EP36: Browser Wars Heat Up, What AI Can Learn from AOL, Anthropic's Speedy New AI Model, Simple Path to Better Prompts

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little discuss how new AI browsers are changing how genealogists research. They compare OpenAI's Atlas, Microsoft Edge, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity's Comet, explaining which features help family historians most.The hosts share lessons from the early AOL era that can be applied to the AI era. They also explore Anthropic's new Haiku 4.5, a very fast model that works great for simple tasks like transcription and summarization.Don’t miss this week's Tip of the Week, where Steve shows how AI can help you write better AI prompts. He uses an example for extracting information from draft cards to show how useful this approach can be.In RapidFire, they cover new AI features in spreadsheets, major improvements in transcribing old handwriting, and how Microsoft Copilot's new agent store tries to help you with common tasks.Timestamps:In the News:01:20 Browser Wars Heat Up: OpenAI Atlas, Edge, and Gemini Compete16:50 What AI Can Learn from AOL: Avoiding Walled Garden Mistakes29:10 Anthropic's Haiku 4.5: When Smaller Models Beat Bigger OnesTip of the Week:39:50 Using AI to Write Better Prompts for Historical DocumentsRapidFire:47:19 AI Makes Spreadsheets Easier: Google Sheets vs Excel54:35 Reading Old Handwriting Gets Better: DeepSeek and Google Updates01:05:15 Microsoft Copilot Adds Writing and Prompt CoachesResource Links:Genealogy and AI Facebook to hit 20k users! https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogyandaiAn In-Depth Look at OpenAI's AI Browserhttps://intuitionlabs.ai/articles/chatgpt-atlas-openai-browserDeepSeek AI created DeepSeek-OCR https://www.infoq.com/news/2025/10/deepseek-ocr/Nearly perfect on handwriting recognition https://generativehistory.substack.com/p/has-google-quietly-solved-two-ofGlobal AI Browser Market Sizehttps://market.us/report/ai-browser-market/Benchmarking Claude Haiku 4.5 and Sonnet 4.5 on 400 Real PRshttps://www.qodo.ai/blog/thinking-vs-thinking-benchmarking-claude-haiku-4-5-and-sonnet-4-5-on-400-real-prs/Anthropic’s Claude Haiku 4.5 Brings Enterprise-Grade Speed and Savings to Customer-Facing AIhttps://www.cxtoday.com/contact-center/anthropics-claude-haiku-4-5-brings-enterprise-grade-speed-and-savings-to-customer-facing-ai/Top 10 AI Spreadsheet Toolshttps://www.knack.com/blog/top-ai-spreadsheet-tools/Prompt Coach: Prebuilt agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chathttps://rishonapowerplatform.com/2025/03/11/prompt-coach-prebuilt-agent-for-microsoft-365-copilot-chat/Tags:Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, AI Browsers, OpenAI Atlas, Google Gemini, Microsoft Edge, Perplexity Comet, Anthropic Haiku, Meta-Prompting, Spreadsheet AI, OCR Technology, Handwritten Text, DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, AI Agents, Document Extraction, Family History, Browser Wars, AI Models