Key AI Launches This Week
1. OpenAI drops open-weight safety models
On 29 Oct the lab shipped gpt-oss-safeguard-120B and 20B under Apache 2.0. Teams can now set their own safety rules at inference time, inspect chain-of-thought, and patch policies without retraining. Expect forks that bake site-specific moderation into edge apps. link
2. ChatGPT Atlas browser opens to the public
Released 21 Oct, the Chromium-based build keeps a GPT sidebar always on, letting the model click, scroll, and fill forms for you. Early testers report 30 % faster research flows; ad-tech stocks dipped on fears of skipped search-result pages. link
3. Nvidia stacks the enterprise RAG deck
28 Oct brought NeMo Retriever micro-services and pre-built NIM containers. Postgres vendor EDB, storage maker DDN, and Palantir all signed on, promising “sovereign-grade” chat-with-your-data kits that run on-prem or in classified clouds. link link link
4. Adobe MAX turns every creative seat into an AI studio
Firefly Image Model 5 (4 MP photoreal), Generate Soundtrack, and multi-track video hit Photoshop, Premiere, and Express on 28 Oct. Stock footage houses saw same-day price drops as agencies trialled five-second commercial clips generated from a prompt. link
5. Qualcomm joins the inference race
27 Oct saw the AI200 and AI250 accelerators—2026/27 delivery, 1200 TOPS at 250 W. An 11 % share-price pop followed, the clearest signal yet that buyers want an alternative to Nvidia for inside-the-firewall inference.
6. Optical chip clocks 12.5 GHz
Tsinghua University’s OFE2 processor, published 28 Oct, moves data with photons, cutting AI wattage by 90 % in lab tests. Foundries are pencilling 2028 risk runs for niche hyperscale buyers.
7. xAI adds video and a virtual companion
Grok Imagine on iOS now writes 1080p clips from text; “Mika”, an anime-style bot, landed the same week. Combined, they pushed Grok’s mobile downloads past 18 M in seven days.
8. PayPal becomes ChatGPT’s first wallet
A 30 Oct plug-in lets users click “Buy with PayPal” inside the chat window; merchants list goods through a new ChatGPT shopping index. Checkout friction drops, but so does price comparison—brands must now bid for placement inside the model. link
9. California’s new safety laws take shape
SB 53 and SB 243, signed earlier in October, mandate watermarking and pre-release audits for models above 10²⁶ FLOP. General counsel teams are rushing to classify internal clusters before the 1 Jan 2026 deadline. link link
