Anthropic has upgraded its Claude AI chatbot by making its most powerful tools—file creation, Connectors, and customizable Skills—available to anyone on the free tier. The enhancements also include longer conversation capacity, improved voice and image search, and richer interactive displays. By removing previous barriers, the company positions Claude as a utility for everyday productivity, allowing users to generate documents, interact directly with calendars and email, and tailor the assistant’s behavior without a paid subscription. Read more →

Anthropic has broadened the free version of its Claude AI chatbot, adding file‑creation tools, select Google Workspace connectors, custom Skills, longer conversation limits, and enhanced image and voice search. The move comes as OpenAI introduced advertisements to its free and low‑cost ChatGPT plans, prompting Anthropic to highlight its ad‑free experience with a Super Bowl ad campaign. The added capabilities aim to make Claude more competitive for users weighing whether to stay with the free tier or upgrade to paid AI services. Read more →

OpenAI has launched new features for ChatGPT Deep Research that let users limit searches to chosen websites, pull data from connected apps, and view results in a dedicated report viewer. The controls aim to reduce noise, improve citation reliability, and streamline verification, while acknowledging limits such as paywalls and site blocks. Read more →

Anthropic announced a significant upgrade to the free tier of its Claude chatbot, adding file creation tools, third‑party connectors, and custom skills. The enhancements let free users generate and edit Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint decks, Word documents, and PDFs, and link the assistant to services such as Canva, Slack, Notion, Zapier, and PayPal. Additional improvements include longer conversation windows, interactive responses, and better voice and image search. Anthropic framed the rollout as a direct response to OpenAI’s plan to introduce ads for free ChatGPT users, emphasizing that Claude will remain ad‑free. Read more →

AI browsers integrate large language models into the web‑browsing experience, allowing users to ask natural‑language questions, receive summarized answers, and automate tasks such as form‑filling and price comparison. While tools like ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity's Comet, Microsoft Edge with Copilot, and Brave's Leo promise greater efficiency, they also raise security concerns, including prompt‑injection attacks, data leakage, and hallucinated results. Experts warn that the convenience of AI‑driven browsing must be balanced against privacy risks and the potential impact on the creator economy. The technology is still evolving, and its ultimate role will likely complement, rather than replace, traditional search. Read more →

Google is rolling out a new Gemini feature for Google Calendar that suggests optimal meeting times based on attendees' availability. When creating an event, users can select "Suggested times" and Gemini will scan calendar data to propose slots that work for most participants. If invitees decline, the tool can quickly recommend an alternative time. The feature is currently limited to paid Google Workspace Business and Enterprise plans, as well as Google AI Pro for Education users, and is being released to Rapid Release domains before expanding to Scheduled Release domains. Read more →

A maker has turned a Raspberry Pi into a screenless device called the Thought Catcher that sits by the bedside. Press a button, speak your idea, and the AI‑driven Whisper service transcribes the audio and uploads it to Notion. The system adds a beep to confirm completion, letting users capture thoughts without reaching for a phone and risking sleep disruption. The device requires a Raspberry Pi, a button, a microphone, a buzzer and custom Python code. Future versions may be refined, and the creator plans to share build instructions if interest grows. Read more →

Humans&, a startup founded by veterans of Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Google DeepMind, is building a foundation model focused on social intelligence and team coordination. The company raised a large seed round to develop a “central nervous system” that can help people collaborate, make group decisions, and interact with AI in a more conversational way. The model will be trained with long‑horizon and multi‑agent reinforcement learning to remember users, understand motivations, and act as connective tissue across organizations. While the product is still in development, the team aims to own the collaboration layer rather than plug into existing tools. Read more →

Google Gemini now offers a Personal Intelligence add‑on that lets the model automatically draw on a user’s Gmail, Calendar, Photos, and search history when it deems a prompt relevant. The feature is opt‑in, beta‑only for Gemini Pro and Ultra subscribers, and it streamlines tasks such as creating reminders, shopping lists, and personalized recommendations. Reviewers note a marked improvement over earlier versions that required explicit commands, but they also highlight frequent factual errors, incorrect map directions, and misplaced venue suggestions. Privacy concerns arise from the model referencing personal names without prompting, underscoring a mixed reception. Read more →

ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that launched more than three years ago, now serves hundreds of millions of weekly users and continues to grow. It can answer questions, summarize text, write content, code, and translate languages, while offering both free and premium options. Users can access it via a web portal or mobile apps, create accounts for personalized responses, and experiment with voice, file uploads, and built‑in prompts. The guide stresses a balanced approach: verify information, provide clear context, and avoid over‑reliance on the model, especially for health or financial advice. It also outlines practical use cases for personal and work tasks. Read more →

