WhatsApp tentatively allows AI chatbots competing with Meta in Europe

WhatsApp sets steep prices for rival AI access. (Picture: generated)
As the EU Commission is considering «interim measures» against the messaging app for refusing chatbots not made by Meta, WhatsApp is slightly opening the door to rivals in Europe.

The platform has 3 billion users, and is considered a «gatekeeper» in EU laws, subject to demands for equal access.

The compromise Meta is rolling out is that rival chatbots will be allowed on the platform, but have to pay their way.

The fees range from €0.0490 to €0.1323 for «non-template messages.» That could ratchet up quickly, considering that chatbot sessions cover multiple messages across millions of users, writes TechCrunch.

The European Commission is said to be «analyzing» how this move «might affect its interim measures» as well as the broader investigation, Reuters reports.

Read more: Reuters and TechCrunch.

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT-5.4 has native computer use and less hallucinations

The latest version of ChatGPT sees a marked jump in the benchmarks. (Picture: Adobe)
The new Thinking and Pro models are more «capable and efficient» and is the first OpenAI model with native computer use skills. It also improves on hallucinations and Office files creation — areas where Anthropic has been thriving.

— Together with advances in general reasoning, coding, and professional knowledge work, GPT‑5.4 enables more reliable agents, faster developer workflows, and higher-quality outputs across ChatGPT, the API, and Codex, OpenAI writes.

On hallucinations, it is 33% less likely to be wrong in its responses, and 18% less apt to have mistakes in replies compared to GPT‑5.2.

Continue reading “OpenAI’s new ChatGPT-5.4 has native computer use and less hallucinations”

OpenAI ships Codex app for Windows — running in the Linux subsystem

The official Codex app has finally arrived for Windows, almost a month to the day after first debuting on macOS.

It runs natively in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and has integrated terminals for PowerShell, Command Prompt, and Git Bash.

It also has all the «regular» features the Mac version has — and is a fully integrated multi-agent coding environment.

The Windows app is also properly sandboxed, so you can block it from accessing files outside your working folder and «prevent outbound links» unless you approve it, writes OpenAI’s Andrew Ambrosino on x.com.

In addition, your session history is stored on your OpenAI account, making it possible to start coding on a Mac and finish it on Windows without losing work, Engadget notes.

The app is available today from the Microsoft Store.

Read more: Andrew Ambrosino’s announcement, Engadget and Microsoft Store.

NotebookLM introduces «cinematic video overviews» feature

The AI learning and note-taking app can now illustrate your research through «rich, detailed visuals» in full bore video.

Previously, it could only make a slide show of your notes, in addition to the killer feature of creating podcasts from them.

The new videos are possible through a combination of Gemini 3, Nano Banana Pro and Veo 3 — with Gemini «acting as a creative director.»

The Gemini model makes «structural and stylistic» decisions on the fly, illustrating content word by word and in context to create something like the video above.

The feature is only available through the $300/month Google AI Ultra subscription, but it is sure to trikle down at a later stage

Read more: Google’s announcement, Android Police and The Verge.

Jensen Huang says Nvidia’s investment opportunity in AI labs is closing

Huang figures the privately owned AI labs era might be finished. (Picture: Nvidia)
The Nvidia CEO says the opportunity to invest might soon end, Reuters reports.

The reason for this is straightforward, suspecting that Anthropic and OpenAI going public «later this year» will shutter the window to private equity deals.

The latest deal to fund OpenAI with $30 billion «might be the last time» to «invest in a consequential company like this,» Huang admits.

Nvidia has invested some $130 billion in OpenAI in two rounds, the recent straight up investment, and one circular deal where they paid $100 billion in return for OpenAI buying $100 billion in chips from them.

Likewise, Nvidia was an investor in a November funding round for Anthropic, buying $15 billion in shares from the company.

Read more: Reuters, CNBC and TechCrunch.

OpenAI eyes unclassified NATO contract, The Wall Street Journal reports

OpenAI seems to be making a big push for defense contracts. (Picture: DOD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro, CC BY 2.0)
Just days after striking a deal with the Pentagon, it would seem that OpenAI is actively pursuing more deals in the defense sector, writes The Wall Street Journal.

