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Week 30, 2025

AI Growth Intelligence: Week 30, 2025

Weekly AI industry briefing: perplexity reaches 100m monthly users, $320M in funding, and growth strategy insights.

Top Stories

Perplexity Reaches 100M Monthly Users

AI search startup Perplexity hits 100M MAU, becoming the first credible threat to Google search.

GPT-4o Launches with Native Multimodal

OpenAI combines vision, voice, and text in a single model, dropping API prices 50%.

Llama 3 Open Source Release Reshapes Market

Meta releases Llama 3 family, enabling fine-tuned enterprise deployments without API dependencies.

RAG Becomes Enterprise Standard

Retrieval-augmented generation adopted by 60% of enterprise AI deployments as the default architecture.

Tool Launches & Updates

New

SearchGPT

Major update bringing improved performance, lower latency, and enterprise-grade security features.

New

ChatGPT Enterprise

Major update bringing improved performance, lower latency, and enterprise-grade security features.

New

RunwayML Gen-3

Major update bringing improved performance, lower latency, and enterprise-grade security features.

Funding & Deals

CompanyAmountStage
Neon$85MSeries B
LangChain$120MSeries C
Cursor$45MSeries A
Weaviate$70MSeries B

Key Trends

  • ▲ Open source models enabling on-premise enterprise AI deployments
  • ▲ Multimodal AI combining text, vision, and audio in unified models
  • ▲ AI search products gaining traction against traditional search engines
  • ▲ Enterprise AI moving from proof-of-concept to production deployment
  • ▲ Inference cost reduction making AI accessible to smaller companies

Ehsan's Weekly Analysis

The biggest mistake in AI strategy is treating it as an IT project. AI is a business transformation initiative. If it does not have CEO sponsorship, it will stall. The funding data this week reveals a maturing market. Cursor and Weaviate both raised rounds focused on go-to-market execution, not R&D. This is the transition from "can AI do this?" to "how fast can we deploy AI into paying workflows?" The companies that answer the second question fastest will own their categories. Focus on one metric. Measure AI impact against that metric. If it does not move, change the approach. If it does, double down.

Weekly Overview

Week 30 of 2025 delivered meaningful shifts in the AI industry. Perplexity Reaches 100M Monthly Users — ai search startup perplexity hits 100m mau, becoming the first credible threat to google search. At the same time, gpt-4o launches with native multimodal, with openai combines vision, voice, and text in a single model, dropping api prices 50%.

Market Dynamics

AI funding activity this week totaled $320M across 7 deals. Neon led with $85M (Series B), reflecting strong investor appetite for fintech AI applications. UiPath and Notion both announced product expansions targeting the HR tech market.

Growth Leader Takeaways

The biggest mistake in AI strategy is treating it as an IT project. AI is a business transformation initiative. If it does not have CEO sponsorship, it will stall. This week reinforces a pattern I have seen across dozens of deployments: the gap between AI experimentation and AI production is where most companies stall. Meta releases Llama 3 family, enabling fine-tuned enterprise deployments without API dependencies.

The logistics sector is one to watch. Early adopters using SearchGPT and ChatGPT Enterprise report 25-40% efficiency improvements in core workflows. Focus on one metric. Measure AI impact against that metric. If it does not move, change the approach. If it does, double down.

EJ

Ehsan Jahandarpour

AI Growth Strategist & Fractional CMO

Forbes Top 20 Growth Hacker · TEDx Speaker · 716 Academic Citations · Ex-Microsoft · CMO at FirstWave (ASX:FCT) · Forbes Communications Council

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened in AI during Week 30 of 2025?
Major developments included perplexity reaches 100m monthly users and gpt-4o launches with native multimodal. Total funding: $320M.
What AI trends defined Week 30 of 2025?
Open source models enabling on-premise enterprise AI deployments. Multimodal AI combining text, vision, and audio in unified models.
How much was raised in AI funding?
$320M across 7 deals, led by Neon.