IBM Previews Its Project Bob IDE, Intros Real-Time AgentOps

Anthropic and IBM have formed a strategic alliance that will see Anthropic’s Claude models integrated into select IBM software products, the first of which is a new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE) called Project Bob, now in private preview, which aims to help enterprise clients do things like modernize software. At its TechXchange 2025 conference in Orlando, IBM also debuted a new capability for AgentOps. The AgentOps practices unveiled at IBM Think in May was showcased here as a real-time governance and observability integration to help ensure autonomous agents don’t run amok. Continue reading IBM Previews Its Project Bob IDE, Intros Real-Time AgentOps

Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 Good at Coding and Collegiality

Anthropic has released its latest frontier AI model, Claude Sonnet 4.5, built for high-performance coding and building complex agents. Anthropic claims it is “the best coding model in the world” and “the best model at using computers,” with substantial gains in reasoning and math. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is distinctive in that it can build “production-ready” applications and is not limited to prototypes, Anthropic says, describing it as a major gain over previous models. The new model also excels in research as well as enterprise basics like cybersecurity and finance, per Anthropic. Continue reading Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 Good at Coding and Collegiality

Anthropic and OpenAI Report Findings of Joint AI Safety Tests

OpenAI and Anthropic — rivals in the AI space who guard their proprietary systems — joined forces for a misalignment evaluation, safety testing each other’s models to identify when and how they fall short of human values. Among the findings: reasoning models including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, and OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini resist jailbreaks, while conversational models like GPT-4.1 were susceptible to prompts or techniques intended to bypass safety protocols. Although the test results were unveiled as users complain chatbots have become overly sycophantic, the tests were “primarily interested in understanding model propensities for harmful action,” per OpenAI. Continue reading Anthropic and OpenAI Report Findings of Joint AI Safety Tests

New Anthropic Safety Updates Focus on Claude’s Well-Being

Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 now have the discrete ability to end “abusive” or “harmful” conversations in consumer chat interfaces. Anthropic says the feature was developed as part of its exploratory work on the protection and well-being of its AI models. The company also envisions broader safety uses, although it does point out that having a model defensively terminate a chat is an extreme measure, intended for use in rare cases. “We’re working to identify and implement low-cost interventions to mitigate risks to model welfare,” Anthropic explains, qualifying it is unsure “such welfare is possible.” Continue reading New Anthropic Safety Updates Focus on Claude’s Well-Being

Open-Weight Models Are a First from OpenAI in AWS Catalog

OpenAI is releasing two lower-cost, open-weight reasoning models in an effort to be more competitive with Meta, Mistral and DeepSeek and they will be the first OpenAI models available from Amazon. The new offerings — gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b — will be among the model choices on AWS’s Bedrock and SageMaker AI services. Both models are said to be well-suited for agentic use. The gpt-oss-120b model performs comparably to OpenAI o4-mini on core reasoning and can run on a single 80GB GPU. The gpt-oss-20b model is compared to OpenAI o3‑mini and can run on edge devices with just 16GB of memory. Continue reading Open-Weight Models Are a First from OpenAI in AWS Catalog

Study Finds Teens Are Increasingly Turning to AI Companions

An increasing number of teens are experimenting with AI companions like chatbots for advice and sometimes even for friendship, according to a new study from Common Sense Media. The survey found that 72 percent of U.S. teens have interacted with a personal, as opposed to a productivity, chatbot at least once. The inquiry characterized either personal AI, or chatbots with recreational settings, as “companions.” Exploring the use of artificial intelligence by children ages 13 to 17 revealed that of the nearly three-quarters who had tried an AI companion, more than half — 52 percent — identified as regular users. Continue reading Study Finds Teens Are Increasingly Turning to AI Companions

