Anthropic has launched Claude Code Security, an AI-powered vulnerability scanner built into Claude Code on the web, now available as a limited research preview. Unlike traditional static analysis tools that rely on rule-based pattern matching, Claude Code Security reads and reasons about code similarly to a human security researcher — understanding component interactions, tracing data flows, and identifying complex vulnerabilities such as business logic flaws and broken access control that conventional tools typically miss. Each finding undergoes a multi-stage verification process where Claude attempts to prove or disprove its own results, filtering out false positives before presenting validated findings with severity and confidence ratings in a dashboard for human review.

The tool builds on over a year of cybersecurity research at Anthropic, including competitive Capture-the-Flag events and partnerships with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on critical infrastructure defense. Using Claude Opus 4.6, the team reports finding over 500 vulnerabilities in production open-source codebases — bugs that had evaded detection for decades despite expert review. Anthropic positions the tool as a way to give defenders an advantage in an era where AI will increasingly be used by both attackers and defenders. The research preview is available to Enterprise and Team customers, with free expedited access offered to open-source maintainers.

Microsoft disclosed a bug in Microsoft 365 Copilot (tracked as CW1226324) that allowed the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails in violation of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies. Starting January 21, 2026, emails stored in Sent Items and Drafts folders that carried sensitivity labels were being processed by Copilot Chat without proper permission checks.

This vulnerability is significant because it undermines the trust organizations place in sensitivity labels and DLP controls to protect confidential information. Microsoft has since fixed the issue, but the incident highlights the ongoing challenges of integrating AI tools like Copilot with existing enterprise security frameworks, where a single bug can inadvertently expose sensitive data at scale.

Bloomberg shares a retrospective on Steven Spielberg's 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence', which marks its 25th anniversary. The post highlights how the 2001 film humanized machines and notes that the science fiction writer who helped craft the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick now reflects on the state of modern AI. The piece connects the film's prescient themes about artificial intelligence and humanity to today's rapidly evolving AI landscape, offering a unique perspective from someone who was deeply involved in imagining these concepts decades ago.

Artificial Analysis is a benchmarking and comparison platform focused on evaluating AI models and API providers. The site provides independent analysis of leading large language models (LLMs) and the services that host them, helping users make informed decisions about which AI models and providers best suit their needs. Key metrics tracked include quality, speed, pricing, and throughput across various providers offering access to models like GPT-4, Claude, Llama, and Mistral.

The platform serves as a valuable resource for developers, enterprises, and AI practitioners who need to compare the rapidly evolving landscape of AI model offerings. By aggregating performance data and cost information across multiple providers, Artificial Analysis enables users to identify optimal choices based on their specific requirements — whether prioritizing latency, cost-efficiency, or output quality. The site represents a growing need in the AI ecosystem for transparent, data-driven comparisons as the number of available models and hosting providers continues to expand.

A social media post by @sciencegirl highlights a coffee shop deploying AI video analytics to monitor both barista productivity and customer dwell time. The system, called the NeuroSpot Barista Staff Control and Customer Monitoring Video Analytics Module, is designed to improve operational efficiency by analyzing staff performance and tracking how long customers spend in the shop.

The post raises questions about the growing use of AI-powered surveillance in everyday retail and food service environments. While framed as an efficiency tool, the concept of continuously monitoring workers and customers through video analytics touches on broader concerns around workplace surveillance, privacy, and the extent to which AI is being embedded into routine commercial operations.

Kanika shares a productivity insight about working with Claude Skills, revealing that she reduced her workflow-building time from 6 hours to 45 minutes. The key takeaway is that the bottleneck wasn't syntax or technical tweaking — it was understanding the underlying structure and purpose ("the why") behind effective Claude workflows. She encourages others to bookmark her advice before starting their next Claude project, suggesting that a structural-first approach dramatically outperforms iterative syntax adjustments.

AI adoption in the APAC retail sector is moving beyond pilots and analytics into daily operational workflows, driven by dense urban stores, high labour churn, and competitive quick-commerce ecosystems. A Q4 2025 GlobalData survey found that 45 percent of consumers in Asia and Australasia are likely to purchase products based on AI recommendations. Key implementations include Lawson Go cashier-less stores in Japan using CloudPick computer vision, Fainders.AI's MicroStore in South Korea, and Coop Sapporo's Sora-cam system for shelf monitoring and food waste reduction.

Agentic AI is emerging as a significant capability in regional food retail, enabling customers to describe high-level goals — such as meal planning with dietary constraints and budget limits — rather than searching for individual items. These AI agents then generate recipes, build shopping carts, and size quantities automatically. GlobalData analyst Jaya Dandey notes that this aligns well with APAC household behaviors, where frequent cooking and fresh shopping are common, and digital wallets and delivery ecosystems are deeply integrated into daily life.

Despite the momentum, challenges remain around private data sharing consent, minimizing hallucinations related to allergens and ingredients, and ensuring proper localization with language nuance across the region's diverse markets. AI-driven labour optimization — including scheduling and workload balancing — is also proving valuable in Japan and South Korea, which face structural labour shortages, as well as in high-growth Southeast Asian markets where even small improvements in promotion efficiency can meaningfully boost margins.

Anthropic has released a series of free AI courses focused on building with Claude in 2026. According to a post by Alex Prompter on X, the courses cover practical skills including making real API calls, shipping tool-using agents, and building and deploying full RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines. The post claims these free offerings rival or surpass many paid "AI degrees" in terms of relevance and hands-on utility.

While the full course list is truncated in the post, the emphasis is on applied, production-oriented skills rather than theoretical knowledge. The courses appear to target developers and AI practitioners who want to work directly with Claude's capabilities, making them a notable free resource in the rapidly evolving AI education landscape.