1. The first image model from Meta's Superintelligence Labs can drop strangers into your AI photos A Verge columnist spent two seasons of Netflix's "A Man on the Inside" watching Ted Danson play an amateur spy, and came away with a point about hardware.

2. Background tasks and remote MCP: Google's newest agent features are plumbing, not new capability Google added background tasks and remote MCP support to Managed Agents in the Gemini API. Background tasks let an agent keep running after a user closes the session.

3. Open-weight models are gutting the inference margins that make AI look like a money printer The pitch to the public is that AI will mint wealth broadly.

In Brief

• China's DeepSeek moves to design its own chips DeepSeek plans to build custom AI chips to cut its reliance on Nvidia and Huawei, responding to tightened US export controls. The effort is early-stage.

• Microsoft shifts more workloads to its in-house models Microsoft is cutting AI spending by routing more tasks to its own models instead of relying on partners like OpenAI. It joins a broader pullback on AI budgets across large tech firms.

• Anthropic brings Claude Cowork to mobile and web Anthropic opens its Claude Cowork platform to mobile and web browsers starting Tuesday, ending its desktop-app-only limit. Max subscribers get access first, with other plans following in the coming weeks.

• SK Hynix targets multibillion-dollar US IPO Friday Memory maker SK Hynix plans a US listing expected Friday, giving American investors direct access to a supplier riding AI-driven demand. The company credits its boom to AI memory sales.

• AI data center demand raises Rust Belt electricity costs Surging power demand from AI data centers is pushing up electricity bills for US manufacturers, squeezing the industrial base Trump's plan aims to grow. The strain concentrates in Rust Belt states.

• OpenAI's chief futurist Joshua Achiam departs Joshua Achiam is leaving OpenAI after nearly nine years researching AI safety. He testified in the Musk v. Altman trial.

• First AI-run ransomware attack still relied on a human An AI agent executed the technical steps of a real ransomware attack, but new details show a person chose the target, built the infrastructure, and supplied stolen credentials. The case falls short of the fully autonomous cybercrime some headlines claimed.

• Discord's AI moderation wrongly banned users over harmless images Discord confirmed a moderation bug that banned accounts over benign images since May. Its team fixed the issue after another 200 users were banned over the weekend.

• Forterra deploys 100+ self-driving ATVs in Ukraine Forterra has fielded more than 100 autonomous all-terrain vehicles in Ukrainian conflict zones, the first American autonomous ground vehicles in combat.

• NVIDIA and Hugging Face expand LeRobot with new models NVIDIA and Hugging Face added robot foundation models and simulation frameworks to the open-source LeRobot project. The release targets developers building physical-AI systems on shared datasets and tools.

• Savi launches app to flag AI voice and video scams Savi released an iPhone and Android app Tuesday to help consumers detect AI scams like fake ransom calls impersonating relatives. The startup raised $7 million in seed funding.

Read the full edition →