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For the past three years, AIs breakout moment has happened almost entirely through text. We type a prompt, get a response, and move to the next task. While this intuitive interaction style turned chatbots into a household tool overnight, it barely scratches the surface of what the most advanced technology of our time can actually do. This disconnect has created a significant gap in how consumers utilize AI. While the underlying models are rapidly becoming multimodalcapable of processing voice, visuals, and video in real timemost consumers are still using them as a search engine. Looking toward 2026, I believe the next wave of adoption wont be about utility alone, but about evolving beyond static text into dynamic, immersive interactions. This is AI 2.0: not just retrieving information faster, but experiencing intelligence through sound, visuals, motion, and real-time context. AI adoption has reached a tipping point. In 2025, ChatGPTs weekly user base doubled from roughly 400 million in February to 800 million by years end. Competitors like Gemini and Anthropic saw similar growth, yet most users still engage with LLMs primarily via text chatbots. In fact, Deloittes Connected Consumer Survey shows that despite over half (53%) of consumers experimenting with generative AI, most people still relegate AI to administrative tasks like writing, summarizing, and researching. Yet when you look at the digital behavior of consumers outside of AI, its clear consumers crave immersive experiences. According to Activate Consultings Tech & Media Outlook 2026, 43% of Gen Z prefer user-generated platforms like TikTok and YouTube over traditional TV or paid streaming, and they spend 54% more time on social video platforms than the average consumer, abandoning traditional media for interactive social platforms. This creates a fundamental mismatch: Consumers live in a multi-sensory world, but their AI tools are stuck delivering plain text. While the industry recognizes this gap and is investing to close it, I predict well see a fundamental shift in how people use and create with AI. In AI 2.0, users will no longer simply consume AI-generated content but will instead leverage multimodal AI to bring voice, visuals, and text together, allowing them to shape and direct their experiences in real time. MULTIMODAL AI UNLOCKS IMMERSIVE STORYTELLING If AI 1.0 was about efficiency, AI 2.0 is about engagement. While text-based AI is limited in how deeply it can engage audiences, multimodal AI allows the user to become an active participant. Instead of reading a story, you can interact with a main character and take the plot in a new direction or build your own world where narratives and characters evolve with you. We can look to the $250 billion gaming industry as the blueprint for the potential that multimodal AI has. Video games combine visuals, audio, narrative, and real-time agency, creating an immersive experience that traditional entertainment cant replicate. Platforms like Roblox and Minecraft let players inhabit content. Roblox alone reaches over 100 million daily users, who collectively spend tens of billions of hours a year immersed in these worlds; engagement that text alone could never generate. With the rise of multimodal AI, users everywhere will be able to create these types of experiences theyve loved to participate in through gaming. By removing technical barriers, multimodal allows everyone to build experiences that not only feel authentic to the real world but also actively participate in them. Legacy media is also responding to this trend. Disney recently announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and a licensing deal that will let users create short clips with characters from Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars through the Sora platform. WHY MULTIMODAL AI CAN BE SAFER FOR YOUNGER USERS As AI becomes part of everyday life, safetyparticularly for younger usershas become one of the most critical issues facing the industry. Moving from open-ended chat to structured, multimodal worlds allows us to design guardrails within the gameplay. Instead of relying on continuous unstructured prompts, these environments are built around characters, visuals, voices, and defined story worlds. Interaction is guided by the experience itself. That structure changes how and where safety is designed into the system. Educational AI demonstrates this approach. Platforms like Khan Academy Kids and Duolingo combine visuals, audio, and structured prompts to guide learning. The AI isnt trying to be everything; it focuses on one task well. As multimodal AI evolves, one of its most meaningful opportunities may be this ability to balance creative freedom with thoughtful constraint. AI 2.0 presents a design shift that could give builders, educators, and families new ways to shape safer, more intentional digital spaces for the next generation. WHY MULTIMODAL AI IS THE NEXT FRONTIER In 2026, I predict that consumers wont be prompting AI; it will be a more immersive interactive experience. This excites me because users wont just passively receive outputs; theyll actively shape experiences and influence how AI evolves in real time. We could see users remixing the series finale of their favorite TV show, or students learning history not by reading a textbook, but by actively debating a historically accurate AI simulation. For founders and creators, the next step is to stop building tools only for efficiency and start building environments for immersion and exploration. The winners of the next cycle wont be the ones with the smartest models, but the ones who make AI feel less like a utility and more like a destination for rich, interactive experiences. Karandeep Anand is CEO of Character.AI
