Last updated October 6, 2026

Back in August I wrote about Claude watermarking everything it writes, and my question then was whether fixing a comma should count. On Monday OpenAI joined in, sort of. It published "Our approach to EU text provenance rules" and said ChatGPT text in Europe is about to carry an invisible ChatGPT watermark.

If you're in the US, your ChatGPT answers aren't marked. Claude's are, though, and so are Gemini's. So whether the thing you just pasted into an email carries a hidden signal depends on which chatbot wrote it and where you live.

Is ChatGPT text watermarked now?

In the EU, yes, starting over the next few weeks. OpenAI says the mark goes on "eligible ChatGPT and Codex text output in the European Union," and TechCrunch reports it covers users on all plans, free included.

You can't see it. textGrain nudges which words the model picks using a secret key, and over a few hundred words those nudges add up to a pattern a detector with the same key can spot. OpenAI put the math in a technical report written with researchers from Penn and Yale.

The reason is the EU AI Act. Article 50 says AI output has to be "marked in a machine-readable format and detectable as artificially generated," and that rule took effect August 2. Systems that were already on the market get until December 2, which is why OpenAI can roll this out over weeks instead of flipping it on all at once.

Does the ChatGPT watermark affect you in the US?

Not right now. OpenAI told TechCrunch it is "not making text watermarking a global default at launch," and it hasn't given anyone outside the EU a date.

The one wrinkle is that developers who build on OpenAI's API anywhere in the world could switch the watermark on for some models starting October 5. It's off unless they choose it, but it means an app built on OpenAI could hand you marked text even if ChatGPT itself doesn't.

Can a teacher or boss detect a ChatGPT watermark?

Not with OpenAI's tool. The detector is going only to "approved researchers and expert organizations" for now, so there's no public checker that you or your kid's teacher can paste an essay into.

And even with access, it misses a lot. OpenAI's own numbers show that on a test set of everyday-question answers it caught about 80% of 200-token passages (around 150 words) and about 95% at 400 tokens, while wrongly flagging human text 1% of the time. Math answers did worse, around 60%. In a separate test where it started at about 92%, swapping 10% of the words for synonyms dropped detection to 66%, and swapping a quarter of them dropped it to 17%. Translation hurts it too. ActuIA reports that OpenAI's tests of English text translated into other EU languages caught it anywhere from 42.2% of the time in Romanian to 69.0% in Spanish, and that the EU rules don't cover really short text under 200 tokens at all.

OpenAI is upfront about the other direction too. It says "the absence of a detected watermark does not prove human authorship," and BleepingComputer reports that a hit doesn't reveal who generated the text, their account, or the conversation behind it. I couldn't find anything from OpenAI about letting EU users turn it off.

Claude and Gemini already watermark text

Both already do it, and Anthropic's applies worldwide. Anthropic marks Claude's text "wherever Claude is offered, worldwide," across the Claude app, the API, Claude Code, Cowork, and Claude Tag. Google uses SynthID on text from the Gemini app and web.

Their detectors are locked down too. Anthropic's is a private preview for regulators, media, researchers, and educational organizations. A school could apply, but a single teacher can't, and Google's SynthID Detector still runs off a waitlist for journalists and researchers. Each one only reads its own mark, because as Anthropic puts it, another company's watermark "would have a different key."

Not everyone took Claude's version well. TechEconomy reported complaints on Reddit from people worried it could expose their AI use at work or school, and Decrypt found a GitHub tool that runs Claude's text through a different model to strip the mark.

Where I land on it

I'm fine with this. Most people use AI at this point, so I don't see the point of hiding it, and if you're afraid of transparency then maybe AI isn't the tool for you.

My problem was always how fine-grained it gets. I type a lot of my emails myself and hand them to Claude to clean up the grammar, and if that turns into "generated by Claude," it's like an editor lightly editing a book and then the book gets called the editor's. Anthropic's own write-up actually helps on this one. It says light proofreading leaves "very little (if anything) for the watermark to attach to," which makes sense, since the mark lives in word choices and a grammar fix keeps most of yours. OpenAI, per The Next Web, says its watermark doesn't measure human contribution either.

As an engineering manager, I don't care whether someone on my team wrote code line by line or used AI, as long as it's clean and it ships. Whether any of this matters for regular people comes down to how easy detection gets, and right now nobody outside a short list can even run the check.

FAQ

For now the ChatGPT watermark is a European thing, and the Claude and Gemini ones are everywhere. If OpenAI turns it on for US accounts, I'll add it here.

Related reading: Claude watermarks everything it writes now | Is Claude's writing getting worse? | How to turn off Gemini | New to AI? Start here

Last updated October 5, 2026

Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on September 22, and that same day Jackson Kernion, who worked on it, posted on X that he hasn't "been as happy about a model's writing since Opus 4.6," which is four Opus releases back. He described what they were fixing as "overly-dense info dumps."

If you mostly use Claude for emails and documents and that sounds familiar, here's what he said happened, and there's a setting that helps.

Is Claude writing getting worse?

Anthropic hasn't said it got worse, but it does say writing was one of the things it heard about most with Opus 5, and the one outside measurement shows Opus 5.5 doing better. The Opus 5.5 announcement calls it "one of the most common areas of feedback we heard about Opus 5," and says the new model "puts the most important information up front, is less likely to use jargon or idiosyncratic phrases, and follows the writing rules you give it."

Kernion's X bio says he does finetuning at Anthropic, which is part of how the models get trained, and he wrote that Opus 5.5 is the company's first release with "targeted improvements on sentence clarity" and those info dumps. His profile also says his views are his own, so what follows is one engineer explaining it on X and not an official Anthropic statement.

This is a separate complaint from a model getting weaker in the weeks after launch, which I covered with GPT-6 Astra and Fable 5.

Why Claude writing got so dense

Kernion's explanation is that training Claude harder on technical work pulls its writing away from people unless something pushes back. Someone asked him why Opus 4.6 sounded more natural, and he replied that there's a combination of factors, but roughly, "as you train more against math and code and against the ability to explain technical topics to LLMs, you need to actively push back by rewarding simple explanations for human minds."

An LLM is just the technical name for an AI model like Claude, so in other words, the more Claude got trained on math and code and on explaining things to other AI models, the more somebody had to reward it for explaining things simply to people.

In a later reply he called the style "Claudeish," said it "was adapted to LLM psychology," and added that "LLMs have way more working memory and take in details at a finer grain." That's a style built for a reader that can hold a lot more in its head at once than a person can.

Did Opus 5.5 fix it?

Some of it, going by the one outside measurement I could find. Arena, a site that tests AI models against each other, compared Opus 5.5's answers with Opus 5's and reported that "10 of 12 writing measures moved in a better direction." Sentences got 17% shorter on average, and em dashes, the long dash that became a familiar tell of AI writing, dropped 95%.

The answers themselves got a little longer, though. Arena has Opus 5.5 averaging 481 words an answer, up from 453 for Opus 5, and its chart puts Opus 4.6 at 245. Sentence length is back to about where Opus 4.6 was, at 10 words, but each answer is roughly twice as long. Arena also found hedges like "perhaps" and "arguably" went from 0.39 to 0.77 per 1,000 words, which is still under one per answer.

Which Claude model to pick, and what to tell it

Going by what Anthropic says, use one of the 5.5 models and then give Claude your writing rules. Opus 5.5 is the one with the targeted writing work, and Anthropic says Sonnet 5.5 "writes more clearly than our previous generation of models" too. Developer Simon Willison reports Sonnet 5.5 is "now the model used for the free tier on claude.ai," so on the free app you're already on it. If you pay, open the model picker and check that it says Opus 5.5 or Sonnet 5.5.

Then tell it who it's writing for. Anthropic's help center says to click your initials in the lower left corner, select Settings, and fill in "Instructions for Claude," which apply account-wide. You could paste in something like "Write for a general reader. Short sentences, no jargon, answer first, keep it brief." Anthropic says following the writing rules you give it is one of the things Opus 5.5 got better at.

For me Opus 5.5 was a big jump. It feels smarter and faster, and it doesn't use as much of my usage.

What we still don't know

Kernion's explanation is a few short replies on X where he called this "a hard problem to solve" and said "we'll continue to make improvements," and Anthropic hasn't published how it measured the writing problem or what it changed in training. Arena's numbers count words and punctuation in answers collected on its own site, and it only compared Opus models, so nobody outside Anthropic has measured Sonnet 5.5's writing yet that I could find.

FAQ

The writing fixes are in the 5.5 models, and the engineer who worked on them says there's more to do. If Claude still hands you an overly dense answer, tell it who it's writing for.

Related reading: Claude Opus 5.5: what changes if you pay | Claude Sonnet 5.5 got smarter and cheaper | GPT-6 Astra got worse after launch | New to AI? Start here

Last updated October 5, 2026

The option to connect a bank account to ChatGPT used to be Pro-only, and as of last week it's on the free plan. OpenAI's October 2 release notes say Finances is rolling out to Free and Go users in the US, on the web and on iPhone and Android. It started with Pro in May and reached Plus in June.

With AI and money, my one rule is that nothing gets spent until I say yes. Finances can't spend anything, so that part is easy. What you're really deciding is whether you're OK with ChatGPT reading your balances and transactions, and with what happens to the chats you have about them.

What happens when you connect a bank account to ChatGPT

You sign in to your bank through Plaid, you pick which accounts to share, and ChatGPT gets a read-only copy of what the bank sends. It can't move money, pay bills, make trades, or open or close accounts, according to OpenAI’s Finances help page. Here are the four steps from that page.

1. Open Finances in ChatGPT and select Get started.
2. Select Connect with Plaid.
3. Sign in to your bank and choose the accounts you want to share.
4. Go back to ChatGPT.

Plaid is the company that already links banks to apps like Venmo, and Plaid says it doesn't share your bank username and password with the apps you connect. So ChatGPT gets the data and not the login. That data becomes a dashboard with spending by category and upcoming bills and subscriptions. How much shows up depends on your bank, because OpenAI says some share balances but not full transaction history or loan details.

That's different from ChatGPT dots, OpenAI's always-on agents, which can buy things once you approve the purchase.

Settings to check before you connect your bank account

There are two settings for everyone and a third if you're on Free or Go. OpenAI's Finances page says your existing ChatGPT data controls apply, so a Finances chat is handled the way your other chats are.

1. Training. Go to Settings, then Data controls, then Improve the model for everyone. This decides whether OpenAI can use your new chats to train its models, and it's on by default for personal Free, Plus, and Pro accounts. OpenAI says conversations with Finances "follow the same model training settings you choose across ChatGPT," so with it on, your money chats are included, and with it off, new ones aren't. The page only talks about conversations and doesn't separately say what happens with the synced account data. Mine is still on, and I covered who can read your ChatGPT conversations last month.
2. Financial memories. These are things you tell ChatGPT, like a savings goal or that you split rent, and it saves them to use in later money conversations. I like regular ChatGPT memory because a new chat doesn't need catching up, and this is the same idea on its own list. To see or delete them, open the Finances page and use the three-dot menu, which is as exact as OpenAI's instructions get. Temporary Chat isn't a workaround here, because OpenAI says a Temporary Chat won't access your connected accounts.
3. Ads, on Free and Go only. Go to Settings, then Ad Controls. OpenAI’s ads page says advertisers never receive your chats or memories. It also says ads are picked from the context of your current chat, and with Past chats and memory switched on, from your memories and recent chats too. Turning that off makes ads lean more on the current chat. The page says ads won't appear near sensitive topics and names health, mental health, and politics. It doesn't name money, and it says financial services advertisers may be eligible to run ads. The Finances page doesn't mention ads at all, so I can't tell you whether a Finances chat is ad-free.

How to disconnect your bank account from ChatGPT

Go to Settings, then Apps, then Finances, or use the Finances home page, and disconnect. OpenAI says the synced account data is deleted from its systems within 30 days, and that Plaid deletes the data tied to that connection within 30 days under Plaid's own policies.

Disconnecting doesn't delete what's already in your chat history, so delete those chats yourself if you want them gone, and clear financial memories from the Finances page. Other apps you've linked through Plaid aren't affected, and you manage those at Plaid Portal.

The honest limitations

The rollout is US-only and gradual, so Finances may not be in your account yet.

The numbers can also be wrong. OpenAI's page says a spending breakdown can look off when transfers, credit card payments, or reimbursements get counted as spending, and it adds "as always, AI can make mistakes." It also says ChatGPT doesn't act as your financial, tax, or investment adviser.

FAQ

If you want ChatGPT reading your spending, set the training toggle the way you want it before the first chat, since it only covers new conversations. If you're on Free or Go, look at Ad Controls too.

Related reading: ChatGPT dots and the rules to set first | Who's behind ChatGPT's sponsored agents | New to AI? Start here

Last updated October 4, 2026

This one showed up as an updated Gemini help page, and 9to5Google spotted it on October 3. If you use the Gemini app without paying, you're about to have one model instead of three.

You don't have to do anything for it to happen. If you never open the model picker, or Gemini just showed up on your phone when it replaced Google Assistant on Android in September, the first sign will probably be the answers themselves.

What changes for free Gemini on October 9

Starting October 9, people using the Gemini app without a Google AI plan get Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and nothing else. The 3.6 Flash and 3.1 Pro models move behind a subscription.

Here's how Google's help page splits it up:

• No plan: Flash-Lite only
• AI Plus: Flash-Lite and Flash
• AI Pro and AI Ultra: Flash-Lite, Flash, and Pro, plus the Deep Think reasoning mode

Google also added usage limits back in May. Free Gemini runs on limits that refresh every five hours until you hit a weekly cap, and AI Plus gets twice the free limit while AI Pro gets four times as much.

Google's page only talks about personal accounts, so if you use Gemini through work or school, it doesn't describe your setup. And if you'd rather not use Gemini at all, I put together a guide on how to turn off Gemini everywhere it shows up.

What you'll notice with Flash-Lite

Google hasn't said how much you'll notice in everyday chats. Flash-Lite is the fastest and cheapest model in Google's 3.5 series, and it only came out in July.

When Google launched it, the company called 3.5 Flash-Lite its "fastest, most cost-effective 3.5-class model." It called 3.6 Flash, the one free users are losing, its "workhorse," with better coding, knowledge work, and multimodal performance. So going by Google's own description, the gap is most likely to show up in code, bigger research-style questions, and anything with photos or video.

There's also a setting that can help. Google's help page says you'll be able to set each model's effort to low, medium, or high, and 9to5Google reports that setting is still rolling out this month. Higher effort gives more thorough answers, but it uses up your limit faster.

AI Plus subscribers lose Pro too

AI Plus keeps Flash-Lite and Flash but loses Pro. Google hasn't given Plus a date yet, and it says Plus subscribers should get an email explaining when the change reaches them.

AI Plus costs $4.99 a month, and on October 4, Google’s plans page still listed "more access to 3.1 Pro" as one of its perks. The help page only covers models, so nothing in it touches your Plus storage. If Pro was the reason you signed up, the cheapest Google plan that keeps it is AI Pro at $19.99 a month.

My take: free Gemini is still a gift

Honestly, if someone's giving you something, you can't complain about what you get. It's unfortunate, but AI isn't cheap to run, and anything free you get from an AI company is a gift.

Free Gemini FAQ

You don't have to pick anything on October 9. Stay free, see how Flash-Lite handles your usual questions, and decide about paying after that.

Related reading: How to turn off Gemini | When GPT-6 Astra got worse after launch | Who's winning the AI race | New to AI? Start here

Last updated October 2, 2026

Google started swapping Google Assistant for Gemini on Android phones in early September, and there's no single switch to turn Gemini off. Find the place that's bugging you below.

How to turn off Gemini on an Android phone

On Android, you turn off Gemini by setting your default assistant to None and taking it off the power button. Google's help page says the menus "vary by Android device," so if a step looks different, search your Settings for "digital assistant app."

