Artificial Intelligence

Jan 15, 2026

The US AI industry continues to deliver drama. OpenAI has rehired three former employees from Mira Murati's AI startup Thinking Machines, including co-founder Barret Zoph, who was recently fired as CTO. Thinking Machines let Zoph go for "unethical conduct," according to journalist Kylie Robison, citing two sources.

A source speaking to Wired claims Zoph passed confidential company information to competitors. OpenAI, the company he's now returning to, would be the obvious candidate. OpenAI's product CEO Fidji Simo announced Zoph's return in an internal memo and on X, saying the company doesn't share Murati's concerns. According to Simo, his return had been "several weeks" in the making.

Zoph and Metz originally worked at OpenAI before co-founding Thinking Machines with Murati, who served as OpenAI's CTO before starting the company. Along with Zoph and Metz, Sam Schoenholz is also returning to OpenAI. Zoph will report directly to Simo. Soumith Chintala takes over as CTO at Thinking Machines.

Comment Source: Kylie Robison / Zoph firing | Wired / Zoph allegations | Fidji Simo / Zoph return | Mira Murati / CTO takeover

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 15, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI signs $10 billion deal with Cerebras Systems

Matthias Bastian

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

OpenAI has released GPT-5.2 Codex to developers through the Responses API. The model was previously limited to the Codex environment. According to OpenAI Developers, it excels at complex, tedious tasks like developing new features, refactoring code, and tracking down bugs. OpenAI also says it's their best cybersecurity model yet, helping identify vulnerabilities in codebases.

The model accepts text and images as input and offers four levels of reasoning effort: low, medium, high, and very high. Pricing comes in at $1.75 per million input tokens and $14 per million output tokens, a notable increase from earlier GPT-5 Codex models, which cost $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens.

Coding platforms Cursor and Windsurf have already integrated the model, with Windsurf offering it at half price for a limited time. OpenAI has published a prompting guide.

Comment Source: OpenAI via X

Matthias Bastian

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

Actor Matthew McConaughey just got eight trademark applications approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office to protect himself against unauthorized AI copies. The trademarks cover a seven-second clip of him standing on a porch and audio of his famous line "Alright, alright, alright" from the 1993 film "Dazed and Confused," among others, according to the Wall Street Journal.

McConaughey says he wants to make sure his voice and likeness are only used with his permission. "We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world," he writes in an email to the WSJ. His lawyers Jonathan Pollack and Kevin Yorn see the trademarks as a potential tool against AI abuse in federal court, though whether this strategy will hold up before a judge remains to be seen.

McConaughey hopes for federal legislation on the issue, but he's not opposed to AI itself. He's both an investor in and a voice for Elevenlabs.

Comment Source: Wall Street Journal

Matthias Bastian

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

Anthropic is growing its Labs team, which builds experimental Claude AI products. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, formerly Anthropic's Chief Product Officer, is moving to Labs to work with Ben Mann. Ami Vora, who joined in late 2025, will lead product development alongside CTO Rahul Patil.

According to President Daniela Amodei, Labs gives Anthropic room to experiment. The team has already shipped several hits: Claude Code became a billion-dollar product in six months, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) now sees 100 million monthly downloads as the industry standard for connecting AI with tools and data. Cowork, which brings Claude Code capabilities to office work, was built in Labs in just 1.5 weeks. Skills and Claude in Chrome also came out of the lab.

Comment Source: Anthropic

Matthias Bastian

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

Microsoft is shaping up to be one of Anthropic's best customers. According to The Information, the software giant is on track to spend nearly $500 million a year on Anthropic's models. Microsoft is using the OpenAI competitor's AI technology in products like GitHub Copilot and Office applications, likely in part to strengthen its bargaining position with OpenAI.

Microsoft has also told its Azure sales team to count Anthropic model sales to cloud customers toward their quotas, just like they would for Microsoft's own software. That's unusual for third-party products, which typically generate less revenue for Azure. The deeper collaboration follows Microsoft's investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic last November.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Jan 14, 2026

AI in practice

Google taps its massive data advantage with new Gemini feature

Google knows where you went on vacation, what you bought, and who you email. Now that knowledge is supposed to make your AI assistant smarter. The new “Personal Intelligence” feature connects Gemini with Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube—an advantage competitors can’t match, if it works as intended.

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Jonathan Kemper

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

Deutsche Telekom is soon using AI voice agents from Elevenlabs in its customer service. Customers can talk to realistic-sounding AI voices around the clock through the app or by phone. The partnership between Europe's largest telecom company and the AI audio startup goes back a while. Since October 2025, Magenta customers have been able to convert text into podcasts up to 25 times a month for free in the MeinMagenta app. Deutsche Telekom also invested in Elevenlabs' Series C funding round.

According to Elevenlabs' internal data, the AI support agent successfully resolves about 80 percent of user queries, particularly when it comes to specific documentation questions. For more complex issues like troubleshooting or pricing inquiries, though, the system still hits its limits and needs to hand off to human support.

Elevenlabs recently launched a marketplace for licensed voices of famous people like John Wayne and Judy Garland. Last year, the company introduced the Eleven v3 voice model with expanded expression options.

Comment Source: Elevenlabs

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 14, 2026

AI and society

After Grok's deepfake flood, Senate passes bill letting victims take creators to court

Abstract visualization of people in a data stream

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 14, 2026

Short News

Music platform Bandcamp now prohibits music created entirely or substantially by generative AI. The company says the new policy protects human creativity and the direct connection between artists and fans. The updated rules also strictly ban using AI tools to imitate specific artists or styles.

Unlike most streaming services, Bandcamp focuses on direct purchases of music and merchandise, letting fans support creators financially without intermediaries.

Users can now report content that sounds heavily AI-generated. Bandcamp reserves the right to remove music from the platform based on suspected AI origins alone.

Comment Source: Bandcamp