News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Jugsalai Civic Body Plans Nayabazar Haat Takeover to End Traffic Chaos | The Avenue Mail
Jamshedpur: In a major administrative step to tackle chronic traffic congestion, the Jugsalai Municipal Council has decided to acquire the Nayabazar Haat and bring it under its direct control. The move is aimed at easing daily traffic snarls on key roads in the area and ensuring better urban management. Persistent Traffic Issues Prompt Action For years, residents and commuters in Jugsalai have struggled with severe congestion on Dharmshala Road, Bata Chowk and Mahto Pada Road. The situation is largely attributed to roadside vendors occupying significant portions of the narrow roads, leading to frequent traffic jams and delays. Officials said the proposed acquisition is part of a long-term strategy to decongest these busy stretches and improve traffic flow. Relocation of Vendors Planned As part of the initiative, around 70 vegetable vendors currently operating on the main roads will be relocated to the Nayabazar Haat premises. The relocation is expected to clear encroachments from the roads and create more space for smooth vehicular movement. Authorities believe that shifting vendors to a designated market area will also help in better regulation and organization of business activities. Legal Framework and Administrative Shift The Municipal Council is invoking a 2013 order issued by the Jharkhand Urban Development Department to facilitate the takeover. Currently, the Nayabazar Haat is managed by the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (Krishi Utpadan Bazar Samiti), which earns an annual revenue of around ₹1.5 lakh. With the proposed acquisition, the management and operational control of the market will be transferred to the Municipal Council, allowing it to implement structured systems for maintenance and regulation. Learning from Past Challenges Previous attempts to remove vendors and clear the roads had faced strong resistance, including protests and disruptions. However, recent meetings involving elected representatives, the Executive Officer and the Deputy Superintendent of Police have paved the way for a more coordinated and firm approach this time. Officials indicated that lessons from past failures will guide the implementation of the new plan. Focus on Better Urban Management By bringing the market under its jurisdiction, the Municipal Council aims to streamline sanitation services, regulate vending zones and ensure that major roads remain free from encroachment. Authorities also expect improved cleanliness and better civic amenities within the market area.
Inferno triggers chaos, traffic jams | Lucknow News
Lucknow: Chaos gripped various parts of the city on Wednesday eveningLucknow: Chaos gripped Vikas Nagar and adjoining areas on Wednesday evening as commuters and residents rushed towards the site of the fire incident, leading to severe traffic congestion. Police were forced to freeze traffic movement along Ring Road, with jams beginning from Polytechnic crossing onwards."We could see the smoke from far away, and people just started heading towards it. Within minutes, the entire road was choked," said Rohit Srivastava, a commuter caught in the jam near Polytechnic. Another motorist, Neha Singh, said, "Fire engines were passing through Kukrail bridge, bringing traffic to a halt."To manage the situation, police set up barricades nearly two kilometres ahead of the incident site, restricting entry towards Bandha Road in Vikas Nagar. Traffic was also diverted at Tedhi Pulia, with vehicles barred from moving towards Ring Road and Khurram Nagar. These diversions, however, shifted the pressure onto alternate routes, triggering heavy congestion across Kursi Road, Madiaon and adjoining areas.A senior police officer said, "Our priority was to create a clear corridor for emergency vehicles and prevent crowding near the site. However, the sudden influx of onlookers made traffic management extremely challenging."A huge crowd gathered on the flyover connecting Munshipulia and Tedhipulia, watching the flames rise high. "It was terrifying but impossible to look away. The fire kept growing, and we could hear blasts," a local resident said.
Inferno triggers chaos, traffic jams
Lucknow: Chaos gripped various parts of the city on Wednesday eveningLucknow: Chaos gripped Vikas Nagar and adjoining areas on Wednesday evening as commuters and residents rushed towards the site of the fire incident, leading to severe traffic congestion. Police were forced to freeze traffic movement along Ring Road, with jams beginning from Polytechnic crossing onwards."We could see the smoke from far away, and people just started heading towards it. Within minutes, the entire road was choked," said Rohit Srivastava, a commuter caught in the jam near Polytechnic. Another motorist, Neha Singh, said, "Fire engines were passing through Kukrail bridge, bringing traffic to a halt."To manage the situation, police set up barricades nearly two kilometres ahead of the incident site, restricting entry towards Bandha Road in Vikas Nagar. Traffic was also diverted at Tedhi Pulia, with vehicles barred from moving towards Ring Road and Khurram Nagar. These diversions, however, shifted the pressure onto alternate routes, triggering heavy congestion across Kursi Road, Madiaon and adjoining areas.A senior police officer said, "Our priority was to create a clear corridor for emergency vehicles and prevent crowding near the site. However, the sudden influx of onlookers made traffic management extremely challenging."A huge crowd gathered on the flyover connecting Munshipulia and Tedhipulia, watching the flames rise high. "It was terrifying but impossible to look away. The fire kept growing, and we could hear blasts," a local resident said.
