2026/02/16

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to build the next generation of personal agents, researchers proved AI bot swarms can manipulate public beliefs at scale, and February is shaping up to be the biggest model release month in AI history. ## OpenClaw Creator Peter Steinberger Joins OpenAI Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer who created the viral AI personal assistant OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI. Sam Altman announced on X that Steinberger will drive the next generation of personal agents and that OpenClaw will live in a foundation as an open source project that OpenAI will continue to support. OpenClaw achieved viral popularity over the past few weeks as the AI that actually does things, managing calendars, booking flights, and even spawning its own social network of AI assistants. The move signals OpenAI aggressive push into the personal agent space, where products like OpenClaw have proven there is massive consumer demand for AI that takes action rather than just answering questions. ## AI Bot Swarms Can Manipulate Public Beliefs at Scale A research team at Indiana University ran simulations showing that swarms of AI-powered social media bots can infiltrate human communities and manufacture the appearance of broad public agreement around chosen narratives. The most effective tactic was infiltration — once bots joined a group and built credibility through realistic back-and-forth discussions, they could steer the conversation in any direction. The researchers first discovered the fox8 botnet in 2023 on X, a network of over a thousand AI-powered accounts running crypto scams. Machine learning detection tools, including the researchers own Botometer, could not distinguish the AI agents from real humans. ## Seven Major AI Models Launching in February 2026 February 2026 has turned into the most concentrated model release window in AI history. Seven models are scheduled or expected to launch: Gemini 3 Pro GA, Sonnet 5, GPT-5.3, Qwen 3.5, GLM 5, DeepSeek v4, and Grok 4.20 from xAI. Three of the seven are Chinese-developed, and two are open-source with self-hosting options. For developers, the practical result is an API price war and the end of single-model dependency. Model routing — automatically selecting the best model for each task type — is becoming a required skill rather than an optimization. ## AI Disruption Spreads to Real Estate and Trucking Stocks The AI-driven stock sell-off that started with software companies has spread into logistics and commercial real estate. C.H. Robinson and RXO both dropped as much as 20% after Algorhythm Holdings launched SemiCab, an AI logistics platform. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) is now down 23% year-to-date, deep in bear market territory. ## White-Collar Workers Are Leaving Their Careers Over AI The Guardian profiled a growing trend of white-collar professionals abandoning their fields because AI has made their work economically unviable. Freelance writers saw rates cut in half when clients switched to AI-generated content. Some professionals are pivoting to trades and physical work — jobs that are harder to automate in the near term.

