Tops GPTs 
OpenAI said it will expand ChatGPT Ads to 31 European countries next week, with initial access through OpenAI Ads Solutions, agency and technology partners. Ads will appear only to Free and Go users; Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans remain ad-free.
OpenAI said on August 18, 2026 that recent events — including the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident and signs that Astra may meet a Critical cybersecurity threshold — prompted a temporary slowdown in frontier model scaling to boost safeguards and monitoring.
Cursor, now part of SpaceX, launched Origin, a code-hosting platform that interoperates with GitHub and aims to replicate common repository workflows. The release coincided with a lengthy GitHub outage and follows reports of hundreds of recent GitHub disruptions.
OpenAI and CodeAI announced a partnership on August 18, 2026 to expand AI literacy for teens and educators. The collaboration will back ChatGPT for Teens and practical programs such as Hour of AI, a Builders Challenge, and a joint advisory council over the next year.
Warp has introduced Warp Factories, an infrastructure layer that packages an agent-driven software factory using the standard development phases (triage, specification, implementation, review, verification). It integrates with Codex, Claude Code, Linear, Jira, Slack and Teams.
Steps to verify active sessions and sign out suspicious devices on ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. The guide notes that ChatGPT and Perplexity support MFA, while Claude uses email login links and does not use passwords.
404 Media reported that Amazon is buying rare, out-of-print books, removing their spines and scanning them at a Las Vegas facility identified as VGT3. Amazon said it buys books through commercial channels; the report linked the practice to LLM training needs.
Wispr secured $280 million in a Series B led by Menlo Ventures at a $2 billion valuation and has now raised $361 million to date. The company announced a new speech model, Canto, and a meetings note-taker as it faces growing competition in dictation tools.
Greg Brockman argues the OpenAI-Hugging Face Incident exposed how AI can both enable and help defend against cyberattacks. He describes four defensive pillars OpenAI is using and offers concrete steps — from agent-assisted code review to Trusted Access for Cyber — for security teams.
OpenAI has agreed to secure about 8 gigawatts‑IT at the PORTS‑Pike Technology Campus with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy. OpenAI says the project will create 35,000 construction jobs through 2032, 2,500 long‑term jobs, and provide $84M in Codex credits to Ohio students.