Before the IPO: How T-SpaceX Gave Retail Early SpaceX Exposure
Tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has reportedly filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week, targeting a June 2026 listing. SpaceX is known for revolutionizing space access through reusable launch vehicles. It has actually sent more rockets into space than any other company and is planning missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The private aerospace company further intends to put up to 1 million specialized satellites acting as orbital data centers to support heavy AI workloads. Then there's Starlink, SpaceX's satellite network that provides low-cost internet to remote locations. There are currently 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, while its active customer base has reached 10 million. The company has also merged with xAI, which is integrated with the X (formerly Twitter) and develops the Grok AI chatbot. With this unmatched position, according to Reuters, SpaceX generated about $8 billion in profit on $15-$16 billion of revenue last year. Founded in 2002, SpaceX has raised a total of about $13 billion in equity funding during this time from more than 240 investors. This includes Google's parent company Alphabet, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, EchoStar, Baillie Gifford, Baron Capital Group, Valor Equity Partners, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. With this unmatched position, SpaceX is targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion for its IPO, setting the stage for potentially the largest stock market listing on record. When it finally lists in the coming months, institutions will get the lion's share of the IPO allocations on a priority basis, and a public float will follow. After listing, regular individual investors will be able to buy shares on an exchange. As the usual process unfolds, retail investors will finally be able to invest in SpaceX after more than two decades of its launch. But something unusual has already taken place. Tessera, a permissionless private-markets platform, launched T-SpaceX a couple of months ago, giving the general public early access to the space technology company, way ahead of its upcoming IPO. The multi-trillion-dollar private equity market is one of the largest and most profitable asset classes in global finance, but they are reserved only for billion-dollar funds and/or ultra-wealthy institutions. They also require high minimum investments, often locked in for years, further keeping these promising ventures outside the reach of regular investors. But not anymore. Chan Ahn, who has over 17 years of experience in traditional financial markets, is changing the game with Tessera, which brings private equity exposure on-chain. The platform launched T-SpaceX on Solana in February 2026, which was accessible to everyone without an accredited investor requirement and was distributed via Solana-based DEX Meteora's Alpha Vault and DLMM. The T-SpaceX offering raised $279K in an oversubscribed auction in just six hours. "Access to pre-IPO equity in companies like SpaceX has historically been limited to institutional investors and a small number of secondary market platforms with accreditation requirements," said Ahn in a post on LinkedIn. The constraint, he noted, isn't just regulatory but structural. "Private equity instruments are complex legal objects: they carry transfer restrictions, jurisdiction-specific compliance requirements, and custody arrangements that don't map cleanly onto public blockchain infrastructure," explained Ahn. And with Tessera, he has built the bridge between the two environments. Here, a private equity exposure is provided via tokens like T-SpaceX that represent a loan participation right with economic exposure to SpaceX equity valuations. The token represents the holder's verified claim on that participation right, just not a direct claim on the underlying equity, thus allowing the underlying instrument to remain within a conventional legal framework. Meanwhile, a Cayman Islands SPC with a segregated portfolio is the one holding the SpaceX exposure through a participation agreement. This specialized legal entity creates separate portfolios for each underlying asset, with each one issuing participation rights that are legally documented. On top of this structure, the platform utilizes Chainlink Proof of Reserve for on-chain verification and Fireblocks MPC for token lifecycle security. "The combination of a documented legal wrapper, on-chain reserve verification, and institutional-grade token security is what differentiates this from earlier attempts at private equity tokenization," Ahn said. With SpaceX's IPO filing, it marks the end of the pre-IPO window for T-SpaceX, which was the first private equity token that went live on Tessera. But it was just the beginning. The platform has since expanded to T-Kalshi, offering tokenized exposure to Kalshi, the fast-growing and CFTC-regulated prediction markets exchange. T-Kalshi uses the same SPC and participation right structure as T-SpaceX, which successfully demonstrates how on-chain access to private company exposure allows even retail investors to get early into high-growth ventures before a public listing. With T-Kalshi, regular investors can now once again get their hands on a high-growth company, well ahead of the masses. T-Tokens represent loan participation rights, not securities. High-risk DeFi product. Not financial advice. Not available in the US or other restricted territories. Terms.
