5/7 AI Express: Google Gemini’s Coding Re-evolution / OpenAI’s Big Bet on AI Programming

News

Today’s News Highlights 🚀 Google Releases Gemini 2.5 Pro I/O Special Edition: Further Upgrades in Coding and Video Understanding Capabilities 🤝 OpenAI Spends $3 Billion to Acquire AI Coding Tool Windsurf, Strengthening Developer Ecosystem ⚖️ OpenAI Company Structure Adjustment: Nonprofit Parent Company Continues to Steer, For-Profit Arm Transforms into Public Benefit Corporation 🎨 Canva Launches AI-Integrated Visual Suite 2.0: One-Stop Solution for Design, Data, and Coding

01🚀 Google Releases Gemini 2.5 Pro I/O Special Edition: Further Upgrades in Coding and Video Understanding Capabilities

Ahead of its annual I/O developer conference, Google surprisingly opened a preview of its latest artificial intelligence model, Gemini 2.5 Pro “I/O Special Edition,” to the developer community. This move stemmed from the enthusiastic response from the developer community to the model. The new version has achieved a significant leap in coding capabilities, particularly excelling in tasks such as front-end and user interface (UI) development, code conversion, code editing, and the creation of complex “agent workflows.” Notably, it surpassed Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet on the authoritative WebDev Arena benchmark for evaluating AI model web development capabilities, ranking first. In addition, Gemini 2.5 Pro has made significant progress in video content understanding, demonstrating its powerful multimodal processing capabilities.

Key Highlights

  • Coding Leadership: The new Gemini 2.5 Pro preview version demonstrated outstanding performance in the WebDev Arena benchmark, significantly increasing its Elo score by 147 points. It outperformed competitors, including Claude 3.7 Sonnet, to take the top spot, showcasing its exceptional ability to build beautiful and functional web applications.
  • Video Insight: Achieved a high score of 84.8% in the VideoMME (Video Multimodal Evaluation) benchmark, proving its top-tier video content analysis and understanding capabilities. It can accurately extract information from videos and create applications based on this information, such as efficiently transforming YouTube videos into interactive learning applications.
  • Early Access: Originally planned for official release at Google I/O 2025, it was made available for developer preview ahead of schedule due to strong community feedback. Developers can now try it out through Google AI Studio or the Gemini API in Vertex AI for enterprise users, experiencing its powerful features immediately.
  • Wide Application: The new model significantly improves the efficiency of front-end and UI development, optimizes code conversion, editing, and the creation of complex agent workflows. It also effectively reduces function call errors and increases the function call trigger rate, and has been adopted by partners such as the AI coding tool Cursor to enhance their product performance.

Value Insights

  • For AI Developers and Programmers: The release of the Gemini 2.5 Pro preview, especially its significant advancements in coding assistance, is undoubtedly a major benefit for developers. This means they can obtain more intelligent and accurate AI assistance in various stages such as front-end UI design, code refactoring, and complex logic implementation. This is expected not only to significantly shorten the software development cycle and reduce potential error rates but also to allow developers to focus more on innovative work. Its powerful video understanding capabilities also open up new possibilities for developing interactive multimedia applications and extracting value from video content.
  • For Ordinary Users: Although the Gemini 2.5 Pro preview is primarily a professional tool for developers, its ultimate results will benefit the general public through better software products and services. More intelligent AI coding tools will give rise to more comprehensive, user-friendly, and faster-responding web and mobile applications. For example, the previously unimaginable application scenario of quickly generating an interactive learning application from an instructional video will become a reality sooner due to the emergence of such advanced AI models.

Recommended Reading

  • Google Official Blog Post (Google Developers Blog)

02🤝 OpenAI Spends $3 Billion to Acquire AI Coding Tool Windsurf, Strengthening Developer Ecosystem

According to reports from Bloomberg and other authoritative financial media, leading artificial intelligence company OpenAI has reached an agreement to acquire AI-assisted coding tool startup Windsurf (formerly known as Codeium), with the transaction amount reportedly as high as approximately $3 billion. If this transaction is completed, it will be OpenAI’s largest acquisition since its inception. Windsurf focuses on using AI to improve software development efficiency, and its products include Cascade, a chat-based AI tool that can monitor project progress in real time, provide coding suggestions, and detect code defects, as well as Windsurf Previews, which allows developers to instantly preview and modify application interfaces. This acquisition is seen as a significant strategic move by OpenAI in the competitive AI-driven coding assistant market, aiming to enhance the professional capabilities of its flagship product ChatGPT in programming assistance to cope with increasingly fierce market competition.

