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.

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

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

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.

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

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/

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.

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

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

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