Welcome back to Daily Zaps, your regularly-scheduled dose of AI news ⚡️ 

Here’s what we got for ya today:

• Results from analyzing 37.5 million Copilot conversations

• Edit with Photoshop in ChatGPT

• DeepSeek is using banned Blackwell AI chips

• Meta shifts from Llamas to Avocados

Let’s get right into it!

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Microsoft Copilot Usage Report 2025

Microsoft’s new “Copilot Usage Report 2025,” based on 37.5 million de-identified conversations from January to September, shows a sharp divide in how people use the AI assistant across devices: desktop users rely on Copilot mainly for work, technical, science, and education questions during business hours, while mobile users overwhelmingly turn to it for health and fitness advice around the clock, treating it less like a search engine and more like a private personal adviser. The study finds that usage has broadened over time, with fewer programming queries and more cultural and general-interest topics, reflecting adoption beyond early technical users.

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Edit with Photoshop in ChatGPT

Adobe is bringing Photoshop, Adobe Express and Acrobat directly into ChatGPT, allowing anyone to edit photos, create designs and work with PDFs using familiar Adobe tools without needing a ChatGPT or Adobe subscription. Users simply start a prompt with the bolded name of the Adobe app, after which Photoshop offers pop-up sliders for hands-on adjustments like exposure changes or visual effects, Express enables quick creation of editable graphics such as flyers or posters, and Acrobat maintains PDF formatting while allowing edits or document combining.

The integrations are simplified versions aimed at ChatGPT users rather than creative professionals, with Adobe’s software doing the actual editing behind the scenes while ChatGPT serves as the interface.

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DeepSeek is using banned Blackwell AI chips

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup behind the R1 reasoning model, has been secretly developing its next major AI system using several thousand of Nvidia’s banned Blackwell chips that were smuggled into China through a complex scheme involving foreign data centers, dismantled servers, and false customs declarations. This workaround highlights the difficulty the U.S. faces enforcing export controls given Nvidia’s global manufacturing and reseller networks, and it gives DeepSeek access to cutting-edge hardware that keeps it competitive despite China’s weaker domestic AI chips.

While DeepSeek continues experimenting with sparse attention to cut inference costs, the method has slowed development of its next-generation model, which some employees hope to release by February. The company still relies heavily on Nvidia GPUs for large models, making Chinese alternatives inefficient, even as it adopts Huawei chips for smaller systems. Its use of smuggled chips has drawn strong scrutiny from Washington, where lawmakers call the firm a national security threat.

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Meta shifts from Llamas to Avocados

Meta’s once-bold bet on open-source AI models like Llama has shifted toward a costly, high-pressure race to catch up with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, as the company faces internal turbulence, leadership reshuffling, and investor concerns. After Llama 4 underwhelmed and rivals surged ahead, Mark Zuckerberg began pivoting away from open source and toward a proprietary frontier model called Avocado, now expected in early 2026, while launching a multibillion-dollar hiring spree led by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang and other high-profile recruits.

Meanwhile, Meta’s core ad business remains strong, but its AI products like Vibes lag behind competitors, further increasing pressure to deliver a breakthrough as the company pours tens of billions into AI infrastructure and talent in hopes of reclaiming momentum in the rapidly evolving AI race.