The Family History AI Show

In the last episode of 2025, Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little present their predictions for how artificial intelligence will transform genealogy research in 2026. This special episode examines fourteen key trends shaping the future of family history AI.

Mark and Steve predict that AI tools will move from enthusiast circles into mainstream genealogy practice, with AI-enhanced apps like NotebookLM becoming more important than the underlying language models that people have focused on for the past three years.

They explore how handwritten text recognition will become more accurate and accessible, and that genealogy companies will cautiously integrate new AI features, first focusing on helping us with our research.

Timestamps:02:33 Family History AI Goes Mainstream: From Enthusiasts to Everyday Users
04:13 Apps Over Models: Why Platform Features Matter More Than LLMs
06:17 Reusable Prompting Tools: GPTs, Projects, and Gems Boost Efficiency
08:02 AI-Enhanced Research Gains Acceptance Among Serious Genealogists
09:53 Handwritten Text Recognition Gets Better, Easier, and Cheaper
12:18 Genealogy Companies Take Cautious Approach to Generative AI
17:07 AI-Enhanced Browsers Become Standard, Agentic Features Raise Concerns
24:25 Voice Interfaces to AI Remain Niche in 2026
27:36 LLM Vendors Push File and Email Integration for Stickiness
31:46 Productivity Tools Embed LLMs Everywhere
35:56 The AI Horse Race: Three Leaders Emerge
41:15 AI Licensing Deals Change Internet Access Patterns
44:34 The AI Bubble Conversation is important to society, but less so to Genealogists

Resource Links:
The Family History AI Show Academy
https://tixoom.app/fhaishow

Family History AI Goes Mainstream
What Can AI Do for Your Genealogical Research? – James Tanner (Nov 2025) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmVKy1pUPE

FamilySearch Shares Plans for 2025 (Includes AI integration details) https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/familysearch-shares-plans-for-2025

Reusable Prompting Tools
Custom GPTs vs. Gemini Gems: Who Wins? - Learn Prompting (Aug 2025) https://learnprompting.org/blog/custom-gpts-vs-gemini-gems

AI-Enhanced Research
Unlocking Family Histories: How AI Is Breathing New Life into Handwritten Records (South Central APG)
https://southcentralapg.org/2025/08/16/unlocking-family-histories-how-ai-is-breathing-new-life-into-handwritten-records/

Handwritten Text Recognition
A new Google model is nearly perfect on automated handwriting recognition - Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45887262
Cautious AI from Genealogy Companies

AI-Enhanced Browsers
Compliance alert: Do not use AI browsers
https://vinciworks.com/blog/compliance-alert-do-not-use-ai-browsers/

Content Integration with Chatbots
Gemini vs Copilot: A Quick Comparison Guide (2025) - Tactiq
https://tactiq.io/learn/gemini-vs-copilot

AI in Office Productivity Tools
Microsoft Copilot in 2025: What's Changed & What's Next | Aldridge
https://aldridge.com/microsoft-copilot-in-2025-whats-changed-whats-next/
Monthly Round Up: New Features in Microsoft 365 Copilot (Dec 2025)
https://dynamicscommunities.com/ug/copilot-ug/monthly-round-up-new-features-in-microsoft-365-copilot/

The AI Horse Race
The Best AI in October 2025? We Compared ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini & Others - FelloAI
https://felloai.com/the-best-ai-in-october-2025-we-compared-chatgpt-claude-grok-gemini-others/
The 2025 AI Coding Models: Comprehensive Guide to the Top 5 Contenders - CodeGPT
https://www.codegpt.co/blog/ai-coding-models-2025-comprehensive-guide

AI Licensing Deals
Content Licensing Agreements Will Concentrate Markets Without Standardized Access - ProMarket
(Nov 2025) https://www.promarket.org/2025/11/20/content-licensing-agreements-will-concentrate-markets-without-standardized-access/

The False Hope of Content Licensing at Internet Scale - ProMarket
https://www.promarket.org/2025/11/19/the-false-hope-of-content-licensing-at-internet-scale/

The AI Bubble Conversation
The AI boom will turn to bust in 2026
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-ai-boom-will-turn-to-bust-next-year-says-this-forecaster-who-offers-his-trade-of-the-year-9c2a2332
OUTLOOK 2026 Promise and Pressure - J.P. Morgan (Discusses AI market stability vs bubble risks)
https://www.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpmorgan/documents/wealth-management/outlook-2026.pdf

Tags:Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, AI Predictions, NotebookLM, HTR, AI Browsers, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little present a special year-end episode, comparing their 2025 AI predictions to what actually unfolded in 2025. This episode is a great review of the top AI advancements in 2025!

The hosts examine which predictions hit the mark, including the agentic AI hype cycle, plummeting AI costs driven by DeepSeek, and the dethroning of OpenAI as the top AI model. They also explore predictions that proved partially accurate, such as the shift to local language models and the adoption of AI in social media.

