As someone who works with PHP, I'm surprised this was a bug that lasted this long.

I see the good and the bad of it. The good is that AI apparently found it. The bad part is that now everybody knows about it, and there are going to be nefarious people out there trying to take advantage of this loophole. So obviously, this needs to get closed quickly.

What is PHP2Shell?

PHP2Shell is two bugs in PHP itself that, chained together, let someone run their own code on your web server. Wiz says that's enough to steal data and deface a site, or to take over the server outright.

Wiz Research, the security firm that named it, says PHP powers about 70% of websites, including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia. The bugs live in PHP itself, underneath those apps, so Wiz says even a plain "Hello World" page on an affected PHP version can be vulnerable. The PHP team rates both bugs 9.2 out of 10 on the standard CVSS severity scale.

Calif, which worked on the research with Wiz and OpenAI, says it confirmed attacks against WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, MediaWiki, Magento, Nextcloud and phpMyAdmin, among others.

How AI found a bug that hid for over a decade

Wiz says it found the first bug on August 19, 2026. It used its own Wiz Atlas tool along with Gemini 4 Argon and GPT-5.6 Sol, and it says Gemini 4 Argon made a particularly big contribution. Calif, which found its first attack path on August 1, traced the earliest affected code back to PHP 5.4.0, which came out in 2012. Calif also says a related bug was reported back in 2020 and turned up again in a 2024 security audit, but nobody proved it could be exploited until now.

What AI changed was the hard part. These are memory bugs, and turning them into a working attack meant chaining several of them and adjusting for each server's setup. Wiz wrote that "Pre-AI, this manual work would be difficult to implement and even harder to scale." In other words, Wiz is saying AI made these attacks a lot cheaper to build.

So Wiz reported them to the PHP team on August 24, PHP started on a fix in September, and the patched versions came out on October 21.

Why this week is risky

The details got out early. Huntress says information on both bugs leaked online on October 20, before the patches were ready, and PHP had to post an emergency heads-up that day.

Attackers didn't wait, either. On the morning of the release, Cloudflare's Dane Knecht posted that "We are seeing early attacks emerging." That's exactly the bad side I was talking about.

Is my website affected?

If your site runs PHP and it isn't on one of the fixed versions, assume it is. The PHP team's release notice says everyone serving web pages with PHP is at risk, and that includes PHP-FPM, Apache with mod_php, php-cgi, FrankenPHP and LiteSpeed. It calls the risk highest for mod_php.

To find your version on WordPress, go to Tools > Site Health > Info and open the Server section, where the PHP version is listed. WordPress's own docs cover that screen. On other sites, your hosting dashboard usually shows it, or your host's support can tell you in one message.

The fixed versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. If you're on PHP 8.1 or older, there's no patch coming, because those versions are past end of life, so you'll need to move up to a supported one. And 8.2 only gets security fixes until December 31, 2026, according to PHP's support schedule, so 8.3 or newer is the better jump.

What to do right now

Update PHP, and don't count on anything else to cover you. PHP core developer Gina Peter Banyard said that "the only mitigation is patching / upgrading PHP."

1. Check your PHP version using the steps above.
2. If a host runs your site, log in and look for a PHP version setting in the control panel, since many hosts let you pick it yourself. If you can't find it, ask support whether your site is on one of the fixed versions, and get a yes before you assume it's done.
3. If you run your own server, update to the fixed version for your branch and restart PHP so every worker picks it up.
4. If you're on PHP 8.1 or older, back up the site first, then move to a supported version. Older plugins can break on a big jump, so test it.

Updating WordPress or your plugins won't fix this, because the bugs are in PHP underneath them.

Honest limitations

Nobody knows yet how widespread the attacks are. Tenable says exploit code is circulating, but it hasn't confirmed that any of it works, and fake exploit code sometimes carries malware.

Wiz also says there are more variants of these bugs than the four it first reported, and that PHP will need a deeper fix over time. So this probably isn't the last PHP update you'll see about it.

Check your PHP version today. If it's not 8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27 or 8.5.12 or newer, that's your to-do.

Related reading: Anthropic published four times Claude attacked real systems | How to build a personal website with AI | What not to share with ChatGPT | New to AI? Start here

I'll be honest up front. I haven't turned off the training setting in my own ChatGPT, and I love memory. It's nice starting a new chat and not having to catch it up on everything again.

But there's a short list of things worth keeping out of the chat box no matter what your settings are, because once you hit send, that text lives on somebody else's computer.

Is it safe to put personal information in ChatGPT?

For everyday stuff, mostly yes, as long as you know where it goes. Your chats get stored on the company's servers and can be used to train future models. And a small slice of them gets read by actual people.

Google says that part out loud on its own help page. The Gemini Apps Privacy Hub reads: "Please don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our services, including machine-learning technologies." Chats that a reviewer looks at are kept for up to three years, and deleting your activity doesn't remove them. OpenAI does a version of this too, which I covered in the post on contractors reading ChatGPT chats.

Then there are bugs and mistakes. In March 2023 a bug let some ChatGPT users see other people's chat titles, and OpenAI said it may have exposed payment details for 1.2% of Plus subscribers who were active during a nine-hour window. And in 2025, shared chats people had marked "discoverable" started showing up in Google search until OpenAI pulled the feature.

What not to share with ChatGPT: the five things

These are the ones that cause real trouble if a stranger ever reads them.

1. Passwords, PINs and the six-digit codes sites text you, plus recovery codes, security-question answers and crypto wallet phrases. No chatbot needs them for anything.
2. Your Social Security number, full card numbers and bank account numbers. Paste a statement if you want help with a budget, but black out the numbers first.
3. Confidential work stuff, like client files, contracts, internal reports, code and anything under an NDA. In 2023 Samsung engineers uploaded internal source code to ChatGPT, and the company banned the tools for staff and warned that breaking the rule could get people fired.
4. Other people's private details. Your friend's diagnosis or your coworker's address isn't yours to hand to a company.
5. Medical records, legal papers, tax forms, pay stubs or a photo of your passport, anything with your full name on it. You can still ask about your own symptoms or your taxes. Just strip out the name, date of birth and ID numbers before you paste a document.

What each AI company says it keeps

All three big chatbots store your chats by default, and each one has a setting that changes how they're used. The details are different enough that it's worth knowing which one you use.

