The week in AI

OpenAI introduces $125 Premium Seats for ChatGPT Business as agentic AI burns through more tokens

OpenAI is rolling out "Premium Seats" for ChatGPT Business customers at $125 per user per month, five times the price of the existing Standard Seats. In return, users get significantly more capacity and no five-hour usage limit. The move signals that the flat-rate pricing AI providers have offered so far was never going to last. The article OpenAI introduces $125 Premium Seats for ChatGPT Business as agentic AI burns through more tokens appeared first on The Decoder.

Anthropic signs $9.1 billion data center deal with Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms

Anthropic is leasing $9.1 billion worth of data center capacity from Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms in Texas, according to Bloomberg. The deal covers 191 megawatts at Riot's Rockdale site, with extension options that could push the total value to $16.1 billion. It's the latest in an aggressive infrastructure push that spans partners from Amazon to SpaceX to Google. The article Anthropic signs $9.1 billion data center deal with Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms appeared first on The Decoder.

Nvidia guarantees its own chips' value to unlock $500 billion in AI infrastructure financing

Nvidia is teaming up with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to mobilize over $500 billion for AI infrastructure. To win over investors, the chipmaker is guaranteeing up to 25 percent of the residual value of its own hardware. The Bank of England is already warning of systemic risks if the AI sector takes a hit. The article Nvidia guarantees its own chips' value to unlock $500 billion in AI infrastructure financing appeared first on The Decoder.

Anthropic watermarks all Claude outputs globally with marks that "may persist through some editing"

Anthropic will embed invisible watermarks in all Claude-generated text and sign files using the C2PA standard. New models shipping from August 2026 onward will have labeling built in from day one. The policy applies worldwide, and Anthropic plans to provide detection tools for third-party verification. The article Anthropic watermarks all Claude outputs globally with marks that "may persist through some editing" appeared first on The Decoder.

AI professors are negotiating the new realities of academic research

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week, I headed 30 miles south of San Francisco to a hotel in Mountain View, California, to join some of the most accomplished, and some of the most promising, AI…

Old OCR text cripples language model training, and FineBooks wants to fix that at scale

The FineBooks project from Hugging Face and EleutherAI tested 14 open-source OCR models on more than 2,000 historical book pages. The top model, dots.mocr, hits 97.6 percent character accuracy at under two dollars per thousand pages. That's good enough for AI training data, but not yet for scholarly transcriptions, the team says. The article Old OCR text cripples language model training, and FineBooks wants to fix that at scale appeared first on The Decoder.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.6-Cyber to help defenders find vulnerabilities before attackers do

OpenAI aims to give cybersecurity defenders a head start: The new GPT-5.6-Cyber model answers up to 98.5 percent of security queries that would otherwise be blocked and has already uncovered two previously unknown Chrome vulnerabilities. According to OpenAI, the window of opportunity for defenders is shrinking. Access requires identity verification. The article OpenAI launches GPT-5.6-Cyber to help defenders find vulnerabilities before attackers do appeared first on The Decoder.

What building an AI-native finance function taught me

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar shares five lessons for building an AI-native finance function, from automated forecasting to stronger controls and AI ROI.

Build Low-Latency Multilingual Voice Agents: Open Weights & Full Deployment Control with NVIDIA Magpie TTS

New Free eBook: Understanding Agentic AI, an Executive Briefing

Written for CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, and technology executives, our new free ebook "Understanding Agentic AI: An Executive Briefing" walks through the components every real agentic system is built from.

Evolve your marketing with new AI tools

Learn how new AI and agentic experiences across Google Ads and Google Analytics can simplify your marketing workflow.

OpenAI’s letter to Governor Abbott on responsible AI infrastructure in Texas

OpenAI sent Governor Greg Abbott a letter outlining its commitment to responsible AI infrastructure in Texas. The letter supports reliable, transparent growth that benefits Texans.

