AI Updates for the Week of 2/22/26

Updates

Below are some of the highlights in AI, robotics, and machine learning for this past week.

Anthropic: Half our AI agent market is focused on software engineering
Leak: Microsoft’s new gaming CEO vows not to flood the ecosystem with ‘endless AI slop’

Leak: OpenAI employees raised alarms about Canada shooting suspect months ago
Leak: 13-hour AWS outage reportedly caused by Amazon’s own AI tools
NotebookLM rolls out prompt-based slide revisions
Anthropic’s new security tool sends cyber stocks reeling
Microsoft shares plunge after company publishes guide to training an LLM on pirated books
Google Play used AI to help block 1.75 million bad apps in 2025
Toy Story 5’ takes aim at creepy AI toys
Leak: OpenAI working on an AI-powered speaker
Bernie Sanders re: AI: “Slow this thing down”

Google announces Gemini 3.1 Pro for ‘complex problem-solving’
Sam Altman accuses companies of AI washing job loss claims
Bill Gates pulls out of India’s AI summit over Epstein files controversy
Macron defends EU AI rules and vows crackdown on child ‘digital abuse’
Leak: Nvidia and OpenAI inching toward a reworked investment deal
Altman and Amodei refuse to hold hands in viral image ✊🚫✊
Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation
Grok doxxed porn performer Siri Dahl
YouTube brings conversational AI to smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices
Reddit is testing a new AI search feature for shopping

Google adds music-generation capabilities to the Gemini app
Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers’ confidential emails to Copilot AI
Perplexity joins anti-ad camp as AI companies battle over trust and revenue
Waymo denies using remote drivers after Senate testimony goes viral
Microsoft pledges $50 billion to tackle AI inequality as it warns of a ‘growing divide’
Tech firms must remove ‘revenge porn’ in 48 hours or risk being blocked in U.K.
Leak: Amazon halts Blue Jay robotics project after less than 6 months
Mark Zuckerberg also tried to recruit ‘the ClawFather’
Leak: Meta revives plan for smart watch
China’s humanoid robots impress with synchronized Lunar New Year performance
New benchmark measures AI understanding of blockchain code
Meta will run AI in WhatsApp through Nvidia’s ‘confidential computing’

Anthropic releases Sonnet 4.6
Pentagon threatens Anthropic punishment
AI firefighting robot swarm self-organizes, tackles multiple fires with 99.67% success
Spain to probe X, Meta, TikTok over AI-generated child sexual abuse material
EU launches second investigation into Grok’s nonconsensual image generation
Alibaba unveils Qwen3.5
Cohere launches a family of open multilingual models
WordPress adds an AI assistant that can edit, adjust styles, create images, and more
Leak: Apple is reportedly cooking up a trio of AI wearables
Samsung teases mobile AI photography tools
Scientists: AI could misuse bio data to design harmful viruses
European Parliament blocks AI on lawmakers’ devices, citing security risks
Figma partners with Anthropic to turn AI-generated code into editable designs

Study: 80% of firms reporting no impact on either employment
Meta patents AI that takes over a dead person’s account to keep posting and chatting
Google puts users at risk by downplaying health disclaimers under AI Overviews
Anthropic tries to hide Claude’s AI actions, devs hate it
Leak: ByteDance vows to curb AI video tool after Disney threat
The Vatican introduces an AI-assisted live translation service
IBM is tripling the number of Gen Z entry-level jobs

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