AI labs race through a week of model launches

Leading AI labs packed the last three days with product launches, model releases, and feature updates, signaling little summer slowdown in the competitive race. OpenAI led the week with GPT-Live, a voice model designed to make ChatGPT Voice feel more conversational, followed by the GPT-5.6 model family: Sol, Terra, and Luna. It also added Codex to the ChatGPT desktop app, introduced ChatGPT Work, and said it would sunset the Atlas browser.

Meta moved deeper into AI products under Alexandr Wang’s superintelligence unit. It launched Muse Image, which drew controversy after public Instagram accounts were opted in by default, then released Muse Spark 1.1, the first Muse model Meta has charged for. Mark Zuckerberg described the price as “very low” and criticized rival chatbot pricing as “very extreme.”

SpaceXAI and Anthropic also had major updates. Elon Musk said he was “clearly wrong about Anthropic” and called it the clear AI leader, while Anthropic has been paying SpaceX $1.25 billion a month for compute. SpaceXAI released Grok 4.5, described by Musk as an “Opus-class model,” and Anthropic introduced Reflect, a Claude feature that summarizes and analyzes user habits.