IT General

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint

A container for liquids.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted. Hurdle Word 1 answer

FLASK

Hurdle Word 2 hint

To change.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for June 30, 2025 Hurdle Word 2 Answer

ALTER

Hurdle Word 3 hint

To crouch down.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for June 30 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for June 30, 2025 Hurdle Word 3 answer

SQUAT

Hurdle Word 4 hint

To attach.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for June 30 Hurdle Word 4 answer

AFFIX

Final Hurdle hint

A large fruit.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answer

MELON

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for the UK audience.

A clean house. Sounds nice, doesn't it? But it's the chore that never ends. So, a great vacuum that can handle it all is essential. Especially if you have pets or kids. You can de-clutter, tidy, and wipe down as much as you like, but until those carpets and rugs are properly vacuumed to shift dirt and debris, it just doesn’t feel like a clean home.

If you haven't bought a new vacuum in a while, you'll be impressed at the sheer amount of tech and features on offer. From robot vacuums to handheld mini vacuums that fold down to store away more easily, there’s a huge range available right now.

In fact, there’s almost too much choice. What you need is someone to do the hard work of researching modern vacuum cleaners to present you with all the information. That’s where we come in. Here’s everything to know about buying a vacuum.

Corded vs. cordless vacuums — which is the best?

It’s rarely a case of which is better, more a case of what suits you best. Corded vacuums — a classic vacuum that plugs into the wall — provide more suction power, which means a more powerful clean, and have a larger capacity. That means they’re better for larger homes. They are, however, heavier and harder to lug around.

Cordless vacuums are lighter, more portable, and easier to carry around. They can also reach overhead spots and tricky areas under the furniture more easily. The other thing to note about cordless vacs is that they have smaller capacity — usually somewhere between 0.5 and 1 litre — so they're usually best suited to smaller homes and spaces, or homes with less carpet and more hard floors.

Do vacuums still use a bag?

Corded vacuums tend to use a bag, which needs changing. Cordless vacuums usually use a bin which can be unclipped and emptied much more easily. If you're an allergy sufferer, be warned: Bagless vacuums can sometimes let dust re-enter the air, both while vacuuming or while emptying the bin's contents. Bin vacuums sometimes use an advanced filtration system to combat this problem.

Is Dyson the best vacuum brand?

When it comes to the latest, most tech-savvy vacuums, Dyson is the standard to match or beat. But Dyson isn’t the only impressive brand. The likes of Shark and Samsung offer excellent vacuums — not to mention old favourites such as Hoover and Vax. We’ve included examples from various brands in the list below.

What is the best type of vacuum cleaner for you and your home?

There are plenty of vacuum types out there, with something for everyone:

Upright vacuums — A longtime favourite and for good reason. Aside from being cheaper on average, uprights are great for covering large carpet areas and can clean deep using motorised brushes. On the other hand, they generally aren't as easy to store in small homes, and they require a bit more elbow grease.

Canister vacuums — If you don't have any carpet in your home and need a versatile vacuum that is good at cleaning bare floors and then some, you may need a canister vacuum. These are known to be less noisy than their upright counterparts, but can also be even harder to store since they're bulkier and have long attachments. But if you want something versatile enough to clean curtains, blinds, and other spaces that aren't just the floor — or something you can roll out to your car — a canister is a good choice.

Handheld vacuums — If you want a lightweight, easy-to-store defence against messes, we strongly suggest keeping a handheld vacuum around. Though they have less power due to their compact size, handheld vacuums are great for quick pick-ups.

Robot vacuums — These vacuums clean for you, all while you kickback on the couch or go about your business. Robot vacuums use sensors and lasers to move around. You may not have to control the vacuum once it's going manually, but you will have to pick up things like socks and other small household items that can get stuck. 

The best type of vacuum will really depend on your lifestyle and home. Consider all of these options and think about how they would match with your circumstances.

What is the best vacuum cleaner?

We've read reviews, looked at customer ratings, and compiled a list of the best vacuums based on what users have to say. We'll tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly to help you pick out a machine that really sucks — but in a good way.

These are the best vacuum cleaners in 2025.

