OpenAI Hits $500B Valuation

OpenAI’s valuation has surged to $500 billion following a $6.6 billion secondary share sale to investors including SoftBank. The deal gave employees and insiders liquidity, while cementing OpenAI’s status as one of the most valuable private companies in history.

Stage / Timeline: Secondary sale completed this week, valuation now public.

Significance: Investor confidence in AI remains sky-high. With liquidity for insiders, speculation grows that OpenAI could be preparing for a public market debut within the next two years.

Legal Friction: OpenAI vs. xAI

In parallel, OpenAI has asked a federal court to dismiss Elon Musk’s xAI trade-secrets lawsuit, which accused it of stealing proprietary research and poaching employees.

Stage / Timeline: Motion to dismiss filed October 2.

Significance: This case may set precedents on how talent and intellectual property move in the AI sector. A dismissal could clear OpenAI of one of its most public legal challenges, while a trial would drag IP disputes into the spotlight.

Perplexity Makes Its $200 AI Browser Free

Perplexity announced that Comet, its AI-powered browser originally priced at $200/month, will now be free for all users with certain usage limits.

Stage / Timeline: Change effective immediately.

Significance: The shift to free access is both an aggressive growth move and a signal of intensifying competition. It lowers the barrier for adoption but raises questions about long-term monetization.

Opera Joins the Agentic Web Race

Opera launched Neon, a browser that embeds AI agents capable of acting autonomously on web pages. Unlike cloud-first AI models, Neon emphasizes local execution, making browsing faster and less reliant on external servers.

Stage / Timeline: Neon is now live.

Significance: Browsers are rapidly becoming AI platforms in themselves. Neon and Comet represent a new battleground where search, automation, and content discovery will converge.

What to Watch

Taken together, these moves show the AI industry splitting in two directions:

• Consolidation and scale (OpenAI’s $500B valuation, legal defense)

• Distribution and adoption (browsers embedding AI, free access models)

The stakes are no longer about who can build the most powerful models, but who can control how billions of people interact with them daily.

Prompt Tip of the Day

If you’re experimenting with AI video tools like Sora or Runway, avoid generic inputs like “make a cinematic video of a city.” Instead, stack style, perspective, and motion in one line:

“Medium wide shot of a neon-lit Tokyo street in the rain, dynamic reflections on asphalt, steady camera pan, filmic lens flares, 8K realism.”

This layering forces the model to create cinematic output rather than stock-like footage.