Mark and Steve have a good laugh over their biggest misses, including breakthroughs in text-in-image generation, image restoration, and vibe coding. They highlight how reasoning models were the transformative force behind nearly every major AI advancement in 2025.

The episode closes with a preview of next week's 2026 predictions episode.
Timestamps:03:30 Agents, Agents, Everywhere: Deep Research and Agentic Browsers
09:49 Cost of AI Drops Like a Rock: DeepSeek Disrupts the Market
12:26 OpenAI Dethroned: Gemini and Anthropic Rise
18:46 Local Language Models
23:54 AI Invades Social Media
28:24 AI-Enhanced Writing: From Grammar Checking to Ghost Writers
32:30 Family Tree Diagrams: Possible But Not Practical
36:03 Handwriting Recognition: Reasoning Improves Results
38:01 Reasoning Models: 2025’s Most Important Advancement
41:31 Text in Images: A Solved Problem
45:05 Image Restoration: Breakthroughs and Responsibilities
51:02 Vibe Coding: Speaking Software Into Being

Resource Links:Register for a Class with the Family History AI Show Academy
https://tixoom.app/fhaishow

Agentic AI

Agentic AI In-Depth Report 2025
https://hblabgroup.com/agentic-ai-in-depth-report/

Perplexity's New AI-First Browser Kicks Off Agentic Applications
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenwolfepereira/2025/07/11/perplexitys-new-ai-first-browser-is-kicking-off-agentic-applications/
Cost of AI

State of AI in 10 Charts
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-index-2025-state-of-ai-in-10-charts

Free AI Tools 2025
https://thehumanprompts.com/free-ai-tools-2025-platforms/
OpenAI Dethroned

Geoffrey Hinton says Google is 'beginning to overtake' OpenAI
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-godfather-geoffrey-hinton-google-overtaking-openai-2025-12
Local AI Hardware

Assessing the On-Device Artificial Intelligence (AI) Opportunity
https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/assessing-the-on-device-ai-opportunity.pdf
Family Tree Diagrams

Explore how powerful AI image editing can support advanced creative workflows.
https://deepmind.google/models/gemini-image/pro/
Text in Images

Nano Banana Pro Review: Is Google's AI Image Generator Too Good?
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-nano-banana-pro-ai-image-generator-review/
Vibe Coding

No code, big dreams
https://www.businessinsider.com/non-technical-people-vibecoding-lessons-ai-apps-2025-9
Image Restoration

Responsible AI Photo Restoration
https://makingfamilyhistory.com/responsible-ai-photo-restoration/

Protecting Trust in Historical Images
https://craigen.org/protecting-trust-in-historical-images/
Tags:
Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, AI Predictions, Reasoning Models, DeepSeek, Gemini, Image Restoration, Vibe Coding, Agentic AI

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little examine Google's groundbreaking Gemini 3 release, which delivers state-of-the-art multimodal reasoning and sets a new benchmark for AI capabilities. They also explore ChatGPT's upgrade to version 5.1 with improved instruction following and better handling of longer conversation.

The hosts discuss Canva's new Creative Operating System, which now generates AI-powered designs directly within the platform.

This week's Tip of the Week demonstrates how Gemini 3 can use the context you provide it to greatly improve the accuracy of your hand written transcription.

In RapidFire, they cover NotebookLM's new deep research mode, Nano Banana's integration into Photoshop, Anthropic's privacy policy changes regarding training data, and how Claude's new usage monitoring feature can reduce your stress level.

Timestamps:In the News:
04:17 Google Gemini 3’s Multimodal AI Reaches New Heights
13:47 ChatGPT 5.1 upgrade is now better at following your Instructions
22:39 Canva Creative Operating System: AI-Powered Design Generation

Tip of the Week:
26:21 Adding Reasoning to Your Transcriptions Improves Accuracy

RapidFire:
36:40 NotebookLM Becomes a Fully Featured Research Tool
43:40 Nano Banana is Now Available in Photoshop
47:20 Anthropic Announces Claude Chats Will Be Used for Training Data
54:13 View Your Claude Usage in Settings

Resource Links:Intro to Family History AI by the Family History AI Show Academy
https://tixoom.app/fhaishow

Google Gemini 3
Introducing Gemini 3: A New Era of Intelligence
https://blog.google/products/gemini/gemini-3/

ChatGPT 5.1
A smarter, more conversational
https://openai.com/index/gpt-5-1/

GPT-5.1 New Features Explained
https://scalevise.com/resources/gpt-5-1-new-features/

Canva Creative Operating System
Introducing Canva's Creative Operating System
https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/creative-operating-system/

NotebookLM Deep Research
NotebookLM adds Deep Research and support for more source types
https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/notebooklm-deep-research-file-types/

Nano Banana in Photoshop
Create with unlimited generations using Google Gemini 3 (Nano Banana Pro) in Adobe Firefly
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2025/11/20/google-gemini-3-nano-banana-pro-firefly-photoshop