Nvidia CEO urges US-China dialogue on AI safety after Anthropic breakthrough
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called for US-China dialogue on AI safety following Anthropic's Mythos breakthrough. The market for Anthropic having the third best AI model by April 30 currently sits at YES. Huang's comments follow the release of Anthropic's Mythos, which has advanced capabilities in reasoning, coding, and cybersecurity. US-China discussions on AI safety have stalled despite previous commitments under the 2023 Bletchley Declaration. Traders are watching the April 30 market to assess whether Anthropic's model will rank third. The market has seen no recent volume, with traders largely on the sidelines. The 14-day countdown to resolution means any benchmark updates or endorsements could move the odds. The largest company predictions for June market is stable at 89.5% YES for Nvidia. Mythos represents what Huang described as a "step change" in AI capabilities, raising dual-use risks for national security. A YES share in the third best AI model market pays $1 if Anthropic's Mythos is ranked third by April 30, a bet that depends on Mythos meeting specific benchmarks. Traders should watch for benchmark updates from LMSYS Chatbot Arena or other evaluators, as well as any leaks about model performance. US and Chinese diplomatic channels are worth monitoring for movement on AI safety talks. Any formal engagement or policy shift could affect trader sentiment in related markets.
SpaceX IPO: What Everyday Investors Need to Know Before the Biggest Stock Offering in History
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them. SpaceX is preparing for what could be the most consequential stock market event in a generation. In early April 2026, the company confidentially filed paperwork with the SEC for an IPO, with executives reportedly gearing up for roadshows in early June and a summer 2026 market debut. The numbers are staggering: SpaceX is seeking a valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion, and if successful, would raise around $75 billion, dwarfing the current record held by Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion offering. Prediction markets agree this is happening. Markets currently price a 90% probability of a SpaceX IPO by September 30, 2026, and a 93% probability by year-end. The window most traders are watching: roughly 45% odds of completion by June 30. SpaceX Is Going Public as an Infrastructure Company SpaceX is going public on the strength of Starlink, not Starship. With over 8 million active users globally, the satellite internet division generates over half of SpaceX's estimated $15 to $18 billion in revenue It has matured from an expensive moonshot into a cash-generating utility. In February 2026, SpaceX also acquired Elon Musk's AI firm xAI, with the stated goal of building solar-powered datacenters in orbit. The immediate corporate focus is on orbital computing, defense technology, and NASA lunar support. Mars is not the pitch here. Foreign militaries rely on Starlink, and the U.S. government depends on Falcon 9 for defense and NASA missions. Investors buying SpaceX shares are buying into privatized global infrastructure, not speculative space exploration. What Retail Investors Actually Need to Know You may already be buying SpaceX whether you intend to or not. Because of its sheer size, a publicly traded SpaceX will quickly be absorbed into major index funds like the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. The Invesco QQQ Trust (NYSEARCA:QQQ) already holds $372.5 billion in net assets and tracks the Nasdaq-100. A SpaceX addition at its proposed scale would reshape fund composition meaningfully, similar to how Tesla currently sits at a 3.47% weight in QQQ. QQQ itself has returned 37.4% over the past year, trading at $632.62 as of April 14, 2026. On direct participation: rumors suggest SpaceX may offer up to 30% of the IPO allocation to retail investors, far above the typical 5% to 10%. That sounds generous. But mega-valuations are hard to sustain once the roadshow excitement fades and quarterly earnings scrutiny begins. The top 10 largest IPOs in history have dropped by an average of 12% in their first year. The macro environment is supportive but not euphoric. The VIX sits at 18.36, down sharply from 31.05 in late March. Markets have stabilized. The Fed Funds Rate holds at 3.75%, down from 4.5% a year ago. Conditions favor a large offering, but consumer sentiment remains subdued at 56.6 as of February 2026. The SpaceX IPO deserves serious attention. Approach it the way you would any transformative but richly priced asset: understand what you own, size your position accordingly, and let the index funds do the rest of the work.
