Matthias Bastian

Feb 9, 2026

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

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

AI and society

New research suggests AI model updates are now "significant social events" involving real mourning

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

Matthias Bastian

Feb 7, 2026

AI and society

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claims AI no longer hallucinates, apparently hallucinating himself

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claims in a CNBC interview that AI no longer hallucinates. At best, that’s a massive oversimplification. At worst, it’s misleading. Either way, nobody pushes back, which says a lot about the current state of the AI debate.

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Matthias Bastian

Feb 7, 2026

Short News

Japan's lower house election becomes a testing ground for generative AI misinformation

AI-generated fake videos are spreading rapidly across Japanese social media during the lower house election campaign. In a survey, more than half of respondents believed fake news to be true. But Japan is far from the only democracy facing this problem.

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Matthias Bastian

Feb 7, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is working with Abu Dhabi-based G42 on a custom ChatGPT for the UAE, Semafor reports. The version will speak the local Arabic dialect and may include content restrictions. One source said the UAE wants the chatbot to project a political line consistent with the monarchy's. Global ChatGPT will stay available but adapted to local laws, notifying users when content violates regulations. OpenAI is fine-tuning rather than retraining to cut costs.

G42 is led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan—the UAE President's brother, National Security Advisor, and head of the largest sovereign wealth fund. The companies have been partners since October 2023.

These adaptations show AI models are cultural products as much as technical tools. Generated content flows into every corner of society, and even small changes to cultural narratives can have lasting effects; which is why both China and the US are working to control their AI models' output to shape domestic conversations and spread their worldviews abroad.

Comment Source: Semafor

Matthias Bastian

Feb 6, 2026

AI in practice

Waymo taps Google Deepmind's Genie 3 to simulate driving scenarios its cars have never seen

By combining Waymo’s real-world driving data with Deepmind’s Genie 3, Alphabet is showing the kind of AI leverage that few companies can match: using one subsidiary’s world model to supercharge another’s autonomous driving simulations.

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