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Read full article about: Microsoft and Stripe bring shopping checkout directly into Copilot chat for US users

In a glorious AI future, you'll order pizza directly from Excel. Microsoft and Stripe are teaming up to bring shopping to the AI assistant Copilot. US users will soon be able to buy products directly in the chat without ever leaving the app. At launch, the feature includes Etsy retailers and brands like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie.

Called "Copilot Checkout," the feature runs on Stripe and uses the "Agentic Commerce Protocol," an open standard for AI-powered commerce that Stripe helped develop. ChatGPT already uses the same protocol with Stripe Checkout.

Meanwhile, Google is developing its own open protocol called "Agent Payments Protocol" (AP2), backed by more than 60 companies, including Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, and Adobe. Both OpenAI and Google have also announced partnerships with PayPal to enable payments directly in AI chats.

There's real money at stake here. If purchases happen through chatbots, the providers can take a cut of every transaction. OpenAI recently launched its own product research agent to position chatbots as a shopping channel. Copilot in Edge already offers AI-powered shopping tools in the US.

Read full article about: Arm Holdings establishes new business unit for robotics and automotive

Arm Holdings has restructured its business and created a unit called "Physical AI" to enter the robotics market. The British company, which licenses chip technology for smartphones and other devices, will operate three main business units in future: Cloud and AI, Edge (mobile devices and PCs) and Physical AI, which combines automotive and robotics.

Drew Henry will head the new unit. Arm plans to increase staff for robotics. According to marketing chief Ami Badani, the merger of automotive and robotics is due to similar customer requirements in terms of power consumption, safety and reliability. Robotics dominated CES 2026 with dozens of exhibitors of humanoid robots.

Tailwind's shattered business model is a grim warning for every business relying on site visits in the AI era

Tailwind CSS is one of the most successful open-source projects in web development. But while the framework is booming, revenue at the company behind it has dropped 80 percent. Founder Adam Wathan blames AI assistants. His story is a warning sign for large parts of the web.

Read full article about: Claude creator Anthropic reportedly hits $350 billion valuation as it raises another $10 billion

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, is raising $10 billion at a valuation of $350 billion - nearly double its $183 billion valuation from just four months ago. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Coatue Management are leading the round, which is expected to close in the coming weeks. The final numbers could still shift, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This new capital comes on top of the up to $15 billion that Nvidia and Microsoft plan to invest in the company. As part of that arrangement, Anthropic will purchase $30 billion worth of computing capacity from Microsoft Azure running Nvidia systems. The company expects to break even for the first time in 2028.

Anthropic's raise follows xAI's recent announcement of a $20 billion funding round at a valuation exceeding $230 billion. OpenAI is also reportedly planning its next round of up to $100 billion at a $750 billion valuation. Based on these numbers, the AI investment boom isn't cooling off anytime soon in 2026.

Read full article about: Google's "Nano Banana" owes its odd name to a project manager working alone at 2:30 a.m.

Google's "Nano Banana" is currently the most powerful image model on the market, but the name is undeniably strange. According to the Wall Street Journal, the moniker was a 2:30 a.m. accident. When project manager Naina Raisinghani needed a name to upload the model to the benchmark platform LM Arena, no one was around to consult. She simply mashed up two of her own nicknames: Nano and Banana. Within days, the tool shot to the top of the performance rankings and became a social media trend. Compared to this late-night improvisation, the name "Gemini" has a slightly more deliberate origin story.

via WSJ

Another interesting detail from the WSJ report: An OpenAI researcher, of all people, apparently helped push Google co-founder Sergey Brin out of retirement and back into the company's AI efforts. Daniel Selsam asked him at a party why he wasn't working full-time on AI given the rise of ChatGPT. That question helped drive Brin back to Google to accelerate the company's AI ambitions.

Read full article about: New Artificial Analysis benchmark shows OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google locked in a three-way tie at the top

Artificial Analysis just released version 4.0 of its Intelligence Index, ranking AI models across multiple benchmarks. OpenAI's GPT-5.2 at its highest reasoning setting takes the top spot, with Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.5 and Google's Gemini 3 Pro close behind.

The index scores models across four equally weighted categories: Agents, Programming, Scientific Reasoning, and General. Results are less saturated this time, with top models peaking at 50 points compared to 73 in the previous version.

Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.0: GPT-5.2 (xhigh) leads with 50 points, followed by Claude Opus 4.5 (49) and Gemini 3 Pro Preview (48). It's a tight race at the top. | Image: Artificial Analysis
At the top of the cost table is GPT-5.2 (xhigh) with a total cost of $2,322, followed by Grok 4 ($1,574) and Claude 4.5 Opus ($1,510). Gemini 3 Pro Preview trails significantly behind at $988. | Image: Artificial Analysis

The updated index swaps three older tests (AIME 2025, LiveCodeBench, and MMLU-Pro) for a fresh set: AA-Omniscience checks model knowledge across 40 topics while flagging hallucinations, GDPval-AA tests models on practical tasks across 44 professions, and CritPt tackles physics research problems. Artificial Analysis says it ran all tests independently using a standardized approach, with full details available on its website.