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New Models, IPO Announcements, and the Rise of Open Source Competitors

Jul 21, 2026

Note from Last Week in AI (Andrey): I’m back! And i’m sorry for putting the substack on a silent pause, work got a bit too overwhelming so I fell behind on this. I’ll do my best to resume normal posting, starting with catching up on podcast episodes missing from here (which are not last week… but I guess I should post them still, sorry for the spam!)

I’ve also paused paid subscriptions until I can get back to consistent posting. Apologies for the flakiness, and thanks for being a subscriber!

Our 247th episode with a summary and discussion of last week’s big AI news!

Recorded on 06/03/2026

Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris

Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai

In this episode:

• Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8 with improved benchmark scores, discussed eval-awareness findings and welfare/corrigibility themes from its system card, and introduced Dynamic Workflows for long-running multi-agent tasks.
• Microsoft unveiled the always-on Microsoft Scout assistant built on OpenClaw plus new in-house MAI models (including MAI Thinking 1) and “frontier tuning,” emphasizing enterprise security architecture and model-from-scratch capability.
• Major business moves included Anthropic’s $65B Series H at a $965B valuation alongside an IPO filing, a JPMorgan analysis arguing OpenAI needs major revenue growth to justify infrastructure spend, and Cognition raising $1B at a $25B valuation.
• Policy and security highlights covered Trump’s voluntary pre-release government testing framework for powerful AI, Meta AI support being exploited to hijack Instagram accounts, tightened US Nvidia export controls and China’s travel approvals for AI experts, plus expanded Glasswing/Mythos-style cyber and biodefense initiatives.

Timestamps:

• (00:00:10) Intro / Banter
• (00:04:10) Sponsors
• (00:07:10) News Preview

• Tools & Apps
• (00:07:54) Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 with new ‘dynamic workflow’ tool | TechCrunch
• (00:22:37) Microsoft Scout is a new AI personal assistant built on OpenClaw | The Verge
• (00:26:55) Microsoft launches new MAI family of AI models at Microsoft Build | Mashable
• (00:37:43) Robinhood now lets your AI agents trade stocks | TechCrunch
• (00:40:49) OpenAI launches new Codex tools for white-collar work | TechCrunch
• (00:43:40) ElevenLabs’ new music-generation model can switch genres mid-track | TechCrunch

• Applications & Business
• (00:44:35) Anthropic Hits $965 Billion Valuation, Surpassing OpenAI - WSJ
• (00:45:32) Anthropic Files to Go Public, Setting Stage for Huge I.P.O. - The New York Times
• (00:51:15) China’s ByteDance Developing New AI Chips Like Those from Nvidia Partner Groq
• (00:55:00) Anthropic expands Mythos to 150 additional organizations
• (00:55:35) OpenAI needs a 26x revenue increase to justify its buildout
• (00:58:46) AI coding startup Cognition raises $1B at $25B pre-money valuation | TechCrunch

• Projects & Open Source
• (01:00:50) MiniMax-M3 debuts, eclipsing GPT-5.5 and Gemini 3.1 Pro on key benchmark performance for just 5-10% of the cost | VentureBeat

• Policy & Safety
• (01:06:08) Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models - The New York Times
• (01:11:45) Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked
• (01:13:058) Chinese AI experts in private firms now required to secure approval before international travel — Beijing enforces policy to secure top-tier talent, expands measures beyond government
• (01:17:53) U.S. Tightens Controls on Nvidia AI Chip Exports | Let’s Data Science
• (01:21:47) OpenAI launches Rosalind Biodefense, offers federal agencies early access to its life-sciences model
• (01:24:00) Using LLMs to secure source code
• (01:26:19) Project Glasswing: An initial update
• (01:29:30) White House Approves $9 Billion for Spy Agencies to Catch Up on A.I.
• (01:32:11) US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows

• Synthetic Media & Art
• (01:35:38) YouTube will now automatically label AI videos | TechCrunch

• Research & Advancements
• (01:36:22) Why Larger Models Learn More: Effects of Capacity, Interference, and Rare-Task Retention
• (01:41:26) From Simulation to Enaction: Post-trained language models recognize and react to their own generations