The ai models & agents stories our desk judged worth your time, written so anyone can follow them.
A former Anthropic engineer says the AI lab's intense culture left him burned out, in a rare inside account that lands just as the company files to go public.
Read more: Former Anthropic employee says working there left him burned outAnthropic's public filing for a stock market debut shows its earliest investors could earn huge returns, just over three years after the first big funding round.
Read more: Anthropic's stock market filing shows early investors in line for huge gainsThrive Holdings, backed by OpenAI, is buying home security company ADT for $15.3 billion and plans to bring AI to its products. ADT customers should take note.
Read more: Company backed by OpenAI buys home security firm ADT for $15.3 billionCX Network has published a guide to voice AI for customer service. Businesses that answer phone calls may want to read it before buying any tool.
Read more: CX Network publishes a guide to voice AI for customer serviceAnthropic's stock market filing calls personal Claude users a 'top-of-funnel engine' for business sales, and admits the effects of daily AI use are not fully understood.
Read more: Anthropic's IPO filing says free Claude users are a sales pipelineResearchers found flaws in Cursor, Copilot, Claude Desktop, VS Code and Codex. The Codex and VS Code bugs are reportedly still unpatched, so developers should stay careful.
Read more: Security flaws found in five AI coding tools, two still unfixedYouTube ad revenue grew 9% to $11.2 billion, short of forecasts, and Alphabet shares fell. Rivals are now chasing YouTube's TV viewers.
Read more: YouTube ad sales grew more slowly than expected, and Alphabet stock fellHowler, a free open-source Mac app, shows AI answers on a parchment letter and burns the chat when you press Escape. Your Mac keeps no history, but the AI company might.
Read more: Free Mac app answers AI questions, then burns the chat awayLawyers at big firms are skeptical of AI agents, and executives say it will take time for office workers to use the newest tools well.
Read more: Lawyers at big firms are wary of AI agents, and it is slowing adoptionNvidia is reportedly in talks to back the debt behind a huge data center for Anthropic, a sign of how risky and costly AI infrastructure has become.
Read more: Nvidia may back a young cloud firm's debt for Anthropic's data centerOpenAI now gives subscribers on $100, $200 and $500 ChatGPT plans matching API credits, following a similar move by Anthropic earlier this month.
Read more: OpenAI now gives top ChatGPT subscribers free credits for developersBarry Diller, 84, says old print brands like Southern Living can still earn money as AI changes media. Owners of trusted brands may want to take note.
Read more: Barry Diller, 84, is turning old print brands like Southern Living into new incomeA campaign using fake AI models on Hugging Face came back days after takedown. One model was downloaded over 28,000 times and can take over GPU servers.
Read more: Fake AI models on Hugging Face secretly hijack servers to mine cryptoGoogle's Gemini 4 Carbon now tops an independent AI ranking, and OpenAI halved the price of its mid-tier model. Cheaper AI could reach your business tools.
Read more: Google's new AI model takes the top spot as OpenAI cuts pricesAmazon's CEO says outside AI shopping assistants send only a sliver of its visitors, while shoppers using Amazon's own Alexa for Shopping buy more and spend more.
Read more: Amazon says outside AI shopping assistants send it very little trafficChatGPT now sells ads with no minimum spend, so a small hotel can test them for about $25 a day, though clicks may cost $3 or more.
Read more: Hotels can now buy ads inside ChatGPT with no minimum spendA DXC leader argues that voice AI should be judged by whether it solves problems and hands off to a person cleanly, not by how human it sounds.
Read more: Voice AI is only useful if it actually solves your problemMeta ran an Instagram ad for its AI helper Muse promising to show who unfollowed you, then pulled it. Instagram itself has long refused to offer that feature.
Read more: Meta's AI helper Muse ran an ad for tracking Instagram unfollowsMaybelline now lets ChatGPT users try on makeup with their camera and find stores that sell it, a sign shopping is moving into AI chat.
Read more: Maybelline lets you try on makeup inside ChatGPT, then find where to buyAn Inc. writer tested Google's Gemini on a Gmail inbox with 70,000 unread emails. The tool may help anyone buried in messages, but details are thin.
Read more: Google's Gemini can now sort a Gmail inbox with 70,000 unread emailsDream, a startup from two former Palantir leaders, raised $17 million for AI that designs whole buildings. It could change how projects get planned and priced.
Read more: Former Palantir leaders raise $17 million for AI that designs buildingsVisa says nearly 50 AI partners are live and is testing agents that pay approved business invoices, so the question of trust and spending limits is coming fast.
Read more: Visa is getting ready for AI assistants that shop and pay for youA SpaceX filing points to one customer behind a third of its revenue, and a source says it is Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI assistant.
Read more: Anthropic is now SpaceX's biggest customer, a source saysUnilever's AI agents now enter a customer order in about 90 seconds instead of 15 to 20 minutes, and show how any business could handle messy orders.
Read more: Unilever's AI helpers now enter customer orders in 90 seconds, not 20 minutes