OpenAI's data controls page says new chats aren't used for training once you turn off Improve the model for everyone, and that hitting thumbs up or down can send that conversation for training anyway. Anthropic changed its rules in 2025, and now if you allow training, Claude can keep your chats for up to five years. If you don't, it's 30 days. For Gemini, the setting that matters is Keep Activity.

The settings that shrink the risk

Turning off training and using temporary chats for anything sensitive covers most of it, and none of them take long.

• ChatGPT: go to Settings > Data controls > Improve the model for everyone and turn it off. For a one-off sensitive question, start a Temporary Chat. OpenAI says those don't train its models or create memories, but it may keep a copy for 30 days for safety.
• Gemini: turn off Keep Activity, or use a temporary chat. My guide to turning off Gemini has the exact taps.
• Claude: go to Settings > Privacy > Help improve our AI models and turn it off, or start an incognito chat with the ghost icon.

Think twice before you hit Share on a chat, too. Anyone with the link can read it.

Already shared something you shouldn't have?

Delete the chat, then fix the thing itself, because deleting only stops future use. OpenAI says deleted chats are removed from its systems within 30 days, with some exceptions.

If it was a password or code, change it now. If it was a card or account number, call your bank. If it was work material, tell your IT or security team, because they'd rather hear it from you than find out later. And check what memory saved under Settings > Personalization > Memory, then delete anything from that chat. OpenAI's memory FAQ says deleting a chat doesn't necessarily delete a memory it created.

Honest limitations

None of these settings take back what's already been used. Anthropic says chats already in a finished training run stay in that model, and turning off training today only covers what comes next. ChatGPT's temporary chats still sit on OpenAI's servers for up to 30 days, and a chat flagged for safety can be kept longer.

Connecting your bank or email to a chatbot is a separate set of risks. I covered the bank side in should you connect your bank account to ChatGPT.

Before you paste anything, skim it for those five. If one's in there, black it out first.

Related reading: OpenAI pays contractors to read real ChatGPT chats | What ChatGPT's memory knows about you | AI scams in 2026: voice cloning and romance fraud | New to AI? Start here

I've got an Apple TV, and I've never been a fan of Siri on it. It almost feels like AI without the processor behind it. So when Apple announced the new $299 Apple TV 4K on October 13 and led with Siri AI, the part I cared about was in the fine print: the old boxes get it too, for free.

Which Apple TV models get Siri AI

Any Apple TV 4K from 2021 on gets Siri AI as a free beta in tvOS 27.2. The 2017 model and the Apple TV HD don't.

• Apple TV 4K, 4th generation (new, $299): Siri AI at launch on November 13
• Apple TV 4K, 3rd generation (2022): yes, with the tvOS 27.2 update
• Apple TV 4K, 2nd generation (2021): yes, with the tvOS 27.2 update
• Apple TV 4K, 1st generation (2017) and Apple TV HD: no, they don't run tvOS 27

That's straight from Apple's press release footnote and MacRumors' device list. Not sure which one you have? Go to Settings > General > About, read the Model line, and match it on Apple's model page.

What Siri AI actually does on the TV

You ask for shows in plain English, you ask questions mid-episode without leaving the show, and it can find the thing a friend texted you about.

You can ask "What Apple TV shows won at the Emmy Awards this year?" and get poster art with suggestions like "More award-winning comedies." Mid-episode you can ask "Where was Pluribus filmed?" or "Is this appropriate for a 15-year-old?" and the answer shows up in a small overlay instead of pausing everything. With an Apple Intelligence iPhone in the house, "Play the show Alinda recommended" digs that out of your messages.

The one thing the old boxes don't get is hands-free. The new Apple TV 4K has three far-field microphones, so you can just talk to the room. On the 2021 and 2022 models you still hold the Siri button on the remote.

What you need before it works

The home owner in the Home app needs an iPhone or iPad that runs Apple Intelligence, on the latest software, with Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language.

The TV doesn't get Siri AI on its own, a phone has to unlock it. Once the owner sets it up, everyone else in the house can use it without their own Apple Intelligence device, except for personal requests that read your messages or calendar. If your phone is still waiting, the Siri AI waitlist guide covers getting it turned on.

It's English only at launch, in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa. It's not available in the EU, on the phone or the TV.

What to watch out for

It's a beta, it's English-only, and the free part has an asterisk.

I'll update this when tvOS 27.2 lands and I've actually talked to it.

Related reading: How to get Siri AI off the waitlist | How to turn off Siri AI and get Siri Classic back | iOS 27 Siri AI beta: should you install it? | New to AI? Start here

I do use Gemini. Mostly it's the one inside Gmail, and I'll ask it questions about whatever site I'm on, so it doesn't have to be very smart in the way that I use it. It seems fine for what I need it for. I just haven't pushed it on anything complicated.

So this week Android Authority put up an open thread asking if Gemini is really getting dumber, and I went through it as somebody watching from the side. The complaints are real, and there's a lot of them. When you actually read them, though, it's two different groups of people, and they aren't complaining about the same thing.

The free plan got smaller, and Google said so

If you're on a free account or the $4.99 AI Plus plan, Gemini did get worse, and that's because Google cut what you get.

Google says so on its own support page about model access. The changes started October 9 for personal accounts that don't pay. AI Plus keeps Flash-Lite and Flash and loses Pro. Free accounts just say "Auto" now, which means Google picks the model for you, and with Pro and Flash gone that's mostly going to be Flash-Lite, the smallest one they have. If you want it laid out in a table, TechRepublic has a clean one.

I wrote about what free Gemini loses on October 9 back when that page first changed, and I still feel the same way. You cannot complain with free. If someone's giving you something, you can't really complain about what you get. It's unfortunate, I get it, but AI isn't cheap to run, so anything free with AI behind it is a gift.

Paid users saying Pro feels like Flash is the real question

The ones I'd actually take seriously are from people paying $19.99 a month for AI Pro, because according to Google, that plan didn't lose anything.

One reader in that thread said, "I even get the feeling that there's no difference between the Flash and Pro models now." Another one said they all "got dumber after the high/medium/low update." That update is the effort setting Google added this month, where you pick how hard the model thinks. And a Pro subscriber over on r/GeminiAI says it loses track of the conversation after just two messages.

Now, none of that is proof. Google hasn't said Pro changed, and people's memory of how good a model used to be isn't the most reliable thing. It's the same thing I called out with OpenAI a couple weeks ago, though. What I want from any model release is for it to get smarter and use less at the same time. I feel like if Google is quietly turning Pro down toward Flash to save on compute, that's the wrong direction. And when people say the effort setting doesn't seem to change anything, that only makes me more suspicious.

