Welcome back to your weekly AI news roundup.

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. 1Password released 1Password for Agents, which lets AI agents sign in to websites for you (with your approval) without ever actually seeing your passwords.

2. Canva launched its own in-house image model called Canva Craft, which plans the layout before generating and can turn images into editable layered designs.

3. DeepSeek open-sourced DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, a faster coding model with better performance that can build whole projects like 3D models and games.

4. ElevenLabs launched Chimera, a platform for creatives that combines its own voices with Seedance 2.5 video generation for expressive, natural outputs.

5. Google news:

   1. Gemini app now has a Business Hub for small business owners, letting them make on-brand visuals and create graphics out of receipts and spreadsheets.

   2. Gemini Notebook now lets you review and steer the format, outline, and style of Slide Decks and Video Overviews before they’re generated.

6. Ideogram launched Vector 1.0 that turns text prompts or images into fully editable SVG files you can pull into and edit in Figma or Illustrator.

7. Inception launched Mercury 3, a diffusion-based language model that can respond several times faster than comparable small models. (Try for free.)

8. MiniMax unveiled MiniMax M3.1 Flash, a faster and cheaper model optimized for coding, computer use, and multi-step agent tasks.

9. Mistral released Voxtral 3, a family of models for transcription and natural-sounding speech in over 50 languages, designed for real-time voice agents.

10. Moonshot AI launched Kimi K3.1 Pro, a model that can build full coding projects and 3D creations in tools like Godot, Unity, and Unreal Engine.

11. OpenAI news:

    1. ChatGPT desktop app now lets you edit earlier messages in a long chat instead of just the last one.

    2. Locked Chats let you hide sensitive ChatGPT conversations behind Face ID, a PIN, or Touch ID, keeping them out of your regular history and search.

12. Perplexity launched a fully local version of Computer for Mac, so its agent can work across your files and apps without sending data to the cloud.

13. Recursive open-sourced Flint, a lightweight and fast model that can run agentic coding tasks on a laptop.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic announced Claude Duet, a proactive, always-on agent app that finishes tasks in the background, sends morning briefs, etc. (Join the waitlist.)

2. OpenAI seems to be testing new “Aurora” image models in blind arena matchups, possibly an early look at GPT Image 3.

📖 AI resources

1. “AI Benchmarks: Climbing the Wrong Hills” [REPORT]: a look at how benchmarks shape AI models and whether they measure the right things.

2. “How employment is changing at Anthropic” [REPORT]: a deep dive into how AI agents reshape daily work, hiring, and productivity at the company.

🔀 AI random

1. Spotify added AI Credits, AI Persona badges, and Verified by Spotify badges to help listeners tell when a real artist is behind the music.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I don’t know how one “eats sunshine,” but there sure is plenty of rain up in here.

🔐 All my paid goodies in one place

Take a peek at what’s behind the paywall:

Welcome back to your weekly AI news roundup.

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic opened Claude Code Projects to all Pro and Max users, so Claude can now coordinate ongoing work by running each task as its own parallel thread.

2. Black Forest Labs open-sourced FLUX 3 Image Klein, a small model that can edit photos and blend up to 10 reference images on a regular gaming GPU.

3. ElevenLabs launched Instant Soundtracks, which scores your videos with original music and sound effects synced to what’s happening on screen.

4. Fish Audio launched Drama 3, a text-to-speech model that can add emotions, pauses, and sounds exactly where you need them. (Try it for free.)

5. Google news:

   1. Ask YouTube is now out for mobile devices in the US, so you can find videos by asking complex questions and following up like you would with a chatbot.

   2. Circle to Search can now help you check suspicious text messages on Android by flagging signs of scams and suggesting what to do next.

   3. Gemini 4 Argon is Google’s new frontier model for long, multi-step work, rolling out in AI Mode and the Gemini app. (Paid accounts only.)

6. Krea launched Krea 3, an image editing model that changes only what you ask for and can make 2K edits in under eight seconds.

7. Liquid AI released LFM2.5-24B-A2B (catchy!), a reasoning model built to run fast, private AI agents directly on your own device.

8. Meta news:

   1. Facebook now lets you tell Feed and Reels what you want to see in your own words, adjusting your recommendations in real time.

   2. Muse Spark Open is the company’s most capable open-weight model, built for agentic and coding tasks and small enough to run on two Mac Studios.

   3. Muse Wonder is the new frontier model for AI agents that remembers context across chats and handles hard, multi-step tasks.

9. Noiz AI launched Helix World, a real-time world model that turns a single image into an explorable scene with matching spatial sound. (Try the demo.)

10. NVIDIA open-sourced the Nemotron 3.5 family, with a fast multimodal model that reads visual documents and smaller Bolt models that run AI agents locally.

11. OpenAI news:

    1. GPT-6.1 Sol can now remember 500K tokens by default in ChatGPT Work and Codex, so you lose less context along the way when working on longer tasks.

    2. GPT-Live-1.1 added new French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Mexican Spanish voices in ChatGPT, with better accents and fewer pauses.

12. Paper Instruments launched Ultramarine 1 Flash, a low-cost model for professional work in consulting, finance, law, and operations.

13. SpaceXSI released Grok Voice 3.0, a speech-to-speech model that responds in less than a second and tops accuracy scores. (Try it for free.)

🔬 AI research

1. Microsoft finished pre-training its upcoming MAI-Base-2, which it will fine-tune for its own products.

2. Z.ai previewed GLM-Legal, an AI agent optimized for legal work like contract review and country-specific compliance.

📖 AI resources

1. “A benchmark map of the US economy” [REPORT]: Mercor’s interactive map of how well today’s AI benchmarks cover real tasks across 923 US occupations.

2. “AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance” [STUDY]: how leaning on AI affects your persistence with difficult tasks.

3. “AI models may be capable of self-replicating” [REPORT]: a look at how today’s models may copy themselves across cheap consumer devices like TV boxes.

4. “Do Agent Teams Pay Off?” [STUDY]: a test of whether a team of AI coding agents beats a single agent once you factor in the extra cost, by Vals AI.

5. “The AI expectations gap” [SURVEY]: comparing how US adults and Anthropic staff expect AI to change work and the economy by 2030.

6. “The EU’s next chapter in AI is agentic” [REPORT]: breakdown of how EU businesses are adopting AI agents like ChatGPT Work and Codex, by OpenAI.

🔀 AI random

1. YouTube Music started adding labels to songs that are made primarily with AI and will soon also expand this labelling to its main YouTube app too.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I asked for The Ring as a 1980s sitcom…and this might just be a win.

🔐 All my paid goodies in one place

Take a peek at what’s behind the paywall:

Welcome back to your weekly AI news roundup.

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Dashboards creates live dashboards from your data, while Claude Motion turns ideas and research into short animated explainers.

   2. Claude for Google Workspace puts Claude in a sidebar inside Docs, Sheets, and Slides, where it can help you edit and work with the open files.

   3. Claude Haiku 5.5 is the fastest and cheapest small Claude model yet, and it now also lets you adjust how hard it thinks.

2. Google news:

   1. AI Edge Foresight is an experimental Mac app that transcribes your meetings and turns rough notes into polished details, and can work entirely offline.

   2. Nano Banana 2.1 is an upgraded image model with better text rendering and character consistency, now available in AI Mode, Flow, and the Gemini app.

   3. Playground lets anyone create, play, and share their own games just by describing them.

   4. SynthID Detector now makes it easy for anyone to check whether an image, video, or audio clip has an AI watermark from Google or its partners.

3. Hark launched Hark Pro, a free AI assistant app that can take care of errands like booking rides, ordering groceries, and paying bills.

