Commercial Release AI News & Updates

Anthropic Releases Claude Browser Agent for Chrome with Advanced Web Control Capabilities

Anthropic has launched a research preview of Claude for Chrome, an AI agent that can interact with and control browser activities for select users paying $100-200 monthly. The agent maintains context of browser activities and can take actions on users' behalf, joining the competitive race among AI companies to develop browser-integrated agents. The release includes safety measures to prevent prompt injection attacks, though security vulnerabilities remain a concern in this emerging field.

IBM and AMD Partner on Quantum-AI Hybrid Computing Architecture to Challenge Generative AI Leaders

IBM and AMD are collaborating to develop next-generation computing architectures that integrate IBM's quantum systems with AMD's AI-specialized chips. The partnership aims to create a commercially viable, scalable, and open-source quantum computing platform accessible to researchers and developers for complex problem-solving in drug discovery, materials science, optimization, and logistics.

xAI Open Sources Grok 2.5 Model Weights with Custom License Restrictions

Elon Musk's xAI has released the model weights for Grok 2.5 on Hugging Face, with plans to open source Grok 3 in six months. The release comes with a custom license containing anti-competitive terms, and follows controversies around Grok's outputs including conspiracy theories and problematic content that led to system prompt disclosures.

Startup Launches Always-Recording AI Smart Glasses with No Privacy Indicators

Two Harvard dropouts raised $1 million to launch Halo X smart glasses that continuously record and transcribe conversations, providing real-time AI assistance to the wearer. The glasses lack external recording indicators and raise significant privacy concerns as they enable covert surveillance in public spaces. The device uses Google's Gemini and Perplexity for AI processing while relying on smartphone connectivity for computing power.

FieldAI Secures $405M to Develop Physics-Based Universal Robot Brains for Cross-Platform Embodied AI

FieldAI raised $405 million to develop "foundational embodied AI models" - universal robot brains that can work across different robot types from humanoids to self-driving cars. The company's approach integrates physics into AI models to help robots safely adapt to new environments while managing risk, addressing traditional robotics limitations in generalization and safety.

Multiverse Computing Releases Ultra-Compact AI Models for Edge Device Deployment

European AI startup Multiverse Computing has released two extremely small AI models called SuperFly (94M parameters) and ChickBrain (3.2B parameters) that can run locally on smartphones, IoT devices, and laptops without internet connection. The models use quantum-inspired compression technology called CompactifAI to achieve high performance despite their tiny size, with ChickBrain even outperforming the original Llama 3.1 8B model on several benchmarks.

Anthropic Acquires Humanloop Team to Strengthen Enterprise AI Safety and Evaluation Tools

Anthropic has acquired the co-founders and most of the team behind Humanloop, a platform specializing in prompt management, LLM evaluation, and observability tools for enterprises. The acqui-hire brings experienced engineers and researchers to Anthropic to bolster its enterprise strategy and AI safety capabilities. This move positions Anthropic to compete more effectively with OpenAI and Google DeepMind in providing enterprise-ready AI solutions with robust evaluation and compliance features.

OpenAI Reinstates Model Picker as GPT-5's Unified Approach Falls Short of Expectations

OpenAI launched GPT-5 with the goal of creating a unified AI model that would eliminate the need for users to choose between different models, but the approach has not satisfied users as expected. The company has reintroduced the model picker with "Auto", "Fast", and "Thinking" settings for GPT-5, and restored access to legacy models like GPT-4o due to user backlash. OpenAI acknowledges the need for better per-user customization and alignment with individual preferences.

Sam Altman Co-Founding Brain-Computer Interface Startup to Challenge Neuralink

Sam Altman is reportedly co-founding Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup valued at $850 million, with potential funding from OpenAI's ventures team. The company will compete directly with Elon Musk's Neuralink in developing technology that allows humans to control devices with their thoughts. This move represents Altman's entry into the "merge" between human intelligence and artificial systems, continuing his vision of human-AI integration first outlined in 2017.

Claude Sonnet 4 Expands Context Window to 1 Million Tokens for Enterprise Coding Applications

Anthropic has increased Claude Sonnet 4's context window to 1 million tokens (750,000 words), five times its previous limit and double OpenAI's GPT-5 capacity. This enhancement targets enterprise customers, particularly AI coding platforms, allowing the model to process entire codebases and perform better on long-duration autonomous coding tasks.