Anthropic introduced Claude Cowork, a new AI‑agent capability for its Claude chatbot, as a research preview available in the macOS app for Claude Max subscribers. The feature lets users grant Claude access to local folders so it can read, edit, or create files, handling tasks such as reorganizing downloads, generating spreadsheets, or drafting reports. Claude Cowork also integrates with services like Asana, Notion, PayPal, and Chrome, offering continuous updates and parallel task execution. Anthropic highlighted safety concerns, noting the model’s ability to delete files and the risk of prompt‑injection attacks, and urged users to join a waitlist if they are not yet subscribers. Read more →

OpenAI marked ChatGPT's third anniversary by revealing how users worldwide interact with the AI chatbot. The company says the service handles around 29,000 messages per second and sees roughly 800 million weekly active users. Most conversations focus on practical guidance, information seeking, and text editing, with "uploading an image" emerging as the top global use case, ahead of image generation. In the UK, the most common tasks involve drafting communications, how‑to advice, and product research. The data underscore ChatGPT's evolution from a research preview to a ubiquitous productivity tool. Read more →

Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4.5, its latest AI model, describing it as “meaningfully better” than prior versions. The upgrade targets faster, more accurate performance on real‑world tasks such as email drafting, document creation, slide‑deck generation, and coding challenges. It also aims to improve reliability for both individual users and enterprise workflows while keeping costs stable. Enhanced handling of longer contexts, denser prompts, and multi‑step workflows are highlighted, along with better visual output capabilities and stronger integration with external tools. The company acknowledges that the model still has blind spots but positions the release as a tangible step forward for everyday productivity. Read more →

The AI‑driven web browser Dia is incorporating several of Arc’s most‑liked functionalities, such as a sidebar mode, vertical tabs and picture‑in‑picture support for video calls. The move follows Dia’s purchase by Atlassian, which will also enable deeper integration with tools like Jira and Linear. Company leadership notes that Dia’s architecture is better suited for AI, speed and security, while retaining the user‑experience innovations that made Arc a cult favorite. The strategy aims to blend Arc’s experimental strengths with a more streamlined, AI‑native platform. Read more →

AI chatbots have moved beyond basic website widgets to become powerful conversational search and productivity tools. Early chatbots were limited and often blocked real‑person interaction, but modern models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity now interpret information, summarize it, and allow follow‑up queries. Users employ them for research, personal decisions, and work tasks such as summarizing documents and drafting emails. While the benefits are clear, generative AI can still hallucinate or provide inaccurate data, so users are advised to verify information. The shift marks a new category of AI‑driven assistance that blends search with dialogue. Read more →

Dropbox is bringing its Dash AI capabilities into the core Dropbox application, offering users AI‑driven search, file summarization, and contextual answers. Previously a separate tool for larger businesses, Dash is now being rolled out to a broader audience, initially to a small group of users with wider availability planned. The integration also includes a partnership with Mobius Labs to extend AI search to video, audio, and images in the near future. Users can join a waitlist to try the new features, and the Dash app remains available to teams of all sizes even without a Dropbox plan. Read more →

Anthropic announced a new feature called Skills for Claude, a collection of pre‑built instructions, scripts and resources that let the Claude AI agent perform specific work tasks more efficiently. Companies such as Box, Rakuten and Canva have already used the tool, and users can also create custom Skills for their own workflows across Claude.ai, Claude Code, the API and the Claude Agent SDK. The rollout aims to reduce prompt‑engineering effort and make AI agents more reliable in real‑world business contexts, positioning Anthropic alongside rivals like OpenAI, which recently unveiled its own AgentKit suite. Read more →

Slack is testing a major upgrade to Slackbot, turning it from a simple reminder tool into a personalized AI companion. The revamped bot can draft custom plans, search across channels with natural language, pull information from Outlook and Google Calendar, and assist with tasks like organizing product launches or creating social media campaigns. Available to Salesforce employees and in limited pilots, the feature runs on Amazon Web Services’ private cloud, ensuring data never leaves the firewall. Companies may opt out, but individual users cannot, and the rollout is slated for wider release later this year. Read more →

Perplexity is opening its Comet AI‑powered web browser to everyone at no cost while introducing a new “background assistant” for subscribers of its Max plan. The free version retains the sidecar assistant that answers questions, summarizes pages, and helps with navigation. Max users gain access to higher‑performing AI models and a multitasking background assistant that can handle emails, shopping, and travel tasks from a central dashboard. The move positions Comet against established browsers like Google Chrome and newer AI‑focused options such as The Browser Company’s Dia, as the market anticipates OpenAI’s own AI browser launch. Read more →

A study by Harvard Business Review and the Stanford Media Lab finds that AI‑generated content, dubbed "workslop," is spreading across businesses. While tools like Gemini, Copilot, Claude and ChatGPT enable rapid creation of reports, presentations and code, the output often lacks substance and contains errors. About 40% of respondents reported receiving workslop, leading to confusion, offense and a perception that coworkers who rely on AI are less capable, reliable and creative. The report urges organizations to treat AI as an assistant, enforce rigorous editing, and prioritize human collaboration to preserve quality and trust. Read more →