Heat is the bane of all electronics, and nothing helps trap heat in your PC like a nice layer of dust that has been building up for the last several years. Luckily, there is an inexpensive way to dramatically cut down on the dust in your PC.

The Simpsons is, believe it or not, one of the most important TV shows in history. While it's become a shadow of its former self, during the golden age of the Simpsons, its cultural impact was immense, and can still be felt today.

Overclocking used to be all the rage among gamers and other PC enthusiasts, but new technologies have made it irrelevant for most people in most situations. And the best part? To get the same perks, you don't have to do much of anything at all.

There's no shortage of films from the pre-CG era that still hold up well today, and even early films containing CG (such as Terminator 2) that still look amazing thanks to smart and limited use of the primitive effects of the day.

Technology and how we use it has changed a lot over the years. However, despite the rapid advancements, traces of older tech still linger in our modern devices in the form of icons. Whether it's your smartphone, video game console, laptop, or desktop PC, or even your smart TV, the digital world is filled with visual callbacks to the past.

I've always been the type to casually plug in flash drives lying around to check what's on them without having any second thoughts. That changed the day I watched a USB stick destroy a handful of devices like it was nothing. I didn't witness this in person, but what I saw was real enough to shake me. Ever since then, I haven't treated USB drives the same way.

Are you thinking about starting a Plex server soon? While the initial setup of Plex is easy, there are definitely some nuances I wish I knew about at the beginning. That’s why I made this list: to keep you from making the same mistakes I did.

I've been watching anime as a core hobby for just over 25 years now, devouring series from the early days of the medium up to the present day, and while most of the ways things have evolved have been interesting and fresh, one area we seem to have gone backward is series length.

High-performance doesn’t always mean high cost, and in 2025, one sports car proves that point better than any other. With over 300 horsepower under the hood and a starting price that undercuts much of the competition, it’s the most affordable way to get serious speed in a brand-new package.

When we talk about resolution in the context of screens, we talk about things like how many pixels per inch there are, which determines how many individual colors there are and the amount of detail you’re able to pack into a certain space. That has lead to a general belief that higher resolution is always better in all things, but that isn't true with audio—above a certain point it is irrelevant, and may even be harmful.

As we wait for more Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive games, it's worth taking some time to test out how a handful of older Switch 1 games run on the new console.

Now that the Switch 2 has had a couple of weeks of time with consumers under its belt, plenty of people have had time to extensively test the way various games perform on the more powerful new console. Specifically, the excellent Digital Foundry YouTube channel posted a nearly 40-minute-long video showing off how several Switch 1 games that got free Switch 2 upgrade patches look and run on the new platform.

Their findings are also available in article form over at Eurogamer, so whichever way you prefer consuming internet content will work here.

SEE ALSO: My favorite Nintendo Switch 2 accessory is the Belkin charging case

The games DF tested included The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom, two games that had notorious frame rate issues on the first Switch. They found (and I can also personally confirm) that both games not only run at higher, crisper resolutions than before, but they are now perfectly locked at 60 frames per second. Another big one is Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury. That game's Bowser's Fury add-on content was excellent, but ran pretty poorly on Switch 1, to the point where it was locked to 30FPS in handheld mode. That, of course, is no longer the case; you get a locked 60FPS in both docked and handheld play, with a nice resolution bump to go with that.

There are more, but those are just a few examples of how the Switch 2's more capable hardware can dramatically improve older games that you may have skipped because of performance issues. I would also highly recommend checking out the patched-up versions of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which might have the most drastic improvements.

Mario Kart World is great, but this just shows there's more to do with your Switch 2 right now.

If you've ever wound up with an unwanted in-game purchase in Fortnite, whether through your own fault or a child's aimless button-pushing, you might be able to get some of that money back.

The Federal Trade Commission has reopened a previously closed application process for those who want to claim a refund from a $245 million settlement Fortnite developer Epic Games made with the federal agency in 2022. Applications for these refunds originally closed back in February, but the FTC has reopened them with a new July 9 deadline for anyone who'd like to throw their hat in the ring as someone who was charged for Fortnite purchases they didn't want. You can apply on the FTC's website.