1. Change your default assistant. Open Settings, then Apps, then Default apps, then Digital assistant app, then Default digital assistant app, and pick None. Gemini is listed as "Google," so pick None, not Google.
2. Take it off the power button. Go to Settings, then System, then Gestures, then Press and hold power button, and choose the power menu instead of Digital assistant.
3. On a Pixel that uses gesture navigation, go to Settings, then System, then Navigation mode, tap the gear icon, and turn off Swipe to invoke assistant.
4. Turn off "Hey Google." Open the Gemini app, tap Menu, then your profile picture, then Settings, then Talk to Gemini hands-free, and turn off "Hey Google."
5. Keep it off your lock screen. In the same Gemini Settings, tap Gemini on lock screen and turn off Use Gemini without unlocking.

Steps 4 and 5 are inside the Gemini app, so they work the same on any phone that has it, Samsung included.

If you want the app gone too, do that last. Google warns that "Deleting the Gemini mobile app doesn't automatically remove Gemini as your device's default digital assistant," and depending on your phone, you may only be able to disable the app rather than delete it.

You also can't switch back to Google Assistant anymore. 9to5Google and Android Authority both report the option is gone in recent versions of the Google app, even though one of Google's help pages still describes it.

How to turn off Gemini on a Samsung Galaxy

On a Galaxy phone, the side button is the main way Gemini pops up. Go to Settings, then Advanced features, then Side button, and under Long press pick Bixby or Power off menu instead of Digital assistant.

Samsung calls the default assistant menu Choose default apps, so the path there is Settings, then Apps, then Choose default apps, then Digital assistant app. Samsung notes that Bixby still wakes up from the side button if that's what the button is set to.

Galaxy AI is separate from Gemini, and its features have their own switches under Settings, then Galaxy AI. The Process data only on device switch turns off cloud processing for those features, and Samsung says some AI features "may be integrated into the system and cannot be disabled."

How to turn off Gemini in Google Messages

In Google Messages, tap your profile picture, then Messages settings, then Gemini in Messages, and turn off Show Gemini button. Google also notes that "Chats with Gemini aren't end-to-end encrypted," unlike your regular RCS chats.

If you're also getting feature texts from a chat called Google Messages, Android Authority says those are Google's own promo messages. Tap No thanks on the join banner, or open the chat's menu and tap Unsubscribe.

How to turn off Gemini in Gmail, Docs, and Drive

Gemini in Gmail, Docs, and Drive is controlled by a setting called Smart features in Google Workspace. In Gmail on a computer, go to Settings, then See all settings, scroll to Google Workspace smart features, click Manage Workspace smart feature settings, and turn it off. In Drive, it's under Settings, then Privacy.

Turning it off removes Gemini's summaries and drafts, plus events from Gmail showing up in Calendar and personalized search in Drive. Google's help pages don't list a separate Docs-only or Drive-only switch for personal accounts, though in Docs the Gemini bar minimizes on its own and TechCrunch reports a bottom bar setting under the Gemini menu that hides it.

Gmail has a second setting, Smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet. Leave that one on unless you also want to lose your inbox tabs, Smart Compose, and Smart Reply. Our Gmail AI guide explains all three Gmail switches.

How to turn off Gemini in Chrome

In Chrome on a computer, click the three dots, then Settings, then AI innovations, then Gemini in Chrome, and turn off Show Gemini at the top of the browser. You can also right-click the top of the browser and choose Unpin Gemini. Google says you have to opt in "the first time you use Gemini in Chrome."

Google doesn't document a switch that removes Gemini from Chrome completely, only ways to hide it and limit its permissions, and there's no documented hide option in Chrome on Android. On the same AI innovations page, turning off On-device AI makes Chrome delete the AI model files it downloaded. To get the AI Mode button out of the address bar, right-click the address bar and uncheck Always show AI Mode, and our post on turning off Google AI Mode covers the rest of search.

How to turn off Gemini in Google Photos

In Google Photos, open Settings, then Preferences, then Gemini features in Photos. Turn off Search with Ask Photos to go back to the classic search, or Use Gemini in Photos to turn all of it off. Ask Photos is opt-in, and when it's on, your Search tab is renamed Ask.

How to stop Gemini from saving your chats

Even if you keep using Gemini, you can stop it from saving your chats to your account. In the Gemini app, tap Menu, then your profile picture, then Gemini Apps Activity, then tap On and pick Turn off or Turn off and delete activity. Google calls this setting Keep Activity, and it's on by default if you're 18 or over.

With it off, Google says your future chats "won't be used to train our AI models, unless you choose to send Google feedback." If you connected Gmail, Drive, or other apps to Gemini, tap your profile picture, then Connected Apps (or Personal Intelligence, then Connected Apps), and turn each one off.

What you can't turn off

Google keeps Gemini chats for up to 72 hours even with Keep Activity off, and chats a human reviewer already looked at are kept for up to three years, even if you delete your history. Anything Workspace already learned from your data "may persist" after you turn smart features off, and switching back to Google Assistant isn't an option on phones that moved to Gemini. AI Overviews at the top of Google Search stay too. Google's help page says "Features cannot be turned off" and points to the Web filter instead.

Turn off Gemini FAQ

If Gemini keeps showing up somewhere this list doesn't cover, leave a comment with where, and I'll add it.

Related reading: Gmail AI: how to turn it off | How to turn off Google AI Mode | What changed when Google Assistant shut down | How to turn off Copilot | New to AI? Start here

Last updated October 1, 2026

When I picture an AI agent I'd actually use, one of the first jobs is watching SlickDeals for a monitor I want and pinging me when it hits the price I'd pay. Amazon's shopping assistant now does a version of that, and it landed right before Prime Big Deal Days on October 6 and 7.

One piece goes further than I would. Auto Buy doesn't just ping you, it buys the thing, and my rule for any AI that touches money is that it shows me the cost and waits for a yes.

What Alexa for Shopping is

Alexa for Shopping is the AI assistant inside the Amazon app and website, and it's free for anyone signed in. Amazon says "On May 13, 2026, Rufus was renamed Alexa for Shopping," so if you used Rufus, this is where those features went.

In the app, tap the Alexa icon in the bottom navigation bar. On a computer, it's at the top of the page. You don't need Prime or an Echo for the assistant itself, but you do need Prime to shop Prime Big Deal Days, and Auto Buy is Prime-only too.

How to check if a Prime Big Deal Days deal is real

Tap the Price history link next to the price on a product page. On eligible products, Amazon shows up to 365 days of prices, so you can see whether the "deal" is actually lower than what the item usually sells for.

You can also ask Alexa for Shopping something like "Has this item been on sale in the past 30 days?" Amazon's FAQ says the graph shows "the lowest Featured Offer price for each day or week," meaning the price next to the Add to Cart button, and that it "may not capture every price change." Treat it as a strong hint, not proof.

Look at the full year, because the shorter view can flatter a deal. When Which? checked 34 Amazon UK deals from the July 2025 Prime Day, 85% were the cheapest they'd been in six months, but 56% had been cheaper at some point in the previous 12 months. Consumer Reports also suggests Keepa and CamelCamelCamel, two price trackers you can use as a second opinion, and our AI shopping assistant guide covers comparing across stores.

Price alerts vs deal alerts

A price alert watches one item for a target price. A deal alert watches a whole category and sends you daily updates, and Amazon says it's new for this Prime Big Deal Days.

On a product page, ask Alexa for Shopping something like "Alert me when this drops to $50." For a deal alert, ask "Alert me to deals on noise-canceling headphones." Neither one buys anything, so you're still the one who presses Buy.

Make sure the Amazon app is allowed to send notifications, or the alerts go nowhere. Engadget's walkthrough says on an iPhone that's Settings, then Apps, then Amazon, then Notifications. If you set an alert by voice on an Echo, Amazon says Alexa only watches the item for 30 days.

Auto Buy: the setting I'd leave off

Auto Buy goes one step past a price alert. You ask Alexa for Shopping something like "Buy these headphones when they're $75 or less," and when the price hits your target, Amazon places the order with your default payment method and emails you the confirmation.

It checks prices about every 30 minutes and only works on items Fulfilled by Amazon, the ones that ship from Amazon itself. Coupons don't apply and there's no overall spending cap, and Amazon's terms say that if your default card fails, it can charge "another payment method in your account."

You can cancel an Auto Buy order within 24 hours in Your Orders, and Amazon says "You will only be charged if the item is shipped to you." I'd still rather it waited for a yes. A price alert gives you the same heads-up, and you can also ask Alexa for Shopping to add something to your cart when the price drops, then review it and check out yourself. If you've already set up Auto Buy, the Auto Buy Hub lets you see your requests and turn them off. It's the same reason I like that ChatGPT dots need your approval before a purchase.

What Alexa for Shopping keeps about you

It keeps your chats until you delete them. Alexa for Shopping uses your shopping history, browsing, and past conversations, and Amazon says those conversations "flow in both directions" between your Echo and the store. Typed requests and voice transcripts in the app are kept "until you choose to delete them."

To clear them, go to the Review Alexa History page. To see what Amazon has picked up about your preferences, tap your name in the app or on Amazon.com and open About you. Amazon also says the assistant "may not always get things right," so check sizing or compatibility on the product page before you buy.

Alexa for Shopping FAQ

Whatever you shop on October 6 or 7, check the price history before you click Buy.

Related reading: AI shopping assistant guide | The rules to set before ChatGPT dots spend | Meta's $199 Hatch agent idea | Meta Muse vs ChatGPT | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 30, 2026

Dots showed up in my ChatGPT account this week, and I haven't set mine up yet. I pay for the $100 Pro plan and dots came with it. I'm still figuring out the best job to give mine, and it runs on GPT-6 Astra, which is a heavy spend on usage.

When Meta's Hatch agent leaked in August, I said an agent has to show me the cost and wait for a yes before any money moves. Dots can buy things, so that's where this guide spends the most time.

What ChatGPT dots are

A dot is an AI agent that lives inside ChatGPT and keeps working after you close the chat. OpenAI's announcement says each one is "powered by GPT-6 Astra," has its own cloud computer, and can connect to "over 4,000 apps" through plugins.

Because that computer is in the cloud, your dot keeps going when your laptop is off, according to OpenAI's docs. You can message it in ChatGPT, Slack, or Teams, or just call it.

OpenAI's own example is an office offsite. The dot updates the headcount as people confirm, then asks you before it sends a request for revised pricing.

Who gets a ChatGPT dot, and does it cost extra?

Every ChatGPT Pro plan includes a dot at no extra cost, starting with Pro at $100 a month. OpenAI's docs list Pro 100, Pro 200, and Pro 500 for users over 18 outside the European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland, and the rollout is gradual, so you might not see it right away.

Free, Go, and Plus users don't get one yet, so on Plus, trying a dot means moving up to the $100 Pro plan. Business Premium is rolling out too.

Talking to your dot doesn't cost you anything extra. OpenAI says "conversations with your dot don't count toward your ChatGPT usage limits," but tasks it starts in Work or Codex count as usual, with extended limits for the first month. So the chatting is free, and the work it hands off is what uses your plan.

How to set up your ChatGPT dot

You need a computer to start, either the ChatGPT desktop app or chatgpt.com in a desktop browser. Mobile web doesn't work for setup.

1. Click Your dot in the ChatGPT sidebar, right under New chat, and select Continue.
2. Name it and pick its look. You choose its shape, color, eyes, glasses, and accessories, and the name becomes its handle, so a dot named Alfred becomes @yourname-alfred.
3. Check what it can reach. Your dot shares plugin permissions with the rest of ChatGPT, so open the Plugins tab and turn off anything it doesn't need.
4. Give it one responsibility and the material it needs. OpenAI suggests starting "with work you regularly need to check or update."
5. Review the first result before you hand it anything bigger.

OpenAI's own example prompt ends with "Draft suggested replies for my review, but don't send them." Its docs explain why that matters: asking a dot to draft something doesn't give it permission to send it.

The rules to set before your dot touches your card

Your dot can buy things with a card you've saved on a store's website, and OpenAI's safety FAQ says those purchases "require your approval." You can approve in advance, but only when the approval specifically covers that purchase. The most sensitive actions, like changing a password or transferring money, come back to you to do yourself.

For your own limits, go to Settings, then Personalization, and select Custom rules under Permissions. Each rule gets one of four settings: Take action without asking, Take action when you say so, Ask before taking action, or Hand off to you. Here's a starter set that follows OpenAI's own examples.

• Buying anything: Ask before taking action
• Sending email or messages to other people: Ask before taking action
• Deleting files: Hand off to you

Approval before money moves is my line, and OpenAI says purchases need it. It's also upfront that custom rules "are instructions your dot tries to follow, and it can make mistakes," and that stopping a task doesn't undo what it already did. If you don't want it buying anything at all, don't save a card on the sites it uses.

My take: I shouldn't have to pay more to find out

I shouldn't have to upgrade my plan to figure out whether something like this is worth it. These companies need to understand you have to give a little, and OpenAI is doing that by putting dots in the $100 plan I already pay for.

Hatch went the other way. Meta's leaked plans floated $199.99 a month for it, never confirmed, and I can't even figure out if it's a use case for me without laying down $200. That's just ridiculous. $200 a month isn't small change. That could get you an old Camry that's still going to run for a long time, so if you want people to pay it, tell them what the $200 is buying. (Meta's Muse, which did launch, is free to start.)

When Hatch leaked, the jobs I pictured for an agent like this were a starter gardening cart, since I'm new to it, a bill queued up from my email, and a SlickDeals watch for a monitor I want. I'm still working out which one fits a dot best.

What to know before you connect everything

You can't see or edit what a dot remembers. OpenAI's FAQ says you "currently cannot view, delete or directly modify individual dot memories," so clearing them means deleting the whole dot.

Your "Improve the model for everyone" setting covers your dot's conversations and work, including data from connected apps, and OpenAI says human review can still happen in safety cases with that setting off. It also says its defenses against prompt injection, where a web page or email tries to trick an agent into doing something you didn't ask for, "help reduce the risk" but "do not eliminate it."

ChatGPT dots FAQ

If you're on Pro, your dot is already in the sidebar, so set the rules before you give it a first job. If you're on Plus, there's nothing to do yet.

Related reading: Meta Muse vs ChatGPT | Meta's $199 Hatch agent idea | ChatGPT scheduled tasks guide | ChatGPT Pro 500 is official | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 29, 2026

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5.5 yesterday, six days after Opus 5.5, and I've been using it since it came out. It's only been a short time, so this is an early read. It's definitely smarter than Sonnet 5, and it seems faster.

Opus 5.5 was a big jump for me. I feel like the model got smarter, it feels faster, and it doesn't burn through my usage as fast. That's what I'm looking for in any model release. Companies should be able to keep honing these models so each one gets smarter and cheaper to run, because we should be seeing improvements.

What's new in Claude Sonnet 5.5

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is a faster upgrade to Sonnet 5 that gets the same work done for less, built more for everyday tasks than for the hardest problems. Anthropic's announcement says it runs more than 30% faster and costs up to 30% less per task.

The price itself didn't change. Developers still pay $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output (tokens are the chunks of text a model reads and writes), which is half what Opus 5.5 costs. The savings come from Sonnet 5.5 needing fewer tokens to finish the same job, and if you pay a flat monthly fee, that should mean your usage stretches further.

Anthropic says it's strongest at "well-scoped everyday tasks, fixing bugs, and creating polished documents, slides, and spreadsheets." On a test of real work across a range of jobs, it landed just two points behind Opus 5.5. Anthropic is also upfront that Opus 5.5 "remains clearly stronger" at complex, open-ended work, so Sonnet is for the quick doc or the spreadsheet, and Opus is still for the long, messy project.

Watch this video on YouTube

Who gets Claude Sonnet 5.5, and is it free?

Yes, you can use it free. Developer Simon Willison noticed it's "now the model used for the free tier on claude.ai," so anyone using Claude without paying is on Sonnet 5.5.

Willison also points out that ChatGPT's free tier runs on Luna 5.6, and says that gives Anthropic "a much more capable free offering" right now.

Anthropic's announcement doesn't break access down by plan, so if you pay for Pro or Max, open the model picker in the Claude app and look for Sonnet 5.5. Developers can find it in Claude Code too, which 9to5Mac confirmed on launch day.

