OpenAI has launched Atlas, a free web browser that uses ChatGPT as its search engine and integrates with the company’s other products. Initially released for Apple’s macOS, OpenAI says support for Windows, Android and iOS is coming soon. News that OpenAI was developing the product surfaced in April as part of the Google antitrust trial, where OpenAI executive Nick Turley testified the company was interested in buying Chrome. Now the ChatGPT Atlas browser is available for download, challenging Chrome and others. Rather than type queries, people can chat with Atlas, something Chrome and Perplexity’s new Comet browser also allow. Continue reading OpenAI Enters Browser Market with Launch of ChatGPT Atlas

San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic has released a smaller, cheaper Claude model called Haiku 4.5 that can reportedly outperform larger models that are only a few months old. In terms of coding skills, Haiku 4.5 performs comparably to Claude Sonnet 4 and OpenAI’s GPT-5, per the SWE-bench Verified leaderboard. “What was recently at the frontier is now cheaper and faster,” Anthropic suggests, noting that just “five months ago, Claude Sonnet 4 was a state-of-the-art model” and “today, Claude Haiku 4.5 gives you similar levels of coding performance but at one-third the cost and more than twice the speed.” Continue reading Anthropic’s New Claude Haiku 4.5 is Available to Free Users

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has noticed an increase in bot activity on the encyclopedic website, and a decline of approximately 8 percent in human page views. The non-profit says the trend is due to a combination of the impact of social media and generative AI as informational sources for potential visitors. AI now provides summarized answers to user questions, while younger people are increasingly finding information through social video. The Foundation’s organizers say the audience loss could have a negative effect on Wikipedia donors as well as the human volunteers who keep the site current. Continue reading AI Search and Social Video Have Impact on Wikipedia Traffic

Meta Platforms is adding new safety features to provide parents more control as to how children — most pointedly teens — interact with AI chatbots and characters. The move follows the September launch of an FTC investigation of Meta and five other companies on the potentially harmful effects of their AI on children and teens. Meta’s new guardrails will allow parents to turn off one-on-one chats with AI characters completely or just block specific characters. They’ll also be able to glean insight into topics their underage household members are discussing with AI, including Meta’s own AI assistant. Continue reading Meta Bolsters Parental Controls for AI in Wake of FTC Inquiry

Anthropic has introduced a new general feature called Skills that lets Claude AI access specialized expertise on demand to more efficiently deploy agents in enterprise workflows. “Claude will only access a skill when it’s relevant to the task at hand,” like when working with Excel or following an organization’s brand guidelines, Anthropic explains. Skills are folders that include instructions, scripts and resources that Claude can load as needed. And users can also build their own for use across Claude apps, Claude Code, the Claude Agent SDK and the Anthropic API. Anthropic joins tech giants such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft in efforts to make AI agents more practically useful. Continue reading Anthropic Adds Prebuilt and Custom Agent ‘Skills’ to Claude

Salesforce is reimagining Slack as a conversational AI assistant with agentic capabilities that can also serve as the gateway to third-party agents within the operating system. The upgrade, which is expected to be complete by the end of the year, will feature native AI experiences built into Agentforce for Sales, IT and HR Service, Tableau and more. Salesforce’s Slack redesign could position the app to compete with Microsoft’s Copilot and Teams as the conversational AI layer inside an enterprise’s daily workflow — the place to talk to both people and agents, accessing and interacting with a company’s data. Continue reading Salesforce Retools Slack as Agentic AI Assistant for Enterprise

Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to make its products, as well as those from its Sam’s Club wholesale warehouse, available for purchase within ChatGPT. The AI-first shopping experience is designed to shift the purchasing interface “from reactive to proactive as it learns, plans and predicts, helping customers anticipate their needs,” according to Walmart. The transition is expected to take place over the next few months, allowing customers to purchase nearly every product on the Walmart and Sam’s Club websites through the chatbot, except for fresh food. Benefits like points and free shipping will continue to apply. Continue reading Walmart Making Products Available for Purchase via ChatGPT

