AI Daily — October 25, 2026
Models & Research
Kimi K3.1 Pro: Advancing Open AI for Coding, 3D Design, and Financial Research — Kimi’s K3.1 Pro adds stronger coding, 3D design, and financial research capabilities, with a one-million-token context window. Kimi reports fewer factual errors and performance approaching leading proprietary models. It is available through Kimi’s products and API, with model weights due November 4, 2026. KIMI ↗
My takeaway: TBH, I didn't expect another model from Kimi after Anthropic's distillation allegations against Moonshot AI, but Kimi has released a new frontier-level model. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, K3.1 Pro scores slightly higher than GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1, with lower input and output token prices than both. Kimi also reports strong capabilities in 3D modeling and cybersecurity. With 2.8 trillion total parameters, it would be impractical to run on a typical personal computer, but its weights are scheduled to be opened.
Block’s Dessa: A Conversational AI Trained Entirely on Human Speech — Block introduces Dessa, a voice AI trained from scratch on human conversations without text or pretrained models. It listens and speaks simultaneously, capturing emotion, laughter, and natural conversational timing. Block says it runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better. Early access is being offered to a small group of AI safety researchers. Block ↗
My takeaway: I listened to the voice demos, and I think these are by far the most human-sounding AI voices I've heard. They're surprisingly natural. According to Block, Dessa can run locally on a MacBook Pro with M4 Max chip. However, there's no general public access yet, and Block hasn't announced plans to release its weights.
FastH3 Omni: Faster Open-Source Video Generation with Synchronized Audio — Hao AI Lab introduces FastH3 Omni, a distilled MiniMax H3 model that generates video and synchronized audio from text, images, video clips, and voice references. HaoAILab ↗
My takeaway: A new video generation model based on MiniMax H3, FastH3 Omni, has been released. As its name implies, it is designed for fast video generation. It can run on an RTX 5090, but the reported real-time speeds were achieved on selected workloads using eight NVIDIA GB200 GPUs.
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in My Takeaway are my own personal opinions and general observations on industry trends. They are not intended to criticize, disparage, or make factual claims about any specific company, product, or platform. Any platform names mentioned are referenced solely for illustrative and informational purposes.