2026/02/15

The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude during the Venezuela raid that captured Maduro, and now the Pentagon is threatening to cancel a $200M contract because Anthropic won't drop its safety guardrails. Meanwhile, Shanghai-based MiniMax released an open-source model scoring within 0.6% of Claude Opus 4.6 at one-twentieth the cost, and a Deadpool writer watched an AI-generated Brad Pitt fight scene and said "it's likely over for us." ## Pentagon Used Claude AI in Venezuela Raid, Now Threatens to Cancel Anthropic's $200M Contract The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude AI during the operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro last month, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Claude was deployed through Anthropic's partnership with Palantir Technologies, whose tools are widely used by the Defense Department. The raid on Caracas involved bombing and resulted in 83 deaths, according to Venezuela's defense ministry. Anthropic's usage policies explicitly prohibit Claude from being used for violence, weapons development, or surveillance. Anthropic has since raised concerns about how the Pentagon is using Claude. In response, officials within the Trump administration are now considering canceling a contract worth up to $200 million that was awarded to Anthropic last summer. Axios reported that senior Pentagon officials have expressed frustration with Anthropic's insistence on safety guardrails. OpenAI, Google, and xAI all have similar defense contracts with fewer restrictions on military use. *Sources: [WSJ](https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-used-anthropics-claude-in-maduro-venezuela-raid-583aff17), [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/us/ai-tool-claude-helped-capture-venezuelan-dictator-maduro-us-military-raid-operation-report), [Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/13/anthropic-claude-maduro-raid-pentagon), [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/14/us-military-anthropic-ai-model-claude-venezuela-raid)* ## MiniMax M2.5: Near State-of-the-Art at 1/20th the Cost Shanghai-based MiniMax released M2.5, an open-source language model that scores 80.2% on SWE-Bench Verified, within 0.6 percentage points of Claude Opus 4.6, at roughly one-twentieth the cost. The model runs at 100 tokens per second and costs about $1 per hour of continuous use. MiniMax says 30% of all internal tasks at the company are now completed by M2.5, and 80% of their newly committed code is AI-generated. The model was released on HuggingFace under a modified MIT license and also comes in a Lightning variant optimized for speed. The pricing is the real story here. When frontier-level intelligence costs a fraction of what it did six months ago, the economics of building AI-powered software change completely. *Sources: [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/technology/minimaxs-new-open-m2-5-and-m2-5-lightning-near-state-of-the-art-while), [SCMP](https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/3343395/chinas-minimax-releases-cheap-ai-model-designed-real-world-productivity)* ## Software Companies Are Rebranding as AI Companies The New York Times published a piece on the wave of software companies rushing to position themselves as AI companies. SaaStr, the well-known SaaS community, has renamed itself SaaStr AI. Job titles are changing to "Chief AI Officer." Sparkle emojis and ".ai" domains are everywhere. The reason: software stocks have seen their biggest plunge in over 30 years, wiping out $2 trillion in market capitalization from the peak, according to J.P. Morgan. The S&P North American Expanded Technology Software Index dropped about 20% in the past month alone. Salesforce and ServiceNow are both down over 40% in the past year. Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe saw this coming back when ChatGPT launched. He realized that if chatbots could handle customer queries, companies wouldn't need help desk software anymore. Three years later, that fear is spreading across the entire software industry. *Sources: [NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/business/dealbook/software-companies-ai.html)* ## Deadpool Writer on AI Video: "It's Likely Over for Us" Rhett Reese, the writer-producer behind the Deadpool movies, responded to a viral AI-generated video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise made with ByteDance's Seedance 2.0. His reaction: "I hate to say it. It's likely over for us." He said people will soon create movies indistinguishable from what Hollywood releases now. The video came from a two-line text prompt and was posted by Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson. The Motion Picture Association responded with a statement calling on ByteDance to stop "unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale." The quality jump in AI video generation is real, and the copyright question can't be put off much longer. When a text prompt generates photorealistic footage of real actors, the legal framework needs to catch up. *Sources: [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/14/new-china-ai-models-alibaba-bytedance-seedance-kuaishou-kling.html), [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-film-school-trains-next-generation-hollywood-moviemakers-2026-02-14/)* ## UniX AI Launches Panther Robots with 8-DOF Bionic Arms Chinese robotics company UniX AI introduced the Panther series, a new generation of embodied AI robots built for manufacturing and service environments. The robots feature 8-degree-of-freedom bionic arms, adaptive intelligent grippers, and an omnidirectional four-wheel steering chassis. In demo videos, the Panther performed kitchen tasks (multi-robot coordination for cutting, serving, cleaning), poured wine using a liquid flow prediction model, played cards, did embroidery with millimeter-level precision, and hit a golf ball. The system is powered by UniX AI's "Trinity" architecture covering imitation learning, visuotactile fusion, and long-horizon task decomposition. The 8-DOF arm design offers higher redundancy for obstacle avoidance compared to standard 7-axis arms. The robot can handle tasks from floor level to multi-tier shelving with an 80cm vertical lift range. *Sources: [Gasgoo](https://autonews.gasgoo.com/articles/icv/unix-ai-launches-panther-series-embodied-ai-robots-2022684159506386945)*

