What changed in AI, and what's coming

What changed in AI and what is coming up, for people who run a small business: the daily brief Monday to Saturday, The Week Ahead on Sunday evening, plain-English articles and every dated change and deadline in one list.

The daily brief

Anthropic Is Teaching AI to Haggle; 186 Deals So Far. Anthropic is asking law firms how AI agents should bargain for the people they work for, and Motive's new fleet agents can open work orders and alert drivers on their own before a truck breaks down.

Coming up

• October 26, 2026: Colorado holds a hearing on its draft AI decision and chatbot rules. Who: Businesses preparing for Colorado's Jan 1, 2027 AI laws.
• November 1, 2026: AI Builder credits end; Power Automate AI steps move to Copilot Credits. Who: Businesses with Power Automate or Power Apps flows that read invoices, forms or documents with AI Builder.
• November 30, 2026: OpenAI shuts down Agent Builder and reusable prompts. Who: Businesses or IT partners that built agents in OpenAI's Agent Builder or store prompts on OpenAI's platform.
• December 1, 2026: New Copilot Business licenses from partners come with pay-as-you-go turned on. Who: Businesses that buy Copilot Business, or Business Standard or Premium with Copilot, through an IT partner.
• December 31, 2026: Copilot Business $18 promo and the Business Basic bundle promo end. Who: Businesses on Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium weighing Copilot.
• January 1, 2027: Colorado's automated decision law (SB 26-189) takes effect. Who: Businesses doing business in Colorado that let AI influence hiring, lending, housing, insurance or similar decisions.

Latest articles

• Claude Can Build Your Office a Mini App. Here Is What It's Good For, and Where It Stops.: Describe a checklist or a calculator in plain English and Claude builds a small working tool your team can click through. No code. Here is how to pick the first one, and the limits to know before anyone relies on it.
• Big Banks Are Keeping AI Agents Out of Your Account. Here Is the Safe Way to Use AI on Your Bills.: JPMorgan, Bank of America, Schwab and Citi have all drawn the same line in the past week: an AI can look, but a person moves the money.
• Meta Can Crawl Your Website Starting October 30. Decide What It Should See.: Meta's new business terms cover any business that uses Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. Here is what changed, what Meta walked back, and the hour of work worth doing first.
• AI Interviewers Are on Sale. Read This Before One Screens Your Next Hire.: Tools that rank resumes and hold the first interview are reaching small hiring teams. The law treats their choices as yours, so set the rules first.
• ChatGPT Signed a Real Artist's Name. Check Your AI Pictures Before You Post Them.: AI image tools can slip a real person's signature, a logo or a look-alike into a flyer. A two-minute check before anything goes out keeps that off your storefront.
• Running the Office on Microsoft 365 Family? Read This Before Your Renewal.: Microsoft is turning six separate terabytes into one shared 2TB pool and starting to share Copilot across the plan. For a small office on a home plan, it's a good moment to decide where the business lives.
• Claude's New Rules Start November 12. Here Is the Part That Touches Your Business.: Anthropic rewrote its usage policy. Most of it is about weapons and elections, but a short list covers everyday work like hiring, rentals, taxes and patient triage.
• That "Download Claude" Ad May Not Be Claude. Here Is How Your Office Should Install AI Apps.: Attackers are buying search ads for AI apps and leading people to perfect copies of the real download page. One short house rule stops most of it.