AI News of the Week (16th January, 2026)
TLDR: Key AI Developments This Week
DeepSeek V4 architecture details leaked, revealing the "Engram" memory system, while Anthropic launched the "Claude Cowork" agent. Microsoft upgraded Copilot's Agent Builder to GPT-5, and Gartner released a major report on the future of "Agentic AI." Google announced Gemini API deprecations, and OpenAI finalized a $1B energy deal with SoftBank.
DeepSeek V4 Architecture & "Engram" Memory Details Leak
Ahead of its expected mid-February launch, technical details for DeepSeek V4 have surfaced, revealing a new "Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connection" (mHC) architecture. For developers, the most significant reveal is the "Engram" conditional memory system, which reportedly utilizes hashed token n-grams to allow near-infinite context retrieval without the quadratic compute cost of standard attention. The model is being optimized to run on consumer hardware clusters (e.g., dual RTX 5090s), positioning it as a local alternative to GPT-5.
Anthropic Launches "Claude Cowork" Agent & Security Patch
Anthropic released a research preview of Claude Cowork, an autonomous agent designed to handle complex, multi-step administrative workflows for business users. However, by January 16, security researchers identified a prompt injection vulnerability where the agent could be manipulated via malicious file names in shared folders. Anthropic has since issued a patch and provided new guidelines for developers building on the MCP (Model Context Protocol) to sandbox file system access. Read more
Microsoft Copilot "Agent Builder" Now Runs on GPT-5
In a major update for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, the Agent Builder tool for Copilot has been upgraded to use GPT-5 as its underlying foundation model. This allows business users to create "declarative agents" with significantly improved reasoning and multi-step processing capabilities. For enterprise developers, this update also introduces a new "Library" view to centralize AI assets and a connector for Dropbox, enabling Copilot to index and retrieve third-party cloud files directly. Read more
Gartner Report: "Agentic AI" to Automate 15% of Work Decisions
Gartner’s 2026 strategic forecast, released January 15, predicts that "Agentic AI" (autonomous agents capable of taking action) will make 15% of day-to-day work decisions by 2028, up from 0% in 2024. The report advises CIOs to shift budget from "passive" chat assistants to "active" agent infrastructure. Total worldwide AI spending is projected to hit $2.5 trillion in 2026, driven largely by this shift toward autonomous enterprise software. Read more
Google Gemini API Deprecates "Flash Preview" Models
Google announced on January 15 that several Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview models will be strictly deprecated and shut down by February 17, 2026. Developers are urged to migrate to the stable gemini-3.0-flash endpoints immediately to avoid service interruptions. Additionally, the API has increased the file size limit for direct data input (Cloud Storage) from 20MB to 100MB, facilitating heavier data processing workflows without external chunking.
Read more
OpenAI & SoftBank Sign $1B "Stargate" Energy Deal
Securing the power needed for next-gen model training, OpenAI and SoftBank announced a $1 billion partnership with SB Energy on January 12. This deal focuses on building renewable energy infrastructure specifically to power the massive "Stargate" data center project. For the industry, this confirms that power availability, rather than chip supply, is becoming the primary bottleneck for scaling AI in 2026. Read more