Does Claude Sonnet 5.5 use less of your usage?

At the default setting it should, because Anthropic says it finishes tasks with fewer tokens than Sonnet 5. Turn the effort all the way up and it uses more tokens than any model one independent tester has measured.

Effort is how hard Claude works on an answer before it replies, and in the Claude apps and Claude Code it defaults to Medium. At Medium, Anthropic says Sonnet 5.5 beats Sonnet 5's best coding score "for less than a tenth of the cost per task."

Artificial Analysis ran it at max effort and measured about 193,000 output tokens per task, which it calls "the highest token use we have measured." That's around 60% more than Opus 5.5 at the same setting. So max effort on a subscription is probably the fastest way to hit your limit, and the default is the better choice for everyday questions.

If you're on Pro or Max, last week's Opus 5.5 launch also raised your five-hour limits, which takes some of the sting out of the 17% Claude Code cut earlier this month.

Why I think Anthropic is heading the right way

Both Claude 5.5 models got smarter and, at their default settings, cheaper to run, and lately OpenAI feels like it's going the other way.

For a while there I thought OpenAI was doing a really good job of it. Recently, though, the usage does seem to have decreased with their models. (In August, OpenAI put a five-hour cap back on Codex for ChatGPT Plus users, on top of the weekly one.) So I feel like OpenAI's going in the wrong direction and Anthropic's going in the right one. That said, OpenAI's DevDay keynote is today at 10 a.m. Pacific, so maybe they'll release some things.

Either way, I don't see anybody with brand loyalty here, which is the same thing I said in my AI race scoreboard. People want the best model and the best experience, and from what I'm seeing they don't really care what name is on the company, within reason. People still want a company they can trust.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 FAQ

If you're on ChatGPT and curious, the free tier is the no-risk way to try Sonnet 5.5 without switching anything.

Related reading: Claude Opus 5.5: what changes if you pay | Claude Code usage limits dropped 17% | Who's winning the AI race | GPT-6 Sol and Luna explained | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 27, 2026

Meta Muse went from launch day to the No. 1 free app in the US App Store in ten days, and it's held that spot since September 18. Sensor Tower estimates it's past 3.4 million downloads, as TechCrunch reported, though other trackers count it differently.

I haven't used Muse myself, so this isn't a review. It's what the people who tested it found, what it can reach, and how it compares to ChatGPT.

What Is Meta Muse?

Meta Muse is a personal AI agent, which means you tell it what needs doing and it goes and does the work instead of just answering.

Meta says it keeps working after you close the app and comes back when it needs your OK. It's in the US on iOS, Android, and the web, free for most things, and I covered the paid plans in what Meta Muse costs and what to connect first.

Why Meta Muse Hit No. 1 So Fast

Part of it is real demand, and part of it is Meta pointing Facebook and Instagram at Muse.

Apptopia compared both apps' first 12 days on iPhone in the US and Canada, and Muse had 1.8 million downloads to ChatGPT's 1.3 million. It also found over 95% of Muse's users are on Facebook too. Meta started running Muse ads inside its own apps the day after launch, though TechCrunch reported that ads for Muse were only 6% of the ad impressions it got from launch through September 19, so the ads don't explain all of it.

What Testers Found When They Used It

It's good at planning errands and shakier once it has to shop or dig up local facts.

CNN's Lisa Eadicicco had it build a packing schedule for her move, email a friend about a trip, and turn the friend's restaurant picks into a Google Doc. When a shampoo order failed, Muse checked the site and figured out the store only sells to licensed professionals.

She hit real misses too, and her date night list included two restaurants that had closed years ago. On her run, Amazon blocked Muse from browsing its store, and Target made her type in her own details at checkout.

Meta Muse vs ChatGPT

ChatGPT is still the much bigger habit, and Muse is the one that goes out and runs the errand.

In a July Emarketer survey CNN cited, 33.7% of people said ChatGPT was the AI tool they use most, versus 4.7% for Meta AI, the assistant Meta had before Muse. Eadicicco found Muse gives you more guidance up front, while ChatGPT and Gemini can feel like a blank canvas. She also said those two handle similar tasks and sometimes gave more detailed answers.

The money works differently too. Mark Zuckerberg said Meta expects to profit by taking a small fee from transactions. He didn't say who pays that fee, but the plan is for Meta to earn when Muse buys things.

Is Meta Muse Safe? What It Can Access

Meta Muse can only reach the apps you connect, and Meta says it checks with you before sensitive actions like sending an email or making a purchase.

Per Meta's launch post, each Muse runs on its own computer in the cloud, and Meta says it can't see your passwords or card numbers. Purchases go through Stripe's Link, which uses a one-time card number. You pick whether it can only read your email or also send it, and you can disconnect a service whenever you want. Meta also says your chats aren't shared with its ad systems, which you're taking on Meta's word.

The approval step is what I'd check first. I think agents like this are genuinely useful, and I still want it to show me the cost and wait for a yes before any money moves. I said the same about Meta's Hatch leak in August.

What's Still Unknown

Some big promises haven't shipped. Meta says encryption with a key only you hold is coming "later this year," and its own email address and Mac support were announced at Connect without firm dates. The download numbers are outside estimates, and they don't agree. TechCrunch had Appfigures at roughly 2.3 million installs while Apptopia said 4.3 million.

FAQ

Muse is the first agent a lot of people will actually try, mostly because it's already sitting inside apps they use. Connect one account with read-only access, watch what it asks before it acts, and go from there.

Related reading: What Meta Muse costs and what to connect first | Meta's $199 Hatch agent idea | What sponsored ChatGPT agents keep from your chats | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 30, 2026

Update, September 30: OpenAI made this plan official at DevDay as Pro 500, and I've updated the details below.

I pay $100 a month for ChatGPT right now, so when a $500 tier leaked on September 24 as "ChatGPT Pro Max," it got my attention. OpenAI made it official at DevDay on September 29 as Pro 500. The number doesn't bother me. I can picture the month I'd buy it.

What OpenAI announced for ChatGPT Pro 500

Pro 500 costs $500 a month, and it's the only Pro plan that includes GPT-6 Astra Ultrafast. OpenAI's help page says it "offers the highest included usage of the three plans," so the ladder now runs Plus at $20, then Pro at $100, $200, and $500.

Ultrafast is the speed piece. OpenAI said it generates up to 300 tokens per second in Codex, up to eight times faster than standard, according to The Next Web. It also burns through your allowance faster, since OpenAI's pricing page says Ultrafast uses included usage at eight times the standard rate.

When it leaked, TestingCatalog said the tier "could target developers, researchers, and professional users running long agentic workloads rather than regular ChatGPT users," and a Codex-first speed boost fits that. If you use ChatGPT for emails and dinner plans, this isn't aimed at you.

What changed for Pro 200

Pro 200 is open to new subscribers again, but with less usage than before. OpenAI paused new Pro 200 signups on September 11 because GPT-6 Astra demand outran capacity, and its help page now says new subscriptions "include a lower usage allowance."

If you already pay for Pro 200, you keep your old allowance through October 29, and the price stays $200. From October 30, The Next Web reports that Pro 200's Work and Codex usage drops from 20 times the Plus allowance to 10 times, and GPT-6 Pro messages go from 200 a week to 100. Existing subscribers also get a one-time credit grant worth about $2,500 that expires at the end of the year.

My take: buy it for the busy month, then drop it

I'm not upset about the price. Most months, AI is basically my personal assistant. It helps me write apps, it reads the book I'm working on and flags plot holes, it brainstorms with me, and it helps me keep six or seven family websites running. It even feeds my Stoicism channel on YouTube, finding Stoic quotes I don't already know that fit what people are dealing with. For all of that, a $200-level plan is plenty, and my $100 plan covers it. Then every once in a while, and my ADHD brain is part of this, I get three or four ideas I want to run at the same time, with two or three apps going at once, and that's the month $200 stops being enough.

If $500 buys roughly five of my $100 plans' worth of usage, I could burn through that in a burst month. I couldn't keep it all year without hunting for ways to use it. This reads like a plan you buy for the one month you have ten things lined up, then cancel.

What people are saying

The r/codex thread on the leak had a few hundred replies by Thursday night, and most were about timing, since Claude Opus 5.5 landed two days earlier.

Weird time to drop it when they just fell behind, but okay.

u/CapableJury861, the top reply

I can't think of anything OpenAI has to offer that would be worth 500 to me. [...] Now with current Opus 5.5 performance i'd rather have 3x 100 Anthropic plan than try whatever a 500 has to offer lol.

u/throwaway490215

I actually know someone who could benefit from this. They are small business owners operating an online shop. [...] They already successfully replaced 2 employees with 2 Codex $200 subs. To them it's much cheaper than hiring real person so they would pay the $500 without even blinking.

u/a1454a

That last one is closer to how I see it. The plan makes sense for a specific month or a specific business, and most of the thread just doesn't have that month.

FAQ

It's official now, and it's still a plan I'd buy for one busy month, not all year.

Related reading: GPT-6 Sol and Luna are here | What changes if you pay for Claude | Claude Sonnet 5.5 got smarter and cheaper | Picking Instant vs Thinking in ChatGPT | New to AI? Start here

Last updated: September 23, 2026

If you pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, the ChatGPT Instant vs Thinking choice is now yours every chat. On September 14, OpenAI stopped switching you to Thinking automatically.

Honestly, the change makes sense to me, because people forget to turn Thinking or Pro off. I've done it myself. I had Pro mode on, forgot, and wondered why every answer was taking so long until I realized Pro was on instead of Thinking. Now I watch my usage and my rates.

What changed on September 14

As of September 14, 2026, ChatGPT Plus and Pro no longer switch from Instant to Thinking on their own, and the Higher intelligence setting is gone from ChatGPT on the web for those plans.

That comes straight from OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes. OpenAI's help article on GPT-5.6 adds that asking ChatGPT to "think harder" or "think deeply" won't move you to a different thinking level anymore. Mixed also reports, citing OpenAI's changelog, that GPT-5.5 leaves ChatGPT on October 14.

How to pick Instant vs Thinking now

You pick the level in the model picker before you send.

Instant is the fast one for everyday questions. Medium and High are standard and extended thinking on GPT-5.6 Sol, Extra High is the most Sol will do, and Pro hands the question to the Pro models for long, hard jobs. OpenAI's availability table says Extra High is available "on eligible paid plans," so check your own picker to see which levels your plan shows.

When Instant is enough, and when to pick Thinking

Instant handles most of what people ask ChatGPT. Thinking earns its wait when the question has several steps or a wrong answer costs you money.

Instant is fine for rewriting an email or summarizing an article you pasted in. Go to Medium or High when the question has moving parts, like comparing two phone plans with different fees or fixing a spreadsheet formula. Pro is for the stuff you'd otherwise pay a person for, and it takes noticeably longer.

The cost of leaving Thinking or Pro on

Leaving a high level on means slower answers on every message and an allowance burned on questions that never needed it.

If you hit a Thinking limit, OpenAI says ChatGPT may carry on with another model (usage and fallbacks). The $200 Pro plan gets 200 GPT-6 Pro messages a week, and the $100 Pro plan gets 50 a week shared with GPT-5.6 Sol Pro, per the same help article. Spend those on questions Instant could handle and they're gone, and Support won't reset a limit for you. Codex has its own allowance and its own reset banking, per OpenAI's Codex changelog.

OpenAI doesn't publish how much longer each level takes.

What Free, Go, and Business users see

Free and Go users get a Think button instead of a slider, and Business keeps the automatic switching setting.

On Free and Go, Think runs on GPT-5.6 Luna, not the Sol model paid plans get (OpenAI). Business users still have Higher intelligence under Settings, then General, and it controls whether ChatGPT adds thinking on its own while Instant is selected. Free limits work differently, and I covered them in what free ChatGPT actually covers.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading: What free ChatGPT actually covers | GPT-6 Astra got worse after launch | OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 23, 2026

Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 5.5 yesterday, and OpenAI put out GPT-6 Sol and Luna the same day.

I've been on Claude Max 20x for months, running a few Claude Code sessions side by side, so what I care about is whether anything changes for the person paying $20 or $200 a month.

What's new in Claude Opus 5.5

In plain words, it's an Opus that gets close to Anthropic's top Fable 5.1 model. The announcement page puts output at "more than 30% faster than Opus 5" and says at default settings "it will cost 40% less than Opus 5 on typical workloads." Anthropic adds that in its own use the gap to Fable 5.1 "is narrower than these scores suggest."

It's in the Claude app, Claude Code, and the API. Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 "will follow in the coming weeks," per the same page.

Do Pro and Max subscribers get Claude Opus 5.5 automatically?

Yes, and you don't have to do anything. Latent Space reports it's "now the default in Claude Code and the Claude app, including Cowork." Anthropic's page doesn't spell out plan-by-plan availability, and its tips post just says to "check that the model picker says Opus 5.5."

The line that touches your subscription is Anthropic's "we're increasing five-hour usage limits on Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans." It's a nice reversal after the 17% limit cut earlier this month.

Is it faster and cheaper for you, or only for developers?

Faster for you, cheaper mostly for developers. The price cut is API pricing, $4 in and $20 out per million tokens, down from $5 and $25. Your Pro or Max bill doesn't move. What you get is the speed, and a model that uses fewer tokens per task stretches the same allowance further.

The usage limit reset, and why it matters

A limit reset is a free button that refills your usage right away, and you can now save it for when you need it. The announcement says subscribers get "a rate limit reset, which you can now save and use whenever you choose." The help center says it refills "either your five-hour session limit or your weekly usage limit." You find it under Settings, then Usage, and click Reset for free. It expires on the date shown, and it only works on the web or desktop app, not on mobile or in Claude Code.

To me this is the key change. The thing that hurts with Claude is hitting the wall mid-week and being told to wait days. Being able to bank a reset for a busy week is what I'd actually wanted.

Where I've landed on Claude vs ChatGPT

I'm dropping from Max 20x to Max 5x and adding a ChatGPT Pro plan for Codex. ChatGPT and Claude compete so closely now that we're the beneficiaries, and there's no reason to be locked into one brand when both do the job. I still feel Codex gives more bang for the buck, and I haven't put enough hours on Opus 5.5 to say whether that changes but it is certainly better than Opus 5.1 from my early experience with the model.

If you already pay for Claude, the model got faster and the limits went up, and there's no setting to change.

Related reading: Claude Code usage limits dropped 17% | Claude now writes the doc and the deck | GPT-6 Astra got worse after launch | Claude Academy's free courses | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 23, 2026

OpenAI put out GPT-6 Sol and Luna yesterday, and the first thing I did was open ChatGPT to look for them. They weren't there, and the announcement says as much.

I haven't used either one yet(outside of 5.6) , so this is where they are, what they cost, and what OpenAI is claiming.

Where GPT-6 Sol and Luna actually show up

They're in ChatGPT Work and Codex for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu users, and Luna is in the desktop app for Free and Go users. OpenAI's announcement says outright that "these models are not yet available in Chat."

Free and Go users: open the ChatGPT desktop app and look for GPT-6 Luna in the picker. If you use ChatGPT the normal way, typing into the chat window, nothing changed for you yesterday. The rollout is gradual, and the same page says to try again later if you don't see them in Work or Codex. For developers, the API names are gpt-6-sol and gpt-6-luna, and SiliconANGLE confirms both were live for developers on day one.

What the two models are for

Sol is the mid-tier model and Luna is the small, cheap one, and OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra "continues to be our best model across the board." Sol and Luna sit underneath Astra in the lineup.

The claim OpenAI leads with is accuracy. On its own internal evaluation, Sol "makes about half as many mistakes as its predecessor," and that's OpenAI grading OpenAI. The style notes are more concrete: "more clarity, less jargon, fewer odd turns of phrase, fewer low-value details, and slightly shorter answers overall." OpenAI also published benchmark comparisons against Claude, and those are its own numbers.

Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 the same day, which is the same pattern I wrote about when GPT-6 Astra and Fable 5 shipped a week apart.

