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Major AI Announcements at Google Cloud Next 2025 💥

How to turn photos into viral action figures

Author

Gina Acosta
April 10, 2025

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Google just made a plethora of AI announcements at its recent Cloud Next 2025 event, including a new chip and major upgrades to its coding, image, and other tools.

Let’s jump into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI

  • Google’s Latest AI Announcements at Cloud Next 2025

  • Anthropic’s $200-per-Month Claude Subscription

  • AI Tutorial: How to turn photos into viral action figures

  • AI Tools to check out

  • The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

  • AI Findings/Resources

AI News

GOOGLE

Google’s Latest AI Announcements at Cloud Next 2025

The company's event in Las Vegas was packed with AI, showing a strong focus on the new technology set for 2025. Here are the biggest announcements so far:

  • Google introduced Gemini 2.5 Flash, a new reasoning model designed to deliver strong performance with a focus on efficiency. It will offer “dynamic and controllable” computing, automatically adjusting processing time ('thinking budget') based on query complexity.

  • Ironwood: Google’s seventh-generation TPU and the first specially designed for inference (the process of deploying trained AI models to make predictions or generate responses).

  • Veo 2, the AI video generation model, is now available to developers via the Gemini API and has been improved with editing and camera control features.

  • You can now use the Live API for Gemini models to enable more conversational interactions in your apps, with 30 new languages, 2 new voices, and other upgrades.

  • Google is also introducing an Agent Development Kit (ADK) that allows developers to build multi-agent systems with fewer than 100 lines of code and a new open protocol called Agent2Agent (A2A), that would allow AI agents from different vendors to communicate with each other.

  • Other announcements include the release of Lyria, Google’s text-to-music model, improvements to Imagen 3, the company’s image generation model, and a new Instant Custom Voice feature for Chirp 3.

ANTHROPIC

Anthropic’s $200-per-Month Claude Subscription

​Anthropic has introduced a new subscription tier for its Claude AI assistant, aiming to cater to users with high-demand needs.

Details:

  • The new 'Max' plan offers two pricing options: $100 per month, which provides five times the usage limits of the standard Pro plan, and $200 per month, which offers twenty times the usage limits of the Pro plan.

  • The plan includes priority access to Claude's latest versions and features.

  • The service is now available in all regions where Claude operates, and interested users can upgrade through claude.ai/upgrade, with complete details available on Anthropic's pricing page.

  • Anthropic’s product lead Scott White claims that the company is not ruling out launching even pricier subscriptions in the future.

AI companies are still looking for new ways to increase their revenue, and offering power users an expensive AI subscription seems to be their latest approach, following in the footsteps of OpenAI with ChatGPT Pro, which reportedly helped grow its annualized revenue by $300 million just two months after launching.

AI Tutorial

How to turn photos into viral action figures

First, we had Ghibli-style images, and now the action figure trend is going viral. If you want to join the trend and create action figures of yourself or your friends, here’s how you can easily do it using ChatGPT

  1. Go to Chatgpt or use the ChatGPT mobile app.

  2. Choose 'GPT-4o' as your model (it is available for free, but with a daily cap on image generations).

  3. Upload a photo of yourself (or a friend, etc.).

You'll get better results with high-resolution photos and full-body images, especially if you want your action figure to capture your outfit and accessories.

  1. Get creative with your prompts: You can add details like designing packaging, including accessories, and more. Here's an example:

Turn the person in this photo into a realistic action figure inside plastic packaging like a collector’s toy. The figure should be smiling and posed in an upright position. Add a nameplate at the top and include accessories on one side, like a laptop, camera, jacket, and boots. Use a black background to highlight the figure, and make sure it looks just like the person in the photo.

  1. Once the image is generated, review it and make adjustments if necessary. You can refine the prompt or regenerate if you want different colors, poses, or features until you get the result you want.

  2. You can also use the action figure image in Sora or other AI video generators and create a prompt that shows it being removed from its packaging.

AI Tools to check out

🔥 Typefully: Write, schedule, and publish great Twitter tweets & threads. Grow your following on Twitter with AI-powered features.

🌐 Geocities: Turn your page into 90s GeoCities masterpiece.

⚡ Ezsite: Build your website in seconds.

🦾 iAsk: An advanced free AI search engine that delivers instant, accurate, and factual answers.

✍ GrimoAI: A platform designed to accommodate various writing needs while providing AI assistance.

AI Findings/Resources

🚀 The rise of agentic AI could be a return to form for the Internet

🔮 Will AI improve your life? Here’s what 4,000 researchers think

📈 The rise of AI ‘reasoning’ models is making benchmarking more expensive

The latest in AI and Tech

OpenAI asked the judge to stop Musk from any further attacks, as well as be "held responsible for the damage he has already caused."

The company alleges Musk "made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead -- not for humanity but for Elon Musk."

YouTube announced an expansion of its pilot program aimed at identifying and managing AI-generated content featuring the 'likeness,' including the face, of creators, artists, and other famous or influential figures.

The company also updated its privacy process, allowing people to submit requests for the removal of altered or synthetic content.

The hosting platform just launched a new AI website builder that allows anyone to create a functioning website using an AI chat-style interface.

The feature is available to WordPress users for free and is targeted at entrepreneurs, freelancers, bloggers, and others who need a professional online presence, according to the company.

Elon Musk’s company is offering two versions of its flagship model via its API: Grok 3 and Grok 3 Mini, both with 'reasoning' capabilities.

That’s a wrap!

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