During an all-hands meeting at OpenAI on Tuesday, Sam Altman tried to clear the air on their recent Pentagon contract debacle — which has seen some twists and turns before landing on very clear language against use in mass surveillance.

Of note at the meeting, he said that OpenAI was considering a contract to deploy on NATO’s classified network, although he was confirmed to have misspoken by a spokesperson, saying the deal being considered was for the unclassified parts of the defense alliance.

Later on Wednesday, Reuters confirmed that such a deal is indeed under consideration, citing sources «familiar with the matter.»

While talking, he said, among other things, that the US military had been a «great benefit to all of humanity over the last 250 years,» The WSJ writes, and added that «Clearly, the military has done things that I extremely disagree with, and am sure will do more in the future.»

Read more: The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.3-instant with fewer lectures and less hallucinations

GPT-5.3-Instant performs better than 5.1-Instant and is a little behind 5.2-Instant, but is better at conversation. (Picture: Adobe)
Hallucinations are down 27% when it uses the web and ~20% in reasoning, and OpenAI did actually notice that the 5.2 model often cames across like a nanny — berating users with obvious, condescending lectures for harmless questions.

This has been solved by reducing unnecessary «dead ends,» caveats and «declarative formulations» in order to let the conversation flow more freely — solving one of many users’ major gripes with the current OpenAI models.

The model is also better at search, combining search responses with its own knowledge and reasoning. This should put results into context instead of just summarizing results.

Bu the real update with this model is bringing ChatGPT to a more natural style and tone with freely flowing conversation — which should be far less «cringe.»

OpenAI is promising less «Stop. Take a breath»-responses, or «I’m going to calm this down» kinds of outputs. It should also be better at creative writing.

GPT-5.3-instant is available today in the app (choose Instant in the model selector), API and web, and updates to Thinking and Pro are «coming soon.»

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, writeups on 9to5Google, TechCrunch and The Register.

Google debuts Gemini 3.1-Flash Lite, for developers needing speed and scale

Not for everyone; Flash Lite is built for high volume cost efficiency. (Picture: Google)
Positioning the model as a purely developer-focused one, Google is touting the price, latency and the sheer amount of work it can do.

Costing $0.25 for 1M input tokens and $1.50 for 1M output tokens, it is one of the cheapest models out there.

Compared to Gemini 2.5 Flash, it is 2.5x faster to the first answer, and 45% quicker in output speed, while maintaining quality.

This benefits high-frequency workloads, such as mass translations and content moderation where price is a priority, Google says.

Users of AI Studio and Vertex AI can also adjust its thinking levels, making it possible to balance speed and complexity.

Read more: Google’s announcement, Android Central, Tom’s Guide.

U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear AI copyright case, making it final

AI art is not covered by Copyright, the courts have decided. Cutout of «A Recent Entrance to Paradise,» by Stephen Thaler’s AI.
Computer scientist Stephen Thaler’s quest to have his AI outputs protected by copyright has come to an end, Reuters reports.

The lesser courts had consistently upheld the Copyright Office’s 2022 decision to deny his picture «A Recent Entrance to Paradise» protections, holding that Copyright must have clear human authorship.

The picture was created solely by his AI system «DABUS» in 2018, and Thaler said that «The Copyright Office ​will have irreversibly and negatively impacted AI development and use in the creative ​industry during ⁠critically important years.»

The case has wide repercussions for the creative industry’s use of AI in artworks, but yet to be covered by the courts are several cases with significant human involvement, where the AI assists human creativity instead of creating it alone.

Read more: Reuters, The Verge.

Claude can now import memory and context, and debuts it for free plans

Hot off the heels of historic popularity, Anthropic is making it easier to switch chatbots. (Picture: Anthropic)
By copying a single, long, and complex prompt from Claude to any other chatbot, you can paste in the reply and have Claude remember that information about you.

This includes both stored memories and context «learned about me from previous conversations,» and personal details, like name, location, job, family — just about anything you’ve told the bot about you.

That would make it easier to pick up with Claude where you left off, and solves one of the hardest hurdles in the competition between chatbots; when you spend years training an AI about you and your preferences, the barrier to switch becomes exhorbitant.

