Weekly AI Insights
Practical perspectives on building software with artificial intelligence. Written by Alex Shively — one post per week.
Inside Claude Opus 4.8, and why honesty might be the most useful upgrade Anthropic shipped this year
Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8 this week, and the headline feature is unusual for an AI launch. It's better at admitting what it doesn't know. Here's why that matters more than the benchmark scores.
Inside the agent Google just unleashed at I/O, and what to make of it if you work in IT or AI
Google unveiled Gemini Spark at I/O this week, a 24/7 personal AI agent that runs in the cloud and takes action across your apps on your behalf. Here's what it actually does, why MCP makes it tick, and what it means for the rest of us trying to keep up with the agent era.
Anthropic's new Small Business package puts AI inside the tools owners already pay for
Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business this week, a free toggle that puts Claude to work inside QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, and the other tools owners already pay for. Here is what it actually does, what it costs, and why it matters even if you do not run one yourself.
Why a sleepy little feature called memory consolidation matters more than it sounds
Anthropic rolled out a new capability called "dreaming" this week that lets AI agents quietly learn from past sessions while no one's using them. Here's what memory consolidation in AI actually means for the people using these tools at work.
Why OpenAI breaking free of Azure exclusivity is bigger than the headline
OpenAI's models just landed on Amazon Bedrock, ending Microsoft's seven-year exclusivity arrangement. Here's what the move actually means for IT and AI professionals whose stack already lives on AWS.