What\u2019s new in AI tools
Automated weekly roundup of release notes and changelogs across every AI tool we track. Currently indexing 105 updates.
This week \u2014 2026-W18
AI Tools This Week: 42 updates across 7 products
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January Drop 2026
Introduced specialized AI agents for marketing, advanced code search and writing for engineers, and enhanced Assistant capabilities.
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February Drop 2026
Released 85+ new agent actions, conversational deployment analytics, and specialized engineering agents for workflow automation.
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ChatGPT app, Dynamic voice speed, A/B testing, and more
Introduced ChatGPT app for building voice agents, dynamic voice speed that adapts to caller pace, and A/B testing capabilities for splitting call traffic across multiple agents.
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Prompt Caching added
Prompt caching automatically reuses computation from recent requests when they share a common prefix, delivering 50% cost savings for cached portions and improved response times. The feature works automatically with no code changes required and data expires within hours for privacy.
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Moonshot AI Kimi K2 Instruct 0905 added
Kimi K2-0905 brings Moonshot AI's cutting-edge model to GroqCloud with day zero support, featuring a 256K context window and enhanced agentic coding capabilities. The model offers prompt caching with up to 50% cost savings and runs at 200+ tokens/second.
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Custom instructions for personalized chat responses
GitHub Copilot now supports custom instructions in VS Code and Visual Studio to personalize chat responses based on preferred tools, organizational knowledge, and coding best practices.
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Prompt files for consistent responses
Users can now save and reuse prompt files to get faster and more consistent responses from GitHub Copilot. This feature helps standardize interactions with the AI assistant.
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GitHub Copilot CLI - Agentic coding agent for terminal
GitHub Copilot CLI enables users to build, debug, and deploy code directly from the terminal with an AI coding agent. The tool includes GitHub MCP by default and supports extending with additional servers for enhanced context.
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Observability for any agent, anywhere: Production-ready tracing with OpenTelemetry & Unity Catalog on Databricks
Databricks launches production-ready AI tracing capabilities using OpenTelemetry and Unity Catalog for comprehensive agent observability. The solution addresses traditional observability challenges in AI applications moving to production.
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Accelerating LLM Inference with Prompt Caching for Open‑Source Models on Databricks
Databricks introduces prompt caching capabilities for open-source LLM inference to improve performance and reduce latency. The feature optimizes repeated inference operations by caching common prompt patterns.
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December Drop 2025
Added new quickstart agents designed to help sales and revenue teams accelerate their workflows from request to completion.
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January Drop 2026
Released specialized AI agents for marketing, advanced code search and writing for engineers, and enhanced Assistant capabilities.
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February Drop 2026
Introduced 85+ new agent actions, conversational deployment analytics, and specialized engineering agents for workflow automation.
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March Drop 2026
Launched remote MCP server to ground ChatGPT and Claude in company context, expanded Assistant and Agents with third-party MCP tools.
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April Drop 2026
Added slide and interactive HTML page generation capabilities, plus embedded MCP Apps in Glean Assistant for cross-tool actions.
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Transforming industries with conversational AI: Partner solutions built on Databricks Genie
Databricks showcases partner solutions leveraging Databricks Genie for conversational AI across various industries. The announcement highlights ecosystem expansion and industry-specific AI applications.
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ChatGPT app, Dynamic voice speed, A/B testing, and more
Launched ChatGPT app for building voice agents, dynamic voice speed that adapts to caller pace, and A/B testing for splitting call traffic across multiple agents.
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Prompt Caching
Automatic prompt caching feature that reuses computation from recent requests with common prefixes, delivering 50% cost savings on cached tokens and improved response times. Initially available for Kimi K2 model.
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Groq Compound and Compound Mini
Production-ready agentic AI systems moved from beta to general availability, integrating web search, code execution, and browser automation in a single API call. Built on GPT-OSS-120B and Llama models.
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Moonshot AI Kimi K2 Instruct 0905
New model release with 256K context window, prompt caching support, and enhanced agentic coding capabilities. Offers 200+ t/s performance at $1.50/M tokens blended pricing.
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Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Beta release of Remote MCP server integration on GroqCloud, enabling AI models to connect to thousands of external tools through Anthropic's open MCP standard. Fully compatible with OpenAI APIs for seamless migration.
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Introducing Forge
Forge is a new system that allows enterprises to build frontier-grade AI models grounded in their proprietary knowledge.
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Speaking of Voxtral
Voxtral TTS is a new open-weights text-to-speech model that produces fast, adaptable, and lifelike speech for voice agents.
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Connect the dots: Build with built-in and custom MCPs in Studio
New connectors in Studio allow enterprises to connect data to AI applications with reusable connectors, tool calling, and approval controls.
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Remote agents in Vibe. Powered by Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral AI introduced Mistral Medium 3.5 model with remote coding agents in Vibe and a new Work mode in Le Chat for complex tasks.
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Announcing the Databricks analytics engineer learning pathway
Databricks launched a new Analytics Engineer Learning Pathway to provide structured training for analytics engineers.
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Expanded interoperability with Unity Catalog Open APIs
Unity Catalog introduces expanded Open APIs to improve interoperability across different data platforms and tools.
