Our team presents a snapshot of the latest on the state of AI:
APPLE |
|
 | Image source: Bloomberg |
|
The Rundown: Apple’s long-overdue AI Siri finally appears to be taking shape, with Bloomberg giving a glimpse of the revamped assistant, rebuilt on Google Gemini, with a dedicated ChatGPT-style app and support for third-party AI agents. |
The details: |
Siri will live inside Dynamic Island, with a swipe-down interface to run AI search, chat, or iOS tasks, using on-device data, screen content, and the web. The assistant, rebuilt on Google Gemini, will run AI-powered web searches similar to Perplexity, with answers surfacing as rich cards in the Dynamic Island. Swiping down farther on the cards brings up a dedicated ChatGPT-style Siri app, with users getting the option to route queries to external AI models. The revamped Siri will land in the Camera app, with advanced AI-based photo editing, wallpapers, and natural language shortcut-creation also in the pipeline.
|
Why it matters: Apple has been very slow in the AI race, promising features in 2024 that never shipped, while OpenAI and Google pulled ahead. If this overhaul lands, Apple’s 1B+ iPhone users will experience AI through the phone they use every day. But if it doesn’t, there will be a lot on John Ternus’ plate as he takes over as the new CEO. |
ANTHROPIC |
|
 | Image source: Anthropic |
|
The Rundown: Anthropic made two big announcements on the same day — Claude Opus 4.8, which crushes almost all major benchmarks, and a massive funding round that makes it the most valuable AI lab in the world. |
The details: |
Coming at the same price as 4.7, Opus 4.8 bests GPT-5.5 and Gemini 3.1 Pro on agentic coding, computer use, financial analysis, and Humanity’s Last Exam. 4.8 is the least lazy among all Anthropic models and more honest, with increased likelihood to flag uncertainties instead of making unverified claims. The model’s Fast mode is 3x cheaper, plus claude.ai gets new effort control, and Claude Code gets parallel sub-agents for complex, long-running tasks. Anthropic paired the release with a $65B raise, taking its valuation to $965B (beyond OpenAI), and the promise of a Mythos-class AI in “the coming weeks.”
|
Why it matters: While the race isn’t over, Anthropic has crossed a milestone that would have seemed unlikely two years ago — a valuation higher than OpenAI and a model that leads on nearly every benchmark. Clearly, its safety-first push is paying off commercially, even as Sam Altman calls the strategy “fear-based marketing.” |
