🍿 Google's new AI video tool just launched. I made you a PDF with 5 family ideas.

Happy Sunday folks!

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Big AI launch this week from Google, plus a bedtime ritual with the kids that I have to share.

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In this week's email:

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• 🍿 Gemini Omni launched. We made a giraffe-elephant. What it costs and 5 family ideas to try first.
• 🇨🇴 The Colombia countdown ritual that's teaching Mateo and Maria more than school is right now.
• 📺 New YouTube video went live just after last week's email.

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🍿 Our giraffe-elephant and Google's $7.99 question

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Google launched Gemini Omni on Tuesday, replacing their AI video model Veo 3.1. By Wednesday the internet was full of "omnianimal" videos, AI-generated hybrid creatures like chicken-dogs and squirrel-sharks, all rendered in convincing shaky-cam realism.

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The kids loved them. We picked our own combination: a giraffe with the body of an elephant, on a savannah.

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Friday night, I opened the Gemini app to give it a go. The reply: "I'm here to help, but you'll need to upgrade your subscription first."

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Confirmed: in Ireland and the UK at least, Omni at launch sits behind Google AI Plus, $7.99 a month, with a free trial usually offered on signup. I took the trial.

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The model is impressive. Characters stay consistent across edits and the 10-second cap suits a young kid's attention span. Worth the trial for a weekend of family experimenting.

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My full review here.

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I also built an easy to follow PDF with 5 family ideas if you get access to the new model.

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🇨🇴 14 evenings. 14 infographics. One bedtime ritual.

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We are two weeks out from a family holiday to Colombia, and I have accidentally stumbled into the best bedtime ritual we have had in months.

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Every evening before bed, I open ChatGPT Images 2.0 and generate a single infographic. Five new facts about Colombia, laid out like a primary school poster. We read it together. Then the kids take turns putting a thick X through today's date on the kitchen calendar. One day closer.

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They genuinely look forward to it. Maria asks me each night what tomorrow’s facts will be. Mateo is now correcting me on Colombian geography. By the time we land in Medellin, they will have absorbed 70 facts about the country without anyone ever calling it homework.

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It’s exactly the kind of ritual I write about in my new guide:

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👉 Is there a kids version of ChatGPT? (The honest answer)​

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The most practical guide I’ve published this year. It walks through which AI tools are right for kids at each age: what Mateo (8) uses with supervision, what Maria (6) plays solo, the safety rules I actually use in our house, and the products to skip even when they market themselves as “kid-friendly.”

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If you find AI overwhelming as a parent, this is the one to bookmark.

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P.S. The exact Colombia infographic prompt + the bonus 'Where’s Wally' trick (one illustrated scene with 100 hidden items) are activities #4 and #6 in our ChatGPT Images 2.0 round-up.

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📺 In case you missed it: The Claude Artifacts video from last week is now live

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The video went live just after last week's email, so most of you will not have seen it.

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Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSqcXd-GkIo​

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[Honest caveat: the audio is not great. I am still learning the video side but I have a new audio set-up for the next one which will be much better.]

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If you find it useful, subscribing to the channel is the biggest help right now: https://www.youtube.com/@AIDadLab. Every subscriber makes the next video easier to justify.

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That's it for this week. Lots more content coming next week.

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Have a great rest of your weekend.

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Niall (AI Dad Lab)

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