Specification Engineering: The New Skill After Prompt Engineering

Prompt engineering taught us how to ask better questions. Specification engineering teaches us how to define better work.

Meta returns to open models with Zuckerberg's plan to out-copy China and sell compute by auction

Meta has released Muse Glimmer, the first open model from its new Superintelligence Labs. It's a 30B agent model that runs on consumer hardware once the weights are compressed, needing less than 20 GB of memory. In an accompanying essay, Mark Zuckerberg mounts an aggressive defense of distilling other labs' models and calls for fewer restrictions on US labs, a direct counterpunch at OpenAI and Anthropic. An open-weight version of Muse Spark 1.2 should follow soon, according to the Wall Street Jo

Told to book a gym class, an AI agent hacked the site instead to move its user up the waitlist

An Australian user just wanted a spot in a class. His AI agent found a security hole instead and exploited it. The article Told to book a gym class, an AI agent hacked the site instead to move its user up the waitlist appeared first on The Decoder.

Import AI 468: 23 RSI ideas; PostTrainBench+; and how trust and transparency interplay with AI racing

Which galaxy will you choose?

Top 10 AI Influencers of 2026

Ten AI influencers who are actually shaping 2026, from safe superintelligence to AI-native search. Here is who to follow and why.

Model ML completes finance work more efficiently with GPT-5.6 Sol

Model ML uses GPT-5.6 Sol to carry finance work from research and analysis through editable, traceable PowerPoint decks and Excel workbooks.

OpenAI acquires NextSlide to bring AI-generated presentations into ChatGPT

OpenAI acquired NextSlide, the startup that turned prompts, notes, documents, and research into editable presentations. The article OpenAI acquires NextSlide to bring AI-generated presentations into ChatGPT appeared first on The Decoder.

Making Knowledge Distillation Cheap Enough to Run at Scale

Expanding Daybreak as the Cyber Defense Window Narrows

Meet GPT-5.6-Cyber, OpenAI’s cybersecurity-specific model available through Daybreak Red for authorized vulnerability research, exploit validation, and security testing.

Putting frontier cyber models in more trusted hands

Approved Daybreak partners can use OpenAI’s frontier cyber models to deliver authorized, governed cybersecurity services to customers.

AI for science needs reasoning, not just data

Every few decades, someone announces that science has reached its end. In 1903, the revered physicist Albert Michelson wrote that the “facts of physical science have all been discovered.” In the 1980s, Stephen Hawking predicted that theoretical physics might be finished by the end of the century. With the explosive arrival of artificial intelligence, the…

These startups are chasing the next big thing in LLMs

MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Way back in the summer of 2017, AI researchers at Google put out a paper called “Attention Is All You Need,” in which they described a new…

Hidden text in a PDF is enough to steal sensitive data through Atlassian's AI agent Rovo

Security firm PromptArmor shows how hidden instructions in a PDF can hijack Atlassian's AI agent Rovo, silently forwarding sensitive data from Jira and Confluence to an external server. The attack needs no user confirmation and leaves no trace. The article Hidden text in a PDF is enough to steal sensitive data through Atlassian's AI agent Rovo appeared first on The Decoder.

Meta is back with Muse Glimmer: local, agentic, multimodal, and open source

Premium seats are coming to ChatGPT Business

Premium seats are coming to ChatGPT Business. Sign up by August 20 to get $100 in workspace credits and unlock higher usage for your team's most demanding work.

How Zapier transformed core marketing processes with ChatGPT Work

The enterprise marketing team at Zapier uses ChatGPT Work to reduce the number of drop-offs in its lead funnel, build campaign assets, and automate reporting.

Virgin Atlantic sharpens customer journeys with ChatGPT Work

Virgin Atlantic is accelerating research, product planning, and decision-making with ChatGPT Work, helping teams connect signals across the customer journey.