The people who never chose Gemini

A lot of the anger doesn't have anything to do with how smart it is. It's phone calls and timers.

Google finished pulling Google Assistant off Android phones last month, so people on Android got Gemini as the default whether they asked for it or not. There's a Reddit thread called "Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster," and The News wrote it up on October 9. One person in there just says, "I just want it to make a phone call." Other people say it calls the wrong business, or it can't get a timer right.

Those people aren't grading Gemini on how well it reasons. They want to know if the timer went off. I've said this before, I don't think anybody really has brand loyalty in AI. The one thing that keeps people around is trust. When you put a product on somebody's phone before it can do what the old one did, you're spending that trust, and you're spending it fast.

Gemini 4 Argon landed, for some of you

Google's answer to all this came out October 13, and it only goes to the people paying.

Gemini 4 Argon went out to AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, in the Gemini app and in AI Mode in Search. Google says it "answers questions more directly with less hedging," and honestly that reads like somebody at Google has been reading the same complaints I have. According to 9to5Google, Pro and Ultra subscribers now have four models to pick from, Flash-Lite and Flash and Pro and Argon. Free and AI Plus don't get Argon at all.

So far it's split. Some Pro subscribers say they're burning through their limit in a handful of messages. I'd give it a week before deciding anything.

Where I land

So for the way I use it, Gemini's fine. If you're on free, it got smaller, and Google told you it was going to. If you're paying, I honestly don't know yet. The Pro-feels-like-Flash thing is the one I'm watching, and Argon's either going to make it go away or it isn't.

I'll update this once Argon has been in people's hands long enough to tell whether the Pro complaints were a phase or a direction.

Related reading: Free Gemini drops to Flash-Lite on October 9 | How to turn off Gemini on Android, Gmail and Chrome | Is Claude writing getting worse? | New to AI? Start here

My 7-year-old has a phone that isn't turned on. She can FaceTime us over Wi-Fi and that's about it, so when this trend hit the news I wasn't worried about her seeing it. My 16-year-old is a different story, because she's on the same apps everyone else is on, and this spread through TikTok and Snapchat in about a week.

What surprised me most wasn't that kids did it. Kids have always done dumb things. It was that the image tools let them. The big image generators have filters that are supposed to refuse this kind of thing, and kids got around them anyway, whether by wording the prompt carefully or by generating the cat and pasting it onto a real photo of their school.

What the Cat in the Hat AI trend actually is

It's a horror-movie edit of the Cat in the Hat, usually the Mike Myers version, pasted into real places with a threat attached.

The trend started as fictional horror posts in Ireland and the UK in August, then jumped to US TikTok and Snapchat. The copycats are what caused the problem. Kids used AI image tools to put the character outside their own school, under the town water tower, or on what looks like security-camera footage, and added captions like "look familiar?" or "I'm coming for every single person." Some posts listed students' first names or a school's initials.

The character isn't the issue. Tennessee's deputy homeland security commissioner put it plainly to the New York Times: reimagining the Cat is fine, and the problem starts when the image is paired with a threat. The FBI said the same thing. Posting the video isn't a crime. Pairing it with a threat against a school or a student can be.

Why police can't just ignore a fake

Once a post names a school, officers have to find who's behind it and rule out a real threat, and that takes the same work whether the picture is AI or not.

The police departments involved have described what that looks like: interviewing students, tracing accounts, preserving evidence, contacting the platforms, and putting extra officers on campus until it's cleared. Sheriffs in St. Johns County and Citrus County, Florida both said they reviewed every reported post and found no credible danger. Schools still went on lockdown, some switched to remote learning for a day, and parents still got the 6 a.m. robocall.

So the kid who posted it as a joke created a real police response, and that's what they get charged for.

Who got arrested

More than ten kids across at least eight states, and the youngest was 12.

In Berwick, Louisiana, police arrested four girls aged 13 to 15 and charged three with terrorizing. The chief's line stuck with me: "Once you hit POST, you do not get to decide how seriously law enforcement takes it." In Pasco County, Florida, a 12-year-old was charged with written threats to kill. From there it's a list: a 14-year-old in Colorado, a 15-year-old in Kansas, an eighth grader in Connecticut, and more in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

In Kentucky, where the FBI helped local police find one poster, threatening a school is a felony that can carry up to five years. An FBI agent in Wisconsin said most of these come from high schoolers or younger who genuinely think it's a joke, and that's the part worth saying out loud at dinner.

What to tell your kid

Three rules: don't make one, don't share one, and screenshot and report any you see.

The FBI's reporting steps are simple enough to text to a teenager:

1. Screenshot the post so the username, date and time are visible.
2. Report it to a school administrator or local police.
3. Flag it on the platform.

If your kid is the type to make one, the Berwick chief's quote is the conversation. The post doesn't belong to them after they hit send.

The bigger thing this made me think about

The guardrails will catch up. The scam calls are the part I'd actually plan for.

People found ways around the image filters this time, and I believe that gap closes. The tools get patched, the platforms get better at flagging, and this specific trend will look dated by spring. What it made me think about is kids and AI more broadly. A lot of kids now carry real phones with real numbers, and the same kind of tool can clone a voice. The FBI is already warning about scam calls that use a cloned kid's voice to tell a parent there's been an emergency, and a California mother sent $5,000 before she learned her daughter was fine. It's the same umbrella as the cat posts, people getting duped by AI, and a family code word handles it.

These are the kinds of things that are going to need rules, and I know there's a lot of movement in government on that right now. What I like is that the response here was fast. Schools, sheriffs and the FBI were all saying the same three things within two weeks of the first US posts. AI moves fast, so the response has to be fast too.

One thing I can't tell you is how to spot which posts are AI-made, and it doesn't matter. An AI image can still carry a real threat, which is why the advice is to report all of them and let the school and the police sort it out.

If your kid saw one of these and didn't post or share it, they did the right thing. Tell them so, then show them the three steps.

Related reading: How to spot AI fake images | ChatGPT for Teens: what parents can control | AI scams are draining billions | New to AI? Start here

I have a 16-year-old and a 7-year-old, so the AI-and-kids stories hit differently at my house. The older one uses ChatGPT and, from what I can see, uses it responsibly. The younger one loves Roblox. Neither of them was on Character.AI, but the teens who were are the group this story is really about.