SEE ALSO: A judge forced 'Fortnite' to return to iOS, with an assist from Microsoft and Spotify

Of course, there are some specific criteria that need to be met for your application to successfully go through. Per the FTC, they include:

• Being charged in-game currency for items you didn't want between Jan. 2017 and Sept. 2022

• A child charged your credit card without your knowledge between Jan. 2017 and Nov. 2018

• Your account got locked between Jan. 2017 and Sept. 2022 after you complained about credit card charges

You also, naturally, have to be at least 18 years old to submit a claim. Good luck, gamers.

Connections: Sports Edition is a new version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections Sports Edition?

The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections Sports Edition categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Indiana mascots

• Green: He's got game

• Blue: Iconic hoop films

• Purple: Stars of women's soccer

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections Sports Edition categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Indiana Sports Teams, In Singular Form

• Green: Skills of a 5-Tool Player

• Blue: Basketball Movies

• Purple: PWHL Stars

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections Sports Edition #279 is...

What is the answer to Connections Sports Edition today

• Indiana Sports Teams, In Singular Form - BOILERMAKER, COLT, HOOSIER, PACER

• Skills of a 5-Tool Player - FIELDING, POWER, SPEED, THROWING

• Basketball Movies - AIR, BLUE CHIPS, GLORY ROAD, HE GOT GAME

• PWHL Stars - FAST, FILLIER, KNIGHT, POULIN

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Connections.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Sunday, June 29, 2025:

AcrossWord before "flaw" or "Attraction"

• The answer is Fatal.

Pickle liquid

• The answer is Brine.

Horseshoe-shaped Greek letter

• The answer is Omega.

Literary theme

• The answer is Motif.

Like a stereotypical frat dude, in slang

• The answer is Broey.

DownIrresponsible thing to "drop" around small children, perhaps

• The answer is F bomb.

Cover of knight?

• The answer is Armor.

Link with

• The answer is Tie to.

The "you" in the Rolling Stones lyric "Don't you weep / All your kisses still taste sweet"

• The answer is Angie.

Full of foliage

• The answer is Leafy.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of Games

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to the latest Mini Crossword.

ChatGPT is the most famous AI chat service by far, but that doesn't automatically make it the best. Google Gemini is consistently topping leaderboards, and don't count out Claude.

If you're not familiar with Claude, it's the family of large-language models made by the AI company Anthropic. And Claude just got a huge upgrade in the form of Claude 4, Anthropic's newest AI model. Technically, Claude 4 is two models: Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4.

These new models bring a lot to the table when it comes to AI features, including improved reasoning and coding that rivals anything made by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Here's a look at what's new with Claude 4, and all the reasons you might consider using Claude instead of ChatGPT.

Claude Opus 4 vs Claude Sonnet 4

Claude 4 isn't actually a large language model – it's a family of large language models. Right now, there are two models in that family — Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, both of which I’ve used. Eagle-eyed AI users may be wondering if I have the naming right, but indeed, Anthropic has switched from “Claude 3.7 Sonnet” to “Claude Sonnet 4.” I like the new naming better, but of course, the switch in naming convention is a little confusing.

So, what’s the difference between Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4? Put simply, Claude Sonnet 4 is the everyday model that you would use for asking basic questions, finding information, and so on. Claude Opus 4, on the other hand, is useful for advanced coding.

According to Anthropic, both Claude 4 models are better than their predecessors in important ways. For starters, the company says that they are 65 percent less likely to take shortcuts in certain agentic workflows that might be susceptible to shortcuts and loopholes. Not only that, but Claude Opus 4 also has much improved memory capabilities, allowing it to better remember information in development workflows. For instance, it can create memory files to refer back to without the need for a larger context window (the amount of basic data that a model can process at once). 

There is a trade-off to the more advanced Claude Opus 4. Given the fact that it's a much larger model, it's much more expensive to use, and, as such, it’s not available to free users. Even those who pay for the $20-per-month Claude Pro subscription may run into limits after using Claude Opus 4. Those who subscribe to the $100-per-month Max account will get much higher limits, however.