4. OpenAI news:

   1. GPT-6 is rolling out to all users and comes with Intelligent UI that adds interactive elements like buttons, charts, diagrams, and more into its answers.

   2. GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast lets you run GPT-6.1 Sol up to eight times faster in ChatGPT Work, Codex, and the API.

   3. Meetings is a beta ChatGPT plugin for Mac that takes notes on your calls without a bot joining and saves summaries and next steps.

5. SpaceXAI gave Grok Bot the ability to search, read, and monitor X, so you can have it track breaking news or product feedback on your behalf.

🔬 AI research

1. Instinct made its AI agent available in group chats for early-access users, so it can buy tickets, plan trips, and sort out carpools for the entire group.

2. Midjourney is testing a Thinking Mode that reruns your images with extra reasoning to improve coherence, prompt accuracy, and text rendering.

3. Mistral released Mistral Large 4 in public preview, its largest and most capable model yet, with open weights coming out by the end of this month.

4. Reflection previewed Beam, an open-weight model built for coding and agent tasks, with early access available now and full weights coming later this month.

📖 AI resources

1. “ATLAS: Evaluating Agents on Search-Intensive Tasks” [BENCHMARK]: how accurately and completely do AI agents handle real-world search-based tasks.

2. “Can AI automate Epoch?” [REPORT]: Epoch AI’s test of whether six top AI models can handle real research and chart-making work from its own team.

3. “Disrupting AI-enabled false front operations” [REPORT]: how Russian and Iranian influence campaigns used ChatGPT to run fake think tanks and journalists.

4. “Humanity’s Sixth Sense” [BENCHMARK]: Scale’s benchmark that tests whether AI models can make human-like intuitive calls by glancing at images and videos.

🔀 AI random

1. SpaceXAI will let Grok Bot start using rival models like Claude Opus 5.5, Midjourney, and Suno when they’re the best fit for a given task.

2. The Wikimedia Foundation found that “rogue” OpenAI agents made unauthorized edits to its wikis and unsuccessfully tried to exploit one of its tools.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Wow, way to leave the poor guy hanging.

🔐 All my paid goodies in one place

Take a peek at what’s behind the paywall:

Welcome back to your weekly AI news roundup.

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Aleph Alpha open-sourced Kolibri, a German-and-English AI model built in Europe for organizations that need to run AI on their own hardware.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code now has “mods”: small add-ons that change how it looks and behaves (and Claude can even make new ones for you).

   2. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is a faster and cheaper upgrade to Sonnet 5 that nearly matches Opus 5.5 on everyday knowledge-work tasks.

3. Black Forest Labs released FLUX 3 Image that lets you move and edit elements by drawing boxes on a canvas while keeping the rest of the image intact.

4. ElevenLabs launched Eleven v4, its most expressive text-to-speech model yet, which can also clone a voice from just ten seconds of input audio.

5. Google launched Guided Vision in Gemini Live on Android, which helps blind and low-vision users find objects, match outfits, read fine print, and more.

6. Ideogram released Ideogram 4.5, an image editing model that keeps the picture consistent across multiple edits, even on high-resolution images.

7. Meta news:

   1. Edits assistant in Instagram’s Edits app can study how your posts perform and suggest captions, hooks, and scripts based on what works for you.

   2. Muse for Small Business is an AI agent that plugs into tools like Canva and Shopify to help business owners analyze campaigns, optimize ads, and more.

   3. Muse Gadgets lets you connect Muse to homemade devices like e-ink displays and Raspberry Pi boards using free, open-source kits.

8. Microsoft news:

   1. MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming is a real-time transcription model that turns live speech into text in 60 languages.

   2. MAI-Voice-2.1 is a realistic and expressive text-to-speech model that can instantly match a voice from a short clip and speaks 23 languages.

9. OpenAI news:

   1. Dots are always-on agents with their own cloud computers that learn your preferences and can keep working on tasks while you’re away.

   2. GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches GPT-6 Astra performance on coding, computer use, and professional work tasks for a fifth of the price.

   3. Sign in with ChatGPT lets users log in to third-party apps with their ChatGPT accounts and use their subscription credits and rate limits in certain apps.

10. Shopify news:

    1. Canvas lets merchants design their whole store from a single workspace together with a “Sidekick” AI agent that makes changes in real time.

    2. WebMCP checkout lets AI agents complete purchases on Shopify stores, including with Shop Pay.

11. SpaceXAI launched Team Bots: shared Grok assistants that learn from your team’s files and apps and remember context for everyone.

🔬 AI research

1. Google news:

   1. Gemini 4 Argon is a frontier model that beats top-tier counterparts from other AI labs on many benchmarks (only for cybersecurity defenders for now).

   2. Skills for Gemini and Workspace let users save and reuse custom AI instructions across tasks, rolling out in October and eventually replacing Gems.

2. Runway opened early access to Runway Ads that create visual ads, publish them to Google, Meta, and TikTok, and optimize them based on performance.

📖 AI resources

1. “Jagged Performance of Frontier Models” [REPORT]: comparison of how top AI models handle real agent tasks like web browsing, by Fig Labs.

2. “GLM-5.3 Cyber Capabilities” [REPORT]: Anthropic’s red-team analysis of inadequate safeguards on hacking-capable open-weight models.

3. “Open TTS Leaderboard” [BENCHMARK]: a Hugging Face leaderboard to compare open text-to-speech models on multilingual speech and voice cloning.

4. “State of Agent Skills” [REPORT]: Vercel’s look at what people are teaching AI agents through its skills.sh registry and which skills actually get installed.

🔀 AI random

1. Ataraxos, built by researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, NYU, and Stanford, beat the best human Stratego player 15-1 after only $8K in training costs.

2. The FTC opened an investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI companies over the risks their products may pose to consumers.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Even with the self-juggling disappearing ghost balls, the real mystery here is somehow the choice of outfit.

🔐 All my paid goodies in one place

Take a peek at what’s behind the paywall:

Welcome back to your weekly skimmable AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen-Image-2.1, a compact image model that can create and edit transparent images in one place.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code now tries to find a natural stopping point when you hit your usage limit during a task, instead of cutting its work off mid-edit.

   2. Claude Opus 5.5 is the new flagship model that’s better at coding and reasoning, faster, cheaper than Fable, and doesn’t suck at writing.

   3. Claude Tag can now use your personal connectors like Google Drive and your calendar when you ask for help in a Slack channel.

3. ElevenLabs launched Studio 4.0, an all-in-one editor that lets you generate images, music, sound effects, video, and voiceovers on a single timeline.

4. Google news:

   1. Flow got six new creator-made tools for working with 3D textures, animated collages, captions, motion graphics, sound effects, and thumbnails.

   2. Gemini now connects to even more apps, including Adobe, Airtable, Peloton, SeatGeek, Squarespace, Wispr AI, and Zoho.

   3. Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS is a text-to-speech model that lets you design brand-new voices and direct their delivery line by line.

   4. Vids now lets anyone with a Google account create HD AI video clips for free using the new Gemini Omni 1.1 model.

5. Leonardo.Ai launched Leonardo Agent, which can turn an idea into a full set of visuals like ads, album art, and other scenes while keeping characters consistent.

6. Meta news:

   1. Muse for Mac can now use your computer, so you can queue up jobs and let it keep working while you walk away.

   2. Muse Mail gives your Muse agent its own email address, so it can join your threads or receive tasks from you to work on.

7. Midjourney added Style Previews to its alpha site, so you can see how your current prompt looks across different styles as you browse.

8. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT Voice can now use plugins like your calendar, email, and Slack, and create decks, docs, sites, and spreadsheets just by having you talk to it.

