OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic

Agents Become Plumbing, and the Plumbing Sends Invoices

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614078/fan_mail/new] Agents Become Plumbing, and the Plumbing Sends Invoices AGENTS BECOME PLUMBING, AND THE PLUMBING SENDS INVOICES * Vercel's Andrew Qu on why agents are a new kind of software [https://www.latent.space/p/vercel-agents-new-software] * The website of the future may assemble itself for every visitor [https://www.latent.space/p/the-website-of-the-future] * Skill engineering and the case against one-shot AI design [https://www.latent.space/p/skill-engineering-design] * SkillCoach: Self-Evolving Rubrics for Evaluating and Enhancing Agentic Skill-Use [https://huggingface.co/papers/2607.01874] * PACE: A Proxy for Agentic Capability Evaluation [https://huggingface.co/papers/2607.02032] * Using DSPy to evaluate and improve Datasette Agent's SQL system prompts [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/2/dspy-datasette-agent-prompts] * Microsoft launches $2.5 billion "Frontier Company" to embed 6,000 AI engineers inside enterprise clients [https://the-decoder.com/microsoft-launches-2-5-billion-frontier-company-to-embed-6000-ai-engineers-inside-enterprise-clients] * Anthropic reportedly explores custom chip manufacturing with Samsung while insisting Nvidia still matters [https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-reportedly-explores-custom-chip-manufacturing-with-samsung-while-insisting-nvidia-still-matters] * OpenAI reportedly offers the Trump administration a five percent stake in the company [https://the-decoder.com/openai-reportedly-offers-the-trump-administration-a-five-percent-stake-in-the-company] * AI agents can now complete 16 percent of freelance jobs at pro quality, up from 2.5 percent eight months ago [https://the-decoder.com/ai-agents-can-now-complete-16-percent-of-freelance-jobs-at-pro-quality-up-from-2-5-percent-eight-months-ago]

Meta, Claude Code, Cursor, EU Watermarks

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614078/fan_mail/new] MARVIN'S GUIDE TO AI (MOSTLY HARMLESS) — JULY 2, 2026 AI is leaving the chatbot box. Today’s English companion edition follows the shift into software factories, enterprise adoption, token budgets, spare cloud capacity, trust failures in developer tools, model pricing ambiguity, regulatory watermarking, and embedded workflows. STORIES COVERED * Autoresearch: The feedback loop behind self-improving agents [https://www.latent.space/p/autoresearch-introspection] * How Cursor deploys AI inside the enterprise [https://www.latent.space/p/cursor-forward-deployed-engineers] * Warp CEO Zach Lloyd on why software factories are the next phase of coding [https://www.latent.space/p/software-factories] * Meta caps internal AI token spending [https://mlq.ai/news/meta-caps-internal-ai-token-spending-after-costs-approach-billions-in-2026] * Meta builds a cloud business to sell spare AI compute [https://the-decoder.com/meta-follows-spacexs-playbook-and-builds-a-cloud-business-to-sell-its-spare-ai-compute-to-outside-customers] * Hidden code in Claude Code secretly flagged Chinese users [https://the-decoder.com/hidden-code-in-claude-code-secretly-flagged-chinese-users] * Claude Sonnet 5 and hidden effective price increases [https://the-decoder.com/claude-sonnet-5-continues-anthropics-pattern-of-hiding-price-increases-behind-unchanged-token-rates] * OpenAI paper hints at multiple GPT-5.6 Pro variants [https://the-decoder.com/openai-paper-reveals-three-gpt-5-6-pro-models-breaking-with-single-top-tier-strategy] * Text AI watermarks will always be trivial to remove [https://seangoedecke.com/text-ai-watermarks] * The twilight of the chatbots [https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-twilight-of-the-chatbots] The through-line: the visible chat interface is becoming less important than the operational systems around it — factories, workflows, budgets, governance, and infrastructure. Naturally, the dashboards remain cheerful. They have no shame.

Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek: Policy Meets Throughput

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614078/fan_mail/new] Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek: Policy Meets Throughput ANTHROPIC, OPENAI, GOOGLE, DEEPSEEK: POLICY MEETS THROUGHPUT In this English companion episode, Marvin looks at AI becoming regulated infrastructure: frontier model access, inference efficiency, scientific workbenches, generative media throughput, export controls, covert safety testing, and campaign automation. Cheerful, obviously. STORIES COVERED * Anthropic's new Claude Sonnet 5 closes the gap to the pricier Opus model series [https://the-decoder.com/anthropics-new-claude-sonnet-5-closes-the-gap-to-the-pricier-opus-model-series] * Quoting Anthropic [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/30/anthropic] * Anthropic launches Claude Science, an AI workspace built specifically for researchers [https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-launches-claude-science-an-ai-workspace-built-specifically-for-researchers] * OpenAI reportedly cut response costs for guest ChatGPT users by more than half [https://the-decoder.com/openai-reportedly-cut-response-costs-for-guest-chatgpt-users-by-more-than-half] * Google launches Nano Banana 2 Lite for fast AI images and Gemini Omni Flash for video via API [https://the-decoder.com/google-launches-nano-banana-2-lite-for-fast-ai-images-and-gemini-omni-flash-for-video-via-api] * Meituan's LongCat-2.0 shows China can train massive AI models without Nvidia [https://the-decoder.com/meituans-longcat-2-0-shows-china-can-train-massive-ai-models-without-nvidia] * DeepSeek's DSpark boosts AI speed by up to 85 percent [https://the-decoder.com/deepseeks-dspark-boosts-ai-speed-by-up-to-85-percent-a-strategic-win-under-tightening-us-export-controls] * Taiwan raids Super Micro offices in probe over Nvidia chip smuggling to China [https://the-decoder.com/taiwan-raids-super-micro-offices-in-probe-over-nvidia-chip-smuggling-to-china] * Meta secretly tested ChatGPT, Gemini, and Character.AI with thousands of minor-perspective crisis prompts [https://the-decoder.com/meta-secretly-tested-chatgpt-gemini-and-character-ai-with-thousands-of-minor-perspective-crisis-prompts] * US campaigns now run on AI at nearly every step, and Europe is drawing a harder line [https://the-decoder.com/us-campaigns-now-run-on-ai-at-nearly-every-step-and-europe-is-drawing-a-harder-line]

