Microsoft bans Chinese AI

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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Microsoft has banned employees from using DeepSeek's app over concerns about data safety and Chinese government influence.

With tensions rising between Western tech companies and Chinese AI developers, how will this reshape global AI collaboration and competition?

In Today’s AI Daily:

• Microsoft bans DeepSeek app over Chinese security concerns

• Alibaba's ZeroSearch slashes AI training costs by 90%

• ByteDance unveils self-training AI code models

• 5 new AI tools & prompts

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MICROSOFT

🚫 Microsoft bans DeepSeek over China security concerns

The AI Daily: Microsoft has banned its employees from using DeepSeek’s app because of worries about data safety and Chinese government influence, according to Vice Chairman Brad Smith at a Senate hearing today.

Key notes:

• Microsoft told employees not to use DeepSeek’s app, which works on both desktop and mobile.

• The app is not allowed in the Windows app store.

• Smith said the app could store user data on servers in China and may show answers shaped by “Chinese propaganda”.

• Even though the app is banned, Microsoft still offers DeepSeek’s R1 model on Azure, but with extra security changes.

• DeepSeek’s privacy policy says it stores user data on Chinese servers that follow Chinese laws.

Why it matters: This is the first time Microsoft has confirmed it banned DeepSeek’s app. It shows growing tension between U.S. tech companies and AI tools made in China. While Microsoft blocks the app over security fears, it still uses DeepSeek’s tech on its cloud service, showing how companies are trying to balance safety and competition in the global AI market.

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ALIBABA

🔍 Alibaba's ZeroSearch lets AI train without Google's help

The AI Daily: Alibaba just unveiled ZeroSearch, a smart new training system that helps language models learn to search for information without using expensive search engines like Google.

Key notes:

• ZeroSearch fixes two big problems in AI training: low-quality search results and high costs from using commercial APIs.

• It uses a “curriculum-based rollout strategy,” meaning it slowly teaches the model to handle harder search tasks over time.

• The system was tested on seven question-answering datasets and performed very well.

• It works with popular AI models like Qwen-2.5 and LLaMA-3.2.

• Using ZeroSearch cuts training costs by nearly 90% compared to using Google Search APIs.

Why it matters: This new tool could help smaller companies train smart AI assistants without spending a lot of money. It also gives developers more control over what their AI learns, which could lead to more accurate and useful systems. ZeroSearch may open the door for more people to build powerful AI without needing huge budgets.

AI BREAKTHROUGHS

BYTEDANCE

🧠 ByteDance's Seed-Coder: AI that trains itself

The AI Daily: ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has released Seed-Coder, a new family of open-source code language models that can pick and organize their own training data with minimal help from humans.

Key notes:

• The 8B-parameter models come in base, instruct, and reasoning variants.

• Trained on 6 trillion tokens, outperforming comparable models like Qwen3-8B.

• Uses AI to filter GitHub data, commits, and code-related web content instead of manual curation.

• The reasoning version performs as well as Claude-3.7-Sonnet-Thinking on tough problems.

Why it matters: One of the hardest parts of building good AI is picking the right data to train it. ByteDance’s models can do that work on their own, saving time and effort. This is ByteDance’s first big move into open-source AI tools, showing it wants to compete with other top tech companies in the AI world—not just in social media.

FAST TRACKS

🗞️ What matters in AI right now?

Microsoft launched Copilot Pages, a new feature that allows users to collaborate with the AI assistant on creating and refining answers.

Prime Intellect released INTELLECT-2, the first open-source 32B parameter model trained through globally distributed reinforcement learning, aimed at advancing decentralized AI development.

Tencent released PrimitiveAnything on Hugging Face, an AI that breaks down complex 3D objects into simple geometric building blocks for game design and 3D modeling applications.

Sakana AI introduced Continuous Thought Machines, a new AI approach that helps AI think more like humans by using better timing and patterns.

Nvidia announced Audio-SDS, a tool that helps AI work with sound. It can separate voices, music, and other parts from one audio file.

Zencoder released Zen Agents, a platform that lets teams build and share custom AI tools. It includes over 100 servers that connect to other AI systems.

🔥 Trending AI tools

🎥 AI Studios: Create videos with AI avatars and voiceovers in 80+ languages.

📊 Julius: Analyze and visualize data using AI-powered tools.

💄 Glambase: Design and monetize AI-generated virtual influencers.

🗂️ BetterStacks: Organize and personalize your digital content with AI assistance.

📸 BetterPic: Generate professional AI headshots from your photos.

AI PROMPTS

📈 Create Digital Marketing Strategy

#CONTEXT:
You are an expert digital marketer tasked with developing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy and plan that incorporates SEO, content marketing, social media, PPC advertising, and other key digital channels. The goal is to provide specific strategies, tactics, and an implementation roadmap to achieve the specified marketing objective and effectively reach the target audience.

Source: The AI Daily

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