Claude also lets you export memories in the same fashion, but so far no other competitor has launched an import feature.

At the same time, Anthropic is bringing memories to the free tier on Claude, letting it learn from past chats you’ve had with it.

Read more: Anthropic: Import Memory, Engadget, 9to5Mac.

Pentagon spat over Anthropic and OpenAI leads to mass exodus from ChatGPT to Claude

Reddit forums for AI and ChatGPT were full of cancel messages over the weekend. (Picture: Screenshot)
People concerned about ethics, and that OpenAI could have entered into a Pentagon contract including internal mass surveillance — that Anthropic refused — have been cancelling their ChatGPT accounts en masse.

A concerted effort to ditch ChatGPT for Claude has emerged online, even affecting reddit fan forums r/ChatGPT, r/OpenAI and the broader r/Singularity, which on Sunday were brimming with posts about moving to Claude.

Top of the list
As a result, Anthropic’s chatbot has climbed to number one, top of the list for productivity apps in the App Store — beating out both OpenAI and Gemini. Last week, it was hovering around 50th.

Continue reading “Pentagon spat over Anthropic and OpenAI leads to mass exodus from ChatGPT to Claude”

OpenAI closes record funding round: $110 billion invested at $840B valuation

At more than double the cost of last years record deal, the funding highly values OpenAI by investors, according to Reuters.

Amazon invested $50 billion, Nvidia put up $30 billion and SoftBank shelled out $30 billion, agreeing to a $840 billion valuation, the largest of any frontier AI lab by far.

«Strategic partnership» with Amazon
Amazon’s deal structure is slightly different, as it comes in the terms of a strategic partnership where OpenAI will receive $15 billion up front, and then qualify for the rest $35 billion «over the coming months.»

OpenAI has committed to using 2 gigawatts of capacity on AWS’ Trainium platform and will make their models available on Amazon’s services.

None of this is said to change OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, OpenAI says in a release.

At the same time, OpenAI’s Nick Turley says they have surpassed 900 million weekly users and has 50 million paying subscribers, up from roughly 800 million before.

Read more: Sama’s thank you thread, writeups on Reuters, CNBC

Pentagon and Trump unloads on Anthropic, agrees with OpenAI on same safeguards

The Pentagon wants AI to be open for spying, but hardly any frontier lab will agree to this. (Picture: generated)
Calling Anthropic «leftwing nut jobs» and an «out-of-control, Radical Left Woke AI company,» both President Trump and Hegseth at the Pentagon have taken steps to bar the company from Government use.

The spat started when Anthropic refused new terms in their Pentagon contract, saying they would not use their AI for autonomous killing and mass surveillance.

In a stunning reversal, these safeguards are written into an agreement offered just hours later to OpenAI (see below).

Continue reading “Pentagon and Trump unloads on Anthropic, agrees with OpenAI on same safeguards”

Source code in new ChatGPT Android app mentions «naughty chats»

According to ChatGPT watcher Tibor Blaho, adult mode is getting closer to going live, with «spicier, adult-themed language.»

The idea was to get age verification on ChatGPT sorted first, so teens could be protected from «sensitive content,» while the app would let «adults be adults.»

Verification was rolled out in January, and people have been asking when ChatGPT for adults would finally ship.

Google launches Nano Banana 2 with Pro-level reasoning at Flash speeds

Prompt: «A brightly colored image of Museum Clos Lucé in the style of synthetic cubism.» (Picture: Google)
Rolling out across the entire Gemini landscape today, the new image generator offers «advanced world knowledge» powered by Gemini 3.

That should make it able to use web searches and other images in order to understand and reason its way into better pictures.

Like with Nano Banana Pro, you could create diagrams from notes, make infographics from text, and «generate data visualizations,» only a whole lot faster — and cheaper.

It should also be better at subject consistency, more precise in following instructions and can create high fidelity images at up to 4K resolutions.

It instantly leapt to the top of LMArena’s (now just arena.ai) text-to-image leaderboard.

Read more: Google’s presentation. Writeups on 9to5Google, Ars Technica, and TechCrunch.