Anthropic has upgraded its AI assistant Claude, adding Research, an autonomous capability that integrates with Google Workspace. Claude can now search and reference content in Google Docs as well as communications in Gmail and events in Calendar. “With Research, Claude can search across both your internal work context and the web to help you make decisions and take action faster than before,” Anthropic explains, turning the model into a “true virtual collaborator” for enterprise clients. The expansion puts Anthropic into more direct competition with OpenAI and Microsoft as well as Google with Gemini in the AI productivity space. Continue reading Anthropic Adds Deep Research, Google Integration to Claude

OpenAI is working to build a social network that will compete against Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Instagram, reports say. Though still in the early stages, the project is revolving around an internal prototype that is said to involve a social feed that leverages ChatGPT’s image generator. It’s unclear if an OpenAI social app would be standalone or integrated with ChatGPT, but either way it would most likely heighten the competition between rivals Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who recently fended off an unsolicited offer by Musk to purchase his company for $97.4 billion. Continue reading OpenAI Reportedly Has Prototype for Its Own Social Network

OpenAI has launched a new series of multimodal models dubbed GPT-4.1 that represent what the company says is a leap in small model performance, including longer context windows and improvements in coding and instruction following. Geared to developers and available exclusively via API (not through ChatGPT), the 4.1 series comes in three variations: in addition to the flagship GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini and GPT‑4.1 nano, OpenAI’s first nano model. Unlike Web-connected models (which have “retrieval-augmented generation,” or RAG) and can access up-to-date information, they are static knowledge models. Continue reading OpenAI’s Affordable GPT-4.1 Models Place Focus on Coding

OpenAI has closed a $40 billion funding round, a record for a private tech firm. The infusion gives the nine-year-old San Francisco startup a $300 billion valuation making it the second most richly apprised private firm in the world, second only to SpaceX at $350 billion and tied with ByteDance, according to CNBC. The round was led by SoftBank Group contributing $30 billion, which likely gives the Japanese holding company the second largest stake, after Microsoft, which is said to have received a commitment for 49 percent of any profits in exchange for nearly $14 billion. Continue reading OpenAI Closes the Largest Private Tech Funding Round Ever

Runway has introduced a new video generation model, launching a next phase of competition that could transform film production. Notably, its Gen-4 system improves the consistency of characters, locations and objects across multiple scenes, an elusive prospect for most AI video generators. The New York-based startup calls its new development “a step towards Universal Generative Models that understand the world.” The key, Runway says, is to provide a single reference image of the character, item or environment as part of the model’s project material. Runway Gen-4 can generate 5- and 10-second clips at 720p resolution. Continue reading Runway Gen-4 Tackles AI’s Elusive Video Scene Consistency

Amazon is formally rolling out its new Nova family of foundation models. Teased at the re:Invent conference hosted by AWS, details of the new multimodal series began leaking out this month. As part of the move, Amazon is diving into the agentic AI business with a new model called Nova Act, which is now in research preview. Nova Act is designed to control Web browser actions and independently tackle simple tasks. A Nova Act SDK is also being made available to allow developers to customize their own agents using the general-purpose Nova. The company is pushing for agents to help streamline business productivity. Continue reading Amazon’s Nova Model Series Includes Nova Act for AI Agents

OpenAI has activated the multimodal image generation capabilities of GPT-4o, making it available to ChatGPT users on the Plus, Pro, Team and Free tiers. It replaces DALL-E 3 as the default image generator for the popular chatbot. GPT-4o’s accuracy with text, understanding of symbols and precision with prompts combined with well multimodal capabilities that allow the model to take cues from visual material have transformed its image capabilities from largely unpredictable to “consistent and context-aware,” resulting in “a practical tool with precision and power,” claims OpenAI. Continue reading OpenAI Delivers Native GPT-4o Image Generator to ChatGPT

