AI Journey 2025 to 2026

As 2025 draws to a close, the AI landscape has shifted from "chatbots as a novelty" to "AI as an omnipresent teammate." We’ve moved beyond asking if AI can write an email to asking which model should run our entire department’s workflow.

Here is a year-end wrap-up of the "Big Three"—ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude—and how they’ve redefined themselves in 2025.

Feature	ChatGPT (GPT-5.1)	Gemini (3 Pro)	Claude (4.5 Sonnet)
Best For	Daily Versatility	Multimodal/Big Docs	Coding & Nuanced Writing
Context Window	~128K - 1M (varies)	1M - 2M Tokens	200K - 1M (beta)
Key Innovation	Thinking Mode (Adaptive)	Computer Use/Native Video	Claude Code / Agentic Flow
Personality	Direct & Intuitive	Analytical & Integrated	Thoughtful & Cautious

Looking Toward 2026: The "Invisible" AI

As we flip the calendar, the trend is clear: AI is becoming ambient. We are moving away from dedicated apps and toward a world where AI quietly operates in the background—summarizing our meetings, organizing our files, and predicting our needs before we even type a prompt.

The bubble hasn't burst; it has simply soaked into the fabric of how we work.

Final Thought: In 2023, we were amazed it could talk. In 2024, we were amazed it could see. In 2025, we’ve finally started letting it do.

Happy New Year 2026 to all of you!

 

Code to Compost

As we close out 2025, I’ve been reflecting on the diverse paths our lives take. This week’s blog is a tribute to my UnderGrad classmate, Partha, whose journey over the last decade serves as a profound masterclass in purpose and resilience.

Life Transformation

After twenty years in the software industry, Partha made a choice many of us contemplate but few dare to execute: he traded the corporate office for the open field. Today, he is a seasoned natural farmer, leading the way in sustainable agriculture at the Bhoomi Network’s Farmer’s Center in Tiruvannamalai, India.

The Courage to Pivot

Spending time with Partha at his farm was a mesmerizing experience. Witnessing his transition from two decades of IT logic to the intuitive, rhythmic cycles of nature was deeply humbling. While many of us talk about "getting back to our roots," Partha has spent the last ten years living that reality—transforming rough, challenging land into a thriving ecosystem.

My visit left me with a few powerful realizations:

• The True Value of Nature: Seeing the interdependence of soil, water, and weather firsthand.
  
  
• Grit and Commitment: The physical and mental stamina required to build a farm from scratch is immense.
  
  
• A Student’s Mindset: Partha’s success stems from his passion for asking the right questions and his willingness to keep learning from the land.

A Hub for Ecological Change: The Vivasayi Maiyam

Partha’s work at the Bhoomi Network's Farmer’s Center (Vivasayi Maiyam) in Tamil Nadu is more than just farming; it is an educational movement. The center serves as a bridge for those looking to transition from conventional methods to "nature-imitated" practices through several structured programs:

1. Volunteering (7+ Days): A hands-on entry point for those over 18. Participants engage in farm work and group discussions under a unique "Gift Culture" model (suggested ₹500/day).
2. Village Immersion (3–5 Days): A program designed for urban professionals to experience rural social realities by living and working alongside village communities.
3. Holistic Internships (1 Month+): For those seeking a deeper, comprehensive understanding of ecological systems.
4. Model Farm Creation (6 Months+): A rigorous, experiential program where participants manage a one-acre plot, learning everything from seed banking to animal integration.

Final Thoughts

We often think of success in terms of vertical growth within an industry. Partha has shown me that success can also be horizontal expanding our impact across different sectors and aligning our work with the health of the planet.

I am incredibly proud of my friend. His journey reminds us that it is never too late to redefine who we are and what we contribute to the world.

TOON usage

In the rapidly advancing landscape of AI, TOON (Token-Oriented Object Notation) has emerged as a specialized alternative to JSON. It is designed specifically to optimize how Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude process data.

Top 3 factors to leverage TOON

1. Drastic Cost Savings

AI models do not read text character-by-character; they process "tokens." In standard JSON, every brace { }, quote ", and comma , consumes tokens.

• Token Reduction: TOON can reduce token usage by 30% to 60% compared to JSON.

• Lower Bills: Since most AI providers charge per token, switching to TOON can cut your API costs nearly in half for the exact same data.

2. Expanded "Memory" (Context Window)

Every AI model has a limit on how much information it can "remember" at once (the context window).

• Efficiency: Because TOON is more compact, you can fit twice as much data into a single prompt.

• Better RAG: For Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, this means you can feed the AI more search results or documents without hitting the limit.

3. Improved Accuracy and Reasoning

JSON often forces the AI to navigate a sea of repetitive keys and brackets. TOON uses a tabular, header-based structure that aligns better with how models naturally "see" patterns.

• Reduced Hallucinations: With less syntactic noise, the AI can focus on the actual values, leading to more accurate data extraction and reasoning.

• Structure over Syntax: TOON explicitly declares array lengths and headers once, which helps the model stay "grounded" when reconstructing large tables.

AI Tools 2025 Pyramid

 

Level 1: Foundational Services

At the very base of the pyramid are the foundational AI services, which often work behind the scenes or provide core functionalities for more complex tasks.

• RecCloud (Video Translation Service): In an increasingly globalized world, video content is king. RecCloud helps break down language barriers by providing video translation services, making your content accessible to a wider international audience.

• Tidio (Customer Service): Excellent customer service is paramount for any business. Tidio leverages AI to power chatbots and streamline customer interactions, providing instant support and freeing up human agents for more complex issues.