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) will be a launch partner for the first publicly available AI supercluster powered by AMD’s upcoming Instinct MI450 Series GPUs — with an initial order of 50,000 of the chips to be deployed starting in Q3 2026 and expanding in 2027. The resulting Oracle installations will feature Instinct MI450s configured with AMD-designed CPUs in AMD’s new Helios server rack systems, positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL144 CPX racks when both platforms are mass-released next year. Oracle is challenged to rapidly scale its data center capacity due to massive compute commitments made this year to OpenAI. Continue reading Oracle Cloud Orders 50,000 New AMD Instinct MI450 AI GPUs

OpenAI has expanded its alliance with Broadcom, announcing a plan to create enough custom AI accelerator chips to consume 10 gigawatts of power. News of the custom chip collaboration leaked out last month. Now that it is ready to go public, OpenAI says designing its own chips and systems will allow the startup to leverage directly into the hardware what it has learned from developing frontier models. The racks, scaled entirely with Ethernet and other connectivity solutions from Broadcom, will be deployed across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers beginning in the second half of 2026. Continue reading OpenAI & Broadcom Developing Custom AI Accelerator Chips

Nano Banana, the viral image generation and editing model Google released in August as part of Gemini 2.5 Flash, has been used to generate more than 5 billion images to date, and now Google is looking to increase its usage by introducing the model to other popular services. Officially known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, the visual tool is now available in Google Search via a Create tab that activates it in Google Lens and AI Mode. It’s also been incorporated into NotebookLM, powering the Video Overviews tool that transforms documents into narrated explainer videos. The company says Nano Banana is also coming soon to Google Photos. Continue reading Nano Banana AI Image Tool Is Added to Search, NotebookLM

Microsoft is teasing a bespoke AI image generator. The model, called MAI-Image-1, was designed in-house and works using text prompts. It is the third AI model Microsoft has debuted this year, following MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview, both released in August. The company, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, has been seeking to put some breathing room between itself and the startup to better position the fledgling firm for independence and profitability. And products exclusive to Microsoft surely won’t hurt that company’s bottom line. “We’re creating AI for everyone,” Microsoft says, calling MAI-Image-1 “the next step on our journey.” Continue reading Microsoft’s In-House AI Image Generator Receives High Marks

Google is launching new subscription AI services that aim to help businesses build agents. Gemini Enterprise starts at a monthly fee of $30 per user for large organizations, while the $21 per person monthly Gemini Business is aimed at smaller clients. Premade Google agents are packaged with the new subscriptions to pave the way for automated software development, data science and customer engagement efforts. Access to agents from Workday and others is also provided, and they can draw on data from Microsoft, Salesforce and Box. The Google launch was announced just a few days after OpenAI revealed that tools from third-party apps can now be accessed in ChatGPT. Continue reading Google Launches No-Code AI Agent Tools for Enterprise Users

Meta Platforms has updated its Facebook recommendation algorithm to boost Reels use, adding a topic search filter as well as prioritizing same-day content, with a 50 percent increase in pushing Reels videos posted within 24-hours of user scrolls. In July, Meta said time spent watching videos on Facebook in the United States had expanded more than 20 percent year-over-year, and the company wants to continue boosting that number. Taking a page from the TikTok playbook, Facebook is adding topic search links to Reels displays to help users find material of interest. Facebook is also trying to accommodate user pushback against AI slop by urging use of a “Not Interested” button. Continue reading Meta Updates Recommendation Algorithm for Facebook Reels

Squarespace, the platform launched in 2003 for website development and operation, is getting a refresh aimed at helping entrepreneurs and creative professionals incorporate more personalization and AI features. The ability to build websites via chat is coming soon. AI Optimization (AIO) for search is another focus. The company has partnered with AI answer engine Perplexity to serve as the website building and hosting partner for Perplexity’s new browser, Comet. Squarespace has also launched Finish Layer, a design suite with capabilities for animation, transforms, and advanced editing to help websites add “immersive experiences with professional-grade customization.” Continue reading Squarespace Partners with Perplexity, Debuts Chat Site Builder

Word out of OpenAI’s first DevDay event in almost two years is that the company wants to make its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT more like an “operating system.” A demo by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman showed apps including Spotify, Canva, Figma and Zillow responding to typed commands inside a chat. The company also released a new Apps SDK in preview so developers can start building for the ChatGPT platform. “Building with the Apps SDK makes it possible to reach over 800 million ChatGPT users at just the right time,” according to OpenAI. Other pilot partners include Booking.com, Coursera and Expedia. Continue reading OpenAI Debuts Features That Make ChatGPT More Like an OS