Thursday, July 10, 2025

July 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Thursday, July 10, 2025 

In today’s digest, inflation checks, the ChatGPT state of play, and the best NYC dishes. 🍽️

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  • October: The month of apple picking, trick-or-treating, and, this year, inflation checks! 🤑 Eligible New Yorkers will automatically begin receiving state refund checks, which range from $150 to $400, this October. There’s no need to apply, as long as you filed taxes in 2023. (WTEN)

    • Even if your previous tax refunds were direct deposited, these refunds will be physical checks coming from the Tax Department of Inflation Payment.

    • Check how much you can expect to receive here. 💰

  • In other IRS news, the agency has lifted the ban on political endorsements in houses of worship. Here’s how that decision could play out in NYC, one of the most religiously diverse areas in the U.S. (New York Times)

  • New York is a melting pot of culinary goodness, but what are the best individual dishes in the city? Six months into 2025, Grub Street hit the, well, grub streets, and compiled the individual NYC dishes they loved and haven’t stopped thinking about. 😋 (Grub Street)


In other reading:

  • The knife bus rolls on to the Upper West Side: ‘A trade since the beginning of collective humanity’ (West Side Rag)

  • Transit advocates propose ambitious plan to transform bus service in NYC (amNY)

  • What to expect at the city’s largest french festival this weekend (Secret NYC)

When ChatGPT debuted in late 2022, it experienced a meteoric rise that brought AI to the forefront of the conversation. 🤖

Nearly three years later, its widespread use only continues to grow, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. 📈

  • 34% of American adults have used ChatGPT in some form, roughly double the share in 2023.

  • That includes a 58% majority of adults under 30.

Yes, but: 66% of Americans have not used the chatbot, including 20% who say they haven’t even heard about it.

Who are the ChatGPT super users?

  • 🧑 Adults under 30: That 58% figure we mentioned? That’s up from 43% in 2024 and 33% in 2023. 

  • 🎓 Those with higher levels of formal education: About half of those with a bachelor’s degree (51%) or postgraduate degree (52%) use the AI chatbot, compared with some college experience (33%) or a high school degree or less education (18%).

And for those users, how do they use it?

  • Among those users, 28% have used ChatGPT for work (+20% from 2023), 26% for learning (+18%) , and 22% for entertainment (+11%) . 🆙

🫧 In a tech bubble: It seems like everyone in the tech sector is aware of ChatGPT, but outside of it, that’s not the case.

  • Awareness has grown, with 74% of Americans having heard at least a little about it, including 34% who have heard a lot about it.

  • But there are still a number of people and orgs who are not as AI-aware.

Enter Decoded Futures at the Tech:NYC Foundation, which bridges the gap between the social and tech sectors.

  • The team recently held its third cohort Demo Day, featuring demos from eight nonprofits who are using AI to scale their impacts.

  • Check out the Decoded Futures newly-launch Substack to learn alongside the team — subscribe here!

  • Technologists looking to volunteer for the program, apply here.

🔙 Back to ChatGPT: With all this progress, it’s easy to understand why OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT (and a Tech:NYC member!), continues to innovate and expand.

In other reading:

  • AI-assisted technique can measure and track aging cells (NYU Langone News)

  • ‘Vibe coding’ has arrived for businesses (Wall Street Journal)

  • The home office setup you need to work from home like a pro (Wired)

  • Circuit, an NYC-based digital asset recovery platform, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Nyca Partners led, joined by Soma Capital, New Form Capital, The Venture Dept, Silicon Badia, Druid Ventures, and Belvedere Strategic Capital.

  • Dextall, an NYC-based construction tech startup, raised $15 million in Series A funding. L+M Development Partners, Essence Development, and Simpson Strong-Tie led the round.

  • iCapital, an NYC-based provider of private markets tech platform for financial advisors, raised more than $820 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. T. Rowe Price and SurgoCap Partners led, joined by insiders Temasek, UBS, and BNY.

  • Moment, an NYC-based company automating trading and portfolio management workflows for fixed income teams, raised $36 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, and was joined by A16z, Lightspeed and others.

  • Ryft, an NYC- and Tel Aviv-based cloud data management platform, raised $8 million in seed funding. Index led the round and was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and others.

  • July 15: How to Form an Effective Board, a free breakfast event designed to help startup founders — from pre‑seed through Series A and beyond — build and manage high‑impact boards. Register here.

  • July 15: Using AI To Supercharge Our Companies, featuring speakers who will dive into how they’re using artificial intelligence to drive innovation and tackle problems within their companies. Register here.

  • July 16: Live Demos, featuring demos from Databricks, Pensar, LastMile AI, and Nomic. Register here.

  • July 16: Brderless’ July Founder Breakfast, ​for seed-stage founders who have raised or are in the process of raising series A, and are now focused on scaling — building the team, refining GTM, and shaping the story for the next round. Register here.

  • July 16: Pitch Deck Bootcamp: Build, Test, & Perfect Your Founder Pitch, where you can build, present, and refine your deck with real feedback from experienced judges and fellow founders. Register here.

  • July 16: Get AI-ready for Q4: Ecommerce AI Lab, a look at how AI agents are reshaping commerce — from support to marketing to sales to insights to operations. Register here.

  • July 19-20: Agentic AI App Hackathon, a two-day event to build and deploy your own agentic applications on Google Cloud with Cloud Run. Register here.

  • July 31: Healthcare x AI Agents Hack & Learn, ​a hands-on sprint to build safer, smarter AI agents for healthcare. Register here.

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