Why I like Claude

There are a few things that I really like about Claude, though it's important to note that there are still plenty of features that you won't get in Claude versus another AI service. The biggest thing that I like about Claude is that it feels a little more…human-like.

That's to say, everything from the design to the kinds of responses that I get feels a bit more personal and a little more natural. That’s true of both Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4. There are small touches, like the little “thinking” icon, to more important differences, like the kind of text it generates. Part of this has to do with the fact that you can tailor each chat with Claude with both preset and custom “styles,” which dictate how Claude will respond. Preset options include “Concise” and “Explanatory,” but you can also create your own styles.

Claude versus the competition

As AI services continue to improve at breakneck speed, not all AI services offer all features. That is to say, there are plenty of features that aren't yet available in Claude that are available in ChatGPT, for example.

For example, Claude can't generate images, and Anthropic has only just started rolling out a voice chat service within Claude. Still in beta, Claude's voice chat doesn't sound as natural as the text-based version. These might be table-stakes for you — and if you rely on those kinds of features a lot, then Claude might not be for you, or it might not be the only AI service you need.

But Claude also gets a lot right. For example, Claude has a “Deep Research”-type feature (simply called Research), which parses through lots of sources to find information. It also has an “Extended Thinking” feature, which is essentially a reasoning feature in which it will think through its answer for longer before responding, making for more accurate answers overall.

While Claude has become a lot better for tasks like research and simple day-to-day use, its best use case is still coding. To be clear, I'm no more than a basic coder, but by all accounts, Claude is better than any other service when it comes to coding. Anthropic, the maker of Claude, has even created a standalone service called Claude Code, which is a purpose-built coding assistant that's powered by Claude Opus 4.

The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to pay to try Claude, though if you don’t, you won’t be able to use its most advanced features. Instead, all you need to do is create an account and try it out, which you can do before paying to get a feel for the service and whether it’s right for you.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

AI is becoming increasingly common, and since its big promise is to make your work life easier, a lot of people are curious. On top of that, employers are increasingly expecting workers to incorporate AI into their daily workflow to save time and stay current. There are hundreds of AI tools that claim to make you more productive, so where do you start?

As a tech writer who's been using AI to get more efficient, I wanted to put together a list of common AI tools you may soon be expected to use at work.

Before we begin the list, there are a few things you should know going into it. The first is that you should never let AI do the work for you, but rather let it assist you in doing the work. It may not be noticeable when you first do it, but research has shown that letting AI do everything for you reduces your engagement with the task, which will ultimately cause you to underperform. So, use AI as a tool and not as a replacement for your brain. 

Secondly, while researching this article, I came upon many bits of advice for using AI at work, and one of the best ones is to never copy and paste proprietary business information into your AI tools. AI companies may use users’ interactions with their AI to further improve the AI, and giving them your company’s information is not a good idea. Other AI tools for professionals, like Google’s Workspace, expressly state that they don’t use data for training purposes. So, be sure to check the terms of service before using them for company matters. 

With that, let’s get started. These are the AI tools that you're most likely to encounter in the workplace. Pro tip: Mastery of these tools would be a useful skill to add to your resume.

AI Chatbots

The first and obvious choice is the humble AI chatbot. You can find these everywhere, but the biggest ones are ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot (which is powered by ChatGPT), Anthropic’s Claude, and xAI’s Grok. These chatbots are good starting points because they’re widely available, can answer a host of questions about various tasks at your job, and are free to try, giving you the ability to see if they’ll help before you spend any money. 

For the most part, the best use for chatbots is to ask questions and get answers. Need some help with a piece of code? Don’t know how to work an email? These are the scenarios that chatbots are built to help with. As per our earlier advice, we wouldn’t copy and paste company code directly into the chatbot, but nondescript snippets may be okay, and you can ask them to code functions in specific languages if need be. There are limitations to using chatbots, but they’re still helpful if you need them for basic stuff. 