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The White House will unveil new details on President Donald Trump’s planned East Wing ballroom during a hearing early next month, according to a federal commission tasked with reviewing the project. The new ballroom, which Trump has said would cost $400 million and would dwarf the adjacent White House building, has been challenged in court by preservationists, while Democratic lawmakers have called it an abuse of power and are investigating which donors are supporting it. The National Capital Planning Commission, chartered by Congress to manage planning for Washington-area federal lands, said on its website that the White House will provide an “information presentation” on plans to rebuild the East Wing during a commission meeting on January 8. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The commission, chaired by a White House aide and onetime personal lawyer to Trump, Will Scharf, has declined to review the demolition of the former East Wing, preparation activities at the site, or potential effects to historic properties, in what would mark the biggest change to the historic property in decades. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress, is suing to halt the construction, arguing that the proposed 90,000 square foot (8,360 square meter) ballroom would dwarf the rest of the White House, at 55,000 square feet. The judge in the case earlier this month declined to issue a temporary restraining order against work on the project, noting among other things that the size, scale and other specifications had not been finalized. Another hearing is scheduled for next month. The president, a one-time real estate developer, has taken a hands-on role in what he has described as sprucing up the White House and the U.S. capital city ahead of celebrations next year marking the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary. He has also proposed a new grand arch near Washington, while decorating the Oval Office extensively in gold leaf and installing plaques there offering his personal take on his predecessors’ legacies. The former East Wing was largely demolished in October, with comparatively little public notice or consultation. In a recent notice posted online, the planning commission said a formal review taking place this coming spring will consider topics including lines of sight, public space and landscapes. Members of the public will be allowed to submit comments or testify during the review, it said. Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters
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California, soaked from days of relentless rain and recovering from mudslides in mountain towns, was hit with another powerful storm Christmas Day that led to evacuation warnings and high surf advisories.The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in Southern California issued an evacuation warning for Wrightwood, a mountain town about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, a day after rescuing people trapped in cars during a mud slide.The National Weather Service said waves near the San Francisco Bay Area could reach up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) Friday.Statewide, more than 70,000 people were without power Thursday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.A day ago, heavy rain and fierce winds were blamed for at least two deaths.A major storm system moving toward the Midwest and Northeast was expected to interfere with travel, according to the National Weather Service.A mix of freezing rain and sleet could create icy conditions in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Maryland. Forecasters warned heavy ice could cause outages. Snow was expected to blanket the Northeast early Friday.Roads in the 5,000-resident California town of Wrightwood were covered in rocks, debris and thick mud on Thursday. With power out, a gas station and coffee shop running on generators were serving as hubs for residents and visitors.“It’s really a crazy Christmas,” said Jill Jenkins, who was spending the holiday with her 13-year-old grandson, Hunter Lopiccolo.Lopiccolo said the family almost evacuated the previous day, when water washed away a chunk of their backyard. But they decided to stay and still celebrated the holiday. Lopiccolo got a new snowboard and e-bike.“We just played card games all night with candles and flashlights,” he said.Davey Schneider hiked a mile and a half (1.6 kilometers) through rain and floodwater up to his shins from his Wrightwood residence Wednesday to rescue cats from his grandfather’s house.“I wanted to help them out because I wasn’t confident that they were going to live,” Schneider said Thursday. “Fortunately, they all lived. They’re all okay just a little bit scared.”Arlene Corte said roads in town turned into rivers, but her house was not damaged.“It could be a whole lot worse,” she said. “We’re here talking.”With more rain on the way, more than 150 firefighters were stationed in the area, said San Bernardino County Fire spokesman Shawn Millerick.“We’re ready,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck at this point.”A falling tree killed a San Diego man Wednesday, news outlets reported. Farther north, a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy died in what appeared to be a weather-related crash.Areas along the coast, including Malibu, were under a flood watch until Friday afternoon, and wind and flood advisories were issued for much of the Sacramento Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.The storms were the result of atmospheric rivers carrying massive plumes of moisture from the tropics during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.Southern California typically gets half an inch to 1 inch (1.3 to 2.5 centimeters) of rain this time of year, but this week many areas could see between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters), with even more in the mountains, National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford said.More heavy snow was expected in the Sierra Nevada, where gusts created “near white-out conditions” and made mountain pass travel treacherous. Officials said there was a “high” avalanche risk around Lake Tahoe and a winter storm warning was in effect through Friday.Ski resorts around Lake Tahoe recorded about 1 to 3 feet (30 to 91 centimeters) of snow overnight, said Tyler Salas, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Reno. Forecasters expect to see up to another 3 feet (91 centimeters) of snow through Friday, Salas said. The area could see 45-mph (72-kph) gusts in low elevation areas and 100-mph (161-kph) winds along mountain ridges.Gov. Gavin Newsom declared emergencies in six counties to allow state assistance.The state deployed resources and first responders to several coastal and Southern California counties, and the California National Guard was on standby. Associated Press writers Sophie Austin in Oakland, California, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed. Ty ONeil, Associated Press
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