Alphabet poised for $100 billion windfall on SpaceX investment - CNBC TV18
Alphabet early SpaceX bet could yield $100 billion at a $2 trillion IPO, as Elon Musks rocket company eyes a record listing and creates new billionaires.An early investment in SpaceX has positioned Alphabet Inc. for a 12-figure windfall, a new filing shows, underscoring the vast wealth likely to be created by the rocket company's market debut. Google LLC owned a 6.11% stake in Elon Musk's company at the end of 2025, according to a new disclosure the space startup filed this week in Alaska, where firms must report holders with stakes of 5% or more. At a $2 trillion valuation, which SpaceX hopes to exceed in its initial public offering, a holding of that size would be worth $122 billion. Google's stake has likely been diluted following the February merger of SpaceX with xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence and social media company. It now likely owns roughly 5% of SpaceX following the transaction, according to Bloomberg calculations, which would be worth $100 billion at a $2 trillion IPO valuation. While Google has previously disclosed its stake in SpaceX, the precise size hasn't been reported before. Google and Musk himself -- with a roughly 40% stake -- were the only entities required to disclose their holdings in the filing, but several other individuals and firms are also poised to make billions off the listing. SpaceX has filed confidentially to go public, targeting a June listing, and is expected to raise as much as $75 billion in what would make it the biggest-ever IPO, Bloomberg previously reported. If it achieves a market valuation of $2 trillion, a 0.05% stake could turn a shareholder into a billionaire overnight. The listing would also cement Musk as the world's first trillionaire and lift the personal fortunes of long-time lieutenants, including President Gwynne Shotwell. Its earliest backers will likely see huge returns on their money, but even those who got in five years ago will still be happy with the outcome, said PitchBook senior research analyst Franco Granda, who covers SpaceX. "The investors who got in at 2021 will have life-changing returns, if not career-defining," Granda said. "So even if you missed SpaceX in the 2010s, if you saw it somehow and got in before 2021, you're likely 20x-ing your returns." Founded in 2002, SpaceX hit unicorn status after eight years -- a fast pace at the time, especially for an unproven company doing literal rocket science, Granda said. Google first invested in SpaceX in 2015, joining Fidelity Investments in a $1 billion funding round that valued the company at $10 billion and gave the pair a 10% stake. Fidelity's current stake is unknown, except for a handful of positions publicly disclosed by individual funds. Google and Fidelity declined to comment. SpaceX didn't respond to requests for comment. Both Musk and Google have seen their ownership shrink over time amid dilution and secondary share sales. In 2020, when SpaceX first disclosed its largest shareholders in Alaska, Google owned 7.64% of the company while Musk owned 47.11%. Venture capital firm Founders Fund, which was the first institutional investor in SpaceX in 2008, owned 7.77%. Founders Fund was last disclosed as owning 5.76% of the company in December 2023 and has since fallen below the 5% reporting threshold. A spokesperson for the fund declined to comment. Wealth creation Alphabet doesn't disclose its ownership in SpaceX, but it does report unrealized gains from private company stakes in its earnings releases. In the first quarter of 2025, Alphabet reported an $8 billion boost to profits from a company Bloomberg reported to be SpaceX, and it ended the year with $24.1 billion in net gains on equity securities, which it said was largely related to its private holdings. Alphabet is scheduled to release first-quarter earnings on April 29. SpaceX filed its 2026 biennial report on April 11, and it was posted online this week. The report was due at the beginning of the year and SpaceX faced fees of nearly $250 for the delay -- not exactly punitive for a company expected to generate about $20 billion in revenue this year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. While no ownership was detailed outside of Google's and Musk's positions, PitchBook's Granda expects the IPO to be a massive payday for many investors and long-term employees who have been loyal to the company. The risk is that their fortunes could mean a talent exodus if they have a chance to cash out or want to start their own venture, he said. "One of the biggest questions I have for this is what happens to the middle management, even though SpaceX is a very lean company, and some of the upper management that after the IPO will not need to do anything to support themselves," Granda said. "There's an opportunity for the venture market to benefit from this." Outside of its employee base, some of the company's directors could be sitting on their own 10-figure fortunes, similar to Nvidia Corp., where three board members have become billionaires as the chipmaker's stock has surged. Google has been represented on SpaceX's board since 2015 by Donald Harrison, the company's president of global partnerships and corporate development. Luke Nosek, who was a co-founder of PayPal alongside Musk and spearheaded the Founders Fund investment, has been on the board since 2008. He later left to start Gigafund, which has invested another $1 billion into SpaceX since July 2017, according to its website. Steve Jurvetson, another longtime board member, recently spent more than $175 million on properties on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
PsiQuantum, the University of Tokyo, and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Announce Partnership to Bolster Quantum Workforce Development in Japan
PsiQuantum, the University of Tokyo, and the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation today announced a partnership to provide education and training for Japan's growing quantum workforce. This initiative is supported by the Government of Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the Post-5G Information and Communication Systems program (2025-2027).