Anthropic Privacy Policy Update
Anthropic Will Use Claude Chats for Training Data: How to Opt Out
https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-using-claude-chats-for-training-how-to-opt-out/

Updates to Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy
https://www.anthropic.com/news/updates-to-our-consumer-terms

Claude Usage Monitoring
Usage Limit Best Practices
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9797557-usage-limit-best-practices

Tags:Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Canva, NotebookLM, Nano Banana, Anthropic Claude, Photo Restoration

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 Compete
16:50 What AI Can Learn from AOL: Avoiding Walled Garden Mistakes
29:10 Anthropic's Haiku 4.5: When Smaller Models Beat Bigger Ones

Tip of the Week:
39:50 Using AI to Write Better Prompts for Historical Documents

RapidFire:
47:19 AI Makes Spreadsheets Easier: Google Sheets vs Excel
54:35 Reading Old Handwriting Gets Better: DeepSeek and Google Updates
01:05:15 Microsoft Copilot Adds Writing and Prompt Coaches
Resource Links:Genealogy and AI Facebook to hit 20k users!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogyandai

An In-Depth Look at OpenAI's AI Browser
https://intuitionlabs.ai/articles/chatgpt-atlas-openai-browser

DeepSeek 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-of

Global AI Browser Market Size
https://market.us/report/ai-browser-market/

Benchmarking Claude Haiku 4.5 and Sonnet 4.5 on 400 Real PRs
https://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 AI
https://www.cxtoday.com/contact-center/anthropics-claude-haiku-4-5-brings-enterprise-grade-speed-and-savings-to-customer-facing-ai/

Top 10 AI Spreadsheet Tools
https://www.knack.com/blog/top-ai-spreadsheet-tools/

Prompt Coach: Prebuilt agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
https://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

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little explore how Google's Nano Banana photo restoration tool will revolutionize image restoration by integrating with Adobe Photoshop. This move will greatly reduce unintended changes to historical photos when editing them with AI.

Next, they unpack OpenAI’s move to make ChatGPT Projects available to free-tier users, making research organization more accessible for genealogists.

This week's Tip of the Week provides essential guidance on the responsible use AI when editing historical photos using AI tools like Nano Banana, ensuring transparency and trust in historical photographs.

In RapidFire, they cover OpenAI's new Sora 2 AI-video social media platform, Claude's new ability to create and edit Microsoft Office files, memory features in Claude Projects, advancements in local language models, and how OpenAI's massive infrastructure deals are changing the AI landscape.

Timestamps:
In the News:
02:43 Adobe improves historical photo restoration by adding Nano Banana to Photoshop
09:34 ChatGPT Projects are Now Free

Tip of the Week:
13:36 Citations for AI-Restored Images Build Trust in AI-Modified Photos

RapidFire:
21:24 Sora 2 Goes Social
27:23 Claude Adds Microsoft Office Creation and Editing
34:26 Memory Features Come to Claude Projects
38:32 Apple and Amazon both create Local Language Model tools
44:47 OpenAI's Big Data Centre Deal with Oracle

Resource Links
OpenAI announces free access to ChatGPT Projects
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes

Engadget: OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT Projects to Free Users
https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-rolls-out-chatgpt-projects-to-free-users-215027802.html

Forbes: OpenAI Makes ChatGPT Projects Free
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2025/09/14/small-business-technology-roundup-microsoft-copilot-does-not-improve-productivity-and-openai-makes-chatgpt-project-free/

Responsible AI Photo Restoration
https://makingfamilyhistory.com/responsible-ai-photo-restoration/

Claude now has memory, but only for certain users
https://mashable.com/article/anthropic-claude-ai-now-has-memory-for-some-users

New Apple Intelligence features are available today
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/new-apple-intelligence-features-are-available-today/

Introducing Amazon Lens Live
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/search-image-amazon-lens-live-shopping-rufus

Amazon Lens Live Can Scan and Pull Up Matches
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spot-an-item-you-wish-to-buy-amazon-lens-live-can-scan-and-pull-up-matches

A Joint Statement from OpenAI and Microsoft About Their Changing Partnership
https://openai.com/index/joint-statement-from-openai-and-microsoft/

The Verge: OpenAI and Oracle Pen $300 Billion Compute Deal
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/776170/oracle-openai-300-billion-contract-project-stargate

Reuters: OpenAI and Oracle Sign $300 Billion Computing Deal
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-oracle-sign-300-billion-computing-deal-wsj-reports-2025-09-10/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Tags
Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, Photo Restoration, AI Tools, OpenAI, Google, Adobe Photoshop, ChatGPT Projects, Nano Banana, Image Editing, AI Citations, Sora 2, Video Generation, Claude, Microsoft Office, Apple Intelligence, Amazon Lens, Oracle, Cloud Computing, Local Language Models, AI Infrastructure, Responsible AI, Historical Photos