AI chatbots can also help with tasks like:

• Summarizing PDFs

• Generating images for presentations

• Help brainstorm ideas

• Copyedit emails and documents

• Automate repetitive tasks

Many companies are also creating custom AI chatbots to help with customer service or internal company communication. If you know how to use these chatbots to your advantage, you'll have an advantage over your coworkers who don't.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a neat tool that existed before the big AI boom. At its most basic, Grammarly is a writing tool that helps you make better grammar decisions and helps with punctuation. I’ve been using this tool for years to help with my awful punctuation, and it’s helped a lot. Grammarly also has a desktop tool that you can use if you want its advice in other apps. 

Those who opt for the Pro subscription get a lot more stuff, including an AI writing assistant that uses its existing tools to help you create emails and briefs quickly and efficiently. I recommend reading over anything it helps you generate to make sure it’s correct, but otherwise, it’s a handy tool. It also helps that it’s easy to install and works in every major browser alongside its desktop app. 

Otter.ai

Otter.ai is one of our favorite AI tools for professionals, and it's used by some of Mashable's reporters. This work-oriented app uses AI to do a host of things that are otherwise quite boring. For example, it can quickly create transcriptions of meetings, take notes on your behalf, and summarize meetings and presentations. I used Otter.ai to transcribe this year’s Google I/O keynote, making it so much easier for me to find quotes and highlights without having to scrub through the full two-hour keynote. 

The tool isn’t a one-trick pony either. You can integrate it right into Microsoft Teams or Slack to give coworkers an AI chat to play with for work purposes, along with a channel where people can talk and the AI takes notes to fill you in later on what’s going on. About the only thing to note is that Otter’s terms of service expressly state not to give it confidential or sensitive information (a common AI security risk), so make sure to keep that in mind if you use it. 

Fireflies.ai

Fireflies.ai is a direct competitor to Otter and does a lot of the same things differently. On top of transcribing and summarizing meetings, Fireflies also offers language translation of over 100 languages, making it much easier to deal with multi-cultural teams that don’t all speak the same language natively. Once it transcribes and summarizes everything, you can search through transcripts at your leisure. 

In addition, Fireflies integrates into all sorts of other apps, including Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, and many others. It also integrates into dialers, calendars, and other tasks to assist with that stuff as well. It’s a pretty powerful AI sweet for businesses, and knowing how to use it might help you land a job one of these days.

Google Workspace AI and Microsoft 365 Copilot

Arguably, the best use of AI so far is Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Not only do you get the usual features, like a chatbot to answer questions and the ability to do simple things like take notes, but both brands are slowly but steadily intermingling their AI solutions with just about every tool in their portfolio. That means AI in Microsoft Word to help edit your work and in Google Sheets to help you manage data. 

The potential upside here is pretty huge. It takes a lot of effort to master these apps on their own, especially coding custom stuff in Excel or Sheets. Having an AI there can make it much faster and more efficient. The Gemini and Copilot are also integrated into each company’s chat and video call software, where they provide additional utility. At the very least, you should be aware of what each company’s AI can do in the workspace environment. 

Adobe tools with AI

Adobe is one of the most recognized names in productivity, and the company’s various apps now have plenty of built-in AI tools. The list is pretty long and includes familiar faces such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Acrobat, Adobe Express, and several others. It’s true that Adobe mostly caters to the creative types, but nearly every type of work has the occasional creative element. Better yet, Adobe has also made it very clear that it doesn’t use consumer data to train its AI. 

For the most part, Adobe keeps its AI use fairly tame. In Photoshop and Lightroom, there are AI tools to spruce up photos or images and make some tasks quicker, like background removal or subject selection. In Acrobat, Adobe has an AI assistant that can summarize PDFs, answer questions about them, and help you find pertinent information. You can also generate images with Adobe Firefly and use them in Express to build social media graphics and things like that. 

In years past, mastering Photoshop could take years. But as AI makes image editing and Photoshop more accessible, we expect more professionals to start listing this sophisticated software on their resumes.

Canva Pro

Canva Pro is another creativity suite powered in part by AI. In fact, I've designed my own resume using Canva for the past couple of years (I like that its templates are pretty minimal). In any case, on top of its various design offerings, it bakes AI into many of its tasks, which means you can use it to help you complete various design tasks.