Anthropic Unveils Claude Code Session Tools for 1M Token Context
Anthropic dropped a new /usage command for Claude Code on April 15, alongside detailed guidance on managing sessions within the AI coding assistant's one million token context window. The update addresses a growing pain point developers have flagged: figuring out when to continue, compact, or nuke a session entirely. The company's technical staff member Thariq Shihipar laid out the logic in a blog post that reads more like tribal knowledge than typical documentation. The core problem? Context rot -- where model performance degrades as more tokens pile up and attention gets spread thin across irrelevant cruft. Claude Code now offers developers a decision tree at every turn: Continue works when everything in the window still matters. /rewind (or double-tap Esc) lets you jump back to any previous message and reprompt, dropping everything after that point. Anthropic suggests this beats the instinct to type "that didn't work, try X instead" -- instead, rewind to just after useful file reads and give cleaner instructions. /compact asks Claude to summarize the session and replace history with that summary. It's lossy but automatic. You can steer it: "/compact focus on the auth refactor, drop the test debugging." The catch? Autocompact fires when context is nearly full, precisely when the model performs worst due to context rot. /clear puts you in control. You write what matters and start fresh. More work, cleaner slate. Subagents handle the messiest scenario -- when the next chunk of work will generate tons of intermediate output you won't need again. Spawning a subagent gives it a fresh context window; only the final report comes back to the parent session. Anthropic's internal test: "Will I need this tool output again, or just the conclusion?" If just the conclusion, spin up a subagent for codebase searches, verification runs, or doc writing. The guidance suggests starting fresh sessions for genuinely new tasks, even though 1M context technically allows marathon sessions. For related follow-up work -- like documenting a feature you just built -- staying in session avoids expensive file rereads. Bad autocompacts typically happen when Claude can't predict where your work is heading. A long debugging session gets summarized, then you ask about "that other warning in bar.ts" that got dropped from the summary. With the larger context window, Anthropic recommends proactive /compact with explicit direction before the automatic trigger fires. The update reflects Anthropic's push to make Claude Code more practical for extended development sessions. Whether this moves the needle on enterprise adoption remains to be seen, but developers burning through context on complex codebases finally have documented strategies beyond trial and error.
Anthropic may now demand your government ID and a real-time photo to use its AI model Claude
Anthropic raised eyebrows this week with the introduction of an identity verification system to access certain functions of its artificial intelligence model, Claude. A post on Binance Square announced that, according to Foresight News, users must now provide a government-issued photo ID and possibly a real-time selfie before accessing Claude. The measure reportedly "aims to prevent misuse, enforce usage policies, and fulfill legal obligations." Verification helps ensure that banned users aren't returning and using fake accounts. While Anthropic assures it won't use the data for model training or targeted advertising and marketing, there is concern that its partner, Persona, which handles the verification data, may do so. This move also comes amid growing concern about the technology's safety, its potential applications, and the harmful effects it has on individuals, communities, and the planet. Polymarket reported that the new requirement follows closely Anthropic's admission that its new model, Claude Mythos Preview, is very good at hacking, among other issues. Users are increasingly concerned about how their data is being used, as case after case of misuse by companies like Google, OkCupid, and others come to light. Further, as the technology and its uses come under criticism, so do the effects of data centers -- required to keep the AI tools running -- on people and the planet. In cases like verification requirements to use Claude, personal data use remains at the forefront. A post by Polymarket (@Polymarket) on the social platform X announcing the move sparked a lively conversation in the comments. "That doesn't make sense," one user said. "Either it could be tracking users to verify their true identity or trying to link it to some type of psychological data, capturing through identity and profiling." "Can't wait for the AI that knows everything about me to have my ID too," another added. "Surely nothing will go wrong here." "Apparently, to prove you're not a bot, you now have to give a bot your government ID," a third stated. "The irony is officially peak AI." Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
Anthropic may now demand your government ID and a real-time photo to use its AI model Claude