Scammers are enrolling fake students at US community colleges and using AI to collect financial aid

AI-powered cheating is spreading at US community colleges. According to The New Yorker, scammers enroll fake students in courses, use AI to complete their assignments, and pocket the financial aid. History professor David Roach asks, "Was it always the case that half of our students would cheat if it were easy enough?" The article Scammers are enrolling fake students at US community colleges and using AI to collect financial aid appeared first on The Decoder.

Google Deepmind's WeatherNext predicts cyclone tracks and intensity at the same time

Deepmind's new weather AI forecasts tropical cyclones about a day further ahead than leading operational models, matching a decade of progress in traditional weather forecasting. Code and model weights are open-source on GitHub. The article Google Deepmind's WeatherNext predicts cyclone tracks and intensity at the same time appeared first on The Decoder.

AI is flooding Britain's employment courts with lawsuits

Britain's employment courts saw 39 percent more claims in the year through March 2026, many written with ChatGPT or Grok. The backlog jumped 55 percent to 64,000 unresolved cases, with AI-generated filings often running hundreds of pages and citing fabricated laws. The Economist calls it a "tragedy of the commons, AI edition," where workers with real grievances wait longer for justice. The article AI is flooding Britain's employment courts with lawsuits appeared first on The Decoder.

Google's DiffusionGemma proves you don't need to train from scratch to build a text diffusion model

Instead of training a new model from scratch, Google DeepMind retrofitted Gemma 4 into a diffusion model using less than 10 percent of the original training budget. DiffusionGemma generates 256 tokens in parallel instead of one at a time, hitting about 1,500 tokens per second. Quality still trails the original autoregressive model in benchmarks, especially on reasoning tasks. The article Google's DiffusionGemma proves you don't need to train from scratch to build a text diffusion model appeared

AI's energy appetite drives Nvidia and Amazon to pour billions into massive power infrastructure

The AI industry's hunger for power keeps growing. Nvidia is investing up to $3 billion in Lancium, a power infrastructure developer that already has four gigawatts under contract in Texas. Amazon, meanwhile, is building a gas-fired power plant in the state with a capacity of up to 7.65 gigawatts that could emit 33 million tons of CO₂ per year, making it the dirtiest in the country. The article AI's energy appetite drives Nvidia and Amazon to pour billions into massive power infrastructure appear

Google dismantles Deepmind and bets on a fresh start as Hassabis heads for the exit

Google Deepmind is losing its autonomy, and founder Demis Hassabis may leave the AI lab for good in the coming months. AI researcher Koray Kavukcuoglu will take over day-to-day operations without the CEO title, and all Gemini development is moving to the Bay Area. Internally, Google is apparently struggling with serious problems training frontier models, even as its cloud business generates billions. The question is whether the company is deliberately betting on infrastructure or simply can't ca

Anthropic sets Claude Code to Auto Mode by default to protect developers from bad approvals

Starting August 14, Anthropic will make Auto Mode in Claude Code the default for Pro, Max, and Team plans. The company says it's safer. In tests, the classifier caught 89 percent of dangerous commands, while human reviewers caught only 13.6 percent. For the most widely used AI coding tool, this means developers are shifting further from writing code to monitoring AI output. The article Anthropic sets Claude Code to Auto Mode by default to protect developers from bad approvals appeared first on T

Readers rate AI-generated short stories higher than human ones until they learn a machine wrote them

People can't tell ChatGPT-generated short stories from human-written ones, according to a new study. More than 2,500 participants performed no better than chance. The AI-generated texts were actually rated higher, but scores dropped as soon as participants learned a machine wrote them. The article Readers rate AI-generated short stories higher than human ones until they learn a machine wrote them appeared first on The Decoder.

Claude Code sessions can now talk to each other and share context across terminals

Claude Code now lets sessions talk to each other. On macOS and Linux, instances running in parallel can send messages, share insights, and check on each other's status. The article Claude Code sessions can now talk to each other and share context across terminals appeared first on The Decoder.

