🚨 AI News | TestingCatalog

Anthropic tests Fable 5.2 and Opus 5.5 ahead of the release

Anthropic appears to be quietly A/B testing Claude Fable 5.2, with users reporting stronger one-shot JavaScript outputs and richer canvas demos. Early comparisons suggest a clear step up from 5.1, as Opus 5.5 rumors also build.

🗞 #anthropic @testingcatalog

StepFun released Step 5 Preview, a new 600B total / 27B active MoE model with 1M context.

> Step 5 Preview comes with vision capabilities and proficiency in software engineering and finance tasks.

> It is now available in StepFun AI Studio and APIs.

Pareto is a new front line 👀

OPENAI 🔥: A new banked reset for Codex and ChatGPT Work users is coming. A big ship on Tuesday is confirmed too!

I feel like all labs should adopt this rule - no ships equal “reset”.

True? 👀

SpaceXAI says Grok Voice Transcribe 2 doubles accuracy

SpaceXAI launched Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0, claiming 2x the accuracy of v1.0 at unchanged pricing. It supports multilingual, real-time and batch transcription, with diarization, timestamps, term biasing, and phone-audio gains.

🗞 #spacexai @testingcatalog

Meta announced Muse Connectors, enabling developers and businesses to submit their own via a Muse platform.

Notion, Granola and other Connectors are now available.

Meta has partnered with Stripe to make payment possible.

“Reach new customers and give existing ones more ways to use your product.”

I feel that Muse has a chance to get into a very nice spot by being an AI assistant for consumers and small businesses because it does exactly what they all want.

AI agent payments will be a new norm, and Meta grub a huge chunk of this market. Especially in a combination with Meta Glasses.

Side note, Muse is now available in Canada!

SPACEXAI 🔥: Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0, a new multilingual speech-to-text model, has been announced.

> Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 ranks first for accuracy among 32 streaming models on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard

> Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 supports batch and streaming, speaker diarization, multichannel transcription, key term biasing, text formatting, filler word removal, and smart turn detection.

ANTHROPIC 🔥: Claude Code now can pull project instructions from AGENTS md file in case if CLAUDE md file is not present.

A code cleanup on a global scale 👀

It is inevitable that most of the common coding AI agents will be eventually working on same repositories and will have to find ways on how to better collaborate together. Standardisation is always good.

OPENAI 🔥: Chrome extensions are now supported in the ChatGPT desktop browser!

Ok, this was a final touch - why would you need another browser now? ChatGPT browser now has both extensions and the CDP feature (DOM manipulation).

New default browser testing time 👀

META 🔥: Muse agents are getting their own dedicated mailboxes!

> A new Mail tab appears in development, next to the Muse Identity section.

> The Mail feature will also get its own dedicated page view.

> It is still unclear whether this tab will be used to browse email communication for connected personal accounts or for Muse's own mailbox; however, the latter is more likely.

That is such a natural step: delegating all email communication to an AI agent!

AI Agent-only newsletter soon 👀

Meta to give Muse its own mailbox for communication

Meta is testing a Mail tab for Muse that may give the agent a dedicated mailbox or centralize messages from connected inboxes. The feature aligns with Shared Agents and Muse’s broader task automation, but details and timing remain unconfirmed.

🗞 #meta @testingcatalog

ICYIMI: Grok Build adds memory across coding sessions

xAI added memory to Grok Build, letting it retain team conventions, decisions, project facts, and commands across sessions. Notes are stored by topic and scope, reviewed after each turn, and applied in later work.

🗞 #spacexai @testingcatalog

DAILY AI BRIEF 🗞 — Sept 18

ANTHROPIC 🔥:
- Projects now start from one Claude Code conversation. Claude spins parallel cloud threads, keeps shared memory, and surfaces an Overview panel.

XAI 🔥:
- Grok Bot voice is live. Desktop and mobile, rolling out over the next couple of days.

META 🔥:
- Muse for Mac is out, US only. Computer use across apps, files, calendar, notes, and messages. You pick what it can access.

PERPLEXITY 🔥:
- Effort selector is live in Computer on web. Presets pair the orchestrator model with reasoning depth. Mobile and desktop next.

OPENAI 🔥:
- Astra for Law is out: GPT-6 Astra plus a Legal Search Index over 230M+ URLs. Trusted Access first, API soon.
- ChatGPT in Word hits all plans including Free, with usage limits. Business and Enterprise get a two-week GPT-5.6 Sol preview.

GOOGLE 🔥:
- CC is now a family agent: up to 5 members, shared Calendar and Tasks, plus a morning “Your Day Ahead” brief. Waitlist, US 18+.

ALIBABA 🔥:
- Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash is out. First omni-modal agent model, 1M context, native audio-video plus tools. Video input cost down ~89% vs 3.5-Omni-Plus.

* Used Grok to compose this brief, cherry-picking the news and doing some post-editing.
** This daily brief also arrives in the daily email format; subscribe on the blog.

Alibaba released Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, a new omni-modal model with audio and video understanding.

Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash comes with 1M-token context window and performance close to Gemini 3.8 Flash on WildClawBench-MM & UniClawBench.

META 🔥: A standalone Muse app for macOS is now available (still US only).

Muse for Mac seems to have Computer Use functionality from the start!

“Your personal agent can get things done for you directly on your computer (all with your explicit permission).”

Testing time! 👀

SPACEXAI 🔥: Grok Bot is getting a voice mode on desktop and mobile apps.

> The feature will be rolling out gradually over the next couple of days.

As it has been foretold 👀

Voice mode should be a huge enabler for loads of new use cases. Did you get it already?