🌀 Markets Spin Out, AI Gets Awkward

Happy Tuesday. Wall Street’s spiraling like a toddler on espresso. Meta’s Maverick is playing peekaboo with the truth. Elon’s Grok 2? Quietly sliding into X like it’s auditioning for Love Is Blind.

Also: Zomato’s stock is up — because even in a market meltdown, paneer tikka never misses.

Let’s skip the fluff and merge into the smartest 3-minute read of your week.

What’s Merging Today:
• Meta’s Maverick model = benchmark-shamed 🎯
• Grok 2 leaks inside X's source code 🤖
• Zomato delivers (on the stock chart) 📈
• Merge Tools you’ll actually want to try 🛠️

📡 SIGNAL, NOT NOISE

Meta’s AI Just Pulled a “Trust Me, Bro”

Meta just pulled a power move straight out of the “Don’t Worry, It Works on My Machine” playbook. Last week, it claimed its new open-source LLM, Maverick, beat GPT-4 on LM Arena benchmarks — and the AI world leaned in. Until… people looked closer.

Turns out the version Meta used for those record-breaking benchmarks was a “special internal build” — meaning, the model that made headlines isn’t the one you actually get.

It’s like hyping up a restaurant with 5-star reviews… but when you show up, they hand you the kids' menu.

🤷‍♂️ That’s not just bad PR — it’s a warning shot in the open-source AI race. If your benchmark model and your downloadable model don’t match, you’re not open-sourcing… you’re open-faking.

💡 Takeaway: In the race for AI dominance, perception = power. But if the tools developers get don’t match the marketing deck, trust collapses fast. Meta might’ve won the headline. But it handed OpenAI a free credibility boost.

🧨 MERGE MARKETS

*Stock data as of market close on April 7, 2025. Crypto data as of 6:00 PM ET.

📈 Zomato
Up a modest 0.22%, but we’ll take it — especially after last week’s drama. After the surprise resignation of its food delivery COO, Zomato briefly dropped 10% in a single day. So yes, +0.22% today is like a warm samosa after a monsoon.
📊 YTD? Still down ~24%. But hey, the food still gets delivered.

📉 Trent Ltd.
Down 14.7%. Yikes. After a disappointing Q4 update, the Indian retail giant took a nosedive worthy of Olympic judging. Apparently, “high fashion” and “low earnings” don’t pair well.

🔍 Overall:
Markets flinched under tariff pressure — with the Dow taking the hit and AI keeping the NASDAQ alive (barely). Probably just AI stocks refusing to obey gravity. For now.

🤖 AI ON THE MOVE

Grok 2 Quietly Enters the Chat

Elon’s next-gen chatbot, Grok 2, just quietly slid into X’s backend codebase — no big launch, no press tour, just casually leaking itself like an overconfident intern with admin access.

Early signs point to deeper integration into the X platform, with Grok 2 offering real-time responses, contextual awareness, and (let’s be honest) likely some highly questionable opinions. Think ChatGPT, but trained in a bar fight. It knows your vibe. It just doesn’t care.

🧠 Built on xAI’s latest models, Grok 2 is designed to be snappier, sassier, and more aware of you. Imagine tweeting, and Grok just… replies. Not with facts. With vibes.

Here’s what we expect:

• 🔁 Auto-replies to trolls — with spicier comebacks than your group chat

• 🧵 Summaries of chaotic Threads so you don’t have to scroll for 12 minutes

• 🤝 Possible collaboration with Tesla Optimus so Grok can post and do laundry

💬 Prediction: Grok won’t dethrone ChatGPT, but it will probably become the first AI to get canceled and go viral in the same week.

🧠 Bonus Bytes:

• NVIDIA just gave Meta’s latest Llama models a turbo boost in inference speed. That means open-source AI is getting more powerful, faster — and cheaper to deploy at scale.

• Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus continues quietly eating into OpenAI’s market share. No drama. Just quietly being the teacher’s pet of AI models.

🧰 MERGE TOOLS

Fresh, fun, and actually useful:

• Operator (by OpenAI) 
  Your AI assistant now books appointments, fills forms, and clicks buttons — all in your browser. It's basically ChatGPT with a mouse.

• OpusClip
  Upload a video, and it spits out viral short-form clips with zero editing. Built for creators, lazy editors, and brands that want reach.

• Manus
  This AI agent handles complex tasks across sites — like building a website or analyzing stock data — all on autopilot.

• Superpowered
  The cleanest AI meeting notetaker in the game. Real-time summaries, action items, and zero "sorry, can you repeat that?"

• Mindgrasp
  Still a favorite — upload a doc, get flashcards, summaries, Q&A content. Feels like cheating. Is not.

Add these to your stack — your calendar, inbox, and sanity will thank you.

🛒 MERGE FINDS

New tech toys we haven’t featured — all AI-powered, all worth a look:

1. Samsung Galaxy S25 (with Gemini Live)
   Your camera now gives real-time suggestions for outfits, home setups, and more. Your mirror just got a co-pilot.

2. Limitless Pendant
   Coin-sized wearable that records convos and gives you feedback. Basically a tiny therapist with a transcript.

3. Withings BPM Vision
   FDA-approved blood pressure monitor with app integration. Health tracking without the annoying straps.

4. Halliday AI Glasses
   Lightweight specs that display messages, translations, and directions without looking like a cyborg.

5. Petal by Bird Buddy
   An AI garden cam that identifies plants, bugs, and garden vibes in real time. Green thumbs get analytics now.

💡 We only recommend stuff we love.

🗞️ WHAT ELSE IS MERGING

• 📱 Microsoft Copilot Levels Up
  Copilot is getting smarter — with memory, multi-step task automation, and deeper integration across Windows and mobile.

• 🏬 UK Retail Icons Shutting Down
  Legacy shops like Uncle Sam’s Vintage and B.D. Price are closing as rising costs and low foot traffic batter UK retail.

• 🏛️ White House Eases AI Adoption Rules
  New policy gives federal agencies more flexibility to integrate AI and boost innovation.

• 🎮 Microsoft x Activision = Official
  The blockbuster deal closes — Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard. Let the franchise wars begin.

• 🚀 NVIDIA Goes Quantum
  Teaming up with Harvard + MIT, NVIDIA is going deep on quantum computing. Big brains. Big chips.​

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