So, using my use case as an example, you’d access Canva AI and say that you want to design a resume. It’ll walk you through the steps of doing so, helping you select a template and all of that, and then you get started. Outside of this, Canva Pro can also help you generate images, improve PowerPoint presentations, and create social media graphics. 

As AI tools become more mainstream (and as AI-savvy college grads enter the workforce), employers may come to expect an understanding of these tools. They may even seek out prospective employees who have AI skills listed on their resumes.

So, even if you have no intention of using AI, you should at least learn how to use it for future reference. You may end up needing it sooner rather than later. 

Trust us, if we tried to create a full rundown of all the AI news since January 2025, this wouldn't be a list — it would be a book.

We've lived a lifetime of AI news as the industry advances at breakneck pace. To whittle it down, we've focused on the major policies, features, and official announcements from the companies shaping the generative AI era.

So, let's dive into the biggest AI announcements of the year (so far).

The top new models of 2025

The top AI companies are locked in an AI arms race, and we're getting major new models on an almost-monthly basis. New models released in 2025 include:

• DeepSeek R1

• xAI's Grok 3

• Google Gemini 2.5 Pro

• OpenAI's o3, o4-mini, and GPT-4.1

• Meta's Llama 4

• Anthropic's Claude 4 series

The Stargate Project's $500 billion infrastructure plan

Two days after he was inaugurated, President Donald Trump underscored his administration's focus on AI innovation with a massive infrastructure project. The Stargate Project is a $500 billion venture led by OpenAI and SoftBank, along with Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle to build AI supercomputers in the United States.

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Not everyone was optimistic about the $500 billion investment, though. "They don't have the money," posted Elon Musk, an OpenAI co-founder who is suing the company for attempting to change its corporate structure. (More on that later.)

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. DeepSeek R1 made its mark on the AI industry

While the U.S. announced plans to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, a Chinese company called DeepSeek claimed to have built its R1 model for a mere $6 million. The true hardware cost is estimated to be much more (possibly over $500 million), since DeepSeek only reported the rental price of its Nvidia GPUs. But the fact that DeepSeek was able to create a reasoning model as good as OpenAI's models, despite restricted access to GPUs, was enough to shock the AI industry.

Tech stocks took a hit, and Trump declared the moment a "wake-up call" for U.S. tech companies, as the Chinese competitor set a new precedent for the global AI arms race.

Trump's executive order puts AI education in K-12 schools

Promoting AI innovation has been a major theme of the Trump presidency. And in April, Trump made AI education in schools an official priority with an executive order. The mandate directs federal agencies to implement AI literacy and proficiency in K-12 schools and upskilling programs for educators and relevant professionals.

The executive order aims to prepare future generations to learn the necessary skills for an increasingly AI-centric world. Meanwhile, schools are struggling to navigate the use of AI tools like ChatGPT in the classroom, which has led to a rampant cheating problem. That's all to say, the AI's ability to boost productivity and give the U.S. a competitive edge while hindering learning and critical thinking is a tricky dichotomy that's taken root in the education system.

OpenAI's corporate structure u-turn

OpenAI was a capped for-profit, governed by a nonprofit board. Then it tried to convert to a fully for-profit corporation, which raised alarm bells from AI leaders like Geoffrey Hinton and former OpenAI employees who warned of the consequences in an open letter.

The proposed restructuring "would eliminate essential safeguards," they explained, "effectively handing control of, and profits from, what could be the most powerful technology ever created to a for-profit entity with legal duties to prioritize shareholder returns."

Ultimately, OpenAI reversed course... kind of. Instead, the ChatGPT maker announced in May that it would remain governed by a nonprofit board but convert its for-profit subsidiary into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), a for-profit corporate structure that legally requires the company to "consider the interests of both shareholders and the mission," the announcement said.

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However, this new plan was criticized by the same group and others who said the new structure still allows OpenAI to put profit before its altruistic mission, since the nonprofit board would now become a shareholder with a vested interest in the company's success.

Pope Leo XIV has much to say about AI's impact on humanity

Days after Pope Leo XIV was chosen as the leader of the Catholic Church, he called out the AI industry. The new pope spoke about "developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor," in his first cardinal address, conveying a powerful message about his priorities. His name choice even pays tribute to a previous pope, Leo XIII, who advocated for social justice and labor reform during the Industrial Revolution.