Backflip AI turns 3D scans into editable CAD models in minutes instead of hours

Backflip AI has released an AI model that converts 3D scans into fully editable, parametric CAD models, a process that normally takes significant time and expertise. According to CEO Greg Mark, most factories have digital models for less than one percent of their parts. The startup, backed by $30 million in funding, offers its tool as an add-in for Autodesk Fusion. The article Backflip AI turns 3D scans into editable CAD models in minutes instead of hours appeared first on The Decoder.

Fields Medalist who published a paper on AI-driven human extinction now works for OpenAI

Newly awarded Fields Medalist Jacob Tsimerman is leaving the University of Toronto to join OpenAI and work on AI safety. In a recent paper, he analyzes scenarios where AI could contribute to human extinction and calls for far more investment in safety research. The article Fields Medalist who published a paper on AI-driven human extinction now works for OpenAI appeared first on The Decoder.

AI agents use roughly 600 times more energy than a simple chat prompt

Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather tracked his Claude Code usage over eight weeks: 3.2 billion tokens and about 170 kWh of data center electricity. Per prompt, that's roughly 600 times more than a typical AI chat. His data shows how much the low figures reported by Google and OpenAI distort the reality of agent-based AI. The article AI agents use roughly 600 times more energy than a simple chat prompt appeared first on The Decoder.

xAI's Imagine Image 2.0 lands just behind OpenAI's GPT-Image-2 in Arena benchmarks

xAI has released Imagine Image 2.0 as a new image generator for Grok. The model ranks second in the Arena benchmarks, just behind OpenAI's GPT-Image-2. New editing tools like Magic Wand and Multi-Ref Editing, along with preconfigured templates, target practical creative workflows. The article xAI's Imagine Image 2.0 lands just behind OpenAI's GPT-Image-2 in Arena benchmarks appeared first on The Decoder.

OpenAI flags its new Astra model as potentially reaching the highest cybersecurity risk level for the first time

Internal tests of OpenAI's new AI model Astra show cybersecurity capabilities so strong that the company can no longer rule out the highest risk level in its own safety framework. Parts of Astra's development have been paused. The move follows recently disclosed incidents in which autonomous AI agents infiltrated OpenAI's own infrastructure undetected for weeks. The article OpenAI flags its new Astra model as potentially reaching the highest cybersecurity risk level for the first time appeared f

AI music generator Suno tightens rules to fight spam and address growing copyright concerns

Suno CEO Mikey Shulman has announced new guidelines and tighter download limits after its AI-generated music was used to game streaming platforms for profit. The company also faces pressure from a German copyright ruling and an admission by one of its investors that AI music competes directly with human artists. The article AI music generator Suno tightens rules to fight spam and address growing copyright concerns appeared first on The Decoder.

AMD acquires Taalas, a startup that bakes AI models directly into silicon

AMD is buying Canadian startup Taalas, which hard-codes model weights directly into inference chips. That makes them extremely fast but locks each chip to a single model. A demo chip hit over 16,000 tokens per second per user running Llama 3.1-8B. Google is reportedly working on a similar approach for Gemini. The article AMD acquires Taalas, a startup that bakes AI models directly into silicon appeared first on The Decoder.

TutorMoments: Do AI tutors know when to help and when to hold back?

Anthropic loosens Fable 5's biology restrictions but keeps the guardrails on for virology and toxicology

Anthropic has cut false positives in its biology safety filters for Fable 5 by about 85 percent. Previously, nearly all biology-related queries got blocked and rerouted to the less capable Opus 5. The restrictions stay in place for sensitive dual-use topics like virology and toxicology. The article Anthropic loosens Fable 5's biology restrictions but keeps the guardrails on for virology and toxicology appeared first on The Decoder.

