Latest AI News

OpenAI has increased the inference speed of GPT-5.Codex-Spark by 30%, pushing output beyond 1,200 tokens per second. This performance improvement makes the model significantly faster for coding and developer workflows where Codex-based models are typically deployed. The speed boost positions the model more competitively for real-time code generation tasks, though OpenAI has not publicly detailed the technical changes behind the optimization.

Anthropic has updated Claude Code with several new developer-focused features, including desktop app previews, code review capabilities, and background handling of CI/PR workflows. These additions allow developers to preview desktop applications directly within the tool, receive automated code reviews, and manage continuous integration and pull request processes in the background, streamlining the software development pipeline without requiring constant manual intervention from engineers.

Pika Labs has launched AI Selves, a new feature that lets users create persistent digital extensions of themselves. Unlike standard AI interactions, AI Selves retain memory across sessions, enabling more continuous and personalized experiences over time. The launch marks a significant expansion for Pika, a company best known for its AI video generation tools, as it moves into identity-based AI products where users can build, maintain, and interact with digital versions of themselves.

Anthropic has launched Claude Code Security, a limited research preview built into Claude Code on the web, available to Enterprise and Team customers. The tool scans codebases for vulnerabilities and suggests targeted patches for human review, going beyond rule-based static analysis by reasoning about code the way a human security researcher would. Powered by Claude Opus 4.6, the system found over 500 vulnerabilities in production open-source codebases. Open-source maintainers can apply for free expedited access.

Security firm Irregular analyzed passwords generated by ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini and found them highly predictable and easy to crack. Claude Opus 4.6 produced 20 duplicates out of 50 passwords, with 18 being identical strings. Claude favored starting passwords with uppercase "G," ChatGPT with "v," and Gemini with "k." The root cause is that LLMs are trained to produce statistically plausible outputs, not true randomness, making AI-generated passwords fundamentally insecure regardless of prompting or temperature adjustments.

AMC Theatres has pulled an AI-generated short film called "Thanksgiving Day" from its US locations following online backlash. The film, directed by Igor Alferov, won first prize at the inaugural Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival and was set for a two-week national run in AMC pre-show advertising slots. AMC distanced itself from the decision, stating that Screenvision Media manages its pre-show content and runs in fewer than 30 percent of AMC locations. The film was reportedly made using Gemini and Nano Banana Pro.

Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses face renewed privacy backlash after The New York Times reported that Meta considered launching facial recognition software during a "dynamic political environment," timing the rollout to exploit distracted privacy advocates. The Verge's Victoria Song argues Meta's reputation will undermine otherwise strong hardware. The glasses' discreet design — tiny cameras and weak privacy LEDs — makes them effective but unsettling, functioning as near-invisible recording tools that consumers already distrust given Meta's history.

OpenAI has added interactive code blocks to ChatGPT, introducing split-screen and full-screen editing modes. The new feature allows users to view and edit code directly within the ChatGPT interface, improving the coding workflow without needing to copy code into external editors. The update enhances ChatGPT's utility as a development tool by making code interaction more seamless and integrated into the conversation experience.

YouTube is expanding its conversational AI assistant to smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices, after previously limiting the feature to mobile and web. Users can tap an "Ask" button or use their remote's microphone to ask questions about the video they're watching without pausing or leaving the app. The feature offers suggested questions and supports English, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean. It is currently available to select users over 18. Nielsen data shows YouTube accounted for 12.4% of total TV viewing time in April 2025.

Replit has launched Replit Animation, a new tool for creating viral videos powered by Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro model. The feature is integrated into the Replit platform and aims to make AI-assisted video creation accessible to developers and creators. Few additional details have been disclosed beyond the announcement, but the product signals Replit's expansion beyond code generation into AI-powered multimedia content creation tools.

Reddit is testing an AI-powered shopping feature in search for a small group of U.S. users. When redditors search for product-related queries like "best noise-canceling headphones," they see interactive product carousels at the bottom of results, featuring pricing, images, and direct retailer links. Products are sourced from real Reddit community discussions and, for consumer electronics queries, from Dynamic Product Ads partner catalogs. The feature aims to turn community recommendations into actionable purchase decisions.