   2. GPT-6 Sol and Luna are new small and medium models for ChatGPT and Codex that are faster, cheaper, and better at coding and factual accuracy.

9. SpaceXAI released Grok 4.7, a coding and knowledge model that works longer on hard tasks and checks its own work more carefully.

10. Spotify news:

    1. Muse integration lets you get Meta’s AI agent to play music, build playlists, and schedule playback on Spotify just by asking.

    2. Taste Profile shows how Spotify understands your taste and also lets you use notes to steer your Home feed recommendations.

11. Xiaomi open-sourced MiMo-V2.6, a family of multimodal models that understand audio, images, text, and video and can control your computer.

🔬 AI research

1. Google news:

   1. Ask Music will let you chat with YouTube Music to explore songs, find out more about the artist or band, and organize your queue.

   2. Conversational editing is coming to YouTube Shorts and the Create app, so you can reorder clips, sync music, and make edits by talking to Gemini.

   3. Video A/B testing will let YouTube creators test multiple versions of a given video to find the strongest opening hook.

2. Meta previewed Horizon Create and Horizon Studio, tools that can create playable 2D or 3D games directly from your phone or in the browser.

3. Microsoft announced a redesigned Copilot app with Autopilot that can handle your recurring workflows and Code that builds apps and dashboards.

📖 AI resources

1. “MentalHealthBench” [BENCHMARK]: an open benchmark built with 80+ licensed experts to test how well AI handles mental health conversations.

2. “OpenAI Academy Learning Paths” [COURSE]: new role-based AI courses for developers, educators, leaders, students, and workers.

3. “Opus 5.5: How Close Are We to Automated AI Research?” [VIDEO]: another great deep dive by AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

1. OpenAI revealed that one of its agents accessed non-public files on Australia’s Medicare statistics portal during a research task.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Welp, that was likely as much awkwardness as you could possibly pack into 8 seconds.

Welcome back to your weekly skimmable AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Amazon launched Alexa+ in India with Hindi and Hinglish support for multi-step tasks like meal planning, shopping, and smart home controls.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude merged Cowork and chat into one unified experience that now also includes Design, Docs, and Slides under the same umbrella.

   2. Claude for Small Business got 43 new ready-made workflows and 27 integrations like Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe, TikTok, and more.

3. Apple launched the upgraded Siri AI that understands your personal context, sees your screen, and can see the world through your camera.

4. Cline launched a Desktop App for macOS and Windows that lets you code with open-weight AI models that run locally on your device.

5. ElevenLabs expanded its MCP connector to let you generate images, music, video, and voice directly inside ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Grokbot, and others.

6. Google news:

   1. CC is an AI agent for families that helps coordinate daily logistics, schedules, and tasks.

   2. Gemini 3.8 Live voice models can now see what you see, auto-detect your language, and run tools in the background while you talk.

   3. Gemini Notebook now lets you have real-time voice chats with your sources and includes an audio recorder for capturing your thoughts on the go.

7. Meta launched Meta One, a subscription that bundles its premium features across Facebook, Instagram, Meta AI, and WhatsApp.

8. Midjourney released several alpha updates, including Korean-language support, a better editor, improved mobile controls, and organization features.

9. OpenAI launched a ChatGPT add-in for Microsoft Word that lets you work on documents while bringing in context from apps like Dropbox, SharePoint, etc.

10. Perplexity expanded its Portable Computer to Windows, so you can run AI agents and scheduled workflows locally and keep the files on your device.

11. Runway launched an Enhance Frame Rate feature that converts any video to up to 120 FPS, letting you make production-ready clips without leaving the platform.

12. Sakana updated its research agent Marlin with an interactive AI chat to make sense of research reports, as well as editable PowerPoint exports.

13. xAI news:

    1. Grok now has Voice Mode for real-time conversations on desktop and mobile.

    2. Grok Build now has persistent Memory to remember your coding conventions, decisions, and project facts across sessions.

    3. Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 is twice as accurate and now ranks #1 on accuracy among streaming speech-to-text models across dozens of languages.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic is beta testing redesigned Claude Code Projects that can coordinate parallel work threads and manage context across separate sessions.

📖 AI resources

1. “Agent Effectiveness Index” [BENCHMARK]: an open-source benchmark that scores how well AI agents understand processes, learn, and take actions.

2. “Model Misalignment Reporting Framework” [REPORT]: OpenAI’s framework for tracking unexpected behavior in AI models, with six documented cases so far.

🔀 AI random

1. OpenAI started testing Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT, so you can click an ad to start a conversation with the brand’s AI agent about its products.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I’m not a qualified referee, but I do believe that’s offside.

Welcome back to your weekly skimmable AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Amazon rolled out AI lip-sync dubbing on Prime Video, syncing actors’ lip movements to dubbed audio to make foreign-language shows more accessible.

2. Blackmagic Design released DaVinci Resolve 21.1 with AI assistant integration that lets you use Claude or ChatGPT Codex to edit videos and organize media.

3. DeepSeek released V4.1-Flash, a multimodal model that can process text and images at lower cost and higher speed than its predecessors.

4. ElevenLabs released Music v2.5, featuring more natural-sounding instruments and better layering, with lossless downloads across all plan tiers.

5. Google news:

   1. Dreambeans expanded to all US 18+ users, serving personalized stories using your interests and connected apps like Gmail, Calendar, Photos, and more.

   2. Gemini for Windows launched as a desktop app with an Alt+Space overlay that lets you access Gemini from any app.

6. Instacart launched Clementine, an AI shopping assistant that turns meal ideas, recipes, and grocery lists into ready-to-buy carts based on budget and stock.

7. Meta launched Muse, a personal AI agent that can book travel, send emails, and handle everyday tasks for you via WhatsApp or its own app.

8. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT Images 2.5 generates images faster with sharper details, and comes with a Sketch feature that turns rough drawings into finished images.

   2. ChatGPT Work now connects to Gmail, Google Drive, SharePoint, and Slack to learn your writing style so that it can apply it to new content.

   3. Data Agent in ChatGPT Work can connect to databases, Google Drive, or SharePoint so you can ask specific questions and build dashboards.

9. Suno released v6, developed with Warner, BMG, and Believe, with three variants for different creative workflows plus faster generation and more control over edits.

🔬 AI research

1. Apple confirmed Siri AI launches in beta on September 14, with an understanding of your personal context and broad world knowledge.

2. ElevenLabs partnered with Universal Music Group on a licensed AI music platform that will let fans create remixes and mashups from official recordings.

📖 AI resources

1. “PISA 2025 Study” [REPORT]: OECD’s assessment of the impact of AI use on academic performance based on 760,000 students across 91 countries.

2. “Scenarios for our Economic Future” [INTERACTIVE PAGE]: an Anthropic model to help explore how AI might reshape the US economy through 2030.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic discussed alignment failures that let Claude models gain unauthorized access to real external systems during cybersecurity evaluations.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Damn…and it started out so well!

Welcome back to your weekly skimmable AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic released Claude Fable 5.1, its best model for coding, knowledge work, and research, at roughly 25% lower token cost than Fable 5.

2. fal launched fal.live, a platform for interactive AI livestreams where viewers direct what happens next via text prompts in real time.

3. Google news:

   1. Gemini 3.8 Flash takes extra reasoning steps on complex tasks and is especially well-suited for autonomous work and long-horizon coding.

   2. Gemini Spark has come to Google Photos, letting users search, edit, organize, share, and automate photo workflows with a single prompt.

   3. Gemini Voice now lets you co-write in Docs, search your Gmail, and organize your notes in Keep using conversational voice commands.

   4. Google Pics is a new image tool that integrates into Docs, Drive, and Slides, with collaborative editing, in-image text editing, and object isolation features.