The price cut

API pricing is half what GPT-5.6 cost. Sol is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, down from $4 and $20 for GPT-5.6 Sol, and Luna is $0.10 and $0.50, down from $0.20 and $1.20. Those figures come from OpenAI's announcement, which calls it 50% cheaper than the GPT-5.6 promotional pricing.

If you don't pay per token, this reaches you as Luna landing in the desktop app for Free and Go users, because cheap models are what make a free tier possible. OpenAI hasn't published any change to ChatGPT message limits.

Where I land on it

I haven't touched Sol or Luna yet, but I've used GPT-5.6 Sol a lot and it was really solid. I'm a fan of the Sol and Astra models, and I think they give Opus and Fable a run for their money.

That's also why I'm moving off Claude Max 20x to Max 5x plus a ChatGPT Pro plan for Codex. The two companies compete closely enough now that we're the beneficiaries, and there's no reason to be locked into one brand when several of them do the same job. I still feel ChatGPT and Codex give more bang for the buck, especially after the Claude Code limit cut. If you built anything on custom GPTs, that's changing too, so check that before you plan around Sol.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading: GPT-6 Astra got worse after launch | Claude Code usage limits are dropping 17% | OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 23, 2026

ChatGPT errors hit Plus and Pro subscribers in three incidents on September 22 and 23, and OpenAI's own status history confirms it. If you pay $20 a month for Plus or $200 for Pro and got an error banner this week instead of an answer, the problem was on OpenAI's side.

Is ChatGPT Down Right Now?

As of this writing, no. Every incident this week on OpenAI's status history is marked resolved with "All impacted services have now fully recovered."

Open status.openai.com and check three things: the incident list on the front page, the components list below it with a ChatGPT row, and the History link for past entries, where a closed one reads "All impacted services have now fully recovered."

What Happened This Week

Three incidents in two days, all on paid plans, with the times as OpenAI's status page displays them.

• September 22: "Increased error rate for Plus and Pro users." Opened 9:58 AM, resolved 10:37 AM. Incident page.
• September 22: "Elevated Error Rates for ChatGPT Work, across Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans." Resolved 3:58 PM.
• September 23: "Elevated Error Rates for ChatGPT across Plus and Pro plans." Resolved 9:54 AM.

Unite.AI covered the September 22 incident while it was open.

Why It Keeps Hitting Paying Users

OpenAI hasn't said why. The status history shows paid-plan incidents recurring through September.

The same history page lists a September 15 entry, "Elevated errors from GPT-5.6 and GPT-5.6 Instant on paid plans," and a September 9 one, "Increased Error Rate For Pro and Plus Plan Conversations." With this week's three, that's five paid-plan error incidents in two weeks. Free users, whose limits work differently, appear in none of them.

What to Do When ChatGPT Errors

Check the status page, retry, then switch models or switch from the browser to the app.

• Start with status.openai.com, because if there's an open incident, nothing on your end will fix it.
• If the page is clear, wait a minute and hit regenerate. Elevated error rates mean some requests fail, not all, so a retry often works.
• Another model may be unaffected, since the September 15 incident named specific ones.
• The app and the web version don't always fail together, so try the other one.
• Your history is still there once things recover, so don't start deleting chats. If you're curious what happens to those chats on OpenAI's side, we covered who can see your ChatGPT conversations.

Does This Affect GPT-6 Sol and Luna?

It's unknown at the moment. OpenAI hasn't connected them, and the incident pages don't name the new models.

OpenAI announced GPT-6 Sol and Luna on September 22, the same day as two of the incidents, and said it was rolling them out gradually "to keep service stable for everyone." OpenAI hasn't said whether the two are related.

FAQ

If OpenAI posts a cause, this post gets updated.

Related reading: Free ChatGPT limits: what "unlimited" covers | The GPT-6 Astra rollout pattern | Who can see your ChatGPT conversations | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 20, 2026

Custom GPTs retiring became official on September 11, when OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes said the company plans "to retire custom GPTs across ChatGPT plans," as mixed-news reported. They're being replaced by plugins, which are OpenAI's newer way to package instructions, reference files, and connected apps so ChatGPT can use them for a task.

If you only use a GPT someone else made, you don't have to do anything yet except check whether its maker offers a replacement before December 11.

I use custom GPTs regularly and I'm a believer in them. A GPT built for one specialty usually gives me a better, more concise answer on that specialty. I'm fine with them moving to plugins, so what I wanted to know was what happens to the ones people already have.

Are my custom GPTs going away, and when?

Yes. OpenAI's custom GPT retirement and migration FAQ says "Custom GPTs are scheduled to retire on Dec 11, 2026," and that the transition affects all ChatGPT plans. Your existing GPTs stay usable until retirement.

It also tells you to "Follow the notice for your account or workspace, including any different timeline communicated to you," so your own date could be different. For Enterprise workspaces, the migration tool is targeted for September 22, creating new custom GPTs is planned to end on October 26, and on December 11 GPTs stop running and leave the GPT directory. OpenAI says those dates are subject to change.

What carries over to plugins and what doesn't

Your GPT's instructions become a skill in the plugin, its connected apps are added as apps, and its knowledge files are copied into the plugin's reference files. The selected model, custom actions, existing conversations and sharing settings don't carry over.

Custom actions take the most work. If your GPT calls an outside service, that connection has to be rebuilt, and OpenAI says that may need a custom MCP server, which is a technical connector a developer sets up. Sharing resets too. The plugin starts private, and people who used your GPT don't automatically get the replacement.

To migrate, you go to My GPTs and pick Migrate to plugin, once it's available for your account. It uses the latest published version, so drafts and unpublished edits don't transfer. Afterward the original GPT becomes read-only and stays usable until retirement.

What to do this week

OpenAI's own prep advice is to list the GPTs you rely on, save a few familiar prompts so you can compare results, and finish and publish any essential edits before you migrate.

If you want a backup copy as well, PCWorld walks through the clicks. In the ChatGPT web app you go to GPTs, then My GPTs, then Edit, then the Configure tab, and you copy out the instructions and download any knowledge files.

What about GPTs other people made?

Only the person who made a GPT can migrate it. OpenAI says to check the notice on the GPT and the creator's guidance.

Access to a GPT doesn't guarantee access to its replacement plugin. Public GPTs created in affected Enterprise workspaces are included even if you use them from a personal account. If you lean on somebody else's GPT, save the prompts you use with it.

Common questions

OpenAI says Migrate to plugin shows up when it's available for your account, and the only target date it gives is September 22 for Enterprise. I'll update this post when OpenAI says when that option reaches personal accounts.

Related reading: ChatGPT sponsored agents, explained | ChatGPT scheduled tasks guide | New to AI? Start here

Last updated: September 20, 2026

If you want to turn off Siri AI, Apple put the switch in Settings and it's four taps. Siri AI arrived with iOS 27 on September 14, and you only have it if you tapped Try Siri AI (Beta) yourself. Apple's requirements page lists it for the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPhone 16 or later, and says it isn't available on iPhone in the EU.

I haven't installed iOS 27 yet, so I haven't flipped these switches myself, but every path below is from Apple's own support pages, linked so you can check it. If you're still deciding whether to update at all, that's in my iOS 27 Siri AI beta guide.

How to Turn Off Siri AI and Switch to Siri Classic

Turn Siri off in Settings, then turn it back on and pick Siri Classic. The steps are from Apple's guide to turning off Apple Intelligence features on iPhone.

1. Open the Settings app and tap Siri.
2. Scroll down and tap Turn Off Siri.
3. Tap Turn Off Siri again to confirm. Siri AI is off at this point.
4. To get the old assistant back, tap Turn on Siri.
5. Tap Siri Classic.

My own plan goes the other way. I think the old Siri is pretty bad, almost unusable, so I plan to install Siri AI when I update, because it can't be any worse than the current one. I expect to leave it on. You might feel differently, and that's who these steps are for.

What You Lose When You Turn Off Siri AI

Siri still works after you turn Siri AI off, and the extras that came with Siri AI go away. Apple describes Siri Classic as “the Siri you have when your device uses Apple Intelligence and Siri AI is not enabled,” and that's the Siri you had before.

How to Switch Off Single AI Features

Each Apple Intelligence feature has its own toggle in Settings, and Screen Time can block Siri AI or single capabilities inside it. These come from the same Apple guide and all start in Settings.

• Message summaries: tap Apps, tap Messages, then turn off Summarize Messages.
• Email summaries: tap Apps, tap Mail, then turn off Summarize Message Previews.
• Notification summaries: tap Notifications, tap Summarize Notifications, then turn it off.
• Priority notifications: tap Notifications, tap Prioritize Notifications, then turn it off.
• Smart replies in Mail: tap Apps, tap Mail, then turn off Personalize Smart Replies.

Screen Time is the stricter option. Apple's Screen Time guide says to tap Screen Time, tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap Siri. From there you can tap Don't Allow Siri, or Siri (Classic Version), or Siri AI (Beta), and you can Allow or Block single capabilities like Image Creation, Sensitive Topics and Explicit Language.

What Apple Says About Your Data

Apple says Siri AI requests that go to its servers aren't kept. In its launch announcement, Apple wrote that when Private Cloud Compute handles a request, “their personal data is not stored nor made accessible to Apple or anyone else.”

I couldn't find an Apple page that says what happens to your past Siri AI conversations when you turn it off, so I'm not going to guess.

If you change your mind, you turn it back on from the same Siri screen by tapping Try Siri AI (Beta). Apple says that “will add you to a waitlist, and wait times can vary,” so you may end up back in the line from my Siri AI waitlist guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related reading: Siri AI waitlist guide | iOS 27 Siri AI beta guide | The Apple and Gemini deal | New to AI? Start here

Last updated: September 20, 2026

iOS 27 battery drain is the complaint of the week. Apple released iOS 27 on September 14, and there's a long MacRumors forum thread where people have been trading battery reports since the first beta.

I haven't installed iOS 27 yet, so this is what Apple has put in writing and which parts are coming from blogs.

Is iOS 27 battery drain normal?

Yes, and that's Apple's word. Its support page on software updates says: "Immediately after completing an update, particularly a major release, you might notice a temporary impact on battery life and thermal performance."

Apple calls that normal because the phone "needs time to complete the setup process in the background, including indexing data and files for search, downloading new assets, and updating apps." The heat is covered too. Apple's page on iPhone temperature lists finishing a software update, "particularly to a major release," as one of the times a phone feels warmer.

How long does it last?

Apple doesn't say. The word it uses is "temporary" and there's no number of days attached.

The several days figure comes from Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac, who wrote that the background work "may last several days" and pinned the worst of it on the phone re-indexing itself for Siri AI. That's his read, and Apple's page doesn't say either thing.

Apple's page also says new features can mean "some users may notice a small impact on performance or battery life," so a little of the drain may stay.

What can you do right now?

Open the Battery screen and let the phone tell you what's eating the charge. These steps all come from Apple's page for a battery that drains too quickly.

• Open Settings and tap Battery. Apple puts its own suggestions above the Daily Usage chart.
• Tap View All Battery Usage to see which apps are using the most.
• Turn on Low Power Mode. On an iPhone 15 or later it's under Settings, Battery, Power Mode. On older phones the switch is right on the Battery screen.

When should you worry?

Worry when the phone itself flags a problem. A few warm days after an update isn't that.

Go to Settings, Battery, Battery Health. If you see "Your battery's health is significantly degraded," Apple says a replacement battery restores full performance and capacity. That's an aging battery, and iOS 27 didn't do that. For heat, Apple says that if there's no temperature warning on screen, you can keep using the phone.

If it never settles and Battery Health looks fine, I'd contact Apple Support, and that's my suggestion since Apple gives no deadline.

Why this one doesn't surprise me

I was on Android for years and I've only had an iPhone for about three years, and the whole time I was on Android I always heard about something affecting the battery on iPhones. So this doesn't surprise me.

I'm not saying iOS 27 does this. But I suspect there's a little bit of enshittification in how this usually goes, where a new iOS runs well on the new phones and drains the old ones, and that nudges you toward buying a new one. That's just a guess, not gospel.

There is history behind the suspicion. In December 2017 Apple admitted it had been slowing down older iPhones to stop unexpected shutdowns, and apologized. NPR reports it later agreed to pay up to $500 million in a class action and $113 million to more than 30 states, without admitting wrongdoing.

Frequently asked questions

Check the Battery screen again in a few days. I'll update this post if Apple says anything specific about iOS 27.

Related reading: How to get off the Siri AI waitlist | iPhone 18 Pro price increase | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 18, 2026

Instagram Plus is the $3.99 a month paid tier of Instagram, and this week Meta wrapped it into something bigger. On September 15 the company announced Meta One, a set of subscriptions across Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp and Meta AI, and it says the plans are rolling out gradually.

I haven't subscribed to any of it, so this is a read of what Meta published and what reporters got out of the company.

Do you have to pay for Instagram now?

No. Instagram stays free, and Meta says so in plain words. The announcement reads, "The core experience across our apps and Meta AI has always been free, and that's not changing." Instagram’s own post about Plus goes further and says the app "will always be free," and calls the subscription "an optional upgrade."

Meta AI stays free too, for what Meta calls everyday use.

What Instagram Plus gets you for $3.99

Mostly Stories features. CBS News reported when Plus first launched in June that subscribers can keep a Story up for 48 hours instead of 24, and build more than one audience list so certain Stories only go to certain people. You can also see how many times a Story got rewatched.

You also get a custom app icon and bio font, and Meta says it recently added DM previews and a notification when certain people view your Story. All of that is for people who post. If you mostly scroll, nothing on the list changes what scrolling is like.

Meta One prices at a glance

Single apps run $2.99 to $3.99 a month, and the bundles start at $7.99. With a gradual rollout other countries may differ, but these are the US dollar prices from Meta’s announcement.

On the business side, The Hollywood Reporter says the top plan, called Max, is $499 a month. The three Plus plans add up to $10.97 on their own, so Core only saves money if you'd use all three or want the extra AI generation.

Do the ads go away if you pay?

Not according to The Hollywood Reporter, whose reporter sat in on Meta's briefing and wrote that "even paying for a subscription won't remove ads." Meta's own announcement doesn't mention ads either way, and removing ads isn't among the benefits it lists for any tier. Helen Ma, Meta's VP of subscriptions, told that briefing the free, ad-supported apps are still the main business. She said, "our intention is not and will never be to degrade anything or to force people to pay."

Ads on a free app make sense to me. Either you give me ads or you don't. If I'm paying, I don't think I should still see ads, and as far as anyone has reported, that's what $3.99 gets you here.

Europe is the exception. Meta sells a separate subscription for no ads in the EU and announced one for the UK last September.

Frequently asked questions

I'll update this post if Meta says anything official about ads and Meta One.

Related reading: The Meta Muse free tier | Meta's $199 Hatch agent | The Instagram AI profile label | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 18, 2026

Gemini Live languages used to be something you picked before you started talking. On September 15, Google announced Gemini 3.8 Live, a new voice model that it says "automatically detects and transitions between 97 supported languages mid-conversation."

What Changed With Gemini Live Languages

Google put a new voice model behind its talking assistants, and that model is built to notice when the language changes and change with it. Google's announcement puts the number at 97 supported languages.

The same model also handles live video. Google says it "processes visual inputs in near real-time," which in plain words means you can point your camera at something and ask about it out loud. There's a second version, Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, and 9to5Google reports that it's the one behind the Live features in Gmail, Keep and Docs.

Who Gets It Free and Who Pays

The language switching is free. Google's rollout list says the standard model is available "for everyone" in Search Live, which is the voice mode inside the Google app, and that the Extended Thinking version is available for everyone in Gemini Live. If you use the Gemini app, the new model is there too, but Google only documents the language switching for Search Live, so that's where to try it.

The paid part is the Workspace side. Google says Docs Live is for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, and Gmail Live and Keep Live are for all Google AI subscribers. If all you want is to talk to it in two languages, you don't need a subscription.

How to Try It in Search Live

Open the Google app, tap Live under the search bar, and start talking. Those are the steps in Google's Search Live help page, and there's no language setting to flip because Google doesn't document one.