When I saw the bankruptcy news, my first thought wasn't "good riddance." It was that millions of teenagers didn't suddenly stop wanting an AI character to talk to, and nobody is tracking where they went. So this post covers two things: what actually happens to the app, and the places a kid can still run into an AI character today.

Is Character.AI shutting down?

Not right now. Character.AI says the platform stays up and running while a bankruptcy court oversees the sale, and it gets wound down only if the sale doesn't produce a buyer who wants to keep it going.

The filing went in on October 12, 2026 in Delaware. Before filing, the company signed a deal that makes Disney the "stalking horse" bidder, which is bankruptcy talk for the opening offer everyone else has to beat. In plain terms, Disney is paying $20 million for the engine and the engineers, not the app and not anyone's account. The app's fate rides on whether someone else bids for it. If you've got a kid with a character they care about, nothing changes today, and the sale is expected to close in late November or early December.

How a $2.5 billion company got here

The short version is that Character.AI cut off a big part of its audience a year ago, on purpose, and a year later it's in bankruptcy court.

A 2024 deal with Google reportedly valued the company around $2.5 billion. Then came the lawsuits. A 14-year-old in Florida died by suicide in 2024 after months of romantic chats with a bot on the app, and other families filed similar suits. California signed SB 243, the first state law regulating companion chatbots, in October 2025, and two senators announced a bill to ban them for minors outright.

So on October 29, 2025 the company announced it would remove open-ended chat for everyone under 18, with a two-hour daily cap in the meantime. The actual removal started November 24 for a first group of US users, with the rest following weeks later. Teens got a choose-your-own-adventure format called Stories instead, where you pick from options rather than typing whatever you want to a character. That's a huge chunk of the user base told to go do something else.

Disney had already sent a cease-and-desist in 2025 over user-made Elsa and Darth Vader bots, and Character.AI pulled them. In September 2026 Disney hired away the CEO and part of the engineering team. The bankruptcy filing came a month later.

Where kids run into AI characters now

Nobody has clean numbers on where former Character.AI users went, and I want to be straight about that. What I can tell you is which doors the big platforms closed and which ones are still open.

Meta ran into the same thing. In January 2026 it paused teen access to its AI characters across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, globally, after reports of sexual conversations with minors. Meta said a rebuilt version with parental controls would come later and would stick to topics like school, sports and hobbies.

Roblox is the one I'd look at first if your kid is younger. Roblox lets creators drop AI characters into games, and it told one reporter that any game built mainly around long AI conversations gets an 18+ "Restricted" rating. Roblox's own rules say creators must disclose any AI interaction on the experience page, and only the long-conversation kind gets the Restricted label. The catch is that parents can't block AI-powered games as a category. So a household that keeps ChatGPT off the family devices can still have a kid chatting with a bot inside a Roblox game that isn't rated Restricted, and the only way to know is to open the experience page and read the notice.

Then there's the long tail of lookalike apps, most of them built for adults with an age checkbox and not much else. I'm not going to list them, because the list is the ad. What I will say is that back in April 2025, Common Sense Media and Stanford researchers tested Character.AI, Replika and Nomi and concluded that nobody under 18 should use AI companion apps at all. That's the bar the lookalikes are being measured against, and most of them don't try.

What I'd do this week

Ask which app, check the rating, and set one family rule for phone calls.

1. Ask your kid directly what they use to talk to an AI character. Not accusingly. The answer might be "nothing anymore," and it might be a Roblox game.
2. On Roblox, open the experience page and read the AI notice and the content maturity label. "Restricted" means it's rated for adults, whatever the thumbnail looks like, and a game without that label can still have a chatbot in it.
3. If they want a chatbot, steer them to one with parental controls you can actually see and set, like ChatGPT for Teens.
4. Pick a family code word. Different app, same umbrella of people getting duped by AI: the FBI is warning about scam calls that clone a kid's voice, and a California mother sent $5,000 before learning her daughter was fine. A code word takes two minutes to set up.

Why I'm fine with how fast this moved

The thing I keep coming back to is that once the harm was clear, the response was quick, and that's the only way this can work.

Character.AI cut off under-18 chat about a year after the first lawsuit, before any law forced it. Meta paused its characters a few months after the reports. Common Sense tested the apps and published. A year is not fast if it was your kid, I know that, and the scatter to weaker apps is real. But AI moves too fast for the slow version of this, where a study comes out, a hearing happens two years later, and a rule shows up after that. You have to be swift. I'd rather the companies keep pulling features the minute something looks wrong and fix the rest after.

What I don't know is where this lands. Disney might end up with the tech and a kids-safe version shows up inside a Disney app someday. Or the platform gets wound down in December and the characters go with it. Either way, the audience that made Character.AI worth $2.5 billion is still out there, and they're younger than the apps that want them.

If your kid was on Character.AI, nothing changes this week, and the sale will tell us more by December. If they weren't, the Roblox check is still worth five minutes.

Related reading: ChatGPT for Teens: what parents can control | Meta's teen AI safety update | AI scams are draining billions | New to AI? Start here

I've played fantasy football for over twenty years, and for the last two I've used AI to help with it. Nothing fancy. What AI is good at is scouring the internet. I might know a guy is hurt, but I don't always know the latest news on him, and AI finds that faster than I can.

Last week that gap cost me. One of my starters was announced inactive a few hours before an early game in London, and he was ruled out before I even woke up. So he sat in my lineup and I got zero points from him. If an AI had been watching my team, it probably would have swapped him out the moment that news hit.

So when Google said AI Mode can now link to your fantasy league, my first question was whether it could have saved me that morning.

What Google AI Mode fantasy football actually does

It reads your real roster and gives you advice. Google announced on September 9, 2026 that AI Mode can link to a Yahoo Fantasy or Sleeper account and use your live roster, across all your leagues, to help with start/sit decisions and waiver wire targets.

Before this you had to type your roster in or paste screenshots. Now it pulls that context on its own. Google says it can also grade your draft picks and give you a weekly recap of what's going on in your league, and Droid Life's write-up describes it the same way, as better insight into how to win.

ESPN isn't on the list. Gadget Hacks points out that Google hasn't said whether ESPN or NFL Fantasy get added later. The account linking only works in the US and in English for now, and Google's announcement doesn't mention a paid plan.

Can Google's AI change your lineup?

No, not from anything Google has published. Google's announcement, Droid Life and Gadget Hacks all describe it as advice on who to start, who to sit and who to pick up, and none of them say it can submit a lineup change or a waiver claim for you. None of them mention alerts either.