Users are increasingly concerned about how their data is being used. Anthropic raised eyebrows this week with the introduction of an identity verification system to access certain functions of its artificial intelligence model, Claude. A post on Binance Square announced that, according to Foresight News, users must now provide a government-issued photo ID and possibly a real-time selfie before accessing Claude. The measure reportedly "aims to prevent misuse, enforce usage policies, and fulfill legal obligations." Verification helps ensure that banned users aren't returning and using fake accounts. While Anthropic assures it won't use the data for model training or targeted advertising and marketing, there is concern that its partner, Persona, which handles the verification data, may do so. This move also comes amid growing concern about the technology's safety, its potential applications, and the harmful effects it has on individuals, communities, and the planet. Polymarket reported that the new requirement follows closely Anthropic's admission that its new model, Claude Mythos Preview, is very good at hacking, among other issues. Users are increasingly concerned about how their data is being used, as case after case of misuse by companies like Google, OkCupid, and others come to light. Further, as the technology and its uses come under criticism, so do the effects of data centers -- required to keep the AI tools running -- on people and the planet. In cases like verification requirements to use Claude, personal data use remains at the forefront. A post by Polymarket (@Polymarket) on the social platform X announcing the move sparked a lively conversation in the comments. "That doesn't make sense," one user said. "Either it could be tracking users to verify their true identity or trying to link it to some type of psychological data, capturing through identity and profiling." "Can't wait for the AI that knows everything about me to have my ID too," another added. "Surely nothing will go wrong here." "Apparently, to prove you're not a bot, you now have to give a bot your government ID," a third stated. "The irony is officially peak AI." Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
'Credit card chaos' ahead? - Evanston Now
"Credit cards may not work for sales tax or tips starting July 1." By now, you've heard that claim, but whether it's true depends on who you ask. The ads -- funded by the Electronic Payments Coalition of banks, credit unions and card companies -- argue that Illinois lawmakers must repeal the state's first-in-the-nation Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, slated to take effect July 1. That law prohibits financial institutions from charging "swipe," or interchange, fees on the tax and tip portions of consumer bills and bans them from making up the fees elsewhere. If it's not repealed? "Credit card chaos" may ensue, the ads warn. While the financial institutions are quick to cite a list of things that could hypothetically happen if the law isn't repealed, it's harder to pin down what's being done and by who to comply with the law two years after it was signed. "The global payment system is not set up to where any one party to a transaction can make this happen on their own," Ashley Sharp, of the Illinois Credit Union Association said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. "There are multiple parties to every electronic transaction." The financial institutions are adamant that the global payment system as it exists today can't discern the difference between tax, tips and total, and it would need to be retooled at a heavy cost to banks, card companies, merchants, point-of-sale companies and more. Instead of complying, they say, the card companies could decide to stop serving Illinois or drastically alter the way the consumer interacts with merchants at the point of sale. But as with all matters in Springfield, there's another big-monied and powerful group on the other side of the issue. The Illinois Retail Merchants Association says the credit card companies already track all the information they need, and it's a "complete fabrication" to say that it would take more than a mere coding change to implement the state law. Take your restaurant receipt, for example. "You have the subtotal, the sales tax, the tip, if it's applicable, and then the grand total, right? All they have to do is move their fee from the grand total to the subtotal," Rob Karr, president of IRMA, said. While card networks operate in over 200 countries with as many different laws, they say the only information the card processors ask for in any of them is the grand total. The receipt example, they say, erroneously conflates the point of sale with the actual processing of payments. In short, the two sides present starkly different realities -- a muddying of the water that's not uncommon at the Capitol. But there is one concrete truth: The financial institutions have a lot to lose, and not just in Illinois. The tax and tip prohibition would shave approximately 10% off the revenue that banks and credit unions receive from retailers via interchange fees -- a transfer of wealth likely to number in the hundreds of millions. It would also create massive noncompliance fines. And then there's the issue of precedent. The banks challenged the law but lost in court. Absent a successful appeal, the remaining battlefields would be other state legislatures. If the card companies implement Illinois' law, they'd be providing a blueprint for states across the nation to emulate -- driving potential revenue loss into the billions. Thus far, Ben Jackson of the Illinois Bankers Association said, it hasn't opened the floodgates, although some 30 states are considering similar action. Still, it's no wonder then, that the Electronic Payments Coalition has pulled out all the stops in its seven-figure ad campaign to repeal the law. To fully understand the ongoing slugfest