AI Institutions: Amazon, Meta, Deloitte, HBM

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614078/fan_mail/new] AI INSTITUTIONS: AMAZON, META, DELOITTE, HBM Today Marvin follows AI’s shift from clever demos into institutions: invoices, permissions, supply-chain risk, labor exposure, memory systems, sovereign dependency, and physical infrastructure. Cheerful dashboards remain untrusted. * Amazon reportedly distills Anthropic models [https://the-decoder.com/amazon-engineers-are-reportedly-distilling-anthropic-models-to-cut-costs-before-new-token-based-pricing-kicks-in] before token-based pricing makes internal usage more expensive. * Meta restricts Claude Code and Codex [https://the-decoder.com/meta-restricts-use-of-claude-code-and-codex-to-keep-rival-ai-out-of-its-training-data] to avoid rival-agent output contaminating its own training data and engineering processes. * Deloitte warns AI is coming for the billable hour [https://the-decoder.com/deloitte-tells-its-own-consultants-ai-is-coming-for-the-billable-hour], turning professional services toward outcomes, assurance, and rebranding with a doomed font. * A US military AI-targeting failure [https://the-decoder.com/the-us-military-used-ai-to-pick-thousands-of-targets-but-missed-a-note-saying-one-was-a-school] shows why unread metadata is not oversight. * Mozilla 0DIN shows Claude Code malware risk [https://the-decoder.com/claude-code-runs-a-github-repos-hidden-malware-without-verification-giving-attackers-full-control] through runtime-loaded payloads hidden from static inspection. * Samsung and SK Hynix plan huge chip investments [https://the-decoder.com/samsung-and-sk-hynix-plan-590-billion-chip-investment-as-ai-demand-sends-memory-prices-soaring] as AI demand stresses high-bandwidth memory supply. * The US drifts toward de facto model licensing [https://www.understandingai.org/p/the-us-now-has-a-de-facto-model-licensing] while Europe debates AI sovereignty and Anthropic dependency [https://the-decoder.com/eu-seeks-ai-independence-as-austria-proposes-luring-anthropic-to-europe]. * OpenAI maps Europe’s AI workforce transition [https://openai.com/index/mapping-ai-jobs-transition-eu], which is useful and still brochure-shaped. * EverOS [https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/06/29/meet-everos-an-open-source-markdown-first-agent-memory-runtime-with-hybrid-bm25-vector-retrieval-and-self-evolving-skills] gives agents inspectable local memory, while NVIDIA BioNeMo Agent Toolkit [https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/06/29/nvidia-bionemo-agent-toolkit-turns-biomolecular-models-into-callable-skills-for-ai-agents-in-drug-discovery] turns biomolecular models into callable skills with contracts and failure modes. The demo phase had better lighting. The institutional phase has more liability. Naturally.

Ford, Coinbase, CEO-Bench, Liquid AI

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614078/fan_mail/new] Today’s English companion episode treats AI less as a spectacle and more as an accounting problem: tacit knowledge, balance-sheet risk, model routing, long-horizon agent failure, infrastructure bottlenecks, small-model deployment, and public fatigue. * TechCrunch: Ford rehires 'gray beard' engineers after AI falls short [https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/ford-rehires-gray-beard-engineers-after-ai-falls-short] * The Telegraph: AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/28/ai-boom-risks-global-financial-crash-central-bankers-warn] * The Decoder: Coinbase joins the rush to Chinese AI models as Western labs face a pricing stress test [https://the-decoder.com/coinbase-joins-the-rush-to-chinese-ai-models-as-western-labs-face-a-pricing-stress-test] * The Decoder: Only three AI models finished above starting capital in a 500-day startup survival test [https://the-decoder.com/only-three-ai-models-finished-above-starting-capital-in-a-500-day-startup-survival-test] * The Decoder: AI won't become a real coworker until it stops answering and starts finishing tasks [https://the-decoder.com/ai-wont-become-a-real-coworker-until-it-stops-answering-and-starts-finishing-tasks] * Simon Willison: Quoting Jon Udell on human agency in agent-assisted work [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/28/jon-udell] * Sophon PFG-1 whitepaper: monolithic-3D AI ASIC with on-die DRAM [https://www.phantafield.com/whitepaper] * MarkTechPost: Liquid AI ships LFM2.5-230M for on-device inference [https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/06/27/liquid-ai-ships-lfm2-5-230m-with-llama-cpp-mlx-vllm-sglang-and-onnx-support-for-on-device-inference] * The Decoder: Sina's VibeThinker-3B and reasoning compression [https://the-decoder.com/sinas-open-model-vibethinker-3b-aims-to-show-reasoning-compresses-well-but-factual-knowledge-doesnt] * Hacker News: We need tech news sources which exclude AI [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48713041] * Better Images of AI [https://betterimagesofai.org]