Key Highlights

  • Huge Acquisition: The transaction scale of approximately $3 billion not only breaks OpenAI’s own acquisition record but also highlights its huge determination and long-term ambition to strategically invest in the key application area of AI coding, intending to consolidate its market-leading position.
  • Enhanced Capabilities: Windsurf’s advanced AI coding technology, especially Cascade’s code context understanding and intelligent suggestions, as well as Previews’ real-time visual feedback function, are expected to significantly improve ChatGPT’s professional level and user experience in code generation, assisted programming, and intelligent debugging.
  • Market Competition: This move is seen as a crucial step for OpenAI to consolidate its leading position in the AI programming assistant market, aiming to actively respond to the increasing competitive pressure from GitHub Copilot, Anthropic Claude, and emerging AI coding tools (such as Cursor), striving to maintain industry leadership.
  • Valuation Leap: Windsurf’s valuation rapidly jumped from $1.25 billion to a rumored acquisition price of $3 billion in a short period. This not only reflects the uniqueness and market potential of the company’s technology but also reflects the extraordinary heat of the entire AI coding tool track and the capital market’s high recognition of the future value of this field.

Value Insights

  • For AI Developers and Programmers: OpenAI’s acquisition of Windsurf indicates that its AI tools such as ChatGPT will become more powerful, intelligent, and closer to actual development needs in terms of programming assistance in the future. Developers are expected to obtain an AI assistant that better understands project context, can provide more accurate code suggestions, and even assist in completing more complex programming tasks, thereby further improving coding efficiency, reducing repetitive work, and improving code quality. This may also drive AI coding tools towards more integrated functions and more natural interactions.
  • For Ordinary Users: More powerful AI programming tools will directly or indirectly accelerate the innovation speed and iteration efficiency of software products and services. The various applications, websites, and services we use daily may benefit from this in their development, maintenance, and upgrades. This means that ordinary users are expected to enjoy digital products with new features, bug fixes, and better user experiences faster.

Recommended Reading

  • Bloomberg: OpenAI Agrees to Buy AI Coding Startup Windsurf for $3 Billion

03⚖️ OpenAI Company Structure Adjustment: Nonprofit Parent Company Continues to Steer, For-Profit Arm Transforms into Public Benefit Corporation

Facing growing external concerns about potentially deviating from its founding mission of “building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of all humanity,” as well as potential legal and regulatory challenges, artificial intelligence research and deployment company OpenAI recently announced a significant adjustment to its corporate governance structure. Its initially established nonprofit parent company, OpenAI, Inc., will continue to maintain control over the entire OpenAI organization, while its for-profit subsidiary (previously a “capped-profit” entity) responsible for commercial operations will transform into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). This move aims to balance commercial pursuits with public interests, respond to external criticisms, and align with other companies in the industry that emphasize responsible AI development.

Key Highlights

  • Unchanged Control: The core decision is that OpenAI’s nonprofit parent company, OpenAI, Inc., will continue to hold ultimate control over the entire OpenAI entity (including the transformed PBC), aiming to ensure that the company’s overall development direction remains consistent with its initial mission of “benefiting humanity.”
  • Structural Transformation: The company’s for-profit operating arm will officially transition from its previous “capped-profit” limited partnership structure to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) registered in Delaware, USA. This legal status requires the company to consider both the economic interests of shareholders and the public benefit mission clearly stated in its charter in its operational decisions.
  • Responding to Concerns: This move is widely seen as a direct response by OpenAI to the growing external pressure and internal reflections it faces. These pressures mainly stem from widespread concerns about its potential over-commercialization and consequent deviation from its core mission of “developing artificial general intelligence safely and for the benefit of all.”
  • Industry Alignment: By adopting the PBC corporate governance model, OpenAI is, to some extent, aligning its corporate structure with other peers in the industry who also publicly emphasize the concept of “responsible artificial intelligence development” (such as Anthropic and xAI), which also attempt to balance innovation, commercialization, and ethical responsibility through specific legal structures.

Value Insights

  • For AI Practitioners and Researchers: As a trendsetter in the industry, OpenAI’s adjustment to its corporate governance structure, especially the re-emphasis on the control of the nonprofit parent company and the public benefit mission of the for-profit entity, may, to some extent, alleviate deep-seated concerns within the industry about the potential for uncontrolled or misused development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). This provides a noteworthy organizational model for exploring how to adhere to ethical norms and safety baselines amidst the current surge in the commercialization of artificial intelligence technology. However, whether the PBC model can truly effectively restrain potential commercial profit-seeking impulses and ensure that AGI research and development always prioritizes public interests still needs to be proven in future practical operations.
  • For the General Public: As ordinary members of society, we generally expect the development of this disruptive technology of artificial intelligence to truly bring benefits to human society, rather than uncontrollable risks. OpenAI’s corporate structure adjustment, at least in name and legal commitment, reaffirms its solemn commitment to public interests. In the future, the public, media, and regulatory agencies need to continuously pay attention to how OpenAI and other leading AI companies specifically implement these governance commitments in every aspect of their technology research and development, product deployment, and daily operations to ensure consistency between their words and actions.

