Happy Monday. The AI world doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. I spent this week keeping up with the latest releases and updates so you don't have to. Here are the three things I found most interesting.
Claude Fable 5 will stay included with paid Claude plans until July 19.
Anthropic has extended Fable 5 access by another week for paid users. The offer was previously set to end on July 12 but now runs through July 19. Eligible users can continue using Fable 5 within their plan limits at no extra cost.
My take: At this point, this feels like a bit of a marketing stunt. Every extension gets millions of views, and while I'm not hating, I do think they're milking it a little too much lol.
xAI has launched Grok 4.5, its latest flagship AI model.
xAI says Grok 4.5 performs at a similar level to Anthropic's Opus models while costing less to run. The model is priced at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, making it one of the cheaper frontier models currently available. Designed for coding, research, and other complex tasks, Musk claims it is roughly on par with Opus while running significantly faster.
My take: Grok 4.5 is pretty close to Opus 4.8 functionality-wise, but you can still feel the quality difference between them, especially when it comes to design tasks. That being said, Grok 4.5 is still an incredible model for the price and performance. Big W overall though.
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Work, a new AI agent for workplace tasks.
Powered by GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work can connect to tools like Slack, Teams, email, calendars, and cloud storage to create documents, reports, and presentations. The product reflects OpenAI's growing focus on AI agents that can take actions across multiple tools instead of simply responding to prompts.
My take: I personally don't have much use for this and don't really see the value for myself. That said, I can imagine this being a pretty useful update for business owners or people who spend most of their day working inside these tools.
Those were the biggest AI updates on my radar this week.
On My Mind
I've had a ton of brand deals recently, which is obviously a great blessing and something I'm very grateful for. But some of them have also put me under a lot of stress.
For the first time ever, I reached a point where taking on more work became detrimental to my health. I knew something was off when recording clips became harder, I started editing videos from my bed instead of my desk, and I was skipping meals just to finish projects on time.
This is just my own example, but it applies to any field. Don't overwork yourself, even if the opportunity, experience, or money is great. Your health should always be the priority.
No amount of money is worth damaging yourself for.
What I Watched This Week
It's a refreshing video that explores software vs. marketing and where the real moat exists today. I think this is an insanely relevant topic to be discussing right now, especially with AI making it easier than ever to build products.
Have a great week,
Volkan