Anthropic analyzed millions of human-agent interactions across Claude Code and its public API to measure how autonomy evolves in practice. Key findings: the longest Claude Code sessions nearly doubled from under 25 minutes to over 45 minutes between October 2025 and January 2026, and experienced users auto-approve actions in over 40% of sessions versus 20% for newcomers. Software engineering accounts for nearly 50% of agentic activity, with emerging use in healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity. Anthropic concludes current models can handle more autonomy than users currently grant them.

OpenAI is committing $7.5 million to The Alignment Project, a global independent AI alignment research fund created by the UK AI Security Institute. The total fund exceeds £27 million, co-funded by public, philanthropic, and industry backers, with Renaissance Philanthropy administering OpenAI's grant. Individual projects receive £50,000 to £1 million and may access compute resources. The fund supports diverse research spanning game theory, cryptography, and cognitive science, making it one of the largest dedicated independent alignment funding efforts to date.

Google Labs has launched Photoshoot, a new feature in its free Pomelli tool aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. Powered by Nano Banana image generation and Business DNA context, Photoshoot transforms basic product photos into professional studio or lifestyle shots in a few clicks. Users pick a product image, choose a template, and Pomelli applies brand aesthetics automatically. The update also adds improved image editing, style reference uploads, and campaign tools that accept product URLs to generate targeted marketing creatives.

Anthropic's Claude has added PowerPoint integration to its Pro plan through new Connectors support, allowing users to work with PowerPoint files directly within the Claude interface. This expansion of Connectors enables Claude to interact with external tools and file formats, making it more practical for professional workflows. The Pro plan addition signals Anthropic's push to make Claude more competitive with other AI assistants that offer broad productivity software integration.

ElevenLabs has launched ElevenAgents for Support, always-on AI customer service agents operating across voice and digital channels in 70+ languages. The agents feature emotional awareness, sub-second response times, and over 10,000 expressive voices. They can be configured from existing SOPs without coding and deploy across phone, chat, email, and WhatsApp. Early customers include Deutsche Telekom, Revolut, and Klarna, with Freedom Forever reporting 90% higher support efficiency. The platform includes SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance.

A coalition of Americans is urging policymakers to slow the pace of AI development, arguing that the technology is advancing faster than society can safely manage. The group's push has gained enough prominence to land on the cover of TIME magazine, signaling growing mainstream concern about unchecked AI progress. The coalition reflects a broader public debate over whether current regulatory frameworks and ethical safeguards are keeping pace with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence.

Meta is reportedly planning to launch a smartwatch with health tracking and AI features in 2026, according to The Information. Code-named Malibu 2, the device would arrive four years after Meta scrapped an earlier smartwatch in 2022 due to technical challenges and cost-cutting. Meta also plans an updated Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses alongside the watch. The smartwatch could replace the neural wristband currently used for gesture controls on the glasses, and would put Meta in direct competition with Apple, Samsung, Google, Garmin, and Fitbit.

A leaked internal email from Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, obtained by 404 Media, reveals that the company's AI-powered Search Party feature was always intended to go far beyond finding lost pets. Siminoff wrote that Search Party could enable Ring to "zero out crime in neighborhoods," suggesting broad surveillance ambitions. The email was sent last October following Search Party's launch. Ring, owned by Amazon, has faced backlash since a Super Bowl ad showed its camera network scanning neighborhoods for lost dogs, raising mass surveillance concerns.

OpenAI has hired Charles Porch, Instagram's longtime VP of global partnerships, as its first-ever VP of global creative partnerships, a newly created role starting in March. Porch spent over 15 years at Meta facilitating high-profile deals, including Beyoncé's exclusive 2013 Instagram album launch and convincing Pope Francis to join the platform. At OpenAI, he will focus on licensing deals for video model Sora, building interactive AI platforms, and bridging the gap between OpenAI and a skeptical entertainment industry. He will report to CEO of Applications Fidji Simo.

