Another week, another wave of AI breakthroughs. Here’s everything worth knowing in this edition of The AI Loop.

‍

Perle Labs Updates

This week at Perle Labs, we introduced AudioQuest, a new beta task that helps train AI to understand natural human speech. Contributors record ten short voice clips, which go through QA before earning points for approved submissions.

‍

The beta platform is expanding quickly as more contributors explore tasks across audio, vision, and text. Learn more about AudioQuest here, and keep an eye out for new task types launching soon.

‍

We also crossed 100,000 followers on X, a huge milestone for our community. Thank you to everyone who has joined us on this mission to scale verified human expertise for smarter AI.

‍

‍

Top Stories

SoftBank bets $3B on modular data centers for OpenAI

SoftBank is investing $3 billion to convert an Ohio electric vehicle plant into a production hub for modular data centers designed specifically for OpenAI. The factory will assemble portable, pre-built units destined for OpenAI’s upcoming data centers, including the massive site planned in Milam County, Texas as part of the $500 billion Stargate initiative with Oracle.

‍

The investment signals SoftBank’s deeper move into AI infrastructure as demand for compute accelerates. These modular centers are expected to support OpenAI’s next wave of US expansion and help scale the infrastructure needed for increasingly powerful models.

Source: Reuters

‍

Uber and Starship launch AI robot couriers in the UK

Uber is taking a major leap into autonomous logistics with a new partnership that brings Starship Technologies’ delivery robots to Leeds and Sheffield. Starting in December, Uber Eats customers in both cities will start receiving food orders from Starship’s AI-powered robots, each equipped with cameras, sensors, and navigation systems built for real-world streets.

‍

The robots operate with Level 4 autonomy, allowing them to complete deliveries without human intervention inside approved areas. This rollout marks one of the most ambitious robot delivery deployments in Europe and signals Uber’s push toward an automated last-mile delivery future.

Source: Yahoo Finance

‍

OpenAI releases GPT-5.1 with major reasoning upgrades

OpenAI just unveiled GPT-5.1, and both versions mark a clear step forward. Instant feels faster and more human in conversation, while Thinking handles complex reasoning with far more confidence. Paid users got the first look, with the update quickly reaching everyone else.

‍

One of the standout features is that GPT-5.1 Instant now knows when to “slow down and think,” balancing speed with accuracy. The Thinking version delivers cleaner, easier-to-read explanations, which makes it perfect for research, work, and learning. 

Source: Open AI

‍

Quick Bites

Meta open-sources omnilingual ASR  for 1,600+ languages

Meta’s FAIR team released Omnilingual ASR, a major breakthrough in speech recognition that supports over 1,600 languages, including many low-resource ones. The model adapts with very little data, opening the door to better accessibility, cultural preservation, and global reach. 

Source: Meta

‍

AI startups pull in more than $3.5B in early November

Funding continues to flow into AI. Startups raised more than $3.5 billion in the first half of November alone. Highlights include:

‍

• Metropolis with $500M for AI-powered parking and payments
• Armis with $435M for AI security
• Beacon with $250M for vertical SaaS AI

Source: Tech Startups

‍

Stay in the Loop

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of The AI Loop. We’ll return next week with the biggest developments and the stories worth paying attention to.

‍

Join the Perle Labs community on X, Discord, and Telegram to stay connected and catch the next drop of insights from across the ecosystem.