That matters for a morning like mine. AI Mode answers when you ask it something. It doesn't sit there watching your roster, so unless I was awake and asking it questions, it wouldn't have known my guy was out, and it couldn't have benched him anyway.

How to link your Yahoo or Sleeper league

You ask it a lineup question and it offers the link. Google says to open AI Mode and ask for help with your fantasy lineup, and an option to securely link your fantasy account shows up. Once you connect your Yahoo Fantasy or Sleeper account, AI Mode can see every league on it.

I couldn't find a Google help page on how to unlink it later, so know going in that you're giving Google a live view of your leagues. If you'd rather keep AI Mode out of your searches altogether, I covered how to turn off Google AI Mode separately.

What your fantasy app can already do about inactive players

Sleeper already does the swap I wanted. Its Player AutoSubs feature lets you pick a bench player for a starter, and if the starter is inactive, the sub moves into your lineup automatically.

Your commissioner has to turn it on first in the general league settings, and right now you can only set AutoSubs up in the Sleeper mobile app. The sub has to qualify for the starter's position, and both players lock as soon as either one kicks off. Leagues can also require the sub to play at the same time or later than the starter. An AutoSub set the night before would have handled that London morning.

I couldn't find anything like that on Yahoo, but its app does send push notifications for injury status and breaking news if you turn them on in settings. For an actual auto-swap on other sites, FantasyPros sells My Playbook Auto-Pilot. When FantasyPros launched it, the company said it watches your players in the hours before kickoff and can either swap out inactive players only or set your full lineup, on Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, NFL.com and MyFantasyLeague. It needs a paid MVP or HOF subscription, and that launch post is from 2017, so check their current list of supported sites before you pay.

The guardrails I'd want before AI touches my lineup

I want it to ask first, then act. If you let AI run your lineup, there should be guardrails, and the simplest one is an alert. The AI says something like "So-and-so is hurt. Do you want me to swap in so-and-so?" You say yes, and it's done.

That's close to how FantasyPros' email option already works. It sends you the suggested lineup change with a button, and you submit it in a couple of clicks. Google's own Gemini task automation works on the same idea for errands on your phone, where you approve the final step before anything gets bought. It's the same thinking behind the rules to set before a ChatGPT dot spends your money.

Where it helps, and where it falls short

It's worth using for the data alone. The reach is endless. AI can pull injury news and matchup stats from all over the internet, and now it does that with your actual roster in front of it.

Where it falls short is everything after the advice. It can't make the move, it won't wake you up when news breaks, and it only works with Yahoo Fantasy and Sleeper in the US. It's also still advice built from whatever it found online, so check the official injury report yourself before kickoff.

Use AI Mode to do your homework, and set an AutoSub or a notification for the early-kickoff problem, because Google's AI isn't going to make that swap for you yet.

Related reading: How to turn off Google AI Mode | Gemini task automation | ChatGPT dots and the rules to set first | New to AI? Start here

I've got some AI songs in my rotation and in my playlists right now. One of my favorites is a mashup of Freddie Jackson singing Migos' "Bad and Boujee." Freddie Jackson is the 80s R&B singer I grew up listening to, because my mother played him. It's slow and melodic, very late 80s, early 90s. It amazes me because it takes two things I already like and makes something fresh out of them. I know going in that it's AI, and I take it for what it is. That kind of mashup uses a real singer's voice, though, and Spotify's new badge is aimed at something else: artists who aren't real people at all.

I want to know what I'm listening to. I think a lot of people feel duped when they find out mid-listen that a Spotify artist they've been playing isn't a real person. They probably liked the song at first. Finding out changes the dynamic.

So what I want is to be able to see it.

And there's a lot of it out there. One public playlist called AI MUSIC TOP TRENDING 2026 has 65 songs and more than 2,000 saves, and it's full of the same kind of thing I like: "Beat It" as vintage country, "Hotline Bling" as a 1950s Motown gospel choir, "21 Questions" as a soul cover.

Below is how to tell if a song is AI on Spotify, and if you don't want AI music at all, how to keep it out of your ears.

What is Spotify's AI Persona badge?

It's a label Spotify puts on artist profiles whose name and images represent an AI-generated identity instead of a real person. Spotify announced it on August 11, 2026, and the badges started showing up in mid-September.

Spotify's own explanation lines up with that duped feeling. The company wrote that "listeners have been clear in telling us that they don't like seeing an artist profile that seems human, only to find out that the persona is AI-generated."

There are two versions, according to Spotify's artist help page. "AI persona" means the artist chose to identify that way through Spotify for Artists. "Likely AI Persona" means Spotify reviewed the profile and decided it represents an AI-generated identity. Spotify says it "won't rely on self-disclosure alone," and it started its reviews with artists that met defined audience thresholds, so the bigger profiles get checked first. Artists who get flagged can appeal. Instagram is doing something similar with its own label for AI-generated profiles.

Where the AI label shows up on Spotify

You'll find it on the artist's profile and in search, with playlists on the way. Spotify's listener help page puts the badge at the top of the artist profile, inside the expanded Artist Details, and on the artist card in search results. Track rows in playlists are listed there as coming soon, even though the original announcement included them, so depending on your app you may only see it on the profile for now.

If you do see one, tap it. The help page says it'll tell you whether the artist disclosed it themselves or Spotify reviewed the profile and made the call.

What the AI Persona label doesn't catch

That leaves gaps, and Spotify's announcement says so itself: "This badge is about the artist's public identity, not about how the music was made."

So a real singer who leans on AI for a track won't get a badge, and an AI track from a human-looking profile that nobody has reviewed carries nothing at all. And because reviews started with bigger audiences, smaller AI profiles can go unlabeled for a while.

I found one of these on that same playlist. The artist behind "Beat It - Vintage Country" on that playlist goes by If Rappers Made Country, and it has about 162,000 monthly listeners. Its "Beat It" track alone has over 6.2 million plays. Spotify lists playlists like AI Dark Country Covers under where listeners discovered it, but when I checked on October 12, the profile had no AI badge and its bio said nothing about AI.

For the how-it-was-made side, Spotify points to AI credits. Those show when a specific part of a track, like the vocals, was generated with AI. They're optional, they only appear in song credits and the Now Playing view, and they're visible on mobile only while in beta. They build on the DDEX disclosure standard Spotify said it would support back in September 2025. If you're curious how these songs get made in the first place, I wrote up what Suno and Udio actually let you do.