Apple's iOS 26.4 will bring CarPlay support for third-party AI chatbots including ChatGPT, OpenAI, Claude from Anthropic, and Google's Gemini for the first time. Apple's CarPlay Developer Guide lists voice-based conversational apps as a new supported app type. A new voice control screen will provide visual feedback during interactions. The apps can answer questions hands-free but cannot control vehicle or iPhone functions, and there is no wake word support. iOS 26.4 is currently in beta with a spring release expected.

Cursor has launched a plugin marketplace that lets AI agents connect to external tools and services. Plugins bundle capabilities including MCP servers, skills, subagents, rules, and hooks. Launch partners include Amplitude, AWS, Figma, Linear, Snowflake, Stripe, and Vercel, covering the full product development lifecycle from planning and design to payments and infrastructure. Users can install prebuilt plugins from the Cursor Marketplace or build and share their own. Private team marketplaces with governance controls are coming soon.

Unity CEO Matthew Bromberg announced at a recent earnings call that the company will unveil a new Unity AI beta at GDC in March 2026 capable of generating full casual games from natural language prompts alone, eliminating the need for coding. Bromberg said the tool will democratize game development for non-coders while boosting productivity for experienced developers. The assistant leverages OpenAI and Meta models, with asset generation partners including Scenario and Layer AI built on Stable Diffusion and FLUX foundations.

Fei-Fei Li's World Labs has raised a $1 billion round, including a $200 million investment from Autodesk, with additional backing from AMD, Nvidia, Fidelity, and Emerson Collective. The deal pairs World Labs' AI world models, which generate and reason about immersive 3D environments, with Autodesk's design software used in architecture, engineering, and entertainment. The partnership will initially target media and entertainment use cases, with Autodesk serving as an adviser and collaborating at the research and model level.

A federal district court in Northern California ruled in favor of celebrity video platform Cameo, ordering OpenAI to stop using the name in its products. OpenAI had used "Cameo" as a feature in its AI video-generation app Sora, letting users insert digital likenesses of themselves into AI-generated videos. The court found the name similar enough to cause user confusion and rejected OpenAI's argument that it was merely descriptive. OpenAI had already renamed the feature to "Characters" after a temporary restraining order was issued in November 2025.

Google has added Lyria 3, Google DeepMind's latest generative music model, to the Gemini app in beta. Users 18 and older can generate second tracks with custom cover art by entering a text prompt or uploading a photo or video. Lyria 3 improves on prior models with auto-generated lyrics, greater creative control over style and tempo, and more musically complex output. All tracks are watermarked with SynthID, and Gemini can now verify whether uploaded audio was AI-generated. Higher usage limits apply to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers.

Tavus has unveiled Phoenix-4, a new real-time human rendering model featuring emotion control capabilities. The model is designed to generate lifelike digital humans in real time, with the added ability to modulate emotional expression. Tavus positions Phoenix-4 as an advancement in AI-driven video and avatar technology, enabling more natural and expressive human rendering for applications requiring dynamic, responsive digital human interactions.

Cyborg Dynamics Engineering and Griffith University, funded by the Queensland Defence Science Alliance, tested an AI-powered robot swarm for firefighting in Australia, achieving a 99.67 percent success rate. The system used multi-agent reinforcement learning with a three-stage training curriculum, combining one physical unmanned ground vehicle with up to four virtual teammates. The robots self-organized to divide tasks and extinguish multiple fires. The study, published in Engineering Applications for Artificial Intelligence, aims to expand the approach to aerial and underwater vehicles.

Perplexity is abandoning its earlier ad experiments and doubling down on subscriptions and enterprise sales, executives said at a reporter roundtable. The San Francisco AI search startup plans to expand its enterprise sales team beyond its current five people and target high-powered users like finance professionals, doctors, and CEOs. Unlike OpenAI, which is going all-in on ads, Perplexity says it has no active ad deals. Revenue grew 4.7 times last year, reaching $200 million ARR by October 2025.

Google Search is rolling out a new hover pop-up feature for desktop users that displays grouped links within AI Overviews and AI Mode. When users hover over relevant sections, a pop-up appears showing clustered source links, making it easier to explore supporting references without leaving the search results page. The update, noted by Google's Robby Stein, reflects continued refinement of how AI-generated search results surface and organize web sources for users.

