🍭 AI Took Over the FDA (And a Car Dealership) 🚘

Good morning. The FDA just launched an AI tool named Elsa and apparently forgot to test if it can read.

Meanwhile, two startup founders hit the road, got covered in motor oil, and ended up raising $17M from a16z.

Let’s dig in.

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🍭 What’s Cookin’:

• FDA’s AI rolled out early and is already hallucinating

• Voice agents: taking over car dealerships

• Building alone sucks

• 5 AI Tools for devs, creatives, and productivity

• And Everything Else….

OpenAI
🎥 FDA AI Rollout: “Glitchcore Bureaucracy”

The Bite: The FDA launched an agency-wide AI tool called Elsa.

It was weeks ahead of schedule.

And now staff are calling it buggy, rushed, and wildly overhyped.


Snacks: 

🍭 Elsa is a Claude-based LLM, built by Deloitte for $28.5M  

🍭 FDA leadership claimed it would cut review time and boost productivity  

🍭 Internal testing showed wrong answers on public FDA data  

🍭 Staff say Elsa lacks guardrails and is only fit for admin tasks 

🍭 Rushed launch tied to budget cuts and a directive from Trump’s DOGE group  

🍭 The rollout scaled a pilot called CDER-GPT, killing off other internal tools

Why it bites: The FDA just replaced peer-reviewed protocol with ChatGPT-in-a-labcoat.

And didn’t check if it could pass 5th grade science.

If this is how we regulate meds, we’re one bug away from prescribing Pop Rocks for cancer.

🍭 Steal this Prompt
🧊 Your Favorite Icon, Recast in Glass

This minimalist prompt gives anyone — tech founders, artists, meme characters — the high-end art toy treatment.

You’ve seen AI make Pixar portraits and LEGO versions. But what if your subject became a collectible glass figurine?

📦 Output: A studio-lit, crystal-clear designer figurine on a museum pedestal

1. Get the prompt here

2. Paste into GPT 4o

3. Replace “#” with your subject

4. Get a gallery-worthy figurine every time

🍭 Try the prompt on Snack Prompt 🍭

Cold Calls to Corvettes
🚗 How Toma's AI Took Over Dealerships

The Bite: AI voice startup Toma pivoted from fintech to car dealerships.

And ended up raising $17M from a16z.

Snacks: 

🍭 Toma voice agents now run at 100+ dealerships 

🍭 Helps with scheduling, parts, sales calls, and promotions  

🍭 Founders toured the South, fixed phones, ate barbecue, got grease-stained  

🍭 Dealers responded with home-cooked meals and even a shooting range invite  

🍭 a16z says founders “lived and breathed” with customers  

🍭 YC-born startup now operates on a usage-based SaaS model

Why it bites: In this story, AI isn’t replacing humans.

It’s bonding with them over smoked brisket and diesel filters.

The next wave of vertical AI isn’t just techy.

It’s sweaty, scrappy, and weirdly charming.

Expect to see voice AI to be the next trend (it already is).

Big Biz
📞 Don’t Build Alone

The Bite: Every week, a few smart builders show up and jam on real stuff.

Snacks:

→ Someone’s refining a deck

→ Someone’s wiring up a KMS to manage their, or their clients, Knowledge Base

→ Someone’s testing the automation we gave away last week

No gurus.

No upsells.

Just builders trading shortcuts, stumbles, and wins.

Why it Bites: Trying to do this solo? Respect.

But you’re probably wasting time someone else already solved.

Everything Else
🧠 You Need to Know

X blocks AI model training with its content

→ X updated its API rules to ban AI model training on its data. Just in time for Musk’s xAI to start hoarding it.

Sundar Pichai downplays AI job losses

→ Alphabet’s CEO called AI an “accelerator” and said layoffs won’t stop innovation — just don’t ask Cloud or Pixel teams.

U.S. still leads global AI VC funding (somehow)

→ Despite Trump’s chaos North America pulled in 86% of AI VC cash in 2025. Europe and Asia? Not even close.

Hugging Face launches laptop-ready robotics model

→ SmolVLA runs on a MacBook and controls actual robot arms. Small model, big ambition, mildly terrifying.

Gemini 2.5 Pro gets smarter, sassier, and open for devs

→ Google’s newest model hit new Elo highs and now autocompletes better than your brain on 3 hours of sleep.

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Simulation testing for hallucinations, failures, and tool flops. Like QA, but with trauma bonding.

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Delegate your most annoying to-dos to AI. No loops, no tantrums, just results.

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Just drag, drop, note. Users will finally tell you what’s broken — and how you broke it.

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