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OpenClaw released version 2026.8.1, branded as 2.0, marking its biggest update since launching last November. The overhaul began as a plan to simplify installation and rebuild the browser client but expanded into a full codebase rework, involving 933 contributors and over 16,000 merged pull requests.
The European Commission classified ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine and Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms after each surpassed 45 million average monthly EU users. This designation subjects all three to the Digital Services Act's toughest compliance requirements, joining 28 other services already under this heightened oversight.
OpenAI has published internal reference details describing an 'automations' capability within ChatGPT, meant to trigger actions when a user requests something to happen later, repeatedly, or upon a future condition. This includes reminders, recurring summaries, scheduled searches, and management of existing scheduled tasks.
The European Commission classified OpenAI's ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox as very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act after each surpassed 45 million monthly EU users. This status brings tougher requirements including removing illegal content and safeguarding minors' privacy and security, with a deadline of end of December to comply.
OpenAI announced its advertising unit, launched within ChatGPT in February, now generates $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate. The ads are now live in over 40 countries, with self-service access expanding Monday to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, primarily reaching free-tier and Go subscription users.
OpenAI confirmed a partial outage of ChatGPT Work beginning around 11:04 AM ET on Monday, August 31, causing elevated errors and latency for users on multiple subscription tiers. Plus subscribers appear hit hardest, with Work mode unavailable for some, leaving them unable to start or continue tasks. As of 12:02 PM ET, OpenAI said the issue was still unresolved and a fix was in progress.
A ZDNET contributor shares how they've been using ChatGPT Work, OpenAI's agentic AI tool, to handle five recurring small-business tasks, including sorting through PR email correspondence from OpenAI and other outlets. The writer describes connecting Gmail to the tool only temporarily for large tasks and disconnecting afterward as a security precaution, while noting prompts often need refinement to get useful results.
An international research team published a paper in AI & Society introducing the concept of 'robotoid humanness,' arguing that frequent interaction with AI chatbots in customer service settings could push people toward more machine-like patterns of speech and behavior. The researchers describe this as a two-way process where bots increasingly mimic human traits while humans adapt to communicate in ways that are more legible to machines. The framework outlines three stages of this shift but has not yet been tested empirically.
The European Commission has classified OpenAI's ChatGPT, along with Reddit and Roblox, as Very Large Online Platforms/Search Engines under the Digital Services Act, since each surpasses 45 million average monthly EU users. This designation subjects them to stricter obligations covering ad targeting, algorithmic transparency, and protections for minors. The three companies have until the end of December 2026 to comply.
Elon Musk launched Grok in November 2023 through his AI startup xAI as a sarcastic rival to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, initially limited to paying X subscribers. The tool has since spread to grok.com, dedicated iOS and Android apps and select Tesla vehicles, gaining reasoning models, voice chat, image and video generation, coding features and autonomous agents along the way. SpaceX absorbed xAI in February, and the newest version, Grok 4.6, arrived in August targeting coding and complex agent-based tasks.
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9th as a paid feature for $20+/month subscribers, and it actually comes in two forms: a cloud-based version accessible via chatgpt.com and mobile apps, and a local version built into the desktop app (formerly Codex) that can access files and run programs on a user's computer. The cloud version, described as the more interesting of the two, adds capabilities not found in standard ChatGPT Chat, including selection among multiple models and reasoning-effort levels.
A Washington Post review found that transcripts of conversations with ChatGPT and similar chatbots have been used as evidence in a dozen public court cases over the past two years, obtained through phone searches, subpoenas or discovery. In one lawsuit against Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube over alleged social media addiction, defense lawyers accessed the teenage plaintiff's ChatGPT history, including messages about a proposed settlement; the case was later settled or dropped without the transcripts affecting the outcome.