Google's NotebookLM has added two new features to its presentation capabilities: prompt-based slide revisions and PPTX export support. Users can now refine generated slides using natural language prompts, allowing iterative edits without starting over. The PPTX export option lets users download presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint format for further editing outside the platform. These updates make NotebookLM more practical for users who need polished, editable presentations from their research notes.

xAI has released a public beta release candidate for Grok 4.2, the latest iteration of its AI model. The announcement was made by Elon Musk on X, with xAI committing to ship improvements on a weekly cadence going forward. The release candidate designation indicates the model is approaching a stable public launch. While no benchmark results or specific feature details were shared in the post, the weekly improvement promise signals an accelerated development and deployment schedule for the Grok model family.

Anam has released Cara-3, its latest face-generation model designed for interactive AI avatars. A study accompanying the release found that users preferred Anam's interactive avatars over competing alternatives. Cara-3 focuses on realistic face generation to power conversational avatar experiences. The release positions Anam as a key player in the AI avatar space, where lifelike digital human interaction is becoming increasingly important for customer service, virtual assistants, and real-time communication applications.

Meta and NVIDIA have announced a multi-year strategic partnership to supply technology for Meta's AI-optimized data centers, supporting both AI training and inference workloads. Meta will deploy NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform for leading-edge clusters, adopt NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking across its infrastructure, and use NVIDIA Confidential Computing for WhatsApp private messaging. The deal also promises improvements in performance per watt. Mark Zuckerberg said the goal is delivering personal superintelligence to everyone in the world.

Anthropic has updated Claude's web search and web fetch tools with dynamic filtering, launching alongside Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6. The feature lets Claude natively write and execute code to filter search results before they enter the context window, discarding irrelevant content. Across BrowseComp and DeepsearchQA benchmarks, dynamic filtering improved accuracy by an average of 11% while using 24% fewer input tokens. Quora's Poe platform confirmed Opus 4.6 with dynamic filtering achieved top accuracy on internal evals. The feature is on by default via the Claude API.

Mistral AI, the French LLM company valued at $13.8 billion, has made its first acquisition by buying Paris-based serverless startup Koyeb, which simplifies AI app deployment and manages underlying infrastructure. The deal signals Mistral's push to become a full-stack AI provider, accelerating its Mistral Compute cloud offering launched in June 2025. Koyeb's 13 employees and three co-founders will join Mistral's engineering team. Koyeb had raised $8.6 million total and will become a core component of Mistral Compute. Financial terms were not disclosed.

WordPress.com has launched a built-in AI Assistant available to users on Business or Commerce plans at no extra cost. The tool works directly inside the WordPress editor and Media Library, allowing users to adjust layouts, edit content, translate sections, and generate or edit images without leaving their dashboard. Image generation uses Google's Nano Banana models. The assistant also integrates with block notes for collaboration. It requires a block theme and must be manually enabled per site in Settings under AI tools.

"Unitree has demonstrated what it claims is the world's first autonomous humanoid cluster kung fu performance using its G1 robots. The showcase features multiple G1 humanoid robots performing synchronized martial arts movements without human teleoperation, highlighting advances in autonomous coordination and motion control for humanoid robot platforms."

Figma now lets you capture live UI from Claude Code (or any browser—production, staging, localhost) and convert it into fully editable Figma frames. This bridges the gap between code-first prototyping and visual design collaboration. You can capture multiple screens to preserve flows, then duplicate, annotate, and explore variations on the Figma canvas without rewriting code. Combined with Figma's MCP server, teams can also go back from Figma designs into code, creating a full roundtrip workflow between coding and design.

Alibaba's Qwen team has released Qwen3.5-397B-A17B, marking the first open-weight multimodal model in the Qwen3.5 series. The model uses a mixture-of-experts architecture with 397 billion total parameters but activates only 17 billion at a time, making it more computationally efficient than its total parameter count suggests. As an open-weight release, it allows developers and researchers to download and deploy the model directly.