   5. Lyria 3.5 music model is now available in the Gemini app and lets users generate full songs with control over genres, lyrics, and vocals.

4. Meta news:

   1. Muse Spark 1.3 performs better on long-running agentic and coding tasks while using fewer tool calls and tokens.

   2. Muse Voice Transcribe is a real-time speech-to-text model that can identify 20+ speakers in a single conversation and was trained on 70+ languages.

5. OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Astra, its new flagship model for computer use, coding, research, cybersecurity, and complex professional work.

6. OpenClaw released OpenClaw 2.0 with easier setup, a rebuilt browser app, and shared sessions that let teams collaborate without losing context.

7. Perplexity launched Hybrid Compute on Mac, which splits AI tasks between cloud and local models so sensitive data never leaves your device.

🔬 AI research

1. Google previewed Agentic Video Understanding, which searches for video segments via audio, frames, and transcripts rather than processing entire videos.

2. Runway research:

   1. GWM Worlds 2 generates interactive 720p AI environments with spatial audio in real time, which respond to your inputs as you explore.

   2. Solaris can create working apps and websites in real time as users interact with them, frame by frame, without any underlying code.

3. World Labs previewed Atlas, a world model that can generate, reconstruct, and simulate 3D-consistent worlds with precise camera control.

📖 AI resources

1. “PII-TRACE” [BENCHMARK]: measures how well AI can detect personal information in long conversations.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic tightened its security practices with stronger sandboxing and real-time monitoring after its models took unauthorized actions during evaluations.

2. New York City introduced an AI classroom moratorium banning student AI use through eighth grade (and companion chatbots across all grades).

3. Senator Sanders introduced a bill to pause AI development after recent reports of AI agents circumventing restrictions and gaining unauthorized access.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

The prompt for this was simply “An insane pool trickshot,” and, I mean, fair enough.

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s what happened in AI last week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Adobe launched “AI Assisted Editor” in Photoshop that brings all AI features into one toolbar and lets you make precise edits by drawing directly on images.

2. Alibaba open-sourced Qwen3.8-Flash, a fast multimodal model that can work with code, images, and text while being way cheaper than Qwen 3.7 Plus.

3. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude in Chrome is now generally available, so you can hand Claude your web tasks (with built-in safeguards to block prompt injection attacks).

   2. Cowork now has its own built-in browser to navigate websites and complete tasks without touching your browser or personal data.

   3. Memory now syncs across Chat and Cowork, automatically remembering useful context while letting you view, edit, and delete what’s been saved.

4. Google news:

   1. AI Mode can now track flights, display your frequent-flyer rates, and book hotels directly in Google Search.

   2. Expert Intelligence in Gemini Notebook lets you create infographics, quizzes, and other outputs from over 100,000 ebooks from major publishers.

   3. Flow can now export video in 4K, lets you control start and end frames, and comes with a draft mode for quick tests at lower resolution.

   4. Gemini 3.5 Transcribe can transcribe speech in over 85 languages with speaker identification and industry-leading accuracy.

   5. Gemini Live got agentic voice features that can run multi-step tasks, manage your inbox, recap your day, and personalize answers using past chats.

5. Midjourney launched the V8.2 Edit Model with inpainting, outpainting, and support for up to four reference images.

6. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT now gives Free plan users up to three scheduled tasks, while paid users can create event-based tasks triggered by Gmail, GitHub, and Slack.

   2. ChatGPT Work can now log into websites on your behalf without seeing your credentials to handle bookings, form submissions, and more.

   3. Codex and ChatGPT Work added a “$visualize” command that turns text and data into visual diagrams.

7. Particle launched Radar, a search engine that transcribes and indexes over 130,000 podcasts so you can find specific quotes, speakers, and topics.

8. Perplexity released Portable Computer, a local-first AI agent that works entirely on your device, keeping your data private and cutting cloud costs.

9. Z.ai released GLM-5.3-Flash, a multimodal model optimized for fast, lightweight agentic tasks, handling code, image, and text work at very low costs.

🔬 AI research

1. Meta is preparing to launch Hatch, a consumer AI agent that handles real-world tasks like booking travel, managing email, and ordering food.

2. OpenAI reportedly finished pretraining Bel, the largest known base model at over 10 trillion parameters, expected to power models beyond GPT-6.

📖 AI resources

1. “The turbulent AI era is here” [ESSAY]: Bill Gates on why policymakers need to act so that economic benefits are shared before mass job displacement hits.

2. “Learning Never Stops” [REPORT]: OpenAI’s study of how people use ChatGPT for learning across age groups and how this varies with school schedules.

3. "TIME 100 AI 2026" [LIST]: TIME's annual list of the 100 most influential people in AI.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic won its legal fight against the Pentagon after a federal judge ruled that its “supply-chain risk designation” was illegal retaliation.

2. Dr. Dre said he uses AI in his music production, comparing it to synthesizers and drum machines and calling critics “afraid of learning new things.”

3. NVIDIA reportedly agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, a deal that would give the chipmaker a major stake in the open-source AI ecosystem.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Damn. You guys must’ve practiced that for ages!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

👉 See all 110+ paid subscriber bonuses

Here’s last week’s AI news roundup:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba launched HappyShrimp 1.0, an AI music model that can turn simple text prompts into full instrumental tracks or entire songs with lyrics. (Try for free.)

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude can now send emails via Gmail and manage your Google Drive directly from the online chat interface. (Paid plans only.)

   2. Computer Use, Skills API, and Files API are now available for developers to build with, so they can create more advanced and feature-rich apps.

3. DeepSeek launched V4-Flash-Vision-Exp, a multimodal model that adds image understanding while matching V4 Flash on text and agentic reasoning.

4. ElevenLabs rolled out Eleven v3 Conversational, a real-time speech model that supports 70+ languages and comes with a library of 11,000+ voices.

5. Google news:

   1. Gemini AI Pro is now free for a year for college students and comes with interactive visualizations, Deep Research tools, and study notebooks.

   2. Gemini in Chrome rolled out to Android users in the US with an Auto Browse agent that can perform tasks in the browser on your behalf.

6. Meta news:

   1. Meta AI Mac app can see your screen to answer questions about what you’re working on and also comes with Google Workspace tools.

   2. Pocket is an app that lets you create and share small games built from text prompts, now rolling out in the US. (Download for Android or iOS.)

7. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT launched an Apple Messages plugin for Mac that lets you search conversations, catch up on threads, and draft replies using AI.

   2. ChatGPT for Teens comes with built-in safety protections and a Study Mode that uses guiding questions instead of direct answers. (My post on the topic.)

8. Ornith open-sourced Ornith-1.5, a family of self-improving models, with the flagship one allegedly matching the performance of Claude Opus 4.8.

9. Perplexity now lets you email Computer at computer@perplexity.com, so you can send tasks from your inbox for it to work on.

10. Replit launched Free Mode for Core subscribers, which lets them create 30x more content using GPT-5.6 Luna with limits that reset every five hours.

11. Runway released Ruby, a model that converts SDR video to 16-bit HDR in ProRes and EXR formats for professional editing workflows.

12. Salesforce launched Slack Code with dedicated channels where designers, developers, and PMs can collaborate directly with coding agents.

13. Stability AI upgraded Stable Audio 3.0 with a DAW plugin and richer web editor that lets musicians generate, tweak, mix, and extend tracks without restarting.

14. Tripo launched P2.0 Preview, a 3D model generator that creates game-ready assets from image or text prompts.

🔬 AI research

1. Cursor previewed its code-hosting platform Origin in early beta, with repos, pull requests, and GitHub sync built into the Cursor editor.