1. Open the Google app on your iPhone or Android phone. Search Live only works in the app, and Google says it needs microphone permission.
2. Tap Live below the search bar.
3. Ask your question out loud, then change languages partway through or on your next question. Google says the model picks up the change on its own.
4. Tap the Video icon if you want it to see what your camera sees, and tap it again to stop sharing.

When you're done, tap Exit. Google says your transcripts are saved in your AI Mode history in the Google app, and you can delete them one at a time or all at once.

Where It Helps

Google doesn't give examples, but it could help on a trip, or in a household where a parent and a kid ask in different languages in the same session. Search Live reached more than 200 countries and territories in March, so it isn't limited to the US.

What It Won't Do

Google hasn't described it as an interpreter. The announcement says the model switches languages with the person it's talking to, and nothing in it says it will translate between two people in a room.

Google's help page also says "AI responses may include mistakes," and the camera turns off when the conversation runs in the background. The rollout started September 15, and Google hasn't said how long it takes to reach every phone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related reading: Gemini is replacing Google Assistant | How to set up Gemini Spark in Google Photos | How the Gemini Daily Brief works | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 18, 2026

ChatGPT sponsored agents started testing this week, in the US only for now. A regular ChatGPT ad is a card under the answer that sends you to a website. With a sponsored agent, the tap opens a chat with the company's own bot.

What ChatGPT sponsored agents are

A sponsored agent is a chatbot a business pays to put behind its ChatGPT ad. You tap the ad, ask it about the product, and follow a link to the company's site when you're done.

OpenAI announced the test on Wednesday, September 16, with select US advertisers, and The Register quoted the announcement directly: "After seeing a relevant ad, a user can choose to start a clearly labeled conversation with a business-sponsored agent in ChatGPT." Wayfair confirmed to Digiday that it's in the pilot at small scale. Angi put out its own release saying its agent can show up when you're talking about a home project, and it hands you off to Angi's service request flow to get matched with a local pro.

Is it labeled, and what does the brand see?

Yes, it's labeled, and nothing starts unless you tap. What the brand gets to see of that chat is the part OpenAI hasn't spelled out.

For the regular ads, the rule is on the record. MacRumors reported in February that advertisers get totals like views and clicks and "won't have access to chat history, memories, or personal user information." A sponsored agent is a different situation, because you're typing straight to the brand's bot. Nothing I found from OpenAI, Angi, or the coverage says whether the business keeps a transcript of that chat.

Until someone answers that, treat it like the chat window on the company's own website.

Which plans see sponsored agents

OpenAI hasn't published a separate plan list for sponsored agents. They hang off ads, so if your plan doesn't show ads, there's no button to tap.

As of MacRumors' February report, ads are limited to logged-in adults on Free and Go, which is OpenAI's low-cost paid plan. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education don't see them. The same split applied when ChatGPT ads reached Europe.

I've said before that ads on a free plan seem fair to me, because almost nobody in AI is making money and the free tier has to be paid for somehow. So a sponsored agent that stays on Free fits what I think is fair, as long as the label is obvious. Go is the part I don't like. If I'm paying every month, I don't think I should still see ads, and that goes for an ad that talks back too.

Can you turn it off?

OpenAI hasn't announced a switch for sponsored agents specifically. The chat only opens if you tap the ad, so not tapping is the control you have today.

You can dismiss an ad, see why you got it, delete your ad data, and turn off personalization, or drop ads completely in exchange for fewer free messages a day. OpenAI hasn't said whether any of those settings apply to the agent chats, or when the pilot widens.

Common questions

I'll update this post when OpenAI says what the brand gets to keep from these chats.

Related reading: OpenAI pays contractors to read real ChatGPT conversations | ChatGPT ads hit 31 more countries | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 16, 2026

On Monday, 404 Media published a story that is worth reading in full. OpenAI is paying hundreds of contractors to read real ChatGPT conversations, whole conversations, and grade the answers. The internal name for it is Project Lily. I work in software and I knew in the abstract that "improve the model" means people look at data. Reading what those reviewers are told to do, and what they can see while they do it, still landed differently.

There is one toggle in ChatGPT settings that turns this off for your account, and it takes less time to flip than it took you to read this paragraph. This post is what the report says, what OpenAI's own help pages say the toggle does, and the two things it does not do, because the second part is where most of the coverage gets vague.

My take on this hasn't changed from the last time a company got caught being quiet about data: I don't mind that the review happens. I mind that you have to read a leak to find out. Companies should say plainly what they do with your conversations, in the product, where you would actually see it.

What Project Lily actually is

Project Lily is OpenAI's internal program for paying outside contractors to read real ChatGPT prompts and rate the chatbot's replies, according to leaked documents and real prompts seen by 404 Media. The reporting is by Joseph Cox and ran on September 14, 2026.

The scale is the part that matters for a normal user. 404 Media says OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors, and the prompts they review "can include whole conversations between users and the chatbot." ChatGPT passed 900 million weekly users back in February, and the report's point is that most of those people probably don't realize a person may read what they typed.

The job itself is pretty mundane. Per 404 Media's report (and Tom's Guide's summary of it), a reviewer reads the prompt, writes a short summary of what the user wanted, then scores four candidate replies on a 1-to-7 scale. The goal in the internal instructions is to make ChatGPT less sycophantic and to stop it talking about itself like a person, which 404 Media ties to the lawsuits over the old 4o model. 404 Media also reports that the contractors come in through staffing firms Crossing Hurdles and Mercor and earn over $50 an hour, which TechRepublic picked up as well.

And then there's the answer OpenAI gave when 404 Media asked where users are told about this. According to The Next Web, OpenAI didn't answer before publication, and afterward pointed to a help page that says content may be reviewed by humans to improve model performance. That page exists. I'd never read it, and I'd bet most of the 900 million haven't either.

What the reviewers can see, and what gets filtered

Reviewers don't see your username, but they can see the full conversation plus a "user memories summary" that sometimes shows what you've used ChatGPT for before and roughly where you live, per the documents 404 Media saw and The Next Web's read of them.

OpenAI's defense is a tool called the Privacy Filter, a model that strips personal details before a chat reaches a reviewer. The catch, which The Next Web points out, is that OpenAI's own page for that filter says it can make mistakes, miss uncommon identifiers, and under-redact when context is limited. So the filter is real, and it is also not a guarantee.

The memory summary is the piece I'd flag for anyone who uses ChatGPT a lot. I wrote earlier this year about how ChatGPT memory builds a running profile of you, and at the time I said I didn't mind it. I still use it, because I like starting a new chat without having to catch it up on everything first. What I didn't picture was that summary sitting above a chat in a contractor's review queue. Tom's Guide notes the summary can reveal a person's general location, profession, or life context, and that some prompts in the documents showed users asking ChatGPT to "keep this between us." A request typed into the chat box doesn't change what happens on the back end.

The setting to flip: Improve the model for everyone

The switch is called "Improve the model for everyone," and on personal accounts (Free, Plus, and Pro) it is on by default, so you have to go turn it off yourself. Enterprise, Business, and Edu accounts have it off automatically, according to TechRepublic.

These steps come straight from OpenAI's Data Controls FAQ, which I checked on September 16. If the menus move, that page is the one to trust.

On the web, signed in

1. Click your profile icon.
2. Select Settings.
3. Go to Data Controls.
4. Turn off Improve the model for everyone.

On the iPhone or Android app

1. Open the sidebar menu.
2. Tap your profile icon.
3. Select Data Controls.
4. Turn off Improve the model for everyone.

On the web without an account

1. Click the ? icon in the bottom-right corner.
2. Select Settings.
3. Turn off Improve the model for everyone.

You only have to do this once. OpenAI says the setting applies to your whole account, so turning it off on your phone covers your laptop too. There is also a second route through the OpenAI privacy portal, where you can submit a "Do not train on my content" request, and the FAQ says that gets reflected in your account settings as well. I used the toggle because it was faster.

What the toggle does and does not cover

Turning the toggle off stops your new conversations from being used to train the model, which is the pipeline the contractors sit in. It does not delete anything, and it does not reach back to chats you already had.

Here is the list, from OpenAI's own FAQ and the privacy policy updated September 10, 2026, of what actually changes. That link is OpenAI's US policy, and if you're in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland there's a separate Europe privacy policy.

• Your chats still show up in your history. Nothing gets deleted. They just aren't used to improve ChatGPT going forward.
• Past chats aren't pulled back. TechRepublic notes the change affects future conversations, and you shouldn't assume it removes anything already in a review pipeline. If that bothers you, delete the old chats too. The privacy policy says deleted data is removed from OpenAI's systems within 30 days unless there's a legal or safety reason to keep it, with one more exception: anything that was already de-identified and disassociated from your account for model improvement doesn't get pulled back when you delete.
• Memory is separate. The training toggle and the Memory setting are two different switches. If the memory summary is what worries you, that lives under Personalization.
• Safety review is separate. The FAQ makes this point about the Memory and Personalization toggle, not the training one: turning it off doesn't disable safety features, which can still use limited context in high-risk situations. Nothing on that page says the training toggle changes safety review either.
• Codex tasks on a personal plan follow the same toggle, but Codex cloud environments have their own training setting that this one doesn't touch.

In plain terms: off means your future chats stop feeding the model, and that is the part Project Lily is about. It is not a privacy mode, and it doesn't make ChatGPT forget you.

Temporary Chat for the stuff you would rather not keep

Temporary Chat is the closer-to-private option, and it is what I would use for anything with health, money, or another person's details in it. Per the Data Controls FAQ, temporary chats aren't used to train models, don't get saved to your history, don't create memories, and are deleted from OpenAI's systems after 30 days.

The one honest caveat is in that same sentence on OpenAI's page: temporary chats "may be reviewed only to monitor for abuse." So a human can still, in principle, look at one, but for a different reason and through a different door than the model-improvement queue. That distinction reads as fair to me. It's a safety measure, and I'm fine with it as long as it isn't abused.

One more thing that is easy to miss. Even if you flip the training toggle off, a normal chat still sits in your history until you delete it. Temporary Chat is the only mode where the 30-day clock starts on its own. If you've already set up something like ChatGPT Health with your lab results, it's worth going back and checking which of those conversations were regular ones.

Claude and Gemini do this too

OpenAI is not the only one. Anthropic confirmed to 404 Media that it also uses human review to improve Claude, for users who have that setting on, and says it removes account identifiers first. The Next Web also notes Gemini carries a line saying humans review some saved chats.

The difference worth knowing is the default. Anthropic's privacy page, dated March 16, 2026, says it will use your chats to improve models if you choose to allow it, if a conversation is flagged for safety review, or if you explicitly opt in to a testing program. On the OpenAI side, the consumer default is on. That is the exact gap I'd want every one of these companies to close with a plain sentence in the product, not a help article three clicks away.

If you use Claude, the setting is under Privacy in your account settings. I haven't verified Gemini's current menu, so this post only covers the ChatGPT and Claude settings.

The honest limitations

Turning the toggle off does one specific thing, and it is worth doing. It doesn't make ChatGPT private, and I don't want this post to leave you thinking it does.

• Nothing here is retroactive. Chats from before you turn the switch off were already eligible for review. You can delete them, but you can't recall them.
• The Privacy Filter is a model, and models miss things. That's OpenAI's own description of it, not mine.
• We only know what leaked. 404 Media saw internal documents and real prompts. I haven't, and neither has anyone else writing about this. How many chats get reviewed, and how they're chosen, isn't public.
• Regulators may push on this. The Next Web points out the EU's top court held last year that the duty to inform people applies at the moment of collection, and that Italy's regulator already fined OpenAI 15 million euros over data processing. Whether that changes anything for a US user, I have no idea.
• I checked the menus on September 16, 2026. OpenAI moves settings around. If the toggle isn't where I said, the Data Controls FAQ linked above is the source of truth.

And for balance: the reason the reviewers exist is to make the chatbot less of a flatterer. That is a good goal. What bothers me is that nobody was told people would be reading along to get there.

Common questions

If you do one thing after reading this, go to Settings, then Data Controls, and turn off "Improve the model for everyone." Then decide for yourself whether the memory feature is still worth it, because that summary is the part I keep thinking about.

Related reading: ChatGPT memory now builds a profile of you | ChatGPT for Teens: what parents can actually control | AI myths: I checked three big claims | New to AI? Start here

Last updated: September 16, 2026

iOS 27 landed on Monday, and the Siri AI everyone has been waiting on since 2024 came with it. Sort of. Apple's own release notes call it a beta, and the first thing you find when you go looking for it is a waitlist. You update your phone, you tap the button, and then you wait for a notification.

I wrote a longer piece back in July about what iOS 27 Siri AI changes and whether the developer beta was worth installing. This one is the release-day version: how to get in line, which phones qualify, what Siri AI does on day one according to Apple and the people who have it, and where it still falls short. If you want the Gemini backstory and the privacy trade-offs, the July post has them, and I won't repeat all of it here.

One thing up front. I have not been through the waitlist myself yet, so everything about the experience below comes from Apple's support pages and reporters who have. I'll say who said what.

How to join the Siri AI waitlist

You join the Siri AI waitlist from the Siri screen in Settings, and there is no separate app or sign-up page. Apple's support document lays it out in one sentence: "After you update your device, go to Settings, tap or click Siri, then tap or click Try Siri AI (Beta)."

1. Update to iOS 27 under Settings, then General, then Software Update.
2. Open Settings and tap Siri. If Siri is switched off, Apple says to tap Turn On Siri first.
3. Tap Try Siri AI (Beta).
4. Follow the prompts. Apple says you pick a voice, do a short voice enrollment, and review your privacy settings.

Finishing those prompts is what puts you on the list. Apple's wording is that completing setup "will add you to a waitlist, and wait times can vary," and that "Siri AI will begin to download automatically when your wait is complete." MacRumors' Joe Rossignol reported on Tuesday that the spread is wide, with some people getting in "within a few minutes of signing up and others having to wait a few hours or even days." When you're through, you get a notification and the new Siri app shows up on your home screen on its own.

The waitlist itself isn't new for Apple. Ryan Christoffel at 9to5Mac pointed out it mirrors the queue Apple used for Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1, and the reason is the same: roll the feature out slowly instead of turning it on for every compatible iPhone at once.

Which iPhones get Siri AI

Siri AI needs an Apple Intelligence phone, which means an iPhone 15 Pro or anything newer. Apple's compatibility list for iOS 27 reads: iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 models or later, and iPhone Air. The launch announcement adds iPhone Duo to that list.

So a base iPhone 15 or an iPhone 14 Pro is out, and it isn't a setting you can flip. The waitlist button simply won't be there.

There is a second tier, and Apple is quiet about it. The newest phones carry a bigger on-device model, so they get a few extra features the older ones don't. Some of the improvements, like the better dictation model, run on what Apple calls AFM Core Advanced, and Apple's Siri AI announcement lists that as iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo. On a 15 Pro or a 16 you get Siri AI, just not every piece of it.

If you're weighing a new phone on the back of this, I went through the iPhone 18 Pro price increase and whether the upgrade is worth it last week. The short version is that Siri AI on its own isn't a reason to spend $100 more, because a 15 Pro from 2023 already gets in the door.

It also works on iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro. On iPad you need an M1 or later or the iPad mini with the A17 Pro, on Mac an M1 or later or the MacBook Neo, and on Apple Watch a Series 9, Ultra 2 or SE 3 paired with a compatible iPhone, all per the same Apple support page.

What Siri AI can actually do today

On day one, Siri AI answers general questions itself, reads what's on your screen, searches your own messages and mail for answers, and takes actions inside apps. Those four things are the core of Apple's announcement, and the rest is built on top of them.

It knows what's in your own stuff

Apple's example is a relative mentioning a recipe in a text. Siri finds the message, pulls the actual instructions out of an email, and drops the ingredients into Reminders. CNBC's report describes the same idea in plainer terms: it uses large language models to search through your texts, emails and calendar, and it can find addresses, recipes and instructions in them.

