ChatGPT's new image engine promises a host of improvements including better typography, access to the web and an ability to reason. So Axios put it to the test.

Why it matters: Past image engines have proved initially popular with consumers, but had enough flaws to prevent broader use in business.

Catch up quick: ChatGPT Images 2.0 is now live in the app and supports a wide range of aspect ratios and comes in both standard and a "thinking" mode with built-in reasoning.

• All users will have access to the standard version of the image model, while the thinking mode is reserved for paid subscribers.

Zoom in: In the day that I have had access, I gave the new model a wide range of tasks.

• A friend asked me to make a memorial image of her recently deceased cat along with two favorite toys. It crafted an image that looked like a highly personalized sympathy card.
• It elegantly took two photos from my wedding and made it appear as if they were in an old-style photo album with photo corners.
• My colleagues suggested a poster for a fictional event. I decided to create a Mike Allen look-alike contest in Washington Square Park this Sunday. (Of course, it's only fictional if no one shows up.)

It also made a handy infographic making "the case against candy corn" which I used unsuccessfully to convince two colleagues that the treat, which is neither candy nor corn, is also not good.

• I used it to "clean up" my bedroom, which was filled with gadgets, Legos and clothes. I uploaded a picture of the room with all my mess and it showed what it would look like without my stuff everywhere. I was shocked by how much space we could have, but my partner saw it as a tease and said to let him know when ChatGPT could actually clean the room.
• It also excelled at turning pictures of me playing softball and my 13-year-old playing soccer into trading cards complete with name, position and team logo, extracted from our uniforms.

Yes, but: When I asked it to create a faux newspaper — the "Smart Brevity Times" based on the latest Axios headlines — it first used old articles rather than pulling from today's news.

• A second try got the latest stories, but looked more like a mock-up than a finished newspaper.
• And some of its creations were less than elegant. A mahjong cheat sheet I asked for was accurate but lacked polish.
• Also, it pays to plan ahead. All that added reasoning means that images can take quite a while to produce.

Robinhood's venture fund closed a $75 million investment in OpenAI on April 17.

Why it matters: It's the clearest avenue yet for retail investors to get access to shares of the AI giant before it goes public.

Driving the news: Robinhood Ventures Fund I, ticker RVI, acts as something of a mutual fund retail investors can buy into, but it contains shares of private companies.

• Those companies include some of the biggest names expected to IPO at some point in the coming years if not sooner, including Databricks, Stripe, Ramp, Oura, and now OpenAI.
• Shares are up 12% pre-market on the news.

Zoom out: Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told Axios last year that he thinks the company's ability to democratize investment in private companies could be its biggest move ever.

• That's saying something given the degree to which Robinhood broke the retail investing model in the first place by bringing fee-free trading to mobile devices.
• The fund has no minimum to invest, no accreditation requirement or performance fee, though it does carry a 3.13% expense ratio according to stats on the Robinhood app.

Reality check: At OpenAI's current post-money valuation of $852 billion, the $75 million would equate to less than one share. (Axios has reached out to confirm the purchase price.)

• Retail traders can also gain access to OpenAI shares through a couple of other funds, including Cathie Wood's ARK Invest.

Flashback: OpenAI and Robinhood had a kerfuffle last year, when Robinhood said it had tokenized shares of the AI business. But OpenAI said no equity transfer had been approved Axios' Lucinda Shen reported.

• Robinhood later said those shares were held in a special-purpose vehicle, and that they aren't technically equity.
• Now, Robinhood is an enterprise customer of OpenAI.

The bottom line: As OpenAI gets closer to potentially going public, retail investors are clamoring for access to shares.

• They're getting it on the very platforms they've called home for years.

Google today announced a new generation of its Tensor chips with separate options for training and inference along with a consolidated enterprise platform.

Why it matters: Google is in a pitched battle with Amazon and Microsoft to be the cloud provider of choice for AI workloads.

Driving the news: Google announced its eighth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which will come in two flavors — one for training new models and the other for near-real-time answers to user queries.

• Google also announced its Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, incorporating what had been Vertex AI (including access to Gemini and third-party models), plus new security, governance and orchestration features.
• It's pitching Gemini Enterprise as more ready for the needs of large businesses than Anthropic's Cowork and other agentic software.
• The announcements came as the company kicks off its Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas.

The big picture: Most of the major AI players are either already creating their own chips or standing up efforts to do so, with Google and Amazon several generations in.

• SpaceX said yesterday it agreed to a deal with AI coding startup Cursor that could result in an acquisition or $10 billion investment. (Axios)
• Shrinking the trade deficit and winning the AI race rank high on President Trump's economic agenda — but those aims are pulling in opposite directions, as AI-related products get a lighter tariff treatment. (Axios)
• Scoop: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency doesn't have access to Anthropic's powerful new Mythos Preview model, even though some other government agencies are using it. (Axios)

Here is the remembrance that ChatGPT's new image model created for Mouse, who was indeed a wonderful furball and will be missed.