Google has added a Canvas feature to its Gemini AI chatbot that provides users with a real-time collaborative space where writing and coding projects can be refined and other ideas iterated and shared. “Canvas is designed for seamless collaboration with Gemini,” according to Gemini Product Director Dave Citron, who notes that Canvas makes it “an even more effective collaborator” in helping bring ideas to life. The move marks a trend whereby AI companies are trying to turn chatbot platforms into turnkey productivity suites. Google is launching a limited release of Gemini Live Video in addition to bringing its Audio Overview feature of NotebookLM to Gemini. Continue reading Canvas and Live Video Add Productivity Features to Gemini AI

Anthropic’s Claude can now search the Internet in real time, allowing it to provide timely and relevant responses that are also more accurate than what the chatbot previously offered, according to the company. Claude incorporates direct citations for its Web-retrieved material, so users can fact-check its sources. “Instead of finding search results yourself, Claude processes and delivers relevant sources in a conversational format.” While this is not exactly groundbreaking — ChatGPT, Grok 3, Copilot, Perplexity and Gemini all have real-time Web retrieval and most include citations — Claude takes a slightly different approach. Continue reading Real-Time Web Access Informs Claude 3.7 Sonnet Responses

OpenAI has debuted three new models for transcription and voice generation — gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-mini-tts. The text-to-speech and speech-to-text AI models are designed to help developers create AI agents with highly customizable voices. OpenAI claims these models will power natural and responsive voice agents, moving AI out of the text-based communications stage and into intuitive spoken conversations. The suite outperforms existing solutions in accuracy and reliability, OpenAI says, especially with “accents, noisy environments, and varying speech speeds,” making them well-suited for customer call centers and meeting notes. Continue reading OpenAI Pushes Conversational Agents with Three New Models

Elon Musk’s xAI has acquired generative video startup Hotshot to bring motion imaging to Grok 3. Released in February, Grok 3 adds Deep Search and Thinking and improved on its predecessor’s still imaging capabilities, but lacks generative video, a much-requested feature — one that could make Grok a freestanding competitor to OpenAI’s individual offerings: ChatGPT for text, Sora for video, and DALL-E for images. “Cool AI video coming soon!” was Musk’s comment to Hotshot’s acquisition announcement on the networking platform. Hotshot can generate clips of up to 10-seconds at 1280×720 pixels. Continue reading With Hotshot Purchase, xAI to Bring Generative Video to Grok

OpenAI is urging the Trump Administration to declare AI training fair use, seeking unfettered access to copyrighted material for the purpose of educating models. The company is also asking for relief from state AI rules and more permissive AI export rules in a response to President Trump’s call for a U.S. “AI Action Plan.” The deadline to submit responses to the National Science Foundation and Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) request for information (RFI) regarding the plan was Saturday. Google also publicized its response, which largely echoed OpenAI’s points. Continue reading OpenAI and Google Press for Relief on Copyright, State Laws

Feeling the pressure from the “open agent” movement and specifically Chinese startup Butterfly Effect and its new product Manus, OpenAI has expanded the capabilities of its own AI technology, launching new tools to help businesses and developers build their own agents. The company’s new Responses API has the functionality of two earlier tools, the Chat Completions API (facilitating ChatGPT queries and responses) and the Assistants API (for multi-step reasoning and file access). The company is also issuing an Agents SDK, a suite of tools for creating and deploying agents that bundles the Responses API. Continue reading OpenAI Ramps Up Its Agent Functions as Competition Surges

A standalone Meta AI app is in the works for Q2, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The move is aligned with Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stated intent to propel his company to the forefront of artificial intelligence by year’s end, vaulting ahead of competitors such as OpenAI, Alphabet, Anthropic and xAI. “This is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant,” Zuckerberg said in January during a Q4 earnings call with analysts. Continue reading Meta Plans Its Own Standalone AI App to Take On ChatGPT

OpenAI is releasing a research preview of what it calls its “largest and best” chat model to date, GPT‑4.5, which scales unsupervised learning in pre-training and post-training. As a result, the new chat model has the ability to recognize patterns, draw connections, and generate creative insights without having to draw on time and energy consuming “reasoning.” GPT‑4.5 is currently available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers ($200 per month) and developers subscribing to OpenAI’s API tier. ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Team customers are expected to gain access this week. Continue reading OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 Model Sees Patterns and Thinks Creatively