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Exploring AI, building with AI agents or open models, or solving a real technical challenge? Whether you're an individual, a team, or an organization, book a discovery call and we'll work through it together.

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Setup your own AI Agent

WHAT PEOPLE SAY AFTER A SESSION

“I had a very positive experience speaking with Mr. Melvin. He was nice, cheerful, and very encouraging throughout the conversation.”

300+trained

50+mentees

Personal AI Agent Setup

Personal AI Agent Setup Service

I set up Hermes, an open-source personal AI agent with its own memory that learns new skills and adapts to you, on the computer you already own. One agent set up directly, or several managed with GAIA, my setup tool. You choose.

Hermes is the agent: it works for you, not just answers questions
GAIA is optional: my tool for running multiple private agents on one computer
Your data stays on your machine, not on someone else's servers
Hands-on setup call — questions first? Message me on LinkedIn

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Optional GAIA dashboard managing multiple Hermes AI agents on one computer

Optional GAIA tool managing Hermes agentsLearn more

Wherever you are with AI, there's a call for you

Every session is 1-on-1 and tailored to you. Book 15, 30, or 60 minutes, whatever your question needs. No question is too small: if it's about AI, it's on the table.

Personal AI

New to AI? Perfect, start here. I'll help you set up your own AI agent for everyday life: notes, research, planning, right inside the chat apps you already use.

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AI at Work

Learn to get real work done faster with AI: simple tools and workflows you can start using the same day, whatever your job is.

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Build & Integrate

Building a product? Get a second brain on what to build, how to add AI to it, and how to go from idea to something real.

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Updated August 13, 2026

Latest AI news for builders and leaders

Fresh artificial intelligence news, model releases, AI agent updates, research, and enterprise AI announcements curated from primary sources.

View all AI news

ModelsAug 12, 2026

Google DeepMind SL2T brings ASL sign-to-text to Pixel 11 Gboard

Google DeepMind introduced SL2T, a massively multilingual sign-language-to-text model powering sign-to-text dictation in Gboard and Live Transcribe on Pixel 11—starting with American Sign Language to English, with more devices and languages planned at no extra cost. Trained on 100,000+ hours across 50+ sign languages (~25% ASL), SL2T translates MediaPipe Holistic pose landmarks (not raw video) directly to streaming text, scoring 70 BLEURT zero-shot on FLEURS-ASL while targeting left-handed and one-handed signing; Deaf-led governance via the AI Sign Language Advisory Committee co-authored the launch impact report. Distinct from prior lab-only sign-language research and from Gemini app MAU milestones.

Source: Google DeepMindRead source

EnterpriseAug 12, 2026

OpenAI: frontier firms use 8.3× more AI tokens as work shifts to agents

OpenAI’s enterprise research (“How enterprises put AI to work”) reports that frontier firms—top 10% of AI usage—now generate 8.3× as many output tokens per active user as typical firms (up from 2.6× in January), as enterprises move from chat assistance toward agent execution with ChatGPT Work, Codex, plugins, and tool-connected workflows. The study frames depth of use (not model access alone) as the gap, urging leaders to connect agents to company context and tools, set permissions/governance/human review, and turn successful individual workflows into shared practices; Semafor notes business customers collectively use more tokens on Codex than traditional ChatGPT interfaces.

Source: OpenAIRead source

EnterpriseAug 11, 2026

Google Gemini app surpasses 1 billion monthly active users

Google said the Gemini app has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, calling it the fastest-growing product in the company’s history. Usage highlights include voice in 63% of interactions (busy parents 43% more likely to use voice), one in five Gemini Live sessions going beyond voice into live camera or screen sharing, 38% of school requests with attachments, 150M+ images generated daily, automation across 40+ Android apps, and 100M+ active iOS users—with macOS power users prompting about twice as often as other surfaces. Distinct from the earlier AI & Economy ATLAS note that Gemini surfaces were already used by more than 1 billion people monthly across app, AI Mode, and API.

Source: GoogleRead source

Meet Your Mentor

25+yrs

300+trained

Book an AI Q&A Call Connect on LinkedIn

Melvin Vivas

Engineer, mentor, and your friendly guide to AI

I help everyday people, professionals, and founders make sense of AI, and no question is too basic. Most of my mentees started exactly where you are now.

Behind that is 25 years of engineering across banking, fintech, and enterprise. These days it's hands-on work building AI apps and running my own daily life on a personal AI agent.

Whether you're a student, a working professional, a leader, or a founder, you'll get someone who's done the work and explains it in plain language.

Senior roles at Standard Chartered Bank & Ohmyhome (Nasdaq)

Built AI Dream Photo, an AI photo app used by real customers

Building aibackends.com, free open-source AI tools for developers

Building skillsbento.com, an AI Agent Skills marketplace

Speaker at NTU Singapore, PSIA, and DICT Philippines

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) Open Mentoring: Connecting Minds

Live & unscripted

Watch my past livestreams

The easiest way to get a feel for how I explain things: watch me build with AI, live. No edits, no script, mistakes and all.

Let's explore ChatGPT / OpenAI APIs

A relaxed walk through the OpenAI platform and APIs, explained from scratch.

Build a React Native ChatGPT app with Cursor, OpenAI, and Expo

A full app built live, from empty folder to working AI chat on a phone.

Enrich your Life and Work with AI

A talk on bringing AI into your everyday life and work, in plain language.

Watch my NTU Singapore workshop demo More livestreams on YouTube

My personal AI

What I actually ask my AI

These are real conversations with my personal AI agent lately:

“Every hour during trading hours, remind me about my stock investments”“Read these screenshots from my kids' school app and remind me of the deadlines”“What happened at the F1 British Grand Prix?”“Any Wimbledon updates?”“Find me a decent monitor to replace my old one”“What Korean drama should I watch next?”“Give me some non-software business ideas”“Summarize this video posted on X”“Make me a video”

Notice anything? None of it is about coding. My AI is a personal agent that helps me run everyday life. You can have one too. I'll set up Hermes on your computer (GAIA is optional if you want multiple agents), around your own routines.

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