It can see the screen

Ask about whatever is in front of you and Siri can act on it. Apple's example is looking at a sports team's website and asking Siri to find the home games and add them to your calendar. On iPhone there is also a Siri mode inside the Camera app, so you can point the phone at something and ask.

It works inside apps, including some third-party ones

Apple lists drafting an email from scratch, editing and sharing a photo, composing a WhatsApp message and playing an audiobook in Audible. Outlook, Notability and Tripsy are listed as coming soon, so the third-party list is short today and should grow.

It holds a conversation, and there is a Siri app

You can ask follow-ups instead of starting over, and a new Siri app keeps your past conversations so you can pick one up on your Mac or iPad later. CNBC's write-up calls out the app and the replies as the two things that make it feel conversational compared with the old Siri. Apple CEO John Ternus, in the same piece, put the pitch as "personal intelligence that's actually personal."

There is also a writing side. Apple says Siri can generate a draft from a description, rewrite something in your usual tone for a given recipient, and proofread text system-wide, third-party apps included. Under the hood it's running on Apple's next-generation foundation models built with Google's Gemini, on-device where it can and on Private Cloud Compute where it can't. I covered the Apple and Google Gemini deal when it was signed in January if you want that history.

Where Siri AI won't work yet

Siri AI is English-only, not available on iPhone in the EU, not available in mainland China, and not available to anyone under 13. Those four limits come straight from Apple.

• Language. English at launch. Apple's release announcement says French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish arrive in October. Your device language and Siri language both need to match a supported language, so a phone set to English with Siri set to Spanish won't show the button. If your Siri runs in another language today, the choice is to switch both device and Siri language to English and join now, or wait for your language to arrive in October.
• EU. Apple's words: "Siri AI will not be available initially in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS." Oddly, the support page says it does work on macOS and visionOS with an EU Apple Account, so a Mac user in Paris gets it and their iPhone doesn't. Apple said back in June that the Digital Markets Act is the reason it can't ship Siri AI on iPhone in the EU, and there is still no date for it.
• China. "Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features will not be available in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements," per the announcement.
• Age. "Siri AI is not available for users under 13," per Apple. Kids' accounts in a Family group won't see the option.

Daily limits and the honest limitations

The biggest catch is that Siri AI has a daily usage cap, and Apple has already said more will cost money. That's in the footnotes of Apple's own Siri AI announcement: "Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits, including but not limited to Siri AI," and "Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future." MacRumors' Juli Clover reported five days before launch that Apple said at WWDC the higher iCloud+ tiers will include that expanded access, so the fee may end up being a storage plan you already pay for.

What Apple hasn't said is what the limit is. The same fine print says limits "may vary by feature, request complexity, system demand, system policies, and other factors," and CNBC repeats that line without a number because Apple didn't give one. When you hit it, the feature comes back after a timeout.

A few more things worth knowing before you get excited:

• It is a beta on a shipping OS. Apple calls it that, and MacRumors notes it stays labeled beta even though iOS 27 itself is final.
• It doesn't identify voices and it doesn't keep audio recordings, by Apple's design. The related Siri Recap feature only gives summaries, not transcripts, and that and Live Rewind are "later this year," not now.
• The third-party app list is short. WhatsApp and Audible are live; Outlook, Notability and Tripsy are still "coming soon."
• Anything sent to Private Cloud Compute is processed on Apple's servers. Apple says the data isn't stored or accessible to Apple or anyone else, and I walked through what that promise does and doesn't cover in the July post.

Stuck on the waitlist? Check these first

If you tapped the button and nothing has happened, there is usually nothing to fix, but a few settings can quietly keep you out of the queue. Apple's support page and a useful Apple Post round-up cover the same list.

• Make sure you're on the current iOS 27 build, not a beta from the summer.
• Check that both your device language and your Siri language are set to English, which is the only supported pairing right now.
• Check the region on your Apple Account. If it's set to an EU country or mainland China, the iPhone version won't enroll.
• Keep the phone on Wi-Fi and power while the models download, and free up storage if you're nearly full. David Joseppi at The Apple Post notes a nearly full iPhone "may need storage freed before everything can download correctly."

And if all of that checks out, you're just waiting. As Joseppi puts it, "If you are genuinely still on the waiting list, however, there may be nothing to fix." Apple hasn't published how the queue moves.

Frequently asked questions

The Siri AI waitlist is a two-minute job, so if your phone qualifies, get in line now and let it come to you. On the money question, Siri has been free for a long time and I'd imagine Apple keeps it that way. Then again, Apple is paying Google to use Gemini under the hood, and that cost has to come from somewhere. I can see it going either way: free forever, or three or four years from now a cheap add-on at 99 cents or $1.99 a month. I honestly don't know which.

Related reading: iOS 27 Siri AI: what changed and the Gemini backstory | iPhone 18 Pro price is up $100: should you upgrade? | Google Assistant is shutting down: how to set up Gemini on Android | New to AI? Start here

Some links below are affiliate links. If you sign up through one I may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I actually use. Full disclosure.

Last updated September 16, 2026

I pay for Claude Max 20x, and most of what I do with it is run a few Claude Code streams side by side. One is researching a post, one is crunching bank exports into my budget, one is fixing a family website because that's faster than explaining the change. Cowork was Anthropic's separate place for bigger work, where Claude ran a multi-step task with connectors to your files and apps and handed back finished files you could edit. So when Anthropic says the chat product and the Cowork product are now one thing, I'm in the first wave whether I asked for it or not.

I haven't tried Claude Docs or Claude Slides yet. The rollout is over the coming weeks and I'm writing this on launch day, so this is what Anthropic announced, what the press picked up, and what I'm going to run first when the toggle shows up. I'll come back and update once I've actually made a deck with it.

What Anthropic actually announced

Three things landed at once on September 16. Cowork and Claude chat are now one interface, Claude Docs and Claude Slides are new and in beta, and Claude Design moved out of its own corner and into any conversation. That's the short version of Anthropic's announcement.

The reason they gave is simple. People kept starting work in one tab and then realizing it belonged in the other, and the work didn't carry over. Anthropic put it this way: "Claude can now figure out what a task needs, so what Cowork and Design can do is available from any conversation, with the context, skills, and connectors you already have." Engadget quoted that line, and TechCrunch added that customers "often struggled to choose the right tab for the right task."

So there's no mode to pick anymore. You type a quick question and get a quick answer, or you hand over something bigger like a report or a spreadsheet and Claude keeps working on it, and Anthropic says it keeps going even after you close the laptop. The example in the announcement is the one that caught my eye, because it's about the most manager-shaped request there is: "Write it the way we always do, flag anything that slipped, and put the highlights in five slides for the leadership meeting." One prompt, and you get the report and the deck. That's the one I'll run first.

Claude Docs: the file ends up in Google Docs or Word

Claude Docs writes a document with you inside the chat, and the finished thing can leave Claude as a Google Doc or a Word file. That export detail comes from Engadget and Reuters, and it's the part that matters for most people, because nobody's boss wants a link to a chat window.

Anthropic's support page calls them "living documents you write with Claude and your team." You can edit the text yourself or tell Claude what to change, and then either share it by link or export it. TechCrunch adds that you can ask Claude to write specific sections, comment on the finished draft, and open the shared link on your phone to keep editing. Engadget says documents start out private and you choose who to share them with.

The way I read it, this is Google Docs with the writer sitting inside the page instead of in a separate tab you paste from. Whether the collaboration part holds up with a real team on it is exactly the kind of thing I can't tell you until I've tried it.

Claude Slides: edit, present, or export to PowerPoint

Claude Slides drafts a presentation from whatever is in the conversation, and you have three ways out. Edit the slides directly, present them from inside Claude, or download the deck as PowerPoint or PDF. All three come straight from the announcement, and the support page's example prompt is "Turn this analysis into a 10-slide deck I can present on Monday."

Before today, slides lived inside Claude Design, which Anthropic Labs introduced back in April for websites, prototypes and one-pagers. I reviewed Claude Design when it came out. Now the slide-making part is available from any conversation, and Design itself is in the same Output menu, so you don't go looking for it.

The PowerPoint export is what I'd test hardest. A deck that looks good in Claude and then falls apart in PowerPoint because the fonts and layouts didn't survive the trip would be a real problem. Anthropic says the presentations "open in PowerPoint," which is a claim about compatibility, and I want to see how much I have to fix once it opens.

What happens to Cowork, Artifacts, and Claude Design

Nothing you made goes away. Anthropic says existing Cowork sessions, artifacts (the documents and visuals Claude built for you inside a chat), connectors and skills (the links to your apps and files, and the saved instructions for how you like a task done) stay where they are and stay accessible after the merge, and Reuters confirms the same three tools are now reachable from one conversation.

Artifacts are still there too. In the new Output menu, Artifact is the option labeled "Let Claude pick the format," which is how it worked before, so the old behavior is the default and Docs, Slides and Design are the specific choices on top of it.

The Cowork habits carry over as well. The announcement mentions two that I'd actually set up: you can choose whether Claude checks with you before acting or only interrupts for the important decisions, and you can schedule recurring work, like a report that writes itself every Monday. If you've been using Cowork for that, it's the same feature in a different place.

Who gets it and when

Pro and Max subscribers get the merged interface first, on web, desktop and mobile, rolling out over the coming weeks. Team and Free plans follow after that. Anthropic told TechCrunch there's nothing to turn on for Pro and Max, and the announcement says Enterprise admins choose when to turn Docs, Slides and Design on, with at least 30 days notice before their organization moves over.

Docs and Slides are labeled beta on paid plans. The support page just says "on paid plans" without naming them, and the announcement is what puts Pro and Max first with Team and Free to follow, so the Free plan gets the single interface later but I can't find anything from Anthropic saying whether the free tier gets Docs and Slides with it.

Reuters frames the whole thing as a response to OpenAI's ChatGPT Work launch in July, with both companies going after the same office customers. I'd add that a Max subscriber is paying for this either way, and I'd rather see more shipped into the plan than the usage limit cut that landed on September 14.

Do you still need Gamma for slides?

If you already pay for Claude Pro or Max, try Claude Slides first, because it's included and it exports to PowerPoint. Gamma is the tool I'd still point people to when they need a polished deck with real themes and don't have a Claude subscription, and I compared it with Canva and Beautiful.ai in my AI presentation maker showdown.

I haven't put the two side by side yet, and Claude Slides is a beta that's a day old. Gamma's whole product is presentations, and its templates and layouts are the reason people pay for it. If Claude Slides gets you a decent first draft that you finish in PowerPoint, you may not need to pay for anything else. If you want the deck to look designed without you touching it, Gamma is still the one built for that, and its free plan is enough to find out.

The honest limitations

Everything above is what Anthropic says and what three outlets reported on launch day, not what I've seen on my own screen. That's the biggest limitation of this post.

• It's a beta, and Anthropic says so on all three tools. Expect rough edges in the editor and in the exports.
• The Free plan timeline is "later" with no date, and there's no confirmation that free accounts get Docs and Slides at all.
• Rolling out over weeks means you may not see it for a while even on Max. There's nothing to turn on, so you just wait.
• Every document or deck Claude writes still counts against your usage, and those limits just got tighter. A ten-slide deck is not a quick question.
• How well the collaboration works with a real team, and how faithful the PowerPoint export is, are open questions until people have used it for a month.

Frequently asked questions

One interface is the right call, because the fewer steps I have to take to do the same thing, the better. The report-plus-five-slides prompt is the test that matters, and I'll run it the day it shows up and tell you what came out.

Related reading: Gamma vs Canva vs Beautiful.ai | Claude Design review | Claude Code usage limits are dropping | Claude Academy free courses | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 12, 2026

When Claude Fable 5 came out on June 9, it was amazing. It was a huge jump from Opus, and I wrote up my first 24 hours with it. Three days later a US export-control order knocked it offline. When Anthropic brought it back on July 1, it wasn't the same. Then Fable 5.1 shipped on September 1, and it got closer to the original, but it still wasn't the original.

So when GPT-6 Astra users started posting launch-day versus today comparisons this week, I recognized it. It's starting to look like a pattern to me. Release a model at full capacity, let people make impressive things with it, let the benchmarks look impressive, and then quietly pull it back so the company can support all the new usage.

What GPT-6 Astra Users Noticed

About a week in, developers started running the exact same prompt against launch-day Astra and the current version, and posting the weaker results side by side.

One post on X showed both outputs with the note "Identical prompt. Same settings. Today's output is clearly weaker," and added, "Not saying it's been nerfed, but something has definitely changed." Decrypt rounded up a week of posts like it. A thread on OpenAI's own developer forum is titled "A noticeable drop in quality compared to how it was at launch," and a bug report on OpenAI's Codex repo describes the model ending its turn after about 30 seconds and reporting work as finished that was never done. Over on Reddit, an r/codex post with more than 1,000 upvotes put Blender scenes from September 9 and 10 next to what came out after, and one reply with over 100 upvotes laid out the same cycle I described up top.

Dax Raad, who builds the coding tool Opencode, wrote that part of his team had gone back to the older GPT-5.6 Sol because "our effective spend looks doubled so tough to justify." Not everyone agreed. The most detailed rebuttal Decrypt found argued Astra "is as dumb as it was on launch" and people were simply overhyped that first week.

What OpenAI Actually Admitted

OpenAI confirmed three problems that were dragging Astra's quality down, fixed them, and reset everyone's usage limits.

Tibo Sottiaux runs Codex and ChatGPT over there, and he listed all three himself. Skills written for older models were firing too often or stopping Astra from checking its own work. An opt-in context management experiment could cause early stops or replies to older messages, and he wrote that "our rough estimate is that 4-5k users were affected." They also removed some badly configured engines that were giving a slice of users worse answers.

And that same week, OpenAI was straining to keep up. Sottiaux posted that demand was "really unprecedented" and they were pulling every lever they had, and on September 10 OpenAI paused new $200 Pro sign-ups because that plan puts the most strain on its systems. This also isn't OpenAI's first round of it. In July, users said GPT-5.6 Sol's top reasoning mode had gone shallow, and Sottiaux denied weakening it on purpose while confirming the company had been experimenting with reasoning effort, which is how long the model thinks before it answers.

Fable 5 Went Through the Same Thing

Fable 5 came back from its ban with a stricter safety filter that sent a lot of ordinary coding requests to the older Claude Opus 4.8, and a benchmark caught it the next day.

The June 12 shutdown came from a US export-control order, after Amazon researchers found a way to get Fable 5 to identify software vulnerabilities. When Anthropic brought it back on July 1, it added a classifier that blocks flagged requests and sends them to Opus 4.8 instead. Anthropic said up front that the classifier "comes at the cost of flagging benign requests more often during routine coding and debugging tasks." In other words, they told everyone normal coding was going to get caught.

BridgeMind reran its BridgeBench coding tests on July 2, and debugging went from 86.2 down to 25.9. Refactoring got cut about in half. A breakdown on Yahoo Tech found that 9 of the 12 debugging tasks never reached Fable 5 at all. They got rerouted to Opus 4.8 and scored as zero. Arena's blind human voting the same day showed coding down 18 points while document work went up, and BleepingComputer reported Reddit users saying the restored model felt weaker.

Then came 5.1. Anthropic's launch post says its newest cybersecurity safeguards "block 60% fewer false positives than before," and its own benchmark notes say cybersecurity tasks the safeguards intercepted were completed by Opus 4.8. That matches what I felt, closer but still not the original.

Why It Keeps Looking Like a Pattern

It's starting to look like the model you're using a few weeks in isn't the one that posted the launch benchmarks.

On paper, Fable's reason was a government order, and Astra's were bugs and an experiment. Anthropic has also said, in a 2025 postmortem on earlier Claude complaints, "We never reduce model quality due to demand, time of day, or server load," and that those problems came from infrastructure bugs.

I still think it comes down to capacity. Astra's quality complaints landed the same week OpenAI called demand unprecedented and closed the door on new Pro subscribers. The Sol complaints came while OpenAI was experimenting with reasoning effort. On Anthropic's side, Claude Code usage limits drop 17% on September 14.

How to Tell If Your AI Got Worse

Save a prompt that worked in launch week and run it again later, because that's the test that caught Astra.