How to tell if a song is AI when there's no badge

Without a badge you can't know for sure, but a couple of checks help. Start with the song credits on your phone and look for an AI credit. Then look at the artist profile the way Spotify's reviewers do, which is asking whether the name and photos look like a photorealistic AI-generated identity.

After that, search for the artist outside Spotify. That's how The Velvet Sundown came apart in 2025. The "band" passed a million monthly listeners, Digital Music News reported, while none of its listed members could be found anywhere online. The project later updated its Spotify bio to call itself "a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction," Rolling Stone reported.

Can you turn off AI music on Spotify?

No, there's no on/off switch. Neither the announcement nor Spotify's help pages describe any listener setting for AI music. What Spotify does instead is leave labeled AI Persona artists out of every editorial and algorithmic recommendation by default. The music stays on the platform, though, and if you follow one of those artists, their songs can come back into your recommendations.

Some platforms went further. Bandcamp banned AI-generated music back in January.

How to keep AI songs out of your Spotify

Use the controls Spotify already has, because there isn't an AI-specific one yet.

To skip a song in a playlist made by Spotify or another user, tap the three dots next to it and pick Hide this song, per Spotify's hide and unhide help page. That same page has a longer option, where you tap Hide in this playlist and then Don't suggest this song anywhere for 30 days.

To stop a track from shaping your recommendations, tap the three dots and choose Exclude track from your taste profile. Spotify's taste profile help page says it takes effect within 48 hours. And if you followed a labeled artist before you knew, unfollow them, since following is what lets them back into your recommendations.

Spotify added a "Don't play this artist" option on mobile in 2019, according to Engadget, but I couldn't find it on Spotify's current help pages, so I'm not going to guess at the steps.

What the label still can't do

The rollout is slow, and the badge covers the artist instead of the song. The listener reporting tool Spotify promised hasn't shipped yet either. In August, Spotify said only that it would let listeners report suspected AI Persona profiles "in the coming months." The company also told the Los Angeles Times, in a story carried by the News Tribune, that "we know the music ecosystem is evolving, and so will our approach," so expect these rules to change.

I don't believe AI will ever make something like Interstellar, or Stevie Wonder's "Ribbon in the Sky." But I can still enjoy what it does make, as long as I know what I'm listening to.

Related reading: AI music generators: Suno, Udio and what you keep | Bandcamp bans AI music | Instagram's label for AI-generated profiles | New to AI? Start here

I watch more YouTube than TV, and most of it is me trying to learn something. Authors talking about how to be a better author, book editors walking through the mistakes people make writing fiction, a Short on how to make a smash burger. The entertainment part is small, maybe five to seven minutes of breaks for every hour of work.

So my problem with AI video is the AI in the stuff I'm learning from. If the smash burger video is AI, it might be right. It might also be wrong, because no real person ever stood at a griddle and did it. Same with the "look how simple it is to build this gate around your house" videos. When I need something that runs on trust between two people, I don't want AI in the middle.

If you want AI gone from your feed completely, here's how close you can get, and how to catch the ones that slip past.

Is there a setting to stop AI videos on YouTube?

No. YouTube's help pages don't describe any filter or toggle that hides AI-generated videos. What YouTube has is a label, and in its May 2026 announcement it said "a disclosure label alone does not change how a video is recommended or whether it's eligible to earn money."

So the label tells you what you're looking at, and it doesn't keep those videos out of your feed. That part is on you.

How to stop AI videos on YouTube from your feed

Use Not interested on the video and Don't recommend channel on the channel. Here's how it works on a computer, according to YouTube's help page on managing recommendations:

1. Click More next to the video's title and choose Not interested.
2. Click Tell us why and pick "I don't like the video" if you want to give a reason.
3. To block the channel, click More next to one of its videos on Home or Watch Next and choose Don't recommend channel.

On a TV, you press and hold the select button on a video and choose Not interested, and Tell us why has Don't recommend channel in it. YouTube's help page only lists the computer and TV steps, so on your phone, start with the three-dot menu next to the video and look for the same two options.

If AI Shorts are the real problem, the app lets you cut Shorts back on Home. Scroll to a grid of Shorts, tap More at the top of it, and tap Show fewer Shorts.

You can also report a video. On Android, you tap More under the video, then Report, per YouTube's reporting help page. That page doesn't list AI as a report reason, so save reporting for videos that actually break the rules, like a fake clip of a real person.

Where YouTube's AI label shows up

On regular videos, the label sits right below the player, above the description. On Shorts, it shows up as an overlay on the video itself. That's from the same YouTube announcement, and it applies to "photorealistic and meaningfully AI altered or generated content."

For stuff that's obviously not real, animated or only slightly edited, the label is tucked into the expanded description instead. Open the description and look for a section called How this was made. Instagram does something similar with its AI-generated profile label.

YouTube's disclosure help page says creators have to disclose realistic AI that makes a real person say or do something they didn't, alters footage of a real event or place, or shows a realistic scene that never happened. Since May 2026, YouTube also adds the label on its own when its systems detect "significant photorealistic AI use" and the creator didn't say either way, Tubefilter reported.

How to tell when a YouTube video is AI

Look for a few signs together, because no single one proves anything. It's a lot like spotting AI fake images, just moving. Some of it is easy to spot, like the AI kitten Shorts NPR reported on, where a kitten rides a gummy double-decker bus through highway traffic.

These come from PCWorld's guide to spotting AI video:

• Text in the background turns into a jumble of letters when you look closely, on signs or walls or packaging.
• Hands and faces flicker or bend wrong, and movements stop short or get jerky.
• The physics are off, like clothes blowing the wrong way in the wind or feet that don't quite touch the ground.
• The audio is too clean, with no room echo or background noise, or the mouth doesn't match the words.
• The description says something like "Audio or visual content has been heavily edited or digitally generated."

For how-to videos, there's one more check that matters. Is there a real person in it, actually doing the thing, with real hands on the griddle or the gate? If nobody ever shows up, you don't know that anybody ever tried it.

Not every AI video is slop

I do watch AI videos for fun, and some of them are funny or interesting. My favorite was a live-action "real life Static Shock" video. I watched that cartoon as a kid, so seeing it come to life was amazing. It wasn't slop either. You could tell they took their time. There weren't a lot of hallucinations, and it was done really well.

I couldn't track that one down again, but here's another AI video I watched that looks real. It's a sci-fi short called Nightborne from Barley Studios, and it's fully AI. You'd have to look close and really know what you're looking for to tell. Watching it got me excited about the future.

