Weekly roundup of OpenAI and Anthropic updates (Week 4, 2026)

Temporary chat in ChatGPT has a new, currently hidden option that lets you still use personalization (memory, chat history, style and tone preferences) even though the chat is only temporary

Anthropic is apparently in the process of migrating the Claude web app from Statsig (acquired by OpenAI) to GrowthBook (both are used for feature flags and A/B testing)

OpenAI is updating GPT-5.2 Instant's default personality to be more conversational and better at adapting its tone contextually

OpenAI is preparing an Easter egg promo campaign with billboards in San Francisco and New York (limited to US and DC residents) with a hidden link that offers the first 500 new subscribers one free month of ChatGPT Pro and the first 500 existing paid subscribers a mystery merch set

This is how it looks if your ChatGPT account needs age verification or date of birth in the account settings

OpenAI announced Education for Countries as a new pillar of the OpenAI for Countries initiative, working with governments and university consortia to bring AI into education systems

ChatGPT release notes were updated with Voice improvements for paid users that improve its ability to follow user instructions and fix a bug where it can sometimes repeat back custom instructions

OpenAI is rolling out an age prediction model on ChatGPT consumer plans to detect if an account likely belongs to someone under 18 and apply extra safety settings for teens

Fun fact - this is using GPT-5 and a normal ChatGPT conversation API endpoint in temporary chat mode (history and training disabled)

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Work in progress, apparently

OpenAI seems to be running another promo where you get ChatGPT Plus free for one month

This week’s OpenAI and Anthropic news (Week 3, 2026) OpenAI announced plans to start testing ads in ChatGPT, partnered with Cerebras, agreed to buy Torch health team, released GPT-5.2-Codex in Responses API, announced Open Responses open-source spec, invested in Merge Labs

Anthropic is working on new widgets for displaying search results in the Claude web app - weather, stocks, sports scores, and places with maps

New ChatGPT web app changes - new mentions of "Salute" ("Create tasks with file uploads and track their progress in Salute") - "is model preferred" flag for local business, restaurant, and hotel results in business map widgets

OpenAI announced plans to start testing ads in ChatGPT Free and Go tiers in the coming weeks for logged-in adults in the US, and ChatGPT Go launched globally at $8/month in the US, with Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise staying ad-free

Apps in Custom GPTs are rolling out as a beta to select ChatGPT Business accounts

Sonata . OpenAI . com?

ChatGPT Plus and Pro users globally can now search their full chat history back to account creation using a new "personal context" tool called "PersonalContextAgentTool" (codename "q7dr546") that gets called for history-dependent questions, with referenced chats shown as clickable sources

ChatGPT is no longer available on WhatsApp

What is codename "agora"? Never saw these new fields in ChatGPT web app before - "is agora iOS", "is agora Android" and "is agora client"

One more interesting fact about Claude's "Cowork" mode - the web app uses the codename "Yukon Gold" for this feature New updates to the Claude web app - Feature gate "amber willow tide" might soon let standard-tier Team plan users access Claude Code

Did you know ChatGPT has a standalone translator page?

ChatGPT release notes were updated on January 12, 2026, with improved dictation for all logged-in users, fixing empty transcription issues and improving accuracy

Anthropic released Cowork, a research preview that gives Claude direct access to local folders on your computer to complete multi-step tasks like organizing files or creating documents

Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare with HIPAA-ready products and expanded Claude for Life Sciences with new connectors ranging from clinical trial management to regulatory operations

OpenAI and Anthropic updates from this past week (Week 2, 2026) OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health and ChatGPT for Healthcare, published AI healthcare report, enabled ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscriptions for Codex in open source coding agents, partnered with SB Energy for Stargate

OpenAI acquihired Convogo, a team that built AI tools to automate 360-degree assessments and feedback reports by synthesizing interviews, surveys, and feedback data for executive coaches

The next first-party project after Health (codename "Potion") in ChatGPT could be Jobs, based on recent changes in the ChatGPT web app

OpenAI launched OpenAI for Healthcare, a set of products supporting HIPAA compliance powered by GPT-5.2 models, including ChatGPT for Healthcare which is already rolling out to leading institutions

Exactly three years ago today we released AIPRM for ChatGPT - happy birthday & thank you for your ongoing support

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, a separate space where you can connect medical records and wellness apps to get health answers based on your own data, rolling out to a small group first with a waitlist to request access

Both the Anthropic and OpenAI teams seem to be back already, based on nearly 10 new web app builds since yesterday Plus, GPT-5.2-Codex-Max seems to be rolling out for some users already on the Codex web (thank you for the hint, anon!)

"More than 5% of all ChatGPT messages globally are about healthcare, averaging billions of messages each week"

This week in OpenAI and Anthropic news (Week 1, 2026) Compiled ChatGPT and Claude 2025 changelogs, OpenAI published OpenAI for Developers in 2025 review and opened applications for next OpenAI Grove cohort, SoftBank completed $41 billion investment in OpenAI

Are Skills Claude's answer to Custom GPTs? Skills are file-based packages containing custom instructions, knowledge files, and scripts that automatically activate when relevant to a task

According to The Information reporting from a person with knowledge of the effort and current and former employees, OpenAI is working on a new audio-model architecture planned for Q1 2026

Happy New Year 2026, thank you for being part of my year

Claude Changelog for 2025 - a month-by-month overview of key changes January - (No key changes) February - Claude Code - Extended thinking - GitHub integration - Sonnet 3.7 March - Web search

Here is the ChatGPT Changelog for 2025 - a month-by-month overview of key changes January - Canvas update - ChatGPT Gov - Custom instructions refresh - GPT-4o improvements - o3-mini - o3-mini-high - Operator - Phone-only signups - Scheduled tasks

Recap of OpenAI and Anthropic news this week (Week 52, 2025) Quieter holiday week but still some news - OpenAI published Atlas prompt injection security hardening details, launched Your Year with ChatGPT experience, published blog post on recent audio model updates

OpenAI and Anthropic both reset and doubled their usage limits as a holiday gift until January 1st, with OpenAI for Codex users and Anthropic for Pro and Max plans

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a few days off to recharge before another exciting year

OpenAI is rolling out "Your Year with ChatGPT" today, an optional personalized end-of-year experience that reflects on how you interacted with ChatGPT in 2025, highlighting high-level themes from conversations and summary statistics about usage

Weekly OpenAI and Anthropic recap (Week 51, 2025) OpenAI launched GPT Image 1.5 as new flagship image model, introduced FrontierScience benchmark and wet lab research, released GPT-5.2-Codex, added app directory, writing blocks, and pinned chats to ChatGPT, expanded Sora to Latin America

OpenAI added an app directory to ChatGPT where you can browse and add approved apps with availability varying by plan and region, connectors now appear as apps, and developers can submit apps for review and publication

ChatGPT Pro users can now manage their automated prompt tasks directly in Pulse, where you can view all tasks together, create new ones either in chat or Pulse, and edit them whenever needed

OpenAI released GPT Image 1.5, their new flagship image generation model rolling out today to all ChatGPT users and API users globally, generating images up to 4x faster and ranking first on Image Arena benchmarks

Still two more weeks left, what a year