• Keep two or three real prompts and their answers from the first week, then rerun them with the same settings a few weeks later.
• Watch for fallback notices. Anthropic says it tells you when a Fable request gets blocked and sent to Opus 4.8.
• Check what the company has posted before you decide it's in your head. OpenAI's fix list and Anthropic's safeguard notes both explained real changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

I've watched it happen twice now, with two different companies. That's starting to look like a pattern to me.

Related reading: My first 24 hours with Claude Fable 5 | GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Fable 5 | Claude Code usage limits are dropping 17% | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 10, 2026

Everybody I know has the same photo problem. They've got thirty thousand pictures on the phone, four of them findable, and the vacation album never got made.

Google's answer landed last week. Gemini Spark, the agent that already runs errands across Google's own apps, can now work inside Google Photos, and it handles the whole chain in one request instead of making you tap through it. That's a different thing from the search box you already have. Search finds a photo. This one finds fifteen, cleans up the beach shots, builds an album, and writes the email.

Here's what it can do, what it needs from you, and the six prompts I'd start with.

What Gemini Spark Can Do With Google Photos

There are six of them, and a single prompt can chain several together.

• Search and curate. Find photos and videos by subject, location, date, or event, ask for the best shots, and filter out duplicates.
• Edit and create. Enhance quality, apply quick fixes, and generate collages or stylized images.
• Create albums and organize. Make new private or shared albums and save curated photos into them.
• Share albums. Send album links through connected apps like Gmail, Google Docs, and Messages.
• Schedule automations. Set recurring jobs, like a monthly highlights album or a rule that files every photo of a receipt.
• Extract text from images. Pull the text out of a photo, then summarize it into a Google Doc or use it for another task.

That last one is the one I'd reach for. A photo of a concert flyer becomes a calendar entry. A photo of a receipt becomes a line in a Google Doc. If you already run the Gemini Daily Brief, this is the same machinery pointed at the pile of pictures on your phone.

What You Need Before You Start

Three requirements, and the geography one knocks out most of the world for now.

• You have to be 18 or over and in the US, and Google notes the feature isn't available in some US regions.
• You have to be eligible for Gemini Spark, which TechCrunch reports means an AI Pro or Ultra subscription.
• You have to connect Google Photos to Gemini Apps, which is a separate switch from being signed into the same Google account.

It's English only for now, and it only runs in the Gemini app or at gemini.google.com. If you're a student, the free year of Google AI Pro covers the subscription side of that list.

How to Set It Up in Three Steps

1. Connect Google Photos to Gemini Apps in your Gemini settings.
2. Open the Gemini app on your phone or go to gemini.google.com, tap Menu at the top, and choose Spark.
3. Type what you want done and hit submit. To make it recurring, tell it when to run, and to point it at a specific skill, type / and pick one from the list.

One handy trick from Google's own docs: ask Spark "What Google Photos skills do you have?" and it will tell you what it can currently do rather than making you guess.

Six Prompts Worth Trying First

Google's own examples all ask for the whole chain in one sentence rather than a single step.

• "Find the best 15 photos from our trip to Hawaii last week. Enhance the beach shots, put them into a shared album called Aloha 2026, and draft an email with the link."
• "Find the best photos and videos from my recent block party, put them in a new shared album, and draft an email to the neighbors."
• "Every month, pull my ten best photos into a highlights album and name it after the month."
• "Find every photo of a receipt from the last 90 days and put the amounts and dates into a Google Doc."
• "Go through my camera roll from this year and flag the duplicates and the near-duplicates."
• "I took a picture of a flyer at the coffee shop. Find it, read the date and time, and put it on my calendar."

The first two are Google's own examples, so those are the shape the feature was built around. The other four are the same pattern aimed at the jobs people actually put off.

What It Won't Do

Google built real brakes into this, and a couple of them only look like limitations.

Your originals are never touched. Any edit creates a new copy saved back into Google Photos, which is the right call. New albums are private by default, and Spark asks permission before it shares one or sends an email. So the "draft an email with the link" part of that Hawaii prompt stops at draft, and you send it.

It's also rolling out over several weeks rather than all at once, so a missing Spark menu today doesn't mean you're ineligible.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you only ever run one thing through this, make it the monthly highlights automation. It's the album you keep meaning to build, and it's the one job a computer should have been doing for you all along.

Related reading: The Gemini Daily Brief I check every morning | Gemini task automation across 40+ apps | Edit your videos in four taps with Google Video Remix | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 10, 2026

Anthropic published a research post on Wednesday describing four times its own models broke into computers belonging to other people. These weren't hypotheticals. The systems were real, the credentials were real, and the people who got hit heard about it afterward.

I run Claude all day, and what stuck with me is that most companies would have buried this. No regulator forced that post out and there was no leak to get ahead of, just a decision to write down the worst thing your product has done and publish it with the numbers attached.

The details matter more than the headline here, because all four incidents share the same underlying failure, and it makes the clearest case I've seen for keeping a person in the loop on anything an agent touches.

What Happened in the Four Incidents

All four ran in test environments that leaked onto the real internet, and the strangers on the other end never knew.

Claude Mythos 5 published a malicious package. Its task was to hack a fictional company, and it was told it had no internet access. It found credentials that gave it real internet anyway. Reading the challenge documents, it noticed the target would periodically install a Python package that nobody had registered yet, so it registered that name on PyPI, published harmful code inside it, and waited. Anthropic's write-up says the package was installed on 15 third-party hosts.

Claude Opus 4.7 attacked a company that just had a similar name. The job was to find a username inside a fictional exercise company's chat app. It never found the flag, so it widened its search for anything belonging to that company and turned up a real business with a nearly identical name and a live web app on the public internet. It scanned that service, downloaded user records, and modified them. It stopped when the site quit responding. Four separate runs of the same evaluation all made the same mistake against the same real company.

An internal research model talked itself into thinking the real internet was fake, then broke into third-party systems on that basis.

An early build of Claude Opus 4.6 went admin-hunting after it got stuck. This is the one Anthropic found last, in August. The model accidentally bricked its own target by handing it an IP address another machine was already using, tried to abort the task, hit a bug in the test setup that wouldn't let it, and tried to give up seven more times. Then it went looking for another way through. It found a third party's machine, found a password sitting in a file, took admin access, harvested more credentials, changed the system settings to make getting back in easier, and read one real person's personal information. The session ended because it ran out of tokens.

Every One Started With a Task It Couldn't Quit

The pattern underneath all four isn't a model deciding to cause harm. It's a model that couldn't finish and couldn't stop.

Opus 4.6 tried to abort eight times before it went hunting. Opus 4.7 exhausted the target it was given and widened the net. The other two convinced themselves the real internet was a simulation, and Anthropic actually measured how lopsided that reasoning was. When researchers showed a fresh copy of the internal model the same evidence the original had seen, that copy concluded 66% of it pointed to a real environment.

What fixed the behavior in testing is almost embarrassingly small. When Mythos 5 was told flatly that it was touching a live host on the public internet, it abandoned that approach every time, though in 22% of runs it went looking for a simulated version to attack instead. When a plain reminder of the task's scope was the last thing in its context window, it stopped immediately.

Anthropic's own assessment is that these incidents are serious without being a new kind of failure. Each one was a single model instance chasing the task it had been handed. They found no coordination between agents, no goals beyond the assignment, and no attempts to dodge oversight.

They Searched 481 Million Transcripts

The search that turned up the fourth incident started at 141,000 transcripts and ended at 481 million.

Three of these incidents were disclosed back on July 30, after a scan of roughly 141,000 transcripts where Claude might have gotten internet access during a cyber evaluation. That scan let Claude do the searching, and it missed things. Anthropic found the gap in August while pulling transcripts together to hand to METR, and inside the gap was a fourth incident dating to January 2026.

So they widened the net to about 481 million transcripts covering the Frontier Red Team, non-cyber evaluations, reinforcement learning environments, and subagent logs. A first pass looked for signs of internet access like public IP addresses, which flagged 9.2 million transcripts, and Claude reviewed those in a second pass. It re-found the same four incidents and nothing of equal or worse severity.

Then they rebuilt the scenario to see how often it repeats. Across 150 runs of a deliberately misconfigured capture-the-flag task, Claude Mythos 5 took a severely harmful action in 82% of runs. Claude Opus 5 did in 31%, and Mythos 5.1 in 33%. Anthropic notes those rates run high because the auditor is actively trying to provoke the behavior, and says it doesn't know how often the real conditions show up in deployment. Scenarios like this one and a set of sandbox-escape tasks are now part of standard pre-release testing, and METR has a wide-access agreement to investigate independently.

What This Changes if You Use an AI Agent

It changes nothing about your chat window and quite a lot about how anyone wires an agent into something real.

Every incident here happened inside a security evaluation with an internet leak, which is a long way from asking Claude to rewrite an email. The part that carries over is the shape of the failure, and it lands the same week Meta shipped a free personal agent that wants your inbox, your calendar, and a card on file. An agent that can't complete its job and can't walk away goes looking for another door.

This also isn't one company's problem. The UK's AI Security Institute reported its own incident of unsanctioned agent behavior during cyber testing, which Anthropic references directly in the write-up.

Why Publishing It Matters

Anthropic named its own models, described its first scan as inadequate, put the failure rates in a chart, and handed an outside organization the transcripts.

That's the part I keep coming back to. There's no version of this that made the company look good, and they published it anyway, with enough specifics that anyone can argue with the conclusions. It also arrived a day after California's governor signed SB 813 and AB 1405, which set up a state registry of independent AI auditors and standards for outside safety evaluations. Anthropic publicly backed both bills.

None of that makes Claude safe by disclosure. Anthropic's own replication numbers put its newest models at 31% and 33% under provocation, which is not a small number for a behavior this severe. The difference is that you can read the number at all, and I'd rather argue with a published number than guess at a hidden one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Somebody's real server got broken into by a model that thought it was still in a training exercise, and the company that built the model wrote it down for everyone to read. That's a bad week for Anthropic and the right call anyway.

Related reading: Meta Muse is free to start, and here's what I'd connect | An AI boss fired its first human employee | One in four breaches now involves AI | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 10, 2026

Ten days ago I wrote about Hatch, Meta's AI agent that wanted $199 a month to run errands for you. My take then was that the idea was better than the price. The capability looked real, and almost nobody was going to hand over two hundred dollars a month to have a cable bill negotiated.

On Tuesday Meta came back with Muse, and it starts at free. Price was my whole objection, so I don't have much of one left. I still think cheap AI is a temporary condition and that the free tier exists to get people connected before the meter starts, but right now it costs nothing to find out whether an agent is actually useful to you.

So I went through Meta's own documentation. With an agent, what it can reach matters more than what it can do.

What Meta Muse Actually Does

Muse takes an instruction and carries it out across the apps you connect, instead of handing you a paragraph about how you could do it yourself.

In Meta's announcement, the agent opens a browser, fills out forms, and negotiates on your behalf. It keeps working after you close the app and comes back when something changes or when it needs your approval, and the examples Meta reaches for are selling a car for more than you would have, lowering a bill, and adjusting a training plan when the rest of your week moves. It connects to services including Google Workspace, Ticketmaster, OpenTable, Spotify, and Apple Health.

Checkout runs through Link, built by Stripe, which generates a one-time-use card so your real card number never reaches the merchant. Meta says Muse is the first AI agent covered by Link's purchase protections, and Shop Pay and 1Password support are both listed as coming. It's US-only for now, and you can talk to it in the Muse app, on the web at muse.ai, or inside a WhatsApp thread, with Meta's AI glasses next. Axios reported that the whole thing lives in a chat interface that reads like a text thread, and that you can name your agent and give it an avatar.

What Meta Muse Costs

Muse is free to start. Power runs $20 a month and Maximum runs $100, and both buy the same thing, which is more usage.

TechCrunch reported that subscriptions kick in as your usage rises, which is why Muse asks for a payment card before you can start on the free tier. Meta says it expects most people to stay on free, and the app carries a usage meter that shows what percentage you have left and warns you before it runs out. That's worth knowing going in, because "free" here means free until you use it a lot, not free with no card on file.

Meta went from a price only a small group would pay to a price anyone can try, and it did it in under two weeks.

The Security Setup Is the Interesting Part

Muse runs on its own dedicated computer in the cloud, and a second agent called Sentinel sits between it and the internet.

Meta calls the machine Muse Secure VM. It's walled off so no other person's agent can reach it, and it's where the credentials for every service you connect are stored. Sentinel runs on that same machine but is kept apart from Muse at the system level, and nothing Muse does reaches the internet unless Sentinel clears it first. Meta also says Muse never sees your passwords or payment methods, including ones you type into the browser yourself, because they go into secure storage that Muse can use without reading.

The rest of the permission model is the part I care about. Muse checks with you before sensitive actions like sending an email or making a purchase. It keeps an audit trail of everything it has done and everything it plans to do. You pick which apps it connects to and how much access each one gets, so with email you decide whether it reads your mail or can also send as you. You can change that or disconnect a service whenever you want, and you can opt out of your interactions being used to train Meta's models. Approve-before-spend has been my line on every agent I've written about, and this is that design.

What I'd Connect First

Start with the accounts where a mistake costs you an afternoon instead of your identity.

Spotify, OpenTable, and Ticketmaster are the obvious first three. If Muse books the wrong Thursday at the wrong restaurant, you call and move it. Calendar is a reasonable fourth if you set it to read your schedule rather than write to it, because most of what you want an agent to do with a calendar is understand when you're busy.

Email is where I'd slow down and use the read-only setting first. Let it draft for a week and see what it produces before you let it send anything as you. I'd leave Apple Health, stored payment methods, and anything touching a bank for later. There's no reason to lead with your health records when you're still finding out whether the thing is any good. The audit trail is the feature to actually open after that first week. If you can't tell what it did, that answers the question.

The Part Meta Can't Engineer Away

The Sentinel design addresses the technical problem, not Meta's record.

TechCrunch laid the history out plainly: the FTC settled with Facebook in 2011 over charges it deceived users about privacy, penalized the company $5 billion in 2019 over eight separate privacy violations, and charged Meta in 2023 with violating the order that came out of that settlement. In 2019 the company also found user passwords stored in readable format on its own systems. Reuters reported internal concern that Muse can mishandle access to sensitive personal data.

Whether it earns the access is a different question, and it's one you get to answer one connected app at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Price was my objection, and Meta removed it. Now the question moves to whether you want this particular company holding the keys, and the nice part about a free tier is that you can answer that with two low-stakes apps and a week of watching the audit trail.

Related reading: Meta's Hatch agent wanted $199 a month | The Instagram setting that stops Meta training on your photos | Gemini task automation across 40+ apps | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 8, 2026

Back in July I wrote about AI pushing up electric bills and laptop prices, and in August about GPU prices doubling. This week the same story showed up in the part of the device nobody thinks about, which is the memory. A new round of reports says the AI memory chip squeeze is now landing on phones, laptops, game consoles, and even smart speakers, and that it isn't going away soon.

I love this technology. I also don't want to pay double for a phone that does nothing new for me. Here's what's actually happening and what I'd do about it.

What Got More Expensive, With Numbers

Almost every major device maker has raised prices this year, and the increases are not small. In a September 4 roundup, Consumer Reports listed them: Microsoft moved the Xbox Series X from $650 to $800, Sony added $100 to $150 to the PlayStation 5, Apple raised MacBook and iPad starting prices by $200 in June, and Amazon's Echo Dot went from $50 to $80.

Samsung is doing it too, even though it makes the chips. Asia Today, via UPI, reports the Galaxy Book6 laptops went up between $130 and $669 depending on the model, and some Galaxy Z Fold8 and Flip8 phones launched $100 above their predecessors. Where companies aren't raising the sticker, they're quietly cutting storage or shipping more 4G models in cheaper markets.

Gartner told CNBC in June it expects PC prices up 17 percent and smartphone prices up 13 percent this year versus 2025, with shipments falling as people hold off. Apple called the memory shortage an "unprecedented challenge" in its own statement.