Pope Leo XIV has continued to talk about AI's harms. "It must not be forgotten that artificial intelligence functions as a tool for the good of human beings - not to diminish them, not to replace them," he said during a June conference on AI governance and ethics in Rome. Tech and religion don't always coincide, but Leo XIV has made it clear that AI's impact is a spiritual issue, too.

The AI copyright report made a "pre-publication" impact

One day after the U.S. Copyright Office released a "pre-publication version" of its highly anticipated report on the use of copyrighted works for training AI models, director Shira Perlmutter was fired by President Trump. Perlmutter's abrupt dismissal immediately prompted speculation, with people wondering whether she knew she was getting fired and rushed to publish a version of the report, or whether she was fired because she published the report, or something entirely unrelated.

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We don't know what happened, but what's clear is the Copyright Office was generally favorable to copyright holders. "[M]aking commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries," said the report. This doesn't match up with the wishes of tech companies like Meta and OpenAI that have been lobbying hard for AI model training to be universally considered fair use.

The AI deepfake porn bill became federal law

AI deepfake porn is now a federal crime. The Take It Down Act was signed into law on May 19, making it a criminal act to publish or threaten to publish nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII), which increasingly includes AI-generated deepfakes. The Take It Down Act moved through Congress pretty quickly, with bipartisan support. The widespread availability of generative AI has made the creation of deepfakes for nefarious purposes disturbingly easy, which eventually caught lawmakers' attention.

SEE ALSO: Good riddance: The web's top deepfake porn site is shutting down

But digital rights groups criticized the bill for being overly broad and risk of false positives. "Services will rely on automated filters, which are infamously blunt tools. They frequently flag legal content, from fair-use commentary to news reporting," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which added that the bill may have good intentions, but shouldn't "invent new takedown regimes that are ripe for abuse."

Google's AI Mode marks a new era of search

The evolution of Google Search from a list of blue links to an AI-powered search engine has been in the making for a while now. But at this year's Google I/O, the tech giant made it official with the public launch of AI Mode. Google's new search tool is a chatbot interface that's marketed as an alternative to the traditional search homepage (now teeming with AI-generated overviews and summaries of related queries).

SEE ALSO: Welcome to Google AI Mode! Everything is fine.

As the supreme titleholder of the search engine market, Google's introduction of AI Mode represents a fundamental shift in the way people find information online. Users were already turning to ChatGPT or AI search engine Perplexity, just as the quality of Google search results got worse. Google's solution was to lean into AI-powered search features to compete more directly, despite known hallucination issues and alienating publishers who say the new AI search features are tanking their traffic.

OpenAI and Jony Ive team up to build an AI companion

The future of AI is screenless, according to Sam Altman and Jony Ive. In May, OpenAI announced the acquisition of Jony Ive's company and plans to develop an AI device together. OpenAI will try to succeed where others have failed: creating a device that's evolved beyond phone and computer screens that experiences the world as you do, becoming the ultimate AI companion.

Details are still scant, but a leaked recording on an internal meeting describes it as a "third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone." More recently, all mention of Jony Ive's startup io was scrubbed from the OpenAI site after a trademark lawsuit was filed by AI-powered earbuds company iyO. But OpenAI says the partnership is still on.

Mark Zuckerberg goes on a shopping spree

Recently, the New York Times reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is offering up to $100 million contracts to poach key talent away from OpenAI and other competitors. Per the Times, Zuckerberg is chasing "godlike technology" and super-intelligent AI. The Facebook founder is aware that Meta lags behind its rivals in the AI race, and he's determined to build an AI supergroup.

Disney enters the AI copyright battle

Many of the copyright lawsuits against AI companies have been filed by journalists and artists. Recently, both Meta and Anthropic won copyright suits against authors. However, this summer, a new and fearsome combatant has entered the AI copyright legal battle: The House of Mouse. Disney has sued AI image generator Midjourney, one of dozens of lawsuits focused on AI and copyright law. The Disney suit calls Midjourney a "bottomless pit of plagiarism."

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

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