• Zapier (Multi-platform Integration): While not strictly an "AI tool" in itself, Zapier is crucial for integrating various AI tools and automating workflows across different platforms. It acts as the connective tissue, allowing your AI applications to communicate seamlessly.

• Calendly (Schedule Management): AI-powered scheduling tools like Calendly take the hassle out of booking appointments. They can intelligently find the best times, send reminders, and manage your calendar, optimizing your time.

• PicWish (Image Generation): As we move towards more visual content, AI image generation tools like PicWish are becoming indispensable. They allow users to create stunning visuals from text prompts, saving time and resources on graphic design.

Level 2: Design Tools

The next level up focuses on AI tools that assist in design and creative endeavors, empowering both professionals and casual users to produce high-quality visuals and experiences.

• Midjourney (Image Generation): A powerful generative AI tool, Midjourney allows users to create incredibly detailed and artistic images from simple text descriptions, pushing the boundaries of visual creativity.

• Recraft (Image Generation): Similar to Midjourney, Recraft also specializes in AI-powered image generation, providing another avenue for creating unique visual content for various applications.

• Figma (Design Collaboration): While Figma is primarily a UI/UX design tool, its collaborative features can be enhanced with AI plugins, streamlining design processes and team communication.

• Canva (Design Tool): Canva has democratized design, and with its increasing integration of AI features, it makes graphic design accessible to everyone, offering smart recommendations and automated design elements.

Level 3: Writing Assistants

AI writing assistants are revolutionizing content creation, helping with everything from drafting emails to generating long-form articles.

• ChatGPT (Writing Assistant): A household name, ChatGPT is a versatile AI language model capable of generating human-like text, answering questions, summarizing information, and assisting with various writing tasks.

• Claude (Writing Assistant): Another advanced AI assistant, Claude excels at complex reasoning and generating coherent, thoughtful responses, making it ideal for in-depth content creation and analysis.

• Grok (Writing Assistant): Grok, with its real-time knowledge access, offers unique capabilities for generating timely and relevant content, especially useful for news and current affairs.

Level 4: Market Research

At this level, AI tools become more strategic, assisting with data analysis and market insights to inform business decisions.

• Perplexity (Market Research): Perplexity combines powerful search capabilities with AI summarization, making it an excellent tool for quickly gathering and understanding information for market research.

• Gemini (Market Research): Google's Gemini is a multimodal AI that can process and understand various types of information, making it a robust tool for comprehensive market analysis and trend identification.

Level 5: Code Editor

At the pinnacle of the pyramid lies the most specialized and advanced AI application for developers.

• Cursor (Code Editor): Cursor is an AI-powered code editor that assists developers by suggesting code, identifying errors, and even generating entire functions, significantly accelerating the coding process and improving code quality.

Google Map Builder Agent

Google has released an AI-driven map builder agent called the Builder agent as part of its Google Maps Platform developer tools.

This agent is designed to accelerate map development by allowing users to create custom-coded, interactive map prototypes using natural language commands rather than manual coding.

The key features of the new AI tools include:

• Builder agent: Converts a simple text description (e.g., "create a Street View tour of a city") into a fully functional, custom-coded map prototype within minutes. It is powered by Gemini models.

• Maps Styling agent: A companion tool that lets developers generate highly customized map themes and color schemes simply by describing the desired aesthetic.

• Grounding Lite: A feature that allows developers to ground their own AI models in Google Maps data, enabling AI assistants to answer highly contextual location-based questions.

Ref: https://developers.google.com/maps/ai/build-with-ai

LLM Brain

The world of Artificial Intelligence is evolving at breakneck speed, and building applications powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) requires much more than just the model itself. It demands a sophisticated toolkit of databases, frameworks, and extraction layers.

This guide breaks down the essential categories that make up the modern LLM Stack, using the key players shown in the attached diagram.

🧠 Layer 1: The Brains – Large Language Models (LLMs)

🛠️ Layer 2: The Glue – Frameworks

💾 Layer 3: The Memory – Vector Databases

📄 Layer 4: The Input – Data Extraction

🌐 Layer 5: The Pipes – Open LLM Access & Text Embeddings

⚖️ Layer 6: The Standard – Evaluation

LLM ecosystem is a dense, powerful matrix of specialized tools. By understanding the function of each layer—from the Brain (LLM) to the Memory (Vector Database) to the Standard (Evaluation)—developers can select the right components to build truly intelligent, robust, and scalable AI applications.

Azure outage

🚨 Outage Summary

• When: The disruption started around 15:45 UTC on October 29 and was largely mitigated early on October 30, 2025.

• Cause: Microsoft traced the root cause to an "inadvertent tenant configuration change" within its Azure Front Door (AFD) service, a global content delivery network. A software defect allowed a faulty deployment to bypass safety validations, leading to an invalid configuration state.

• Impact: The outage impacted services relying on Azure Front Door for global content delivery, including:

  • Microsoft Services: Azure Portal access, Microsoft 365 services (Outlook, Teams, Admin Center), Xbox Live, and Minecraft.

  • External Customers: Airlines (like Alaska Airlines), retail companies (like Starbucks and Costco), financial institutions (like NatWest), and others, resulting in issues like website failures, login problems, and check-in disruptions.

🛠️ Resolution

• Microsoft's engineers addressed the issue by blocking all further configuration changes to AFD services and rolling back to a "last known good" configuration across their global network.

• The company has implemented additional validation and rollback controls and will conduct an internal review (Post Incident Review or PIR), which will be shared with affected customers within 14 days.