📖 AI resources

1. “2026 AI Marketing Industry Report” [REPORT]: a look at how marketers are adopting AI tools and their platform preferences by Social Media Examiner.

2. “How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI?” [STUDY]: interactive report by Pew Research Center tracing the spread of AI-generated content.

3. “Young Adults Increasingly Wary of AI” [SURVEY]: study of Americans’ attitudes toward and concerns about AI by the Pew Research Center.

🔀 AI random

1. Amazon has been bulk-buying rare books and scanning them for AI training data after destroying their bindings (404 Media investigation).

2. OpenAI paused training of its frontier model (codenamed Astra) after early tests suggested it could pose serious cybersecurity risks.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Wait! Where did that coin go?! That went too fast for me!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you’d missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday post:

Here’s what happened in AI over the past two weeks:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Cowork can now join your Chrome session in a side panel, so you can sync sessions between web, desktop, and mobile on any device.

   2. Claude Tag now gets context from your entire Slack channel instead of just individual threads, making it better at knowing when to jump in.

2. DeepSeek launched V4-Pro, an upgraded agentic model with adjustable reasoning efforts that let you balance speed vs. depth depending on the task.

3. Google news:

   1. Gemini now connects to even more third-party apps like OpenTable, Pandora, Ticketmaster, and more, so you can access them without leaving the chat.

   2. Gemini 3.7 Flash is smarter at coding and tool use, handling complex workflows at half the price of its predecessor.

   3. Google Ads & Google Analytics have added AI agents that can manage your campaigns as well as new visual dashboards and benchmarking tools.

4. Meta open-sourced Muse Glimmer, an agentic model small enough to run on a consumer device for local coding and file management. (Try on Hugging Face.)

5. Microsoft launched MAI-Image-2.6, its strongest image model to date with improved portrait and 3D rendering skills. (Currently #2 on Text-To-Image Arena.)

6. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT desktop app for Linux (now in preview) combines ChatGPT, Codex, and Work features in a single native workspace.

   2. Computer History for the ChatGPT Mac app can track your cross-app activity to build AI-accessible timelines and memories.

7. xAI news:

   1. Grok 4.6 is better at coding, research, agentic tasks, and visual work across complex projects, catching up with current frontier models.

   2. Grok Bot lets you deploy always-on AI agents that complete multi-step tasks inside your apps and websites around the clock.

8. Z.ai open-sourced GLM-5.3, a coding model with 50% better performance and stronger long-running agent workflows across complex projects.

🔬 AI research

1. Google introduced SL2T, a sign-language-to-text model that lets Deaf users sign to type, search, message, and interact with Gemini on Pixel 11.

2. Tencent previewed HunyuanWorldClaw, a system that generates explorable 3D worlds with editable terrain and objects from a single text prompt.

📖 AI resources

1. “From Assistance to Execution” [REPORT]: insights from several studies on how companies are transitioning from chatbots to agents by OpenAI.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic, Spotify, and Substack are all pushing for AI content transparency with disclosure tools, persona badges, watermarks, and more.

2. SpaceX completed its acquisition of Cursor AI, with the popular vibe-coding team joining SpaceXAI to build Grok coding products.

3. Twitch now shares your chats and streams with Amazon for AI training by default, so creators have to manually opt out in privacy settings.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

If you want to learn how to make pasta from scratch…maybe looks elsewhere?

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you’d missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday post:

Here’s what happened in AI over the past two weeks:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba news:

   1. Qwen3.8-Max is a powerful multimodal model built for long, autonomous coding and professional tasks, with visual feedback and self-correction.

   2. QwenWork is an all-in-one work platform that handles tasks across cloud, desktop, and enterprise tools using AI agents.

   3. Wan3.0 can turn any input, including documents, slides, spreadsheets, and web pages into 30-second continuous videos.

2. Autodesk launched 3D Editor + Canvas in Flow Studio that let creators build and refine editable 3D scenes using image and video models right in the app.

3. Black Forest Labs released FLUX 3 Video, which can generate 20-second HD clips with native audio and lip-synced dialogue in multiple languages.

4. ByteDance launched Seedance 2.5, a video model that generates continuous 30-second clips in a single pass and can handle up to 50 reference inputs.

5. Genspark open-sourced GenOffice, a free office suite for Mac, Windows, and Linux that works with docs, sheets, slides, etc., and comes with a built-in AI agent.

6. Google news:

   1. Ask Maps can now find hotels, order food, and get real-time traffic info using a personal agent that connects to your Gmail and Calendar.

   2. Gemini Spark now integrates with Chrome and can automate web tasks like booking appointments, comparing products, and filling forms.

7. HeyGen launched a Video Podcast tool that turns documents and links into two-host video shows with B-roll footage, captions, and more.

8. Ideogram launched Object Remover, which can erase selected items, logos, people, and text from images while preserving lighting and reflections.

9. Meta launched Muse Code, a coding agent that can handle complex software engineering tasks, powered by the new Muse Spark 1.2 model.

10. MiniMax open-sourced H3, an omnimodal video model that generates 15-second 2K clips with native audio from any mix of images, text, and video inputs.

11. OpenAI news:

    1. Education Plugins give educators and students bundled workflows to help with guided tutoring and lesson planning inside ChatGPT Work and Codex.

    2. GPT-5.6 Sol got a major accuracy upgrade (68% fewer factual errors) and a new reasoning slider for paid users.

12. Perplexity news:

    1. Personal Computer has rolled out to Windows, where it can complete multi-step tasks and control apps and files on your desktop.

    2. Projects (formerly Spaces) are shared hubs with persistent files and memory so teams and agents can carry context across tasks.

13. Replit launched Replit Design, a free creative suite that lets anyone generate and refine graphics, mockups, visual assets, and more using multiple AI models.

14. xAI news:

    1. Grok Build Mode lets you create apps, dashboards, games, and websites via chat, then publish them to a live URL. (SuperGrok Heavy users only for now.)

    2. Grok Voice Think Fast 2.0 is a fast speech-to-speech model with sub-second latency for more natural voice conversations.

    3. Imagine Video 1.5 now supports image and voice references, so you can generate consistent characters across scenes.

🔬 AI research

1. Hark previewed Hark Handoff, a browser agent that can shop, file returns, make reservations, and do research across the web, even without official APIs.

2. OpenAI teased Astra, an upcoming AI model that helped solve or make major progress on 10 long-standing problems in math and theoretical computer science.

3. Spotify signed a licensing deal with Merlin to add independent labels to its upcoming AI remix and covers tool for Premium subscribers.

📖 AI resources

1. “AI is getting a little out of control” [VIDEO]: A thorough look at the recent rollercoaster developments by AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic and Meta both reported their AI agents escaping test sandboxes and breaching real companies during safety evaluations. (Just like OpenAI earlier.)

2. Google pulled its AI image-editing tool from Google Earth after just one day, when researchers showed it could generate fake satellite imagery.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I didn’t think one could get second-hand cringe from freestyle robo comebacks, but…

Happy Sunday, friends!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

There’s still time to shape the future of “Live & Learn” sessions, here:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Alibaba released Qwen-Image-3.0 that can generate realistic outputs and readable text at a micro level of detail.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Opus 5 performs almost as well as Fable 5 at half the price, with thinking effort toggles to balance cost and output quality.

   2. Record a Skill lets you teach Claude Cowork a repeatable task by recording your screen and narrating your actions as you perform the task.

   3. Voice Mode now supports Opus and Sonnet alongside Haiku and has access to tools like Canva, Gmail, Notion, Slack, and more.

3. ElevenLabs added References to its music generator, so you can upload a track to guide the style, mood, and instrumentation of its outputs.

4. Google released Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber, improving the speed and performance of its models for search and agentic work.