Anthropic’s Claude Chatbot Is Now a No-Code App Developer

Anthropic has updated its Claude AI chatbot with the ability to build, host and share AI-powered apps directly in Claude. Launching in beta, the new function builds upon the Artifacts feature Anthropic introduced last year, allowing users to see and interact with what they asked Claude to create. “Now developers can iterate faster on their AI apps without worrying about the complexity and cost of scaling for a growing audience,” according to Anthropic. The San Francisco-based AI startup adds that millions people have already used Claude to create more than 500 million artifacts — from productivity tools to educational games. Continue reading Anthropic’s Claude Chatbot Is Now a No-Code App Developer

Character.AI Goes Wide with AvatarFX, Adds Mobile Features

Chatbot platform Character.AI is rolling out its video generator, AvatarFX, in general release after a month in closed beta. It’s also adding a sharing feature called Scenes and Streams that will serve content to Character.AI’s community feed, coming soon to mobile. Users can now tap AvatarFX to create up to five videos per day, starting by uploading a photo, choosing a voice and writing dialogue for the character. Character.AI started as 1:1 text chat in the summer of 2023. Now the company is “expanding into a multi-modal world” with “more ways for creators to build immersive narratives and dynamic experiences.” Continue reading Character.AI Goes Wide with AvatarFX, Adds Mobile Features

OpenAI Seeks to Make ChatGPT New Gateway to the Internet

An internal OpenAI document revealed as part of a discovery demand in the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google reveals OpenAI’s plan to turn ChatGPT into the public’s primary Internet interface. Although heavily redacted, the document effectively reveals OpenAI’s goal is to have ChatGPT replace Google Chrome and Search with an “AI super assistant that deeply understands you and is your interface to the Internet.” Aside from bolstering Google’s position that it has competition and is not an impregnable monopoly, the information contained therein provides an in-depth look at OpenAI’s roadmap. Continue reading OpenAI Seeks to Make ChatGPT New Gateway to the Internet

Anthropic Touts Mobile Voice Mode, Free Search for Claude

Anthropic’s new mobile conversation voice mode for its large language model Claude lets it search Google Docs, Drive, Calendar and more on smartphones. Just a week after debuting two new LLMs — Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 — Anthropic announced the mobile updates for its Claude AI chatbot for iOS and Android and said it is extending web search for all users on free Claude plans. While Claude’s conversational voice interface is currently available only in English and only via mobile, an API for desktop use and browser-based support are part of future plans. Amazon and Google both have investment stakes in San Francisco-based Anthropic. Continue reading Anthropic Touts Mobile Voice Mode, Free Search for Claude

Apple Reportedly Using Anthropic’s Claude for AI Code Tool

Apple has teamed with Anthropic on a “vibe coding” AI platform that will write, edit and test software for developers. The system is essentially an update on Xcode, Apple’s free integrated development environment (IDE) that will be powered by Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model, according to reports. Apple’s plan is said to be introducing the software internally then deciding later whether to launch it publicly. Apple developed the proprietary Xcode suite of tools and began using it in 2003 to code, debug, test and vet submissions to the App Store for software that runs on all of its operating systems, from iOS to visionOS. Continue reading Apple Reportedly Using Anthropic’s Claude for AI Code Tool

Anthropic Adds Deep Research, Google Integration to Claude

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

Non-Profit Sentient Launches New ‘Open Deep Search’ Model

Sentient, a year-old non-profit backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, has released Open Deep Search (ODS), an open-source framework that leverages existing LLMs to enhance search and reasoning capabilities. Essentially a system of custom plugins and tools, ODS works with DeepSeek’s open-source R1 model as well as proprietary systems like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude to deliver advanced search functionality. That modular aspect is in fact ODS’s main innovation, its creators say, claiming it beats Perplexity and OpenAI’s GPT-4o Search Preview on benchmarks for accuracy and transparency. Continue reading Non-Profit Sentient Launches New ‘Open Deep Search’ Model

Real-Time Web Access Informs Claude 3.7 Sonnet Responses

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

Meta Plans Its Own Standalone AI App to Take On ChatGPT

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