Agents Hijack Your Weekend?🚨

Welcome, AI Explorers

🧠 TL;DR – This Week in AI
A dog-shaped robot now trades badminton shots with humans, an agent takes over every click of your weekend-trip planning, and Washington signs a $200 M deal for frontier models. Fresh apps for market research, email lists, UI drafts and prompt-ready agents round out the kit.

One thing is clear: AI just grabbed a racket —and a boarding pass.

In today’s AI Spotlight :

• ⚡ Robot hits the shuttlecock like a pro

• 🧬 Manus plans your whole weekend trip hands-free

• 🛠️ AI Spotlight Toolbox: 4 Top Trending AI Tools

• 🎨 Quick Bytes: Other exciting AI related developments

  Read time: 5 minutes

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On my radar

AI Advancement

Robot with four legs steps onto the badminton court

Researchers at ETH Zurich have taught ANYmal-D to rally with human players, holding a racket in its jaws and moving around the court under its own decision-making power. The 50 kg robot copies human habits—returning the shuttlecock, then walking back to centre position before the next shot 

Snapshot

• Tracks the shuttlecock in real time and hits it back to a person 

• Walks, stops and swings as one smooth action without falling 

• Resets to mid-court after every return, echoing human tactics 

• Rears up on its hind legs when it needs a higher view of the birdie

What is the underlying point?

A rally is more than a trick—it's a safety lesson. By choosing to skip shots that might break its body, the robot shows early self-preservation. Give that judgement a few more years and we may see service bots weaving through warehouses, schools and parks, reading risk the same way they read a shuttlecock.

Hands on AI

✈️ Let Manus handle your entire weekend-getaway plan—while you grab a coffee

Unlike chatbots that just talk, Manus is a hands-on agent: it opens travel sites, compares deals, builds maps, drafts a budget, and pings you when the job is done—no babysitting needed.

Step-by-step:

1. Sign up (no wait-list) – Visit manus.im → Get Started, choose Google or Apple sign-in, and you land in your dashboard with free agent credits.

2. Open the Travel playbook – Click Create ➜ Life ➜ Trip planner (you’ll see examples like “Trip to Japan in April”).

3. Drop a single prompt – Type something anyone can write:
    “Plan a 3-day Barcelona getaway for two adults, 5–7 Sept, flying from Amsterdam. Mid-range hotel near the Gothic Quarter, must include Sagrada Família tickets, tapas tour, and public-transport passes. Keep total under €1 200.”

4. Watch Manus work for you – A side panel shows it opening Skyscanner, Booking.com, Google Maps, and local transit sites, grabbing flight times, hotel rates, and attraction slots. You’ll see every click like a live screen-share.

5. Tweak on the fly – Spot something off? Hit Pause, type “add a beach afternoon at Barceloneta”, press Resume. Manus reshuffles the schedule and recalculates costs automatically.

6. Let it run in the cloud – Close the tab if you like; Manus keeps crunching on its servers and emails / notifies you when the full itinerary, budget sheet, and PDF guidebook are ready.

7. Review & export – Open the finished project: you’ll find a day-by-day timetable, embedded Google Map links, ticket URLs, and a line-item budget. Click Download ➜ PDF / Google Docs or share the public Replay link so friends can watch the planning steps.

Why this feels different from an ordinary chatbot

• Thinks and acts – Manus doesn’t just suggest “check flights”; it books browser tabs, copies prices, and fits them into a timetable.

• Chains dozens of tasks – Research ➜ compare options ➜ budget ➜ layout PDF, all inside one run.

• Keeps working after you leave – Cloud execution means no spinning laptop; you just get a done-ding when it finishes.

Pro tip: In your prompt, add “Send me a reminder two days before departure with all tickets attached”—Manus schedules a follow-up task and you’ll receive that email automatically, so nothing slips through the cracks.

Get started with free 1500 credits once you sign up using this link

AI ToolBox Spotlight

🔍 IdeaApe - Analyze Reddit conversations to find customer challenges and inform market research 

⚡ Solar - Build AI agents and full-stack apps from a drag-and-drop canvas in seconds 

🎨 Flowstep - Turn text prompts into editable UI designs, wireframes, and user flows with real-time collaboration 

📧 SocLeads - Collect emails from Google Maps and major social platforms for focused lead lists 

Quick Bytes

The Pentagon awarded OpenAI a $200M contract to develop frontier AI tools for military and enterprise use through July 2026. This reflects growing government reliance on advanced AI capabilities.

BT’s CEO warns AI may drive further job cuts beyond the 40K roles and £3 bn cost-saving target, signaling acceleration in automation-led restructuring. Strategic workforce planning is shifting toward AI efficiency.

Nvidia's CEO urged Europe to build its own AI infrastructure to preserve cultural and data sovereignty. EU leaders responded with billion‑euro commitments and plans for "AI factories," despite energy cost

End note

Courts, cubicles and holidays—AI is crashing every party. What job would you hand over to an AI next? Hit reply and let me know!

Until next time, stay curious and keep exploring!

Srini

Last issue’s poll: Which voice would you prefer?

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