5. Microsoft now runs its own MAI models inside GitHub Copilot and Excel, matching GPT-5.6 quality at a fraction of the cost.

6. OpenAI brought ChatGPT Voice to the desktop app, so you can control your ChatGPT Work or Codex agents by just talking to them.

7. Poolside open-sourced Laguna S 2.1, a coding model with a 1M-token context window built for long-running agentic and software development tasks.

8. xAI news:

   1. Grok Build Workflows can spawn hundreds of parallel AI agents to tackle complex tasks and deliver a unified report once they’re finished.

   2. Grok for Google Workspace brings Grok directly to Docs, Sheets, and Slides with a single installation.

🔬 AI research

1. Alibaba previewed Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4 trillion-parameter model that the company claims is “second only to Fable 5,” with open weights coming soon.

2. Black Forest Labs announced FLUX 3, a multimodal model that can generate videos up to 20 seconds with native audio from text, images, or existing clips.

3. NVIDIA previewed a Synthetic Video Detector that can identify AI-generated videos with 92% accuracy.

📖 AI resources

1. “Anthropic Economic Index Connector” [TOOL]: a connector that lets Claude pull data from the index in response to natural language questions.

2. “Complete Guide to Claude Design” [VIDEO]: great hands-on walkthrough of Claude Design’s new features by Futurepedia.

3. “DeeVid Viral Video Studio” [TOOL]: lets you discover what makes videos go viral, customize every element, and create your next hit faster. [sponsored]

4. “MakePlay” [TOOL]: free tool that lets you type one sentence and get a game you can actually play, not a broken prototype. Runs on Claude Fable 5. [sponsored]

5. “SlidesPilot” [TOOL]: AI PowerPoint generator that turns documents and links into editable PowerPoint decks instantly. [sponsored]

🔀 AI random

1. Neill Blomkamp of District 9 fame released NIGHTBORNE, a 13-minute sci-fi short made entirely with Seedance 2.0, to a mixed reception.

2. OpenAI revealed a security incident where an internal evaluation model escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face's systems to steal benchmark answers.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Ooof, he almost didn’t make it! What a nail-biter!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

I was away last week, so we have two weeks’ worth of news to catch up on:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Code Desktop now has a built-in browser so it can read docs, navigate sites, and interact with web pages directly.

   2. Claude for Teachers gives verified K-12 educators in the US free access to premium features and a built-in teaching skills library.

   3. Cowork is now available on web and mobile, so your background tasks can run on their own without your device needing to be on.

   4. Reflect feature helps you track and visualize your Claude usage so you can better understand your habits.

2. Canva launched Code 2.0, an upgrade to its AI website builder with faster code generation, HTML import, and drag-and-drop editing.

3. Dropbox integrated with ChatGPT and can now help you organize files and conduct multi-step workflows directly inside the app.

4. Google news:

   1. AI Mode in Search now connects to apps like Canva, Instacart, and YouTube Music, so you can finish tasks directly from Search.

   2. Gemini in Chrome rolled out to UK desktop users to help summarize pages, conduct comparisons, and integrate with apps like Calendar, Gmail, and more.

   3. Google Images now features an AI-powered gallery and image generation in Search to mark its 25th anniversary.

   4. Google Photos Video Remix can create shareable video clips with cinematic relighting, background swapping, and other effects.

   5. Google Vids added Gemini Omni editing and personal AI avatars that let you put yourself into video clips.

   6. NotebookLM is now called Gemini Notebook and features native code execution and deeper integration with the Gemini ecosystem.

   7. Waze now includes a motorcycle mode with AI-powered hazard detection plus Gemini conversational search for finding destinations.

5. Meta AI launched Muse Image, an image generator that can edit, restore, and restyle your personal photos using AI.

6. Moonshot AI open-sourced Kimi K3, a multimodal model that gets close to the performance of top-tier frontier models.

7. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT Work connects to Gmail, Google Drive, Salesforce, Slack, and Teams to manage files and run multi-step workflows on your behalf.

   2. GPT-5.6 is a three-tier model family (Sol, Terra, and Luna) with improved intelligence, speed, and agentic capabilities.

   3. GPT-Live voice models let ChatGPT listen and speak at the same time, making voice conversations feel natural with real-time acknowledgments.

8. Perplexity launched Brain, which remembers how you work, switches between AI models faster, and lets you publish websites in one click.

9. PrismML released Bonsai 27B, a powerful AI model that can run directly on phones and laptops for fast, private, offline use.

10. Superhuman launched Auto Drafts 2.0 to write ready-to-send email replies using your inbox, calendar, and personal writing style.

11. Thinking Machines open-sourced Inkling, a multimodal model with controllable thinking effort that can natively process audio, images, and text.

12. xAI news:

    1. Grok 4.5 handles coding, agentic tasks, and knowledge work at close to top-tier model quality while being faster and using fewer tokens.

    2. Grok Automations lets you schedule recurring tasks or create workflows that are triggered by incoming emails.

    3. Grok Build is now open-source, letting developers inspect, customize, and run its coding assistant on their own computers.

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🔬 AI research

1. Apple announced Siri AI, which understands context, takes action across apps, and continues conversations from iPhone to Apple Watch.

2. Roblox previewed Build, a mobile-first tool that lets users create playable games from text prompts without coding.

3. Spotify is testing conversational AI features for Premium users to let them control playback and discover audiobooks, music, and podcasts via text or voice.

📖 AI resources

1. “Claude’s values across models and languages” [RESEARCH]: an Anthropic study of how Claude changes behavior based on language and model version.

2. “CursorBench 3.2” [BENCHMARK]: Cursor’s benchmark that scores coding agents on real, ambiguous tasks from actual development sessions.

🔀 AI random

1. Meta removed its AI image generation from Instagram after three days due to deepfake backlash as it could use anyone’s public photos by default .

2. Suno was hacked to reveal it had scraped over hundreds of thousands of hours of audio from Deezer, Genius, and YouTube.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Nature sure works in mysterious ways!

Heads-up: I’m away next week, so the next Sunday Rundown is on July 19.

Happy Sunday, friends!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Fable 5 has been redeployed after the government lifted its export restrictions, with an improved safety classifier to block harmful requests.

   2. Claude Sonnet 5 is an upgrade to the company’s mid-range model with better coding, reasoning, and tool-use capabilities.

2. Cursor launched a native iOS app in public beta, letting developers build apps and manage coding agents from their phone.

3. Google news:

   1. Gemini Omni Flash and Nano Banana 2 Lite are now available to developers in more places to support conversational video and image creation.

   2. Gemini Spark, the 24/7 AI agent, is now available on macOS to automate desktop tasks, integrating with tools like Canva, Dropbox, and Instacart.

   3. NotebookLM can now turn your sources into 60-second vertical video overviews with narration. (Ultra and Pro subscribers first. Free users later.)

   4. Personal Intelligence can now generate personalized images with Nano Banana based on your data from Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube.

   5. Take Notes for Me can automatically transcribe Google Meet calls and generate summaries, saving everything to Drive. (Ultra and Pro subscribers.)

4. Runway added Google’s Gemini Omni Flash to its platform, so users can generate and edit videos from images, text, and video inputs.

5. Square now lets restaurants accept orders directly from ChatGPT and Claude, so customers can browse, order, and pay without leaving the chat.

6. X launched an official MCP server that lets AI agents like Claude and Cursor fetch timelines, manage bookmarks, and search posts more easily.

🔬 AI research

1. Google is rumored to be prepping Gemini 3.5 Pro for launch in July, with a two-million-token context window and Deep Think reasoning mode.

