Whats up whats uppp!
Why you're getting this: I'm sharing some tools and approaches we use at Sidetool and personally. I think you'll find them useful.
Zero pressure to stick around, just click unsubscribe if this isn't for you.
Let's get into it.
What I've been using
Cursor Visual Editor
For months I've been hearing "no-code is dying." And honestly, I think there's truth to it. But not in the way most people think.
Cursor just launched Visual Editor.
You can drag and drop elements, click on anything and say something like "make this header larger".
Here's the thing: making changes through code can be tricky sometimes.
You want to move a button, you have to find the right file, the right component, change the CSS. With Visual Editor, you just drag it.
But it's not no-code. It's still Cursor. You can switch between visual edits and code edits whenever you want.
I think this is the perfect blend between no-code and vibe coding. AI for speed and manual control for precision. Not one or the other, both.
Claude Code async subagents
Claude Code now supports async subagents. You can spin up a task that runs in the background, and it keeps working even after your main task finishes. When it's done, it wakes up your main agent.
This is great for long-running stuff, waiting for builds, monitoring logs, running tests. You're not blocked anymore.
They also added instant compact (context compression in seconds), session renaming, and usage stats with /stats.
If like me, you've been using Claude Code a lot lately, you know this is huge.
A couple of people asked me about my current setup on the last newsletter. If you want a breakdown of my setup too, just reply.
What caught my attention this week
GPT-5.2 dropped
Last Tuesday I mentioned ChatGPT was launching a new model in response to Gemini 3.
Now, GPT-5.2 is out.
There are three versions: Instant (fast, for everyday stuff), Thinking (for coding and complex work), and Pro (maximum accuracy).
The context window is now 400k tokens and knowledge cutoff is August 2025.
According to OpenAI's benchmarks below, GPT-5.2 Thinking edges out both Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5 in most reasoning tests.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft are working together
This one caught me off guard.
These four companies, who are literally competing for AI dominance, just launched the Agentic AI Foundation together.
The goal?
Create open standards for AI agents.
They're calling it "USB-C for AI", a universal way for agents to talk to each other across platforms.
Anthropic donated MCP (Model Context Protocol) to the project. OpenAI contributed their AGENTS.md standard.
AWS, Cloudflare, and Bloomberg are also involved.
Why does this matter? Because right now, every AI agent is a walled garden. If this works, your Claude agent could talk to a GPT agent could talk to a Gemini agent. Payments, authentication, workflows, all interoperable.
I'm skeptical it'll be that clean, but the fact that these companies are even trying is a big deal.
Trump signed an executive order on AI
If you're building with AI in the US, this matters.
Trump signed an executive order that blocks states from enforcing their own AI regulations. Instead, there will be a single national framework.
The reasoning: companies shouldn't have to comply with 50 different state laws. California alone passed a dozen AI laws this year.
The regulatory landscape just changed.
Disney is putting $1B into OpenAI
Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year deal. Disney is investing $1 billion and licensing 200+ characters for Sora.
That means you'll be able to generate videos with Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, Iron Man, Simba, characters from Frozen, Toy Story, Marvel, all of it.
It's the first time a major content company has done a deal like this with an AI company. No talent likenesses or voices (yet), but still, this is a big shift.
Rolling out early 2026. Disney+ will even stream some fan-created Sora videos.
AI is changing how we work, and I'm here for it.
Wanted to thank Ben Robinson for sharing this newsletter with his network. Ben runs Playbook Systems, and they were key in building Sidetool's GTM. Check them out at playbooksystems.io.
By the way, I like to shout out everyone helping us grow. So if you share this with a friend and they subscribe, just let me know, you're in the next one.
That's it for this week.
If you try any of these, or have thoughts on what's happening, reply. I read everything.
-Ed
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