ByteDance has pledged to strengthen safeguards on its AI video tool Seedance 2.0 after Hollywood studios accused it of widespread copyright infringement. The Motion Picture Association, representing Netflix, Disney, Paramount Skydance, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, demanded ByteDance immediately cease infringing activity. Disney and Paramount Skydance sent cease-and-desist letters alleging the tool was pre-packaged with a pirated library of copyrighted characters. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said the launch disregarded copyright law protecting millions of American jobs.

Meta has been granted a patent for an AI system that can simulate a deceased user's social media activity, including posts, comments, chats, likes, and voice messages on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Filed in 2023 and granted in December, the system uses a large language model trained on user-specific past data to reconstruct a digital persona. Meta says it has no current plans to deploy the feature, though CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously suggested AI replicas of loved ones may eventually be possible.

Meta has integrated Manus AI into its Ads Manager platform, making the tool accessible to all advertisers via the Tools listing. Manus, which Meta acquired last month, builds AI agents capable of tasks like report-building and audience research. Meta is now actively promoting the feature with in-stream pop-ups to boost adoption. The move represents Meta's most direct attempt to monetize its massive AI investments, as the company seeks tangible advertising returns amid ongoing concerns about its hundreds of billions in AI spending.

Manus has launched Manus Agents, bringing its full AI agent capabilities directly into messaging apps, starting with Telegram. Available to all users across all subscription tiers, setup takes under a minute via QR code with no command lines or API tokens required. Users can run multi-step tasks, send voice messages, images, and files, and choose between Manus 1.6 Max for complex reasoning or Manus 1.6 Lite for faster everyday tasks. More messaging platforms are in development.

The Vatican's Papal Basilica of Saint Peter has partnered with language service provider Translated to offer AI-assisted live translations of Holy Mass in 60 languages. Visitors can scan a QR code to access live audio and text translations directly in a web browser, no app required. The service uses Translated's Lara AI tool, launched in 2024, which the company claims draws on the sensitivity of over 500,000 native-speaking professional translators.

Anthropic has officially opened its Bengaluru office, its second in Asia after Tokyo, led by Managing Director Irina Ghose. India is Claude.ai's second-largest market, with run-rate revenue doubling since October 2025. New partnerships span enterprise, education, and agriculture: Air India and CRED are using Claude Code, Cognizant is deploying Claude to 350,000 employees, and education nonprofit Pratham is piloting an AI testing tool with 1,500 students. Adalat AI is launching a national WhatsApp helpline using Claude to help navigate India's 50 million pending court cases.

Swedish researchers at Lund University used AI to simulate evolution, creating virtual animals that developed functioning vision from scratch without any instructions. Released into a synthetic world with tasks like navigating, avoiding obstacles, and finding food, the creatures evolved across generations from simple light sensitivity to full object-discerning eyes. Remarkably, all three real-world eye types — dispersed photoreceptors, camera-type, and compound eyes — emerged naturally. Professor Dan-Eric Nilsson says the method could also help engineers design more robust and adaptable technical systems.

OpenAI has hired Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, to work on advancing personal agents. Steinberger is a well-known developer in the Apple ecosystem, having previously founded PSPDFKit, a widely used PDF framework for iOS and macOS. His hire signals OpenAI's continued push into agentic AI systems that can act autonomously on behalf of individual users. Personal agents represent a key frontier for OpenAI as it competes with other AI labs developing autonomous task-completion tools.

Kimi.ai, operated by Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI, has launched Kimi Claw, a new browser-based tool that brings OpenClaw functionality directly to users. The product offers access to more than 5,000 skills and 40GB of storage, making it one of the more feature-rich browser-integrated AI tools available. Moonshot AI is known for developing large context window models, and Kimi Claw represents the company's continued expansion into practical, everyday AI tooling for a broad user base.

Anthropic is refusing Pentagon demands to allow unrestricted military use of its Claude AI, drawing threats of a supply chain risk designation and potential blacklisting. CEO Dario Amodei said the company cannot permit Claude to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons targeting without human oversight. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's team gave Anthropic a Friday deadline to comply. Pentagon CTO Emil Michael accused Anthropic of lying. Experts warn the designation could force contractors like Palantir to remove Claude from classified systems.