📖 AI resources

1. “Getting Started with Loops” [GUIDE]: Anthropic’s look at goal-based agentic loops in Claude. (I wrote a partially related, beginner-friendly take ten days ago.)

2. “Fable 5 vs GPT 5.6 Sol: The Early Results” [VIDEO]: A great dive by AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

1. Netflix will use an AI-generated Gene Wilder voice in its upcoming Wonka’s The Golden Ticket reality show, created with ElevenLabs and the family’s consent.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

“I’m starting to suspect this octopus isn’t the chess grandmaster we were told it was!”

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic brought the Claude Desktop app to AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry. (Read my recent primer on Claude Code Desktop features.)

2. Figma launched a suite of new AI features like generative plugins, Weave tools, shader fills, and agent upgrades to help designers get more out of their canvas.

3. Google news:

   1. Gemini 3.5 Flash now has built-in computer use, letting AI agents see, click, and type across browser, desktop, and mobile environments.

   2. Gemini in Chrome now lets you select any text or image on screen and send it to Gemini so it can work on specific elements instead of the entire page.

   3. Google Finance is out of beta with AI-generated market briefings and portfolio tracking. (It also comes with a new Android app.)

4. Mistral released OCR 4, a document extraction model that can read PDFs, presentations, and Word docs in 170 languages.

5. Perplexity launched Computer for Counsel, a legal AI agent that connects with external tools to help with contract drafting, document review, and research.

6. Runway launched Agent 2.0 that can turn a single prompt into marketing briefs and campaign assets for multiple platforms.

7. Sakana AI launched Fugu, a multi-agent system that automatically picks the best AI models for each part of your task to deliver top-tier results.

🔬 AI research

1. Anthropic launched Claude Tag that lets teams tag Claude in Slack to work on tasks, answer questions, and surface relevant updates. (Beta for Enterprise users.)

2. ByteDance previewed Seedance 2.5, a video model that can generate native 30-second 4K clips and handle up to 50 reference inputs.

3. OpenAI previewed the new flagship GPT-5.6 Sol model and its smaller siblings, Terra (everyday work) and Luna (fast and cheap). (Limited release for now.)

4. xAI began testing Grok 4.5 in private beta at SpaceX and Tesla, with early results allegedly competitive with frontier models like Claude Opus.

📖 AI resources

1. “AI Watchdog” [TOOL]: searchable database by The Atlantic that lets anyone look up artists, musicians, channels, etc. that were used to train AI models.

2. “FFASR Leaderboard” [BENCHMARK]: new benchmark to test speech-to-text agents on real-world challenges like accents, noise, and multiple languages.

🔀 AI random

1. Getty Images signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI to show licensed photos and videos in ChatGPT search results.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

Nailed it, GLM-5V-Turbo! That’s GPS-level precision right there.

📹 Live & Learn #7: AI vision capabilities

This week’s Live & Learn was all about testing how well AI models “see” stuff:

Live & Learn is taking a hiatus for the next few weeks (vacation, family visits, etc.), but it’ll be back with a vengeance in August.

Stay tuned!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Adobe expanded its Creative Agent across Firefly and Creative Cloud apps, letting creators describe an outcome and have the agent handle the busywork.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Design was upgraded so that it stays on-brand, syncs with Claude Code, and can export results to Adobe, Canva, PDF, and PowerPoint.

   2. Claude Code now supports Artifacts that turn your session work into live, self-updating web pages that you can share with your team.

3. ByteDance launched Seedance 2.0 Mini, a faster, lower-quality version of its flagship AI video model that also costs half as much per generation.

4. Character.AI launched a Creator Bundle with new tools to help you build characters faster, track performance, and get discovered via leaderboards.

5. HappyOyster launched HappyOyster 1.0, an open-ended model for creating and exploring real-time interactive video worlds with prompts. (Try for free.)

6. Meta added AI Mode to Facebook search, along with new photo and video editing presets that let you swap looks, outfits, and styles.

7. Microsoft officially released Copilot Cowork, an AI teammate that can send emails, draft documents, manage your calendar, and browse the web.

8. Midjourney rolled out Draft Mode for V8.1, which lets you quickly generate 24 low-resolution image options before rendering your favorite in full resolution.

9. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT now gives free users more accurate and complete health answers using GPT-5.5 Instant.

   2. Record & Replay lets you demonstrate your work steps to Codex and turn them into editable, reusable skills to share with others.

   3. Scheduled tasks now have a dedicated pane in ChatGPT, making reminders and recurring prompts easier to create and manage.

10. Perplexity launched Brain for Computer, a memory system that learns from completed tasks to make the agent more precise and work better over time.

11. Sakana AI launched Marlin, an autonomous research agent that can think for up to eight hours straight to produce full reports and slide decks.

12. xAI released Grok Imagine Video 1.5, an image-to-video model with better motion consistency and faster generation speed.

13. Z.ai open-sourced GLM-5.2, an agentic model with a one-million-token context window, built for complex coding and long-horizon tasks. (Try it for free.)

📖 AI resources

1. “Americans and AI 2026” [REPORT]: Pew Research survey on how Americans use AI and their attitudes about it.

2. “Is It Agentic Enough?” [GUIDE]: Practical guide for benchmarking open AI models against your own tools and tasks from Hugging Face.

3. “LifeSciBench” [BENCHMARK]: A new evaluation suite from OpenAI to test how AI models handle real-world life-science research tasks.

🔀 AI random

1. SpaceX agreed to acquire Cursor-maker Anysphere for $60 billion in an all-stock deal, just as Cursor teased an upcoming launch of a new AI coding model.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

“Wow! Check out that beautiful view!”

-Hold up, lemme just dislocate my neck and feet real quick…

📹 Live & Learn #6: AI image editing

This week’s Live & Learn was all about conversational AI image editing:

In my next Live & Learn session, I’ll put AI models’ vision capabilities to the test.

Join me on Friday, June 26, at 2PM CET (8AM EST):

Join Live & Learn #7: AI Vision

Also, please let me know what you’d like to get out of these live sessions by taking this quick chat-based survey.

See you there on Friday!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Amazon added AI merch design to the Shopping app, letting customers describe a design idea to Alexa to have it created and printed on a product.

2. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Fable 5 is a top-tier model that leads benchmarks in knowledge work, scientific research, software engineering, and vision. (But do you need it?)

   2. Claude Managed Agents can now run on a schedule and securely access authenticated tools to perform tasks like data sync and reporting.

3. Deezer launched a free AI Music Detector that scans your playlists on Apple Music, Spotify, and 18 other services to detect and flag AI-generated tracks.

4. ElevenLabs released Avatars, persistent AI characters made from reference images that you can use for talking-head videos with lip syncing.

5. Google news:

   1. DiffusionGemma is an open-source model that generates entire blocks of text simultaneously instead of token-by-token, making it 4x faster.

   2. Gemini 3.5 Live Translate delivers near real-time voice translation across 70+ languages while preserving the speaker’s tone and pitch.

   3. NotebookLM can now do multi-step research, write and execute code, and export to 11 new formats. (Only AI Ultra subscribers for now.)

   4. Information Agents in Search can continuously monitor topics and send you updates with links when there’s new info. (Only AI Ultra subscribers for now.)

6. OpenAI introduced a Lockdown Mode that limits ChatGPT’s access to external connections and web search to guard against prompt injection attacks.

7. Perplexity added Deep Research to Computer, letting it spin up agents that turn complex queries into cited reports, decks, dashboards, and more.

🔬 AI research

1. Apple previewed a rebuilt Siri AI powered by Gemini, with a camera mode, cross-app sharing, onscreen awareness, and personalized context.

2. Meta will update the Edits app with an AI assistant and a desktop version to help you brainstorm ideas, analyze performance, and edit videos on a bigger screen.

