AI in practice Archive

Feb 10, 2026

OpenAI has upgraded Deep Research in ChatGPT. The feature now runs on the new GPT-5.2 model, as OpenAI announced on X. A key addition is that users can connect apps to ChatGPT and—potentially very useful—search specific websites. The search progress can also be tracked in real time, interrupted with questions, or supplemented with new sources. Results can now be displayed as full-screen reports.

Until now, Deep Research—which launched in 2025—ran on o3 and o4 mini models. OpenAI considers it the first "AI agent" in ChatGPT, since the system independently kicks off multi-stage web searches based on the user's query before generating a response.

That said, even web searches don't protect against generative AI errors, and the longer the generated text, the higher the risk of mistakes. In everyday use, targeted search queries with capable reasoning models are often more reliable. Web search significantly reduces hallucination rates overall, but doesn't eliminate them.

Comment Source: OpenAI

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 10, 2026

Short News

Chinese robotaxi operator Pony AI and Toyota have kicked off commercial production of a self-driving electric car. The first of 1,000 fully electric, autonomous Toyota bZ4X compact SUVs has rolled off the assembly line at a joint venture plant run by Toyota and the Guangzhou Automobile Group. The vehicles are meant to help Pony AI hit its goal of expanding its robotaxi fleet to more than 3,000 cars by the end of the year. The bZ4X is one of three models Pony AI is deploying with its latest autonomous driving software across major Chinese cities.

The vehicles run on Pony AI's autonomous driving system, rated at SAE Level 4. That means the car drives itself completely within designated areas - no human needs to sit behind the wheel, hold the steering wheel, or watch the road. There are still limitations, though, such as restrictions on operating zones or weather conditions.

Even though the technology enables driverless operation, human support is still part of the equation. Right now, one person oversees roughly 30 vehicles and can step in if something goes wrong.

Pony AI competes with other Chinese robotaxi companies like Baidu and WeRide.

Comment Source: PRNewswire

Matthias Bastian

Feb 9, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is rolling out ads in ChatGPT for users in the United States. The test targets logged-in adult users on the free and "Go" tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans remain ad-free. Free-tier users can opt out of advertising, but doing so reduces their daily message allowance.

OpenAI says the decision comes down to high infrastructure costs. The company stresses that ads don't influence ChatGPT's responses, and conversations stay private. Which ad a user sees depends on the conversation topic, previous chats, and interactions.

Users under 18 won't see any ads, and ads won't appear around sensitive topics like health or politics. Users can hide individual ads, delete their ad data, and adjust personalization settings. Advertisers get aggregated performance statistics but have no access to chat logs or personal data, OpenAI says.

What will always remain true: ChatGPT’s answers remain independent and unbiased, conversations stay private, and people keep meaningful control over their experience.

Putting ads in chatbots is controversial, since the potential for manipulation is greater than with traditional search engines. OpenAI says it will keep ads clearly separated from content. Long term, the company plans to roll out additional ad formats.

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Feb 9, 2026

AI in practice

Bytedance shows impressive progress in AI video with Seedance 2.0

Matthias Bastian

Feb 9, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in an internal Slack message that ChatGPT is once again growing by more than ten percent per month, CNBC reports. The last official number was 800 million weekly users in January 2026.

Altman also said an updated chat model for ChatGPT is set to ship this week. It could be the chat variant of GPT 5.3, which OpenAI released last week as the coding-focused version Codex. The model scores particularly well on agent coding benchmarks and is 25 percent faster, according to OpenAI.

The Codex coding product has grown roughly 50 percent in just one week, according to Altman (60% "Codex user", now confirmed via X), who called the growth "insane." It competes directly with Anthropic's popular Claude Code. OpenAI's new Codex desktop app in particular is likely to expand gradually beyond coding use cases, following a similar path to Anthropic's Cowork.

Comment Source: CNBC

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 9, 2026

AI in practice

Human writers face an impossible race against chatbots that finish a book before lunch

Matthias Bastian

Feb 8, 2026

AI in practice

Malicious skills turn AI agent OpenClaw into a malware delivery system

Matthias Bastian

Feb 8, 2026

Short News

Claude Opus 4.6 is the new top-ranked AI model, at least until Artificial Analysis finishes benchmarking OpenAI's Codex 5.3, which will likely pull ahead in coding. Anthropic's latest model leads the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, a composite of ten tests covering coding, agent tasks, and scientific reasoning, with first-place finishes in agent-based work tasks, terminal coding, and physics research problems.

Running the complete test suite costs $2,486, more than the $2,304 required for GPT-5.2 at maximum reasoning performance. Opus 4.6 consumed roughly 58 million output tokens, twice as many as Opus 4.5 but significantly fewer than GPT-5.2's 130 million. The higher total price comes down to Anthropic's token pricing of $5 and $25 per million input and output tokens, respectively.

Opus 4.6 is available through the Claude.ai apps and via Anthropic's API, Google Vertex, AWS Bedrock, and Microsoft Azure.

Comment Source: Artificial Analysis

Matthias Bastian

Feb 8, 2026

Short News

Anthropic just launched a new fast mode for Claude, and the pricing is steep: the "Fast Mode" for Opus 4.6 costs up to six times the standard rate. In return, Anthropic says the model responds 2.5 times faster at the same quality level. The mode is built for live debugging, rapid code iterations, and time-critical tasks. For longer autonomous runs, batch processing/CI-CD pipelines, and cost-sensitive workloads, Anthropic says you're better off sticking with standard mode.

	Standard	Fast mode
Input ≤ 200K tokens	$5 / MTok	$30 / MTok
Input > 200K tokens	$10 / MTok	$60 / MTok
Output ≤ 200K tokens	$25 / MTok	$150 / MTok
Output > 200K tokens	$37,50 / MTok	$225 / MTok

Fast Mode can be toggled on in Claude Code with /fast and works across Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Figma, and Windsurf. There's a 50 percent introductory discount running until February 16. The mode isn't available through Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, or Microsoft Azure Foundry. Anthropic plans to expand API access down the line, interested developers can sign up for a waiting list.

Comment Source: Anthropic

Matthias Bastian

Feb 7, 2026

Short News

Integrating AI agents into enterprise operations takes more than a few ChatGPT accounts. OpenAI is hiring hundreds of engineers for its technical consulting team to customize models with customer data and build AI agents, The Information reports. The company currently has about 60 such engineers plus over 200 in technical support. Anthropic is also working directly with customers.

The problem: AI agents often don't work reliably out of the box. Retailer Fnac tested models from OpenAI and Google for customer support, but the agents kept mixing up serial numbers. The system reportedly only worked after getting help from AI21 Labs.

OpenAI Frontier Architecture — OpenAI's new agentic enterprise platform "Frontier" shows just how complex AI integration can get: the technology needs to connect to existing enterprise systems ("systems of record"), understand business context, and execute and optimize agents—all before users ever touch an interface. | Image: OpenAI

This need for hands-on customization could slow how fast AI providers scale their B2B agent business and raises questions about how quickly tools like Claude Cowork can deliver value in an enterprise context. Model improvements and better reliability on routine tasks could help, but fundamental LLM-based security risks remain.

Comment Source: The Information / OpenAI consultants | The Information / Anthropic customer work