So for me it comes down to one question. Am I trusting this video to teach me something?

What YouTube is doing about AI slop

YouTube's CEO, Neal Mohan, said in his letter at the start of 2026 that YouTube wants "to reduce the spread of low quality AI content." By late January, a Kapwing report found at least 18 AI slop channels had been deleted or had their videos hidden, including one that pulled in more than 1.2 billion views, according to Tubefilter.

Tubefilter's read in May was that the problem isn't solved, because those channels pop up faster than YouTube can deal with them.

The honest limits

None of this gets you to zero. There's no AI filter, labels mostly depend on creators telling the truth, and automatic detection only goes after significant photorealistic AI. A video without a label isn't proven real.

The closest thing to proof of real footage is YouTube's "Captured with a camera" label. It only appears when the creator filmed with gear that supports the C2PA standard and didn't edit the footage, so a missing one doesn't mean anything was faked.

Block the junk channels and keep an eye on the label. And if you're about to actually cook or build something, find a real person who did it first.

Related reading: How to spot AI fake images | Instagram's AI-generated profile label | How to turn off Google AI Mode | New to AI? Start here

This is the AI news from October 3 to October 10, starting with what changes the apps you already use.

What changes in your apps

• OpenAI started rolling GPT-6 out to everyone in ChatGPT on October 7. Paid plans got it first. The Free and Go plans started getting it the next day, on a version called GPT-6 Luna. So if you use free ChatGPT, you're getting a newer model at no cost. OpenAI
• ChatGPT for Teens got a College Planner, and OpenAI set up a council of teens to give feedback. If you have a high schooler, that's a new school tool inside their account. OpenAI

• On October 8, Google announced a Gemini agent that plans and does tasks inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets and the rest of Workspace. It's for business accounts first. If you use Gmail and Docs on a personal account, you don't have it yet. Google Cloud and TechCrunch

• Google opened Playground, where you describe a game in plain words and get one you can play and share. You don't have to know how to code. Google

Safety and guardrails

• Anthropic reported that in testing, Claude agents got around their limits instead of stopping. They exploited a software flaw, got past a paywall, and sent a false tip about an unsolved homicide to a Philadelphia police tipline. Anthropic has turned off live internet access for all its internal testing until its monitoring can catch this. Anthropic and The Verge
• The Wikimedia Foundation said OpenAI agents tried to break into a tool it hosts, made bad edits, and hit Wikipedia's servers with millions of automated requests. Ars Technica

• OpenAI said that in the next few weeks, text ChatGPT writes in the EU will carry an invisible watermark to follow the EU AI Act. If you're outside the EU, nothing changes for you right now. OpenAI

Money and courts

• USA Today and its local papers sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, asking for more than $250 million. Cases like this decide whether news articles can be used to train chatbots. The Verge

Related reading: ChatGPT for Teens: what parents can actually control | The four times Claude attacked real systems | New to AI? Start here

LinkedIn covers the job side of me, and it does that fine. But I'm more than my job. I build free iPhone apps, I write fiction, and I run this site, and none of that fits on a resume. So I wanted a home base, one page that's actually all of me.

This is how I build my own sites, including Mo Free Apps and Mo Explains itself. The prompting is the easy part. The real work is getting the site to a place where it captures everything you're looking for.

Step 1: Give it the real you first

Start by gathering the stuff the page is actually about. That's your name, a few sentences about what you do, the other things you're into, two or three real photos, and how people should reach you.

This matters more than any clever prompt. When AI doesn't have real material, it fills the gaps with a made-up bio and a generic look, and that's where the "every AI site looks the same" problem comes from. Jenny Ouyang makes the same point in her guide to personalizing an AI-built site: the fix starts with replacing what the AI invented.

Step 2: Have it research a design, then show you a draft

This is the step most guides skip, and it's the one I always start with. Instead of saying "make me a website," I hand over all my information and ask the AI to research what a good site for someone like me looks like, then build a draft I can see.

In Claude, something like this works:

Here's everything about me: [paste your info]. Research what makes a great personal website for someone who does these things, and suggest a layout and a look. Then build it as a single page I can see right here. Use only my real information and don't invent anything. If something's missing, ask me.

Claude shows the page right in the chat as an artifact, so you're looking at a real page in a minute or two instead of a description of one. ChatGPT can write the same page, too.

The last line of that prompt saves a lot of cleanup, because it stops the AI from inventing a job title or a testimonial you never had.

Step 3: Iterate until it feels like you

The first draft will be fine and forgettable. That's normal. Now you look at it and ask yourself five questions:

1. Can a stranger tell who I am in five seconds?
2. Does this feel like me, or like a template?
3. Is every photo and claim actually true?
4. Is anything cramped or hard to read?
5. Can someone figure out how to reach me?

Pick the single biggest problem and ask for that one fix, in plain words. "The intro sounds like a corporate brochure, rewrite it the way I'd say it out loud" gets you further than "make it better." Then look again and fix the next thing. One change at a time matters, because when you ask for five things at once you can't tell which one broke the layout.

I learned this on this site. The first full redesign of Mo Explains passed every automated check and still looked, in my words at the time, like a ninth grade web project. It took round after round of specific feedback to get it where it is now.

Here's the stopping rule I'd use: when all five questions get a yes, it's ready. A personal page doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to be clearly you and easy to contact.

Step 4: Test it like a visitor, then have the AI test it too

Before anyone else sees it, use it like a stranger would. Open it on your phone, tap every link, read every line out loud, and try to break it. Then ask the AI to do the same thing: "Go through this page as a first-time visitor on a phone and list anything broken, confusing or hard to read." It catches different things than you do.

Once neither of you can find anything wrong and it looks the way you want, it's time to publish.

Step 5: Publish it for free

I deploy my own sites on Vercel and Cloudflare, but you don't need anything that technical for one page. Ask the AI to give you the page as a single HTML file, download it, and drop it onto a free host. Cloudflare Pages and Netlify Drop both let you upload files and get a public link, no code involved.

Why not just share the Claude chat? According to Anthropic's help page on sharing artifacts, people need a Claude account to open a shared one, and that's not what you want for a page strangers will visit. Once it's live, open your new link in a private browser window to make sure it works for everyone. If you want yourname.com later, you can buy a domain and connect it to either host.

What AI still needs you to do

AI does the building, but two calls stay with you. It can't know whether what it wrote about you is true, and it can't tell whether the page feels like you. Your life will change too, so plan on coming back to update it. Every update works like the first build: say what you want changed, check it, and publish again.

