checkboxes into clean digital formats like Markdown and HTML. With just 3 billion parameters (relatively small by today's standards), it accurately recognizes mathematical equations, complex tables, and even distinguishes between signatures and watermarks. For professionals who regularly work with PDF documents, financial statements, or academic papers, this tool outperforms even Google's Gemini at extracting structured information from complex documents.

INTERESTING TO KNOW

📰 ChatGPT Traffic Up 25x can't replace lost Search Clicks 📰

Similarweb reports that ChatGPT referrals to news publishers increased 25x, growing from under 1 million in early 2024 to over 25 million in 2025. However, this growth can't compensate for massive search traffic losses as no-click news searches rose from 56% to nearly 69% since Google's AI Overviews launched in May 2024. Organic traffic declined from 2.3 billion to under 1.7 billion visits, while news-related ChatGPT prompts surged 212%. Reuters, NY Post, and Business Insider see the highest ChatGPT referral increases, while The New York Times (currently suing OpenAI) shows minimal growth at 3.1%. Topics like stocks, finance, and sports dominate AI news queries, with publishers increasingly exploring alternative monetization strategies like Google's new Offerwall service to survive the AI-driven traffic decline.

 🧬Google AI-designed drugs move to clinical testing🧬

Isomorphic Labs, Google's drug discovery division, is preparing to launch human trials of AI-designed medications, according to president Colin Murdoch. Born from DeepMind's AlphaFold breakthrough, the company combines cutting-edge AI with pharmaceutical expertise to develop medicines faster, cheaper, and more accurately.

The startup raised $600 million in April 2025 and has secured major partnerships with Novartis and Eli Lilly. Isomorphic aims to build a "world-class drug design engine" that could dramatically improve the current 10% success rate of drug trials.

The company is developing internal drug candidates in oncology and immunology, with the ultimate goal of creating a system where researchers can "click a button and out pops the design for a drug to address that disease.

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