EP26W03 : Weekly AI News Recap: Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Meta & More

AI Brief · Jan 18, 2026 · 9m

🚀 This week’s AI roundup delivers the biggest headlines you can’t afford to miss:• Anthropic pulls the plug on xAI’s Claude access – a showdown in the coding‑assistant arena.• Google rolls out the Universal Commerce Protocol, letting AI agents shop for you across Shopify, Walmart, Target and more.• Apple teams up with Google’s Gemini to finally power a next‑gen Siri.• Anthropic launches Cowork, bringing Claude’s agentic power to everyday macOS tasks.• Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute reveals a widening global adoption gap, while Microsoft unveils a “good neighbor” data‑center pledge.• Meta…