Recommended Reading

  • Tech Times: OpenAI Keeps Nonprofit in Charge, Restructures For-Profit Arm Into Public Benefit Corporation

04🎨 Canva Launches AI-Integrated Visual Suite 2.0: One-Stop Solution for Design, Data, and Coding

Globally renowned online design platform Canva grandly launched a significant upgrade to its product portfolio—the new Visual Suite 2.0—at its annual Canva Create 2025 event. The core of this upgrade lies in the deep integration of a series of innovative tools powered by artificial intelligence, aiming to seamlessly merge creative design work with everyday office productivity scenarios like never before. The new suite introduces Canva Sheets, a spreadsheet tool integrated with AI features that allows users to generate formulas and gain data insights through natural language; the new conversational AI assistant Canva AI, which can assist in generating designs and writing copy; and Canva Code, which allows users to create interactive content modules through text prompts without programming knowledge. AI-driven image editing features have also been significantly enhanced, committed to building a one-stop creative and productivity platform.

Key Highlights

  • Intelligent Spreadsheets: Canva Sheets has completely revolutionized the traditional spreadsheet data processing and visualization methods through built-in AI functions such as Magic Insights (AI data insights), Magic Charts (AI chart generation), and Magic Formulas (AI formula assistant). It also supports importing real-time data from major external platforms, making data-driven design decisions and content creation more convenient and efficient.
  • Conversational AI Assistant: The new Canva AI can understand users’ natural language instructions (text, voice, or media input) and quickly generate personalized design solutions, marketing copy, and assist with image editing based on these instructions, thereby significantly improving the efficiency of content creation and significantly lowering the barrier to using professional design tools.
  • No-Code Innovation: The launch of Canva Code enables even ordinary users without any programming background to create practical interactive widgets (such as online calculators, surveys, learning cards, etc.) through simple text descriptions (prompts), greatly expanding the functional boundaries and application scenarios of the Canva platform.
  • AI Image Magic: The AI image editing features in Visual Suite 2.0 have been comprehensively enhanced, such as intelligent background removal and replacement, seamless object erasure and addition, and AI background generation that perfectly blends with the original image style, making professional-level image processing effects readily available and popularized.
  • Unified Workflow: The new suite is committed to creating a truly one-stop creative and productivity platform where users can seamlessly process various content formats, including web pages, documents, presentations, spreadsheets, videos, and social media posts, within the same project file or workspace, thereby significantly improving personal efficiency and the smoothness of team collaboration.

Researcher Thoughts

  • For Designers, Marketers, Educators, and Content Creators: The release of Canva Visual Suite 2.0 brings revolutionary changes to the daily work of these professionals, greatly expanding their creative possibilities and work efficiency. The deep integration of AI technology means that many tasks that previously required advanced professional skills, complex software operations, or the coordination of multiple different tools can now be completed more easily and quickly within a unified platform like Canva.
  • For Ordinary Users and Small and Micro Business Owners: For the vast number of ordinary users without professional design backgrounds or programming skills, as well as small and micro business owners with limited resources, the new series of AI features in Canva Visual Suite 2.0 undoubtedly provides an extremely powerful “enabler.” Whether it’s creating data analysis reports with dynamic interactive charts or quickly building online price calculators, these previously seemingly out-of-reach needs have now become readily accessible.

Recommended Reading

  • ContentGrip: Canva New AI Tools: Code and Sheets to Revolutionize Design

Today’s Summary

In the past short 48 hours, the global artificial intelligence field has once again been turbulent, with technological iterations and strategic deployments advancing simultaneously. Google preempted its annual I/O developer conference by releasing the I/O special preview version of its flagship AI model Gemini 2.5 Pro, with significant breakthroughs in both coding and video understanding capabilities. It not only topped authoritative benchmarks but also foreshadowed the in-depth exploration of AI in multimodal information processing applications.

At the same time, another AI giant, OpenAI, has also been active. According to reports, OpenAI spent approximately $3 billion to acquire AI coding startup Windsurf, its largest acquisition ever, demonstrating its determination to strengthen ChatGPT’s programming assistance capabilities and consolidate its core position in the developer ecosystem. In terms of corporate governance, OpenAI announced that its nonprofit parent company will continue to maintain control, while the for-profit arm will transform into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), attempting to balance the mission of “benefiting humanity” with commercial development, a move that has attracted widespread attention in the industry.

At the application level, online design platform Canva also high-profilely launched the fully AI-integrated Visual Suite 2.0. By introducing innovative features such as intelligent spreadsheets, conversational AI design assistants, no-code interactive content creation tools, and AI image editing, it is revolutionizing design workflows and office collaboration experiences, marking the accelerated penetration of AI into broader SaaS applications and empowering more ordinary users.

Overall, the current competition in AI technology has evolved from a simple comparison of single model capabilities to a comprehensive strength contest of “core large model technology + innovative application ecosystem construction + complete developer toolchain.” While giants are refining their core technologies, they are also accelerating the industry落地 (implementation) of AI through strategic acquisitions and product integration. The trend of AI-driven “democratization of creative tools” is becoming increasingly apparent, bringing convenience to the public while also posing higher demands on the exploration of AI governance frameworks and sustainable business models. Practitioners face both opportunities and challenges and need to continuously learn and adapt; while ordinary people will enjoy smarter and more personalized products and services brought by the progress of AI technology faster.