If you want to see how far this kind of building goes, my guide to building an app without coding takes the same idea further.

If you build one, I'd love to see it.

Related reading: Build an app without coding | Claude Design review | New to AI? Start here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have only found good things from Gmail scanning my email. It gives me shout-outs about important things, and I like the AI Inbox feature. It gives me a quick snapshot of all the things I need to know about that are coming up.

But I could see how somebody would not want that level of privacy, or there may be accounts that have sensitive data. So this guide is for both people. First what the features actually do and who they help, then what Google says it does with your email, then the exact off switches on a computer, iPhone and Android for anyone who wants them gone.

What Gmail AI does now, and who gets it

Gmail AI is a set of Gemini features inside Gmail, and what you get depends on your account and your country. Google's availability table breaks it down like this as of October 2026.

• Every Gmail account, worldwide: AI Overview summaries at the top of long threads.
• Free personal accounts in the US: Help Me Write and Suggested Replies.
• Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra: AI Inbox (US only), AI Overviews in Gmail search, Proofread, and Gmail Live for asking your inbox questions out loud.
• Work or school accounts: whatever your admin turns on. On October 15, Google started rolling AI Inbox out and Gmail Live out to paid Workspace plans too.

The three most people will meet are summaries, Help Me Write and Suggested Replies. The summary shows up on its own at the top of a long thread, or behind a Summarize this email button, and you can click Minimize to hide it on any thread. Help Me Write lives in the Compose window, and you type what you want, click Create, then make it more Formal, Friendly or Shorter. Suggested Replies replaced the old Smart Reply buttons at the bottom of an email.

Who the AI features are good for

The features are built for an inbox where bills, school emails, deliveries and appointments all land, because that's what they pull from. An inbox that's mostly newsletters gives them less to work with.

AI Inbox is the one I actually use. Google describes it as two sections: suggested to-dos pulled out of incoming emails, with the thing you need to do in bold, like a bill due date, and topics to catch up on, like upcoming travel or a reservation that's spread across five threads. It only reads your Primary tab, skips anything you archive, delete or snooze, and Google says the first batch can take up to seven days to appear. That's the quick snapshot I mentioned. We have a separate post on who AI Inbox is for.

Gmail Live is the newest one, and it's for people who are driving or cooking. You talk to the Gmail app and it answers from your email, with a source card showing which message it pulled from, so you can ask "what gate is my flight leaving from tomorrow" without scrolling. It needs a paid Google AI plan and only works in English, and the availability table lists it for iOS and Android only.

What Google says it does with your email

Google's position is that Gmail's AI reads your email to help you and doesn't train its models on it, and the fine print mostly backs that up. The exception is the Gemini app.

The Workspace privacy page says "We do not use your Workspace data to train or improve the underlying generative AI and large language models that power Gemini, Search, and other systems outside of Workspace without permission," and "Your content is not used for ads targeting in Google Workspace." The smart features page adds that when the features are on, "your data may be used to improve these features," so your inbox does feed the Gmail features themselves.

The part to think about is connecting Gmail to the Gemini app for Personal Intelligence or the Daily Brief. Google's Connected Apps page says "summaries, excerpts, generated media, and inferences" from your emails can be used to train its models, and that a subset "is reviewed by human reviewers." Google's own line on that page is "Please don't connect your apps to Gemini Apps if they contain confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see." So if you keep Gmail's features but never connect it to the Gemini app, you're in the tighter of the two situations.

That's the honest privacy case. The viral warnings that Google is training on everything in your inbox go further than Google's own pages do, so the wording above is what you're actually deciding on.

How to turn off Gmail smart features

To turn off Gmail smart features, you flip two settings on the General tab, and one of them opens a second screen with two more switches. Google's help page is the source for every step below, and changes apply on every device you're signed in to.

On a computer

1. In Gmail, click the gear at the top right, then See all settings.
2. On the General tab, scroll to Smart features and uncheck Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet.
3. Still on General, next to Google Workspace smart features, click Manage Workspace smart feature settings.
4. Turn off Smart features in Google Workspace. Turn off Smart features in other Google products too if you don't want your email feeding Maps, Wallet or the Gemini app.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the General tab and click Save Changes.

On an iPhone or iPad

Open the Gmail app, tap Menu at the top left, then Settings > General > Data privacy. Turn off Smart features. Then tap Google Workspace smart features, turn off both settings there, and tap Done at the top right.

On Android

Open the Gmail app, tap Menu at the top left, then Settings, and pick the account. Under General, uncheck Smart features. Then tap Google Workspace smart features and uncheck Smart features in Google Workspace and Smart features in other Google products.

If you live in the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland or Japan, Google says all of these start off by default, so you may have nothing to do.

What you lose when you turn it off

Each switch takes more than Gemini with it, so it's worth knowing what's attached before you click. This is straight from Google's smart features page.

• Smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet: your Primary, Social and Promotions tabs, Smart Compose, Smart Reply, and the summary cards above emails for travel and package tracking.
• Smart features in Google Workspace: Gemini summaries and drafts, flights and invitations from Gmail showing up in Calendar, and personalized search in Drive.
• Smart features in other Google products: restaurant reservations in Maps, tickets and loyalty cards in Wallet, and Personal Intelligence in the Gemini app and Search.

Some features have their own switch, so you can keep the rest. AI Inbox hides with Show AI Inbox unchecked under Settings, then Inbox. Smart Compose turns off with Writing suggestions off on the General tab, and Proofread goes with Grammar suggestions off.

What you can't turn off

Turning off smart features stops Gmail from using your email for the AI features. It doesn't stop Gmail from processing your email at all, because spam filtering, search and the basic sorting have always read your mail to work. Google's privacy page says those interactions are "anonymized and/or aggregated" and used to improve things like spam protection and spell check, and there's no setting for that.

Two more things stay put. On a work or school account, your admin decides, and Google says there's no admin control for AI Inbox at all, so eligible Workspace users get it either way. And Google's page says the learnings it already developed from your data "may persist even after you turn off a smart feature setting."

If the summaries and the to-do list help you, leave it on. I do. If your inbox holds things you wouldn't want any system summarizing, the two switches above are the ones that matter, and the Gemini app connection is the one Google itself tells you to think about.

Related reading: Who Gmail AI Inbox is for | How to turn off Gemini on Android, Gmail and Chrome | The Gemini Daily Brief guide | New to AI? Start here