🐭 Your Team's AI Refused to Finish the Job. It Was Right...

Hey Explorers!

Picture this: an AI agent picks one of 19 gene therapies, starts brain surgery on a mouse, and then the connection drops. It recalibrates, checks its math again, and flat out refuses to keep going.

Oh, and it was right. Someone had nudged the rig during a pause, and the only fix was rewriting the code by hand... with the mouse still under anesthesia.

Here's the signal that matters 👇🏼

🐭 An AI Started Brain Surgery on a Mouse. Then It Refused to Finish
Exin Therapeutics gave Claude Sonnet 5 a list of 19 gene therapies, an epilepsy mouse and a motorized surgical rig, with one instruction: reduce the seizures. It picked the drug, the brain region and the coordinates while a vet held the kill switch. After a dropped connection, it said the target was out of range and wouldn't continue, even after recalibrating. It was right, and the CEO had to fix the code by hand. The bigger Opus models refused the job from the start. (The Decoder)

🌯 AI Agents Have Ordered Several Hundred DoorDash Meals. Total
DoorDash CEO Tony Xu told analysts that third-party AI agents have sent "maybe several hundred orders in total" since they started. DoorDash averages more than 3 million deliveries a day in the US. Xu's read: for something as simple as dinner, people still open the app, and the hard part is making sure the food shows up right. He still sees room for agents on bigger, slower purchases... and maybe ads inside them. (TechCrunch)

✍️ His AI Writes the Draft. It Leaves a Blank for His Opinion
Nat Eliason built an AI writing system in one Claude Code session, trained on about 44,000 words of his own writing. One model writes, another judges, and it stops after three rounds of fixes because more rounds sand the voice flat. His quality score is how much he edits: about 7% of the words on his first pieces, down to 3%, with two of three posts going out untouched. When a source doesn't include his take, it leaves "[NAT: your take]" instead of guessing. (X)

🍁 A Maple Syrup Brand Took Meta's AI Ad Advice. Purchases Jumped 57%
Meta's ad revenue grew 26% last quarter to $63.1 billion, while Google's search business grew 12%. Part of the reason is the AI assistant inside Meta's Ads Manager. Advertisers who took its recommendations got almost 5% more conversions, Meta's CFO said, and Simply Organic Maple saw purchases jump 57% while cost per purchase fell 36%. Nearly 10 million advertisers used at least one Meta AI tool in the quarter. Those are Meta's numbers, so run your own test before moving budget. (CNBC)

🎧 Spotify Wants You to Remix Your Favorite Song. For About $5 More a Month
Spotify is aiming for early 2027 to launch an AI add-on that lets Premium users make covers and remixes of songs from artists who opt in, per the FT. Think a folk song turned into a dance track. It's weighing $4 to $5 a month on top of Premium. The original artists get paid and credited, and remix plays count toward their spot on Spotify's charts. UMG, Merlin, Kobalt and Believe have signed. Sony and Warner are still negotiating. (Music Business Worldwide)

📰 Axios Is Betting You'll Pay for News a Human Checked
Axios laid out its plan for 2028, and it assumes everyone has genius-level AI. Its bet is that generic news withers while human-verified information gets more valuable. So it's building an AI system that tracks local government and events for its 100+ local reporters, launching newsletters by job title (CEO, CMO, CFO) because people tell AI what they do, and selling clean real-time news feeds to companies building their own models. When AI hands out the generic answer, the verified, specific one is what people pay for. (Axios)

We’re teaming up with Northeastern University Miami on the Miami Innovation Academy, a five-week fellowship for 15 to 20 early-stage Miami founders.

You get expert-led workshops and one-on-one mentorship, plus direct access to industry leaders, investors and a seriously strong peer network. It's all focused on what it takes to grow: fundraising strategy, scaling operations, building the organization and leading as a founder.

The track record speaks for itself. More than 75 alumni ventures have raised about $180M together, including Exowatt's $120M Series A.

Applications close Friday, November 13.

👉🏼 Apply to Miami Innovation Academy

Fair warning: after this one, your garage is getting a 3D scan... whether it's clean or not.

This week's pick: my office is complete
Wes Bos built his own iPhone app to capture photos and lidar, then had Codex stitch it all into a 3D model of his house. The scanner, the viewer and the skill are all on GitHub, so you can point it at your own space this weekend. (Watch on Purple Horizons TV)

That mouse surgery is coming to your company too. It'll just be a refund queue or a product launch instead of a mouse.

The guardrails will probably work. The real question is who on your team can step in when they fire, and whether that person knows it's them.

Your move this week: pick one AI workflow your team runs and answer three things. What makes it stop? Who's allowed to restart it? And how fast can they get there?

We run working sessions with executive teams on exactly this: which jobs go to AI, where a human signs off, and who holds the kill switch.

Want one for your team?

Hit us up. We can help.

👉🏼 Work with Purple Horizons

Signal over noise. Always.

Ralph & Gianni

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Start with:

Each guide gives you the key ideas, real examples, and how to apply them at work.

Start learning!

📍 11/4 WIRED World Fair @ The Sacred Space in Wynwood (Use code PURPLEHORIZONS15 for 15% off)

📍 11/10 Cafecito & Pastelitos @ Chug’s in Coconut Grove

📍 12/1 South Miami Tech Tuesdays @ Bougies in South Miami

European Startups in Miami (Nov 10–14): Eight startups, from AI and cybersecurity to biotech and sports tech, are coming to Miami for Pitches and Palms, a new accelerator week for European founders. They’re looking for US investors, customers and partners. Meet them at three FREE evenings co-hosted with EVO VC & Startups Community. Expect speakers from Amazon, MIT, EY and private equity, plus Miami VCs, angels and more:

- Pitch Night (Tue 11/10, 6–9 PM, The LAB Miami): all eight teams pitch to VC and angel judges, including Hilmon Sorey (The Source Groups), Ryan Pruitt (Ocean Azul Partners) and Ksenia Moskalenko (Florida Funders). RSVP: https://luma.com/iwqcd866

- Panel Night (Thu 11/12, 6–9 PM, The LAB Miami): founders and speakers share the stage on US go-to-market and AI. RSVP: https://luma.com/xzkoi8hp

- Mixer Night (Sat 11/14, 7–10 PM, Nusr-Et Steakhouse, Brickell): drinks, no slides. Make new friends and catch up with old ones. RSVP: https://luma.com/41z8fimu

Check out all the startups and speakers: https://www.pitchesandpalms.com/

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