Raw benchmark rankings can hide the factors that determine whether an AI agent is useful and affordable in day-to-day work: time limits, token budgets and failed attempts. Laurie Voss writes for VentureBeat that Alibaba’s Qwen 3.8-Max illustrates the gap. Alibaba reports strong coding results with time limits of up to five hours, and as much …
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now declining requests to write in the exact style of well known authors, instead offering text based on broader characteristics such as mood, genre and narrative approach. Kyle Orland reports for Ars Technica that the change affects prompts referring to both living and deceased writers, including Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan, …
OpenAI says it has slowed some work on its upcoming model Astra after internal testing suggested it may have reached a new level of cybersecurity capability. The company says it “cannot rule out” that Astra meets its Critical threshold under its Preparedness Framework, its highest risk category for cyber capabilities. Under that framework, a model …
Alibaba plans to require large commercial users of its upcoming Qwen3.8-Max AI model to share part of the revenue they generate from it, according to people familiar with the strategy. Stephen Nellis and Eduardo Baptista report for Reuters that the company intends to introduce the rule when it releases the next version of Qwen. The …
Suno is preparing new watermarking, fingerprinting and download controls intended to make AI generated music easier to identify and harder to misuse at scale. Terrence O’Brien reports for The Verge that the company outlined the plans in a blog post by chief executive and co founder Mikey Shulman. The measures respond to concerns that AI …
OpenAI is reportedly developing a screenless, battery-powered AI speaker with a circular design, moving components and a planned price of $300 to $400. Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg that the product is expected to launch in 2027, citing people familiar with the confidential work. The device is said to resemble a doughnut or hockey puck …
Liquid AI has released LFM2.5-2.6B, an open-weight language model built to run AI agents directly on local hardware, including laptops, smartphones and Raspberry Pi computers. Carl Franzen reports for VentureBeat that the model targets companies that need lower latency, tighter data control or lower operating costs than cloud-based AI can offer. The 2.6 billion parameter …
AI startup Hark has unveiled Handoff, a computer-use agent designed to complete tasks in a web browser, from ordering food to booking flights and contacting job candidates. Carl Franzen reports for VentureBeat that public sign-ups have opened, with initial access planned later this month. For every task, Handoff creates a separate virtual computer with a …
OpenAI is updating ChatGPT’s paid and free tiers with revised GPT-5.6 models, new reasoning controls and broader access to text chats. OpenAI announces in an official blog post that Plus and Pro subscribers can now use an updated GPT-5.6 Sol model in ChatGPT, while free users will move to GPT-5.6 Luna as their default model. …
Cloudflare has open sourced Cloudflare OS, a platform that lets organizations deploy AI agent workspaces connected to their own data, tools and internal processes. The company announces in an official Cloudflare Blog post that the software is designed to give employees a browser based workspace where agents can research, create documents, build applications and automate …