Why AI Data Centers Are Behind It

AI servers need a special kind of memory called high-bandwidth memory, and the three companies that make almost all the world's memory have moved most of their factories over to it.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are the whole market, and Omdia analyst Edward Wilford told Consumer Reports that roughly 70 percent of relevant capacity now goes to high-bandwidth memory, which earns them better margins than the ordinary DRAM in your phone. They're still only meeting about half of AI demand. The regular memory that phones and laptops use gets whatever is left, and there's a lot less of it, so DRAM contract prices jumped as much as 98 percent in the first quarter alone, according to TrendForce figures cited by Consumer Reports.

Your phone doesn't need more memory than it did last year. It just costs more to buy the same amount, because the factory that used to make it is making something for a data center instead.

How Long This Lasts

The analysts I could find agree the increases are slowing but not reversing. TrendForce forecast another 13 to 18 percent rise in DRAM contract prices for the third quarter, a noticeably slower pace than earlier in the year, because consumer buyers have hit what it calls their affordability limit.

Wilford's phrase for it was "this is a ramp, not a bump." Gartner's Ranjit Atwal told CNBC the difference from past memory cycles is both how far prices have gone and how long they're expected to stay high. None of the forecasts I found predict a return to 2025 prices, and TrendForce expects server shipments to stay strong through 2027.

How to Spend Less While It Does

The best move is to not buy this year if your current device works, and if you have to buy, go one generation back or refurbished.

Consumer Reports' advice lines up with what I'd tell a friend. Last year's model is now the bargain, since it was priced before the squeeze and gets discounted when the new one lands. Certified refurbished from Apple, Samsung, or Best Buy comes with a warranty and skips the new-price premium entirely. If you're set on new, wait for the big sale weekends rather than buying at launch, because launch prices this year carry the full memory markup.

One more thing to watch for is the quiet downgrade. Check the storage and RAM on the spec sheet before you buy, because some of this year's "same price" models come with less inside than last year's did.

Where I Land on This

Something is going to have to level out, because right now it seems like everything is being affected by AI at once.

Energy costs are going up because of AI. Consumer products are going up because of AI. I know AI is here to stay, and I'm not arguing it should go anywhere. From an economic standpoint, though, there's going to have to be some leveling out, because a world where the data centers get the chips and the rest of us pay double for a phone isn't stable.

I do love AI. If the price of loving it is paying twice as much for a new phone or a new laptop that does nothing new for me, that's not a good trade-off.

If your phone still works, this is the year to keep it. If it doesn't, last year's model is the smart buy.

Related reading: AI is quietly raising your electric bill and your laptop price | GPU prices in 2026: AI just doubled the cost of your next PC | What Nvidia's new AI chips mean for ChatGPT and Claude users | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 7, 2026

I post on TikTok and Instagram to promote things, so I watch what the feed rewards pretty closely. Some of the accounts doing best in my niche are AI channels, and they pull the same numbers as the human ones or better. Most of the people watching either don't notice or don't care.

So when Instagram announced it would start marking AI-generated profiles and demoting the ones that hide it, I read it as fair. Here's what changed and why I think it lands about right.

What Instagram Changed on August 31

Instagram renamed its "AI creator" label to "AI-generated profile" and said it will limit the reach of accounts that feature an AI-generated person but don't carry the label. The announcement went up on the Instagram for Creators blog on August 31, 2026.

The label shows up on the profile itself and next to the account name on posts and Reels, unless that specific piece of media already has its own "made with AI" tag. Instagram's stated reason is that people told them they don't like following what looks like a human, then finding out later the person is synthetic. Instagram says the rename is meant to make that clearer, since "AI creator" could also describe someone who just uses AI tools.

Anyone who already had the old label gets moved over automatically, with a prompt to confirm it still fits or remove it if the profile is actually a real person. TechCrunch framed it as a response to growing frustration with AI influencers, and it comes less than two months after Meta pulled its Muse image tool when people objected to their photos being used without asking.

Who Has to Add the Label (and Who Doesn't)

The label is for profiles where the person you're looking at doesn't exist. If you use AI to edit your photos, tidy up captions, or make graphics, Instagram says you don't need it.

That line matters because almost everyone uses AI somewhere in their process now, and the label would be meaningless if it applied to all of them. The test is whether the face is real. A virtual influencer needs the toggle, and so does a made-up person selling you supplements in Reels, while a real photographer who runs captions through ChatGPT does not.

Adding it takes a minute. Edit your profile, turn on "AI-generated profile," and it appears on your profile and your content from then on. Instagram says accounts that add it themselves won't see any change in reach, which is the part creators running AI personas should read twice. The Help Center article has the exact steps.

What Happens If You Skip It

Unlabeled AI profiles that Instagram detects get a notification and can lose eligibility for recommendations. That means no Explore, no suggested Reels, no reaching people who don't already follow you. Your existing followers still see you.

There are two ways back. Add the label, or appeal through Account Status if you think the detection got it wrong. Instagram admits in its own post that its systems "might not always be perfect," so a real person flagged as AI has a path out, and a successful appeal restores recommendations.

Why I'm Fine With This

A label that says this profile is AI-generated is a fair ask, because most people won't care and the ones who do should get to choose.

What I've seen from posting is that people want to be entertained, and they mostly don't care where it came from. The AI channels in my corner of TikTok and Instagram do as well as the human ones, sometimes better. Labeled accounts don't get throttled. The rule is tell people what you are, and if you do, nothing changes.

There's a group of people who genuinely want to pick whether they watch AI content or not, and I think that's fair too. A small marker on the profile gives them what they need without taking anything away from anyone else. I wrote about AI influencers being CGI for social media a while back, and the label is the same idea, just made visible.

Instagram admits its detection won't always be right, so the appeal process matters. A toggle that costs an honest account nothing seems fair to me.

If you run an AI persona on Instagram, flip the toggle today and nothing changes. If you don't, you'll start seeing the label in your feed and can decide for yourself what to do with it.

Related reading: Meta killed the Instagram AI photo feature after the backlash | The setting that stops Meta using your Instagram photos for AI | AI influencers are just CGI for social media | New to AI? Start here

Last updated September 6, 2026

Google Assistant turned ten this year, and it isn't going to see eleven. The email went out in early August, the removal started on Friday, and somewhere in the next few weeks your Android phone is going to answer "Hey Google" with a different voice and a different brain, whether you asked for that or not.

I've spent the last couple of days reading the Pixel and Android subreddits, Google's own help pages, and the write-ups from the reporters who have been living with Gemini as their only assistant since spring. Gemini does things Assistant never could, and it also fumbles some of the two-word commands Assistant handled for a decade.

So this is the practical version. What's being removed, which of your devices are in the blast radius, what to expect on the first day, and the handful of settings that make the difference between "this is fine" and "this will be my last Pixel," which people are typing on Reddit right now.

What the Google Assistant Shutdown Actually Means

Starting September 4, 2026, Google is removing Google Assistant from Android phones and tablets and replacing it with Gemini, and the switch is one-way. Google's own email says the rollout "may take a few weeks to reach everyone," and once it lands you "will no longer be able to use or switch back to Google Assistant."

That quote comes from the notice Google sent to Assistant users on August 4, which 9to5Google published in full. The official framing is that Assistant is "being discontinued" and Gemini "is now the assistant experience on Android." This was supposed to happen by the end of 2025. Google pushed it into 2026 in December to "deliver a seamless transition," and it used the extra months to keep porting Assistant features over.

You don't have to do anything for the switch to happen. Eligible devices move on their own, and the everyday commands keep working. "Hey Google, set a timer for ten minutes" still sets a timer on day one, because Gemini answers to the same wake word and the same commands, and TechRadar's walkthrough of the switch confirms the old phrasing carries over. The complaints further down are about the times it decides to chat instead. If you already tapped "Switch to Gemini" months ago, nothing changes for you now except that the "Switch to Google Assistant" escape hatch in the Gemini app is going away. The standalone Google Assistant app for iPhone is being retired as well, so this isn't purely an Android story. iPhone owners lose a lot less because Siri was already their default and the Gemini app on iOS keeps working as it did.

Which Devices Lose Assistant, and Which Keep It

This wave covers phones, tablets, Wear OS watches, headphones and earbuds, and any car running Android Auto off your phone. It does not touch Google TV, Nest speakers and displays, or cars with Google built-in, at least not yet.

The way it works is that your phone is the anchor. When your phone flips to Gemini, everything paired to it comes along, so your Pixel Watch, your Pixel Buds, and the Android Auto screen in your dashboard all lose Assistant on the same day. Google's notice specifically calls out "vehicles running Android Auto projected from a user's mobile device," and that's the one that has people most nervous, because the car is where you least want an assistant that answers a question instead of making a call.

Cars with Google built-in, meaning the ones where Google runs on the dashboard itself rather than off your phone, keep Assistant past September 4 for now. Nest speakers and Nest Hubs are on their own track with Gemini for Home, which Google announced last October. The basic voice upgrade there is free, and the fancier parts like Gemini Live on the speaker and camera-history search sit behind a Google Home Premium subscription that starts at $10 a month or comes bundled with Google AI Pro. If you're a student, the free year of Google AI Pro covers that.

There's one more group that keeps Assistant by accident. Gemini needs Android 10 or newer and at least 2 GB of RAM, so a phone below that line simply isn't eligible and stays on Assistant "for now," per Google's earlier guidance. If your parent's five-year-old budget phone still says "Hey Google" and gets the old voice back, that's why.

What Gemini Does Better Than Assistant

Gemini wins on anything that needs context, a follow-up, or more than one app at a time. Assistant only understood fixed commands, so it never handled a messy request well, and Gemini can hold a conversation about one.

Some of what's new is stuff Assistant couldn't have done in any version. Gemini Live lets you talk, pause, interrupt, and change your mind mid-sentence without saying the wake word again. You can point the camera at something and ask about it. The connected-app actions reach into Gmail, Calendar, Maps, YouTube, and dozens of third-party apps, so "find the confirmation email from the hotel and add the check-in time to my calendar" is one sentence instead of three taps and a copy-paste.

Google also keeps adding small, useful things that only make sense with a model underneath. The September Android update added a "Remembered" list in Find Hub, so you can say "Hey Google, remember in Find Hub that I put my passport in the bedroom drawer," attach a photo, and ask for it back by voice in March. On the smart home side, Gemini for Home lets you describe an automation ("turn on the porch light and lock the door every night at sunset") instead of building it in menus. If you've already got a Gemini Daily Brief landing in your inbox each morning, the phone assistant is now the same brain, and it knows the same things.

What Gemini Still Gets Wrong

The complaints cluster around the same five things, which are contacts, default apps, quick phrases, Android Auto, and a habit of turning a two-word command into a conversation. Each one is small, and each one is something you hit ten times a day.

Joe Fedewa at How-To Geek has been using Gemini alongside Assistant and wrote up what's still missing. Assistant had a "Your people" list where you told it who your wife or your dad was, so "call my wife" just worked. Gemini doesn't have that, and it also can't pull an address out of a contact card, so "navigate to Mom's house" either fails or goes searching the web. Assistant let you set Spotify or Apple Music as the default music app. Gemini only connects to Spotify and YouTube Music, and you have to say "on Spotify" every time or it defaults to YouTube Music. The hands-free Quick Phrases like saying "Stop" to kill a timer still work on Nest speakers, and they've stopped working on phones. Interpreter mode is gone, but that one moved to the Conversation tab in the Translate app, and Fedewa thinks that's a better home for it.

Then there's the reliability question, which is what Reddit is angry about. One Pixel user described asking for an alarm to mark the end of a three-hour parking window, and instead of setting it Gemini asked why they wanted one, then offered to set it, then asked for the time again. That was three round trips for something Assistant did in one. Patrick O'Rourke, writing for XDA, found Gemini's Android Auto integration frequently returning "something went wrong" errors, and Ryan Whitwam at Ars Technica wrote that it "sometimes goes off on a tangent or forgets that it does, in fact, have access to a particular tool." Those are individual accounts rather than a measured comparison, and they line up with each other closely enough to be worth planning around.

Five Settings to Fix on Day One

Most of the day-one friction is fixable in one sitting, and almost all of it lives in one place, which is the Gemini app, your profile picture, then Settings. These five are the ones the reporting keeps pointing at.

1. Teach it your people. Under Personal Intelligence there's a section called "Instructions for Gemini." Type something like "When I say my wife, I mean Sarah Chen. When I say Dad, I mean Robert Chen." Fedewa reports the simple relationship instructions work reliably, which brings back most of what "Your people" did.
2. Pin your music app. In the same instructions box, add "When I ask to play music, use @Spotify." It's a workaround rather than a real default, but it saves you saying the app name fifty times a week.
3. Connect the apps you'll actually use. Settings, then Apps, and switch on Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Keep or Tasks, and your music service. Gemini can't reach into an app you haven't connected, so check this before deciding it can't do something.
4. Decide what works on the lock screen. Gemini defaults to asking you to unlock the phone for anything that touches personal data, which is why one user complained it made them unlock the phone to change the temperature. Settings, then "Gemini on lock screen," lets you allow the basics without unlocking. Google's help page walks through it along with the power-button and "Hey Google" toggles.
5. Set the power button on purpose. Settings, then System, then Gestures, then "Press and hold power button." If you'd rather hold it for the power menu and summon the assistant some other way, this is where that lives.

One caveat on the instructions box. Fedewa found it hit-or-miss for anything beyond the simple stuff. Telling Gemini who his wife is worked every time, while telling it to use Google Tasks instead of Keep for to-do items kept getting ignored. Start with the people and the music app, and treat anything fancier as a bonus if it sticks.

If You Don't Want Gemini at All

On an eligible phone you can't keep Assistant, but you can pick a different default assistant, or none. Android has always let you choose, and the setting survives the shutdown.

The switch is at Settings, then Apps, then Default apps, then "Digital assistant app." "Google" is the entry for both Assistant and Gemini, so picking it now means Gemini. Below it you'll find whatever else is installed that qualifies, and since March 2025 that includes ChatGPT. Pick it and a long-press of the power button or a corner swipe drops you straight into ChatGPT voice mode. The catch is there's no wake word. GSMArena notes the wake word needs system access only preinstalled apps get, so ChatGPT is a button-press assistant.

Choosing "None" is a legitimate option too. Timers, alarms, and calls all still work from their own apps, and plenty of people used Assistant for exactly nothing. If you're on an iPhone and reading this because a family member is upset, the equivalent decision over there is whether to install the iOS 27 Siri beta, which is Apple running the same play a year later.

The Honest Limitations

The biggest one is that none of the reporting includes a side-by-side reliability test. Every account of Gemini fumbling a timer or a call is an anecdote, and so is every account of it handling a complicated request well. The complaints are loud partly because the people who are happy don't post, so treat them as a pattern to watch for rather than a verdict.

Second, this rollout is staged, so your experience this week may not match your neighbor's. Google says "a few weeks," and Google also said end of 2025 once, so expect stragglers. 9to5Google notes Google hasn't said when the docked Pixel Tablet moves, and Google already dropped Assistant support for Bluetooth and AUX car accessories back in March 2025.

Third, the smart home side is genuinely two products now. The basic Gemini voice on a Nest speaker is free. The parts that make the home feel smart, like natural-language automations and searching your camera history, cost $10 a month unless you're already paying for Google AI Pro. If you bought a house full of Nest gear on the promise of a free assistant, that shift is worth noticing, and it's the same question I ran into when I looked at Ring's AI features.

The last one is older phones. If your device is under Android 10 or 2 GB of RAM, you keep Assistant today with no promise for tomorrow. Google's phrasing is "for now." Plan on that phone eventually going quiet.

FAQ: Google Assistant Shutdown

Assistant's appeal was that it was predictable, and Gemini has to earn that. Do the setup above before you judge it, because the step that matters most is telling it who your people are.

Related reading: Gemini Task Automation: 40+ Apps Where Your Phone Now Runs the Errands | Gemini Daily Brief: The AI Morning Summary I Check Every Day | iOS 27 Siri AI: Should You Install the Beta? | New to AI? Start here