2026/02/14

Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G this week, ByteDance's new video tool triggered a copyright fight with Hollywood, and defense AI startup Shield AI is hunting for its own billion-dollar round. ## Anthropic raises $30 billion, now valued at $380 billion Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G funding round on Thursday, more than doubling its valuation from $183 billion last September to $380 billion. GIC and Coatue co-led the round, with D.E. Shaw Ventures, ICONIQ, and MGX also participating. Portions of previously announced investments from Microsoft and Nvidia were included. The numbers behind the raise tell the real story. Anthropic's run-rate revenue is now $14 billion. Claude Code alone accounts for $2.5 billion of that, having more than doubled since January. Business subscriptions to Claude Code have quadrupled in the same period. This is the second-largest venture funding round ever, behind only OpenAI. The gap between these two companies and everyone else in generative AI is getting wider by the quarter. *Sources: [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/anthropic-valued-380-billion-latest-funding-round-2026-02-12/), [Crunchbase](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/biggest-funding-rounds-anthropic-leads-ai-robotics/)* ## ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 video sparks Hollywood copyright battle A 15-second AI-generated video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise went viral this week, and the fallout has been swift. The video was made with Seedance 2.0, ByteDance's new video generation model launched on February 10. Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson posted it on X, saying it came from a two-line prompt. The Motion Picture Association responded within hours. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin issued a statement calling on ByteDance to "immediately cease its infringing activity," accusing the company of "unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale." Deadpool writer-producer Rhett Reese responded to the video with blunt pessimism: "I hate to say it. It's likely over for us." He wrote that people will soon be able to create movies "indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases." Whether that timeline is realistic is debatable. What's not debatable is that the quality jump from this generation of video models is making the copyright question impossible to ignore. *Source: [Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2026-02-13/brad-pitt-fighting-tom-cruise-ai-video-shakes-hollywood)* ## Shield AI in talks to raise $1 billion at $11-12 billion valuation Defense AI startup Shield AI is negotiating a funding round of up to $1 billion that would value the company at roughly $11 billion pre-money, according to Bloomberg. That would more than double its valuation from less than a year ago. Shield AI builds autonomous piloting software for military aircraft and drones. The company has raised about $1.17 billion to date across 16 rounds. The new raise comes as defense tech is attracting investor attention amid growing Pentagon interest in autonomous systems and AI-powered decision-making tools. *Source: [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-13/shield-ai-in-talks-to-raise-1-billion-at-12-billion-valuation), [PYMNTS](https://www.pymnts.com/startups/2026/shield-ai-seeks-1-billion-dollars-lead-global-defense-tech-surge/)* ## Alphabet drops 13% in two weeks as $185 billion AI spend rattles investors Alphabet stock has fallen about 13% over the past two weeks despite reporting record earnings. The trigger: the company said it plans to spend between $175 billion and $185 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, mostly for AI infrastructure. That's roughly double the $91 billion it spent in 2025. Investors are asking the obvious question: when does this spending start producing returns that justify the scale? Alphabet holds $127 billion in liquidity and generated $73 billion in free cash flow, so the company can afford it. But "can afford it" and "should spend it" aren't the same argument, and the market is making that distinction loudly. *Sources: [FX Leaders](https://www.fxleaders.com/news/2026/02/14/alphabets-185b-ai-bet-backfires-as-google-stock-risks-breakdown-if-300-goes/), [Motley Fool](https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/02/14/where-will-alphabet-be-in-5-years/)* ## Apptronik raises $520 million at $5B+ for humanoid robots Humanoid robotics startup Apptronik closed a $520 million Series A extension, bringing total funding to $935 million and valuing the company at over $5.5 billion, roughly triple its previous valuation. Google and Mercedes-Benz were among the investors. Apptronik's Apollo robot is designed for manufacturing, logistics, and warehouse work. The company is racing to commercialize before both Chinese competitors and Tesla's Optimus reach market. The humanoid robotics sector is attracting serious money right now, with investors betting that AI-powered physical robots are the next major platform after software agents. *Sources: [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/apptronik-raises-520-million-at-5-billion-valuation-for-apollo-robot.html), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/humanoid-robot-startup-apptronik-has-now-raised-935m-at-a-5b-valuation/)* ## What to watch The capital flowing into AI right now is staggering: $30 billion for Anthropic, $185 billion in planned capex from Alphabet alone, nearly a billion each for Shield AI and Apptronik. The Seedance 2.0 copyright fight, meanwhile, is going to force a legal reckoning that the industry has been postponing for years. When a two-line prompt can generate a photorealistic fight scene between two of the world's biggest movie stars, the "fair use" argument gets a lot harder to make. --- ## Sources - [Reuters — Anthropic $30B funding round](https://www.reuters.com/technology/anthropic-valued-380-billion-latest-funding-round-2026-02-12/) - [Crunchbase — Week's biggest funding rounds](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/biggest-funding-rounds-anthropic-leads-ai-robotics/) - [Los Angeles Times — Seedance 2.0 viral video](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2026-02-13/brad-pitt-fighting-tom-cruise-ai-video-shakes-hollywood) - [Bloomberg — Shield AI $1B talks](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-13/shield-ai-in-talks-to-raise-1-billion-at-12-billion-valuation) - [FX Leaders — Alphabet stock drop](https://www.fxleaders.com/news/2026/02/14/alphabets-185b-ai-bet-backfires-as-google-stock-risks-breakdown-if-300-goes/) - [CNBC — Apptronik $520M raise](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/apptronik-raises-520-million-at-5-billion-valuation-for-apollo-robot.html) - [TechCrunch — Apptronik total funding](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/humanoid-robot-startup-apptronik-has-now-raised-935m-at-a-5b-valuation/)

2026/02/13

Companies blamed AI for over 54,000 layoffs in 2025, but economists and analysts say the real reasons are often simpler: overhiring, tariffs, and profit margins.

2026/02/12

Apple's Xcode 26.3 lets autonomous AI agents like Claude and Codex build, test, and iterate inside the IDE. Here's what's new, how it compares to other editors, and what it means for iOS and macOS developers.

2026/02/11

MCP gives AI models a standard way to connect to external tools and data. A practical guide to how the protocol works, who's using it, and how to build your first MCP server.