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📞 What’s your emergency? America’s 911 centers are so short-staffed they’re outsourcing some calls to a robot. A startup named Aurelian (because of course) raised $14M to let AI handle non-emergencies like parking rage and stolen fanny packs. It’s live in over a dozen cities and counting.

Of Google searches ended without a single click in 2024. AI Overviews now hand you the answer right on the results page, no website needed. Add in ChatGPT hitting 700 million weekly users in August with 2.5 billion prompts daily, and yeah, it’s a full-on behavior shift. People aren’t browsing anymore, they’re asking.

🤖 Bot time Grandma got company: South Korea gave 12,000 lonely older adults AI “grandchildren” that talk, glow and remind them to take their meds. The dolls run on ChatGPT and deep cultural guilt. And yes, they’re coming to the U.S. by 2026 for a slice of the global $7.7B (by 2030) eldercare robot market. 

🦜 Google trying to eat Duolingo: Google just shoved AI into Translate, adding a language practice mode with listening/speaking drills that adapt to your skill level. It’s basically Duolingo but without the bird threatening your family. Also new: live audio translations in 70+ languages, even in noisy airports. It’s never been a better time to perfect your awkward small talk in French.

Luxury’s identity crisis: When you’re dropping $400K on a car, do you really want it to feel like a fancy iPad on wheels? Bentley doesn’t think so either. They’re going full old-school – custom wood, rare materials and designers who actually sit down with you. Because real luxury is still made by hand, not just coded in.

💼 Making AI dough: The AI gold rush is minting baby millionaires. Fresh grads are landing $200K+ starting salaries, some under 25 raking in $500K to $1M a year. Yes, you read that right. Companies like Databricks and Scale AI want “AI-natives” so badly they’re poaching PhD students before they even graduate. 

Accepting faxed résumés: Job hunting’s turned into a cat-and-mouse game with AI. Résumés look polished, cover letters sound the same, and employers can’t tell who’s real. So they’re ditching the bots, asking for paper résumés, surprise in-person tests and even flying people out. If you’re job hunting, showing real human effort will beat the AI polish. 

Denied? Not so fast: I’ve talked about insurance companies using AI to deny your coverage in literal seconds. If that happens to you, fight back using AI of your own. A free service called Counterforce Health writes appeal letters faster than you can say, “That’s not covered.” Here’s good proof that tech doesn’t have to mean soulless. You know, my puns are like health insurance. Some just can’t get it.