OpenAI's first smart speaker is expected in 2027 at over $300

OpenAI is planning a donut-shaped smart speaker for 2027, priced above $300. The screenless device has a camera, microphones, and moving parts. It's designed to learn from conversations and adapt to users, fitting Sam Altman's "Her" vision. The article OpenAI's first smart speaker is expected in 2027 at over $300 appeared first on The Decoder.

Responding to the next frontier of critical cyber capabilities

OpenAI is sharing preliminary cybersecurity evaluations for Astra and the steps we’re taking to strengthen safeguards and security controls.

Small Language Models with Hugging Face transformers Library + smolLM3

Running a 70B model in production is expensive, and for many tasks, unnecessary. If you're building a focused pipeline, a well-trained 3B model will match or beat the 70B on your specific task at a fraction of the cost.

China's Largest AI Model Is Being Developed at Bytedance

Bytedance is training an AI model with up to ten trillion parameters, according to the Financial Times. That's three times the size of Moonshot's Kimi K3, currently the largest Chinese model. The article China's Largest AI Model Is Being Developed at Bytedance appeared first on The Decoder.

5 Free Courses to Learn Modern AI and LLMs

Learn how to use generative AI at work, build RAG and agentic apps, fine-tune models, work with the Hugging Face ecosystem, and prototype AI products with hands-on resources.

How HSP GRUPPE builds AI capabilities for tax advisory

Discover how HSP GRUPPE uses ChatGPT Enterprise to boost productivity, improve work quality, and create more capacity for tax advisory and client service.

Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel unite on a shared standard for AI agent plugins

Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel have jointly created Agent Plugins, an open standard that defines a single package format for AI agent extensions. Version 1.0.0 uses a plugin.json manifest file and supports both agent skills and MCP servers. The article Amazon, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel unite on a shared standard for AI agent plugins appeared first on The Decoder.

OpenAI improves GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT and restricts free users to its weakest model

OpenAI has updated GPT-5.6 Sol with more focused responses and a reasoning slider that lets users adjust how deeply the model thinks. Free users will get unlimited text chats with the smaller GPT-5.6 Luna starting next week, plus a button that lets Luna reason longer. But the smaller model still falls well short of its bigger siblings. The article OpenAI improves GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT and restricts free users to its weakest model appeared first on The Decoder.

Deepmind's talent drain likely comes down to chip shortages, a conflict of interest, and Google's bureaucracy

Ex-Google Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis has reportedly stepped back from day-to-day operations for about a year, as he sees himself more as a scientist than a manager. Researchers are also complaining about limited access to Google’s own TPU chips, while external customers like Anthropic can purchase the same hardware through Google Cloud. The article Deepmind's talent drain likely comes down to chip shortages, a conflict of interest, and Google's bureaucracy appeared first on The Decoder.

Microsoft's AI revenue reportedly depends on OpenAI for 70 percent

Microsoft generated $24.1 billion in AI revenue through OpenAI in the fiscal year ending in June. That's about 70 percent of its total AI business, according to a Bloomberg analysis. The heavy reliance helps explain why a company long known for vendor lock-in has recently been championing open-weight models and pushing back against proprietary isolation. The article Microsoft's AI revenue reportedly depends on OpenAI for 70 percent appeared first on The Decoder.

Claude Code is the fastest agent framework but costs nearly three times more than the cheapest rival

Composio tested Deepseek V4 Flash across four agent frameworks on 30 real-world tasks. Success rates were mostly similar, but costs varied by nearly 3x: OpenCode came in cheapest at $0.073 per task, while Claude Code cost $0.195 despite using the fewest tool calls and output tokens. The choice of framework is mainly a question of price and speed. The article Claude Code is the fastest agent framework but costs nearly three times more than the cheapest rival appeared first on The Decoder.

Beyond Bots: Rethinking AI Support with a Hybrid AI Architecture

Learn how blending RAG and fine-tuning creates more effective AI support experiences.

WeatherNext: AI model achieves breakthrough in forecasting cyclones