AI This Week - So What? and Who Cares?

Week of October 17th, 2025

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Okay, some of you are asking for my take on the week. So here you go, a little later on Sunday, but better late than never.

The past week delivered a few breakthroughs I thought I should cover. That could be reshaping both AI infrastructure and Customer Success operations. OpenAI’s Sora 2 launch brings video generation to commercial scale with synchronized audio capabilities, while Ant Group’s trillion-parameter Ling-1T model challenges Western AI dominance in coding and mathematics. Infrastructure spending hit unprecedented levels—$40 billion AI data centre deals (this has me concerned) and multi-gigawatt power commitments signalling enterprises doubling down despite mounting costs. Yet, insurers are pulling back from AI risk coverage, forcing CFOs to rethink budget provisioning and governance frameworks. Model indemnification is a major part of your AI Governance strategy!

In the Customer Success domain, AI-powered platforms from Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle are redefining account management with agentic workflows, predictive churn detection, and autonomous task execution. The convergence is clear: CFOs demand measurable ROI, CS teams need automation at scale, and the insurance industry’s hesitance underscores the urgency of ethical governance. This briefing cuts through the noise to spotlight what actually matters for practitioners building sustainable, cost-effective AI and CSM practices.

OpenAI Sora 2 Launches with Advanced Video Generation

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So What?

OpenAI released Sora 2 on September 30, 2025, marking a significant leap in AI video generation. The model produces up to 25-second videos (for Pro users) with cinema-quality realism, synchronized dialogue, sound effects, and lip-sync accuracy. The platform introduced Cameos, allowing users to insert personalized footage, and functions as a social creation hub where users can remix, share, and explore community-generated content. Sora 2 demonstrates improved physics simulation—accurately modelling motion trajectories, buoyancy, lighting, and object interactions—while supporting diverse artistic styles from live-action to anime and clay animation. The model is currently invite-only and available in the US and Canada through apps and web interfaces.

Who Cares?

• CS Leaders and Product Teams: Sora 2 enables scalable production of personalized customer onboarding videos, training materials, and product demonstrations without traditional video production costs. CS teams can create customized walkthrough content for different customer segments, accelerating time-to-value and improving engagement metrics.

• Marketing and Enablement: The ability to generate context-aware educational content at scale transforms how organizations approach customer education programs, particularly for complex B2B products requiring visual explanation.

• Budgetary Impact: While currently free with generous limits, enterprise adoption will eventually require ChatGPT Pro subscriptions at $200/month per user, demanding CFO evaluation of content production ROI versus traditional video production costs.