A new guide from Google breaks down the three Nano Banana image models and when to use each one. The cheaper Nano Banana 2 reportedly delivers 95 percent of Pro’s capabilities and can search the web for reference images on its own before generating output.
By 2027, 86 percent of TSMC’s N3 capacity could go to AI accelerators, according to SemiAnalysis. Smartphones are becoming a buffer for overflow demand.
Ukraine opens its battlefield data to allies to train AI models for autonomous drones.
"Today, Ukraine has a unique array of battlefield data that is unmatched anywhere else in the world," Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Telegram. "This includes millions of annotated images collected during tens of thousands of combat flights."
Fedorov had first announced the plan in January, shortly after taking office. Now, he says a platform has been created that provides allies and companies with constantly updating datasets and large quantities of photos and video footage. The goal is to accelerate the development of AI models that can guide drones to their targets without a pilot or quickly analyze vast pools of data.
Ukraine wants to increase the role played by autonomous systems in the war. Top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said the war had "entered a new phase" with platoons of drone interceptors are now being created inside the Ukrainian armed forces.
Perplexity AI's "Personal Computer" is an AI assistant that works around the clock - handling emails, presentations, and app control. It runs on a dedicated Mac Mini connected to the user's local apps and Perplexity's servers, controllable from any device. CEO Aravind Srinivas called it a "digital proxy" that never sleeps on X. The service builds on Perplexity Computer, which launched in February and bundles multiple AI models.
Security features include a kill switch and an activity log. Access requires the Max subscription at 200 dollars per month, with only a waiting list available for now. Perplexity is also launching an enterprise version that connects to over 400 tools like Salesforce and Snowflake - the company claims it completed 3.25 years' worth of work internally in four weeks. The concept draws comparisons to the controversial OpenClaw, whose developer now works at OpenAI. Agent-based AI systems dominate the current landscape but face sharp criticism around resource demands and security vulnerabilities.
Meta has reportedly delayed its next AI model, codenamed "Avocado." Originally set for mid-March 2026, it won't ship until May at the earliest, reports the New York Times, citing three people familiar with the matter.
In internal tests, Avocado fell short of leading models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic in logical reasoning, programming, and writing. It beat Meta's previous model and Google's Gemini 2.5 but couldn't match Gemini 3.0. Meta's leadership even discussed temporarily licensing Gemini, though no decision was made. A next-gen model codenamed "Watermelon" is already planned. Meta is also building an image and video generator codenamed "Mango."
Meta says updates are coming "very soon," with more models planned this year. The company found early success with its open Llama models but lost momentum with Llama 4. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since poured billions into AI, including $14.3 billion in Scale AI. Scale AI's CEO Alexandr Wang now runs Meta's frontier AI division, "TBD Lab," tasked with building superintelligent AI systems. Reports also suggest Meta may be moving away from its open-source strategy.
xAI's Grok 4.20 can't keep up with the top AI models in benchmarks but hallucinates less than any other model tested. According to Artificial Analysis, Grok 4.20 Beta scores 48 on the Intelligence Index with reasoning enabled, well behind Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview and GPT-5.4 at 57, but still a 6-point improvement over Grok 4.
xAI shipped three API variants: with reasoning, without reasoning, and a multi-agent mode. The model supports a 2-million-token context window and costs 2 or 6 dollars per million tokens; cheaper than Grok 4 and competitively priced among Western models.
Where Grok 4.20 stands out, of all things, is factual reliability. On the AA Omniscience test, it hit a 78 percent non-hallucination rate, a record, according to Artificial Analysis. The test measures how often a model fabricates an answer instead of admitting it doesn't know, alongside factual recall. Grok 4.20 only got it wrong about one in five times when it didn't have the answer.
Emil Michael, the US Department of War's chief technology officer, made clear that classifying Anthropic as a supply chain risk is an ideologically motivated move. Claude models "pollute" the supply chain because they have a "different policy preference" baked into them, Michael told CNBC. He pointed to Anthropic's "constitution," a ruleset emphasizing ethics and safety, which he said could result in soldiers receiving "ineffective weapons, ineffective body armor, ineffective protection." The measure was "not meant to be punitive," he added.
Anthropic is the first US company to receive this classification, which is normally reserved for foreign adversaries. The AI company is suing over the designation and has drawn support from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google employees, as well as former US military personnel. Anthropic has previously pushed back against its own AI models being used for US mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.
The administration has already signaled its intent to control AI along ideological lines by enacting regulations targeting so-called "woke AI," framed as a commitment to political neutrality. The approach echoes the Chinese government's own efforts to exert political control over AI models.
Microsoft is launching Copilot Health, an AI health assistant that pulls data from wearables, medical records, and lab results to deliver personalized health advice. Long term, the company says it’s working toward “medical superintelligence.”
Anthropic has launched a new beta feature for its AI chatbot Claude: the ability to generate interactive diagrams, charts, and visualizations directly within the conversation. The feature builds on a preview called "Imagine with Claude" from last fall, combining it with the existing "Artifacts" functionality - but embedded right in the chat flow instead of in a side panel, and labeled as "temporary," according to Anthropic.
Claude decides on its own when a visualization would be helpful, though users can also request one directly. Examples include interactive compound interest curves, an interactive decision tree, and a clickable periodic table. The feature is available across all pricing tiers.
