The AI industry is rife with defections, FOMO, and radical mission statements. It’s about to get supercharged.
Anthropic launched the latest version of Claude Sonnet on Tuesday, which it says “approaches Opus-level intelligence,” featuring improvements in coding and computer use with tasks like navigating spreadsheets or filling out web forms. Sonnet 4.6 is now replacing Sonnet 4.5 as the default model for free and pro Claude users.
[Anthropic]
Focus Features is billing The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist as an “eye-opening” exploration of “the most powerful technology humanity has ever created.” You’d think the doc might feature some critical voices, but its new trailer makes it feel like it might be one big commercial. The film premieres on March 27th.
As Axios reports that the Department of Defense and / or War is preparing to brand Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” one commenter wonders if the Claude company might revisit its Super Bowl ad to turn that to its advantage.
hodgdon:
“Extrajudicial killings are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”
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Should Anthropic get the designation, “anyone who wants to do business with the U.S. military has to cut ties with the company,” Axios says. The two sides have apparently been negotiating for months over how the military can use Anthropic’s AI tools.
After already dunking on OpenAI’s plan to bring ads to ChatGPT, Anthropic is bolstering its own chatbot to attract anyone jumping ship. Free Claude users can now create and edit files (including spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs), access Skills for specialized tasks, connect to third-party services, and more — features previously limited to paying subscribers.
The round of Big Game ads Anthropic previewed earlier this week set Sam Altman off, as he called them “clearly dishonest.”
Now, while the original ad says, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” nodding to OpenAI’s plans, the one that aired replaced it with a new tagline: “There is a time and place for ads. Your conversations with AI should not be one of them.”
“Now you’re just like, ‘Here’s the magic castle. Build it.’ And it gets done.”
The plugins are designed to allow Cowork to act like a “domain expert” in areas like sales, legal, finance, marketing, data analysis, customer support, product management, biology research, and more, according to a release. The feature is available now in research preview to all paid subscription tiers.
[Anthropic]
After years of trying to switch to Home Assistant, Claude Code got me (mostly) there in one afternoon.
During testing, the AI agent also ordered a PlayStation5 and live betta fish, and staffers convinced it to give away almost everything for free, losing a bunch of money. Sounds fun!
Anthropic’s response was that this was all part of the stress testing plan, actually, and that one day the model would “probably be able to make you a lot of money.” Maybe just not any time soon.
MCP has already taken the industry by storm, and now Anthropic is giving it away.
The research pilot program will run for a week, and each AI interview will take 10 to 15 minutes, per Anthropic. Questions include what the user would most ideally like AI’s help with and whether there are “ways that AI might be developed or deployed that would be contrary to your vision or what you value.” It seems to be part of Anthropic’s societal impacts team’s push to do more social science research on how AI affects people. But, as the AI interviewer itself tells people who opt in, “AI asking about AI [is a] bit self-referential.”
[Anthropic]
The Verge’s Hayden Field joins Decoder to discuss the politically fraught climate around AI safety.
The AI startup has hired law firm Wilson Sonsini for an IPO that could happen as early as next year, the FT reports. OpenAI is reportedly eyeing the second half of 2026 for its own.
Anthropic just made its first acquisition, too, buying software maker Bun.
Spoiler: the nine-person team works for Anthropic.