📖 AI resources

1. “Agents’ Last Exam” [BENCHMARK]: a new tough benchmark that measures model performance across 1,490 real professional workflow tasks.

2. “Anthropic Public Record” [RESEARCH]: a survey of 52,000 Americans to gauge their opinions and feelings on AI deployment and societal impact.

3. “Claude Fable 5 - Full 319-page Breakdown” [VIDEO]: a comprehensive deep dive into Fable 5 by the always excellent AI Explained.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic had to disable access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after the US government issued an export control directive aimed at preventing jailbreaks.

2. OpenAI submitted a confidential draft S-1 to the SEC as a formal first step toward a potential IPO.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I wanted a man to cut himself shaving, not star in a bizarre horror comedy. (Also, very convincing “Ouch” there, bruh. Oscar-worthy.)

📹 Live & Learn update

I had to cancel my last Live & Learn session on short notice a few days ago (Friday).

But I’ll try again this coming Friday with a test of AI chatbots and standalone tools that let you make conversational edits to your images.

Join the session on Friday, June 18, at 2PM CET (8AM EST):

Join Live & Learn: AI Image Editing

Also, please let me know what you’d like to get out of these live sessions by taking this quick chat-based survey.

Live & Learn concept in a nutshell:

• I pick 3-5 tools in the same category

• I test them live and rate them on 3-5 specific dimensions

• I end up with a leaderboard based on my observations and ratings

See you there on Friday!

Join Live & Learn: AI Image Editing

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Google open-sourced Gemma 4 12B, a multimodal model that processes text, images, and audio natively in a single pass and can run on a home laptop.

2. H Company open-sourced Holo3.1, a family of AI agents that can click, type, and navigate apps on the web, desktop, and mobile while running on your own device.

3. Ideogram launched Ideogram 4.0, an image model with the most reliable text rendering of any open-weight release, free for non-commercial use.

4. JetBrains open-sourced Mellum2, a fast coding model that can act as a specialist in bigger multimodel pipelines to handle routing, summarization, and refactoring.

5. Krea released Krea 2 Turbo, a faster version of Krea 2 that can create high-quality images in about two seconds. (Try it for free.)

6. Microsoft rolled out its first in-house coding model, MAI-Code-1-Flash, directly inside GitHub Copilot, free and optimized for fast, lightweight coding tasks.

7. MiniMax open-sourced M3, a natively multimodal model with 1M context, frontier performance, and coding skills designed for long-running agent tasks.

8. Nous Research launched Hermes Desktop, a native app for installing, configuring, and chatting with Hermes Agent without using the terminal.

9. OpenAI news:

   1. ChatGPT can now send emails directly from a conversation, so you can draft, edit, and fire off a message without leaving the chat.

   2. Codex can now adapt to your specific job role thanks to plugin bundles for marketing, sales, support, and more with relevant apps and skills.

   3. Dreaming lets ChatGPT process your past chats in the background to build a persistent understanding of your preferences. (Paid US accounts only for now.)

10. Reve launched Reve 2.0, a 4K image generator that lets you control exactly where elements appear using visual layouts rather than just text prompts. (Try for free.)

11. Runway brought its Aleph 2.0 model to the API, letting developers make precise video edits while preserving the rest of the clip.

12. TwelveLabs launched Rodeo, an AI video copilot that lets you find and assemble footage using plain language without manual scrubbing.

13. xAI released Grok Imagine 1.5 Preview, which lets you turn still images into cinematic 720p videos with natural-language prompts.

🔬 AI research

1. GitHub announced a Copilot Desktop App in technical preview, letting developers manage coding agents, create secure sandboxes, and review changes.

2. Microsoft introduced Scout, an always-on Microsoft 365 agent that schedules meetings, flags stalled decisions, and learns your priorities over time.

3. Perplexity teased a hybrid inference system for Perplexity Computer that automatically splits AI tasks between your device and the cloud.

📖 AI resources

1. “EVA-Bench Data 2.0” [BENCHMARK]: a set of 121 tools and 213 real-world scenarios to test AI voice agents across different enterprise domains.

🔀 AI random

1. Anthropic confidentially filed a draft S-1 for a proposed IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (But let’s hope it gets its house in order soon.)

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

I don’t know what’s happening here, but we need this in the Olympics ASAP.

📹 Live & Learn #5: AI logo makers

I’m back with the Live & Learn concept, where I test and rate AI tools, like so:

• I pick 3-5 tools in the same category

• I test them live and rate them on 3-5 specific dimensions

• I end up with a leaderboard based on my obserations and ratings

This week, I looked at and ranked five AI logo generators:

In the next Live & Learn, I will be testing chatbots and standalone tools that let you make edits to images.

Join the session on Friday, June 12, at 2PM CET (8AM EST):

Live & Learn: AI Image Editing

Also, please let me know what you’d like to get out of these live sessions:

Help shape "Live & Learn"

(It’s just a single open-ended question with a few AI-assisted follow-ups.)

Thanks!

Welcome back to the weekly AI news roundup.

See all 100+ paid subscriber bonuses

In case you missed it, here’s this week’s Thursday deep dive:

🗞️ AI news

Here’s what happened in AI this week:

👩‍💻 AI releases

1. Anthropic news:

   1. Claude Opus 4.8 brings incremental upgrades over 4.7 and several new features at the same cost. (But initial reactions are not positive.)

   2. Dynamic Workflows let Claude Code write orchestration scripts to run hundreds of parallel subagents to handle complex tasks.

2. ElevenLabs news:

   1. Dubbing v2 preserves emotional nuance when translating video content across languages by conditioning it on the original video. (Try for free.)

   2. Music v2 lets you create full songs that can switch genre mid-track with improved instrumentals, multilingual support, and richer vocals. (Try for free.)

3. Microsoft news:

   1. 365 Copilot is now more deeply embedded and loads faster inside Office apps like Excel and Word, so you can invoke it without breaking your flow.

   2. MAI-Image-2.5 is #3 on Arena’s text-to-image leaderboard and delivers sharp text and commercial-quality photography. (Try it free on Arena.)

4. OpenAI brought Codex computer use and remote control to Windows, so it can operate your desktop apps and continue coding sessions from the phone.

5. Perplexity made Computer available directly in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word as native add-ins, so you can use it without leaving your Office apps.

6. Runway launched an MCP server that lets you create images and videos directly inside ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or Replit without leaving the app.

7. xAI launched Grok Build, its coding agent with automation tools and image/video generation, in early beta for SuperGrok and X Premium+ users.

🔬 AI research

1. Apple previewed a new Siri for iOS 27 powered by Google Gemini, with improved reasoning, persistent chat history, and a standalone app.

📖 AI resources

1. “DeepSWE” [BENCHMARK]: New “contamination-free” benchmark that measures coding agents on original, long-horizon software engineering tasks.

2. “How to evaluate AI agents (2026 edition)” [GUIDE]: practical guide to testing AI agents in production by Ben Hylak.

🔀 AI random

1. YouTube is making AI labels more prominent across the platform and adding automatic detection to help spot photorealistic AI content.

🤦‍♂️ AI fail of the week

“Hey, barkeep, got any of them self-filling bottles with self-making cocktails that spontaneously catches on fire?”

“Say less.”

📹 Live & Learn is back

During the next Live & Learn session, I’ll be testing and rating AI logo makers.

Join the session on Tuesday, June 2, at 2PM CET (8AM EST):

Live & Learn: AI Logo Makers

Let me know what would make the session extra useful by taking this quick survey:

Help shape "Live & Learn"

(It’s one open-ended question with a few AI-assisted follow-ups.)

Thanks!