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AI QA Analyst, Custom Alert Notifications, Node Search, and everything else from this month
Introduced AI QA Analyst for automatic call review and feedback, custom alerting system for monitoring agent performance, and conversation flow node search functionality.
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Agent Guardrails, Webhook Testing, Auto-Failover, Billing Transparency & more
Added safety guardrails to block harmful content and jailbreaks, webhook testing tools, global node return paths, and billing transparency improvements with separate TTS line items.
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ChatGPT app, Dynamic voice speed, A/B testing, and more
Retell AI launched a ChatGPT app for building voice agents, dynamic voice speed that adapts to caller pace, and A/B testing capabilities for splitting call traffic across multiple agents.
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Groq Compound and Compound Mini added
Compound and Compound Mini are Groq's production-ready agentic AI systems that integrate web search, code execution, and browser automation into a single API call. Moving from beta to general availability, these systems deliver ~25% higher accuracy and ~50% fewer mistakes across benchmarks.
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Moonshot AI Kimi K2 Instruct 0905 added
Kimi K2-0905 brings Moonshot AI's cutting-edge model to GroqCloud with enhanced agentic coding capabilities and a 256K context window. The model delivers improved frontend development performance and includes prompt caching for up to 50% cost savings.
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Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) added
Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server integration is now available in Beta on GroqCloud, connecting AI models to thousands of external tools through Anthropic's open MCP standard. Developers can connect any remote MCP server to models hosted on GroqCloud with zero code changes from OpenAI.
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EvenUp Introduces a New Era of PI Operations with Pre-Litigation as a Service (PLAAS)
EvenUp launches Pre-Litigation as a Service (PLAAS), combining purpose-built AI with expert case managers to help personal injury firms scale quality outcomes.
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3.5: Notion Developer Platform
Notion launched a comprehensive developer platform allowing teams to sync any data source, build custom agent tools, and orchestrate external agents like Claude and Codex. The platform includes Workers for hosted code execution, a CLI for developers, and APIs for database sync and webhook triggers.
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3.5: Notion Developer Platform
Notion launched a comprehensive developer platform allowing users to sync any data source, build custom agent tools, and orchestrate external agents like Claude and Codex. The platform includes Workers for custom code execution, CLI tools, and APIs for extending Notion without managing infrastructure.
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EvenUp Introduces a New Era of PI Operations with Pre-Litigation as a Service (PLAAS)
EvenUp launches Pre-Litigation as a Service (PLAAS), combining purpose-built AI with expert case managers to help firms scale quality outcomes.
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Helix-02 Bedroom Tidy
Figure AI demonstrated Helix-02's ability to perform bedroom cleaning and organization tasks autonomously.
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Helix-02 Bedroom Tidy
Figure AI's Helix-02 robot demonstrates autonomous bedroom cleaning and organization capabilities.
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MCP Marketplace brings real-time intelligence to agentic applications
Databricks launched MCP Marketplace to provide real-time intelligence capabilities for agentic AI applications. The marketplace enables AI systems to access business context and reasoning capabilities.
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How Superhuman and Databricks built a 200K QPS inference platform together
Superhuman partnered with Databricks to build a high-performance inference platform capable of handling 200,000 queries per second. The collaboration demonstrates real-time AI inference capabilities at scale.
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Plan Mode
Introduced Plan Mode for Custom Agents, which adds a preliminary step where agents ask clarifying questions and build detailed plans before executing complex multi-step tasks. This reduces errors and increases confidence in agent outputs.
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Plan Mode
Introduced Plan Mode where agents ask clarifying questions and build detailed plans before executing complex multi-step tasks. This feature reduces surprises and increases confidence when agents make significant changes to pages or databases.
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New Custom Agent Directory
Added a dedicated Custom Agent Directory in the Library where users can browse all workspace agents, pin favorites, and create new ones. The directory provides centralized access to automate team workflows.
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ChatGPT app, Dynamic voice speed, A/B testing, and more
Retell AI launched a ChatGPT app for building voice agents, dynamic voice speed matching caller pace, and A/B testing for splitting call traffic across multiple agents.
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Groq Compound and Compound Mini
Compound and Compound Mini are Groq's production-ready agentic AI systems that integrate web search, code execution, and browser automation into a single API call. Moving from beta to general availability, these systems deliver ~25% higher accuracy and ~50% fewer mistakes across benchmarks.
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Moonshot AI Kimi K2 Instruct 0905
Kimi K2-0905 brings Moonshot AI's cutting-edge model to GroqCloud with day zero support, featuring a 256K context window and enhanced agentic coding capabilities. The model offers prompt caching with up to 50% cost savings and runs at 200+ t/s at $1.50/M tokens blended pricing.
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Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server integration is now available in Beta on GroqCloud, connecting AI models to thousands of external tools through Anthropic's open MCP standard. Developers can connect any remote MCP server to models hosted on GroqCloud with zero code changes from OpenAI.
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New Custom Agent controls for admins
Added comprehensive admin controls for Custom Agents including permission management, per-agent credit limits, workspace-level spending controls, and usage tracking dashboards. Includes automatic guardrails to prevent unexpected spending.
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New Custom Agent controls for admins
Released admin controls for Custom Agents including permission management, per-agent credit limits, workspace-level spending controls, and usage tracking dashboards. Includes automatic guardrails to prevent unexpected spending.