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September: AI news sans hype

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Howdy wizards,

September was another unhinged month for AI. Here’s what’s worth knowing about.

TLDR; Sora 2 drops (with a TikTok-y app), the race in AI coding heats up with Claude Sonnet 4.5 and big improvements for OpenAI’s Codex, Google and OpenAI debut competing agent-payment protocols, and Nvidia commits $100B for OpenAI’s massive scale infrastructure buildout.

New models

• OpenAI just dropped Sora 2, along with a new Sora app (more on that later). As you’d expect, the model is more realistic and more controllable than its predecessor—some say a true Veo 3 contender, but limited to 720p. The roll-out happens gradually; if you are in the US or Canada and already had access to Sora, you can access the new model on Sora.com.

• Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.5, supposedly the best coding model in the world. Early reviewers say it’s faster, more steerable and reliable for long agentic tasks than their current flagship model Opus 4.1; with notably better computer use and vision capabilities. Is it better than GPT-5-Codex, though? I’ve seen mixed opinions, most saying Codex still holds the lead for the most complex tasks. I’m looking forward to testing it thoroughly in my work.

• OpenAI releases GPT‑5-Codex and other big improvements to their coding agent, Codex. This month, devs and vibe coders everywhere have been fleeing from Claude Code to Codex after it was updated (me included). The new Codex model is a version of GPT-5 optimised specifically for agentic coding, and is now way more autonomous, reliable and tackles hard problems where Claude Code just goes in circles. There’s also an extension for Codex in VS Code/Cursor now, so you can run it right in the sidebar and use your ChatGPT subscription to pay for it.

• Two competing protocols for agentic payments were launched this month (with very similar names to maximise confusion):

  • Google announced the Agent Payment Protocol (AP2), an open protocol to let AI agents pay for you. It’s a collaboration with 60+ industry players in payments and finance.

  • OpenAI launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol, including the ability to buy directly through ChatGPT. The “instant checkout” feature currently only supports Shopify and Etsy. However, the intention of the protocol—which is co-developed and powered by Stripe—is that other merchants will have a chance to join the party.

Industry moves

• Nvidia is pouring $100B into OpenAI. The deal includes OpenAI deploying 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters for their infrastructure with Nvidia systems. The scale of this is massive—about 8M US households’ worth of energy and millions of GPUs. OpenAI is effectively paying Nvidia in 71% cash and 29% in equity, according to analysts. The infrastructure of the future is being built on circular financing, apparently.

• Some of the new hires at Meta’s Superintelligence team have jumped ship. They apparently also don’t trust Scale AI’s data (which was already an existing sentiment before the acquisiton). Related context: Zuckerberg’s talent raid.

• OpenAI recently hired dozens of hardware people from Apple (experts in interface, wearable, audio and camera tech). OpenAI is building its own AI hardware device, rumoured to be launching next year, after acquiring the company of ex-Apple designer Jony Ive.

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Research

• OpenAI and Anthropic revealed how millions of people are using ChatGPT and Claude. One interesting difference is Claude has a proportionally higher share of coding use cases, while ChatGPT seems to be peoples’ top choice for writing (I personally use it the opposite way — Claude for writing and ChatGPT/Codex for coding).

• Google finds AI adoption is now at 90% among developers, based on a survey of 5,000 people. The average dev spends 2 hours daily working with AI assistants. Paradoxically, 80% report increased productivity gains while only 30% say they trust the AI’s outputs. (it might be spaghetti code, but if it works it works).

New tools & product features

• The new Sora app is (sighs) a TikTok-style feed with vertical scrolling that only has Sora-generated clips. You can create, remix and bring actual people into the scenes through cameos. The app is currently invite-only (while OpenAI tests the guardrails). If you want a front-row seat to humanity’s cognitive decline, you can sign up for the waitlist through the app.

• Paraspeech, one of the fastest dictation tools for Mac, just launched. It’s a real-time speech to text app that runs 100% offline and on-device. Voice typing with AI is my all-time favorite productivity hack, and this product is solid—fast, accurate, and works with every app. I reached out to the founder on X and got you an exclusive 25% off. Grab it now for $29.99 (lifetime license) using code HOWDYWIZARDS at checkout.

• Anthropic launched upgrades to the Claude app & Claude Code:

  • The Claude app for desktop and for mobile can now create spreadsheets, slides, and documents; this was already released to the web version last month but reddit was unimpressed by it.

  • A native VS code extension for Claude Code and a tool for context editing for the API.

• Meta launched three new smart glasses at Meta Connect, including one with a neural wristband that detects your muscle signals (intention to move) and allows you to control the system using subtle finger movements. The tech is pretty cool and all, but I think I’ll keep my wrists bare for a while longer.

• OpenAI launched ChatGPT Pulse, a daily personalised feed that searches for stuff at night and brings you curated updates based on your recent conversations and memories. It’s the first feature in ChatGPT that’s truly proactive, where the chatbot pings you first. It’s also expensive to run apparently and only available on ChatGPT Pro to start with.

• Notion is getting more agentic with their launch of Notion 3.0. You can now build multi-step workflows that can access all of Notion’s tools—in plain English.

What i’m actually using

• Codex CLI is this month’s big winner for me. It’s the first time I’ve poured $200/mo for a ChatGPT Pro subscription (and ditched my Claude Max plan, $100/mo). I did this so I can use the Codex CLI extension inside of Cursor to code on my projects—without getting rate limited all the time. My experience is that Codex is better than Claude Code on pretty much every level except speed. I can run multiple prompts simultaneously, though, so I don’t feel like the slow speed is a blocker to productivity. Only thing I’m missing with Codex versus Claude Code is easy MCP integration (struggled for an hour to set up the MCP for Supabase).

• Paraspeech saves me time every day now by turning my voice into writing in every app— be it Notes, Cursor, ChatGPT, Claude or even filling out boring forms. Much faster than typing and my workflow just flows better. I can even use it on the plane, because it’s offline. Don’t forget—you can get it right now at just $29.99 for a lifetime license (use the code HOWDYWIZARDS at checkout).

What’s on my radar

• I haven’t properly tested Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding yet, but for anyone using Claude Code it will be the new go-to model. If I sign-up for a Claude paid plan again I imagine using Claude Code’s new native VS code extension and delegate less complex tasks (especially design stuff) to it, while Codex handles the trickiest stuff. I had some overlap between my paid Claude and ChatGPT subscriptions this month, and this is exactly what I was doing—treating Claude as my junior developer.

• I currently don’t have an ecommerce business or a SaaS, but if I did, I’d be looking at being an early mover in embracing OpenAI/Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol. In the sea of mostly wishy washy AEO (“Answer Engine Optimisation”) advice, this might be the most tangible step so far that your business can take to show up in and monetize AI responses.

• Notion’s update with agents is interesting. I’m not a Notion user and don’t plan on becoming one, but the idea of an agent with full access to all my notes and docs is very alluring. Yes, I’m highly naive. It works beautifully for my codebase, so why not for my writing? Just need very good version control.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

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