between banks and retailers, you have to go back to May 2024. But first, an explanation of interchange fees. Each time a shopper swipes their credit or debit card, it sets off a complicated string of payments between banks. The retailer's bank pays an "interchange fee," typically around 1% to 2% of the transaction cost, to the consumer's bank. The fees include both a set amount and a percentage of the transaction, but the credit card companies, namely Visa and Mastercard, control how they're calculated. The financial institutions say interchange fees help fund credit card reward programs and security upgrades and provide compensation for bearing the risk of fraud. The hit to interchange revenue, Jackson said, would inevitably lessen reward program offerings. Sharp said credit unions, as not-for-profit cooperatives, use the revenue to offer lower rates to customers. But the fees have long drawn the ire of retailers and small businesses, which sometimes pass the costs directly to consumers via a surcharge on bills. It comes down to this: The retailers don't think they should have to pay a fee on the tax and tip portion of a transaction that they don't keep. And the financial institutions say if they're handling those funds, they should be compensated for doing so via interchange fees. As for the Illinois law's passage, it was, as the ads claim, tucked into the budget two years ago, giving little time for the bankers et al to mount an opposition campaign. Gov. JB Pritzker and lawmakers agreed to raise about $101 million in revenue to plug a budget hole by putting a $1,000 monthly cap on the "retailer's exemption," a tax break retailers claim for being the state's de facto sales tax collectors. But the retailers weren't going to take that lying down, and IRMA successfully lobbied for the long-sought tax and tip exemption. After the law passed, the financial institutions quickly sued. To avoid uncertainty as the case played out, lawmakers delayed the measure's effective date from July 1 last year to the same date this year. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall ultimately determined in February that Illinois is within its right to regulate the fees. She partially rejected a portion of the law that prohibited banks from sharing certain data, which the credit unions say creates different rules for different institutions and further uncertainty. The case is now pending appeal, and the legislative process is starting anew. This time, the financial institutions have mounted a dual front in the court of public opinion. Karr estimated the prohibition would bring in "north of $200 million" for retailers -- essentially letting them pocket that sum instead of transferring it to the banks. A study by the Electronic Payments Coalition pegged the number at $118 million, estimating that about 40% of the interchange windfall would go to the 40 largest retailers. Even so, Karr said, the largest retailers are subject to the $1,000 monthly retailer exemption cap that accompanied the swipe fee ban, while smaller retailers don't reach that mark. Add in their cut on reimbursed swipe fees, and it amounts to what Karr calls "the largest small business relief that Illinois has ever passed." But Jackson argued the cost of retailers complying could eat up any benefits for smaller retailers. As for compliance, Kendall wrote in her February opinion that "It is an open question whether the transaction process could adapt to the impact of the IFPA in time." "The Interchange Fee Provision is indisputably disruptive, requiring additional investments, hires, and new procedures to replace the current process for authorizing and settling debit and credit card transactions," she wrote. The financial institutions argue it can't all be done by July 1. Kendall said the parties involved know what's required of them. "But those procedural changes are the product of an ecosystem built by Payment Card Networks and financial institutions to facilitate consumer transactions," she wrote. "And these entities understand the onus of IFPA compliance is on them." Per the coalition, compliance "would require coordination across the industry and regulators worldwide," including with the International Organization for Standardization. It would also require more data collection, creating privacy concerns, they say. Those global changes would require testing and certification of new equipment. Depending on their card companies or point-of-sale vendors, retailers may need to invest in new equipment, software and training. Banks and credit unions may also have to add staff to process rebates under the law. It allows retailers or their processing companies to petition their financial institutions for reimbursement on fees charged on tax and tips within 180 days of a transaction. If financial institutions don't comply within 30 days, the law provides for civil penalties of $1,000 per each transaction -- and hundreds of millions of these transactions happen annually. Instead of complying, according to the coalition's literature, the card companies could just stop processing cards altogether in Illinois. They could also stop processing tax and tip portions or require two separate swipes for the subtotal and the tax and tip portion of bills. Such claims aren't uncommon in the legislature's annual adjournment push. Sports betting companies, for example, threatened to leave Illinois when the state raised its gambling taxes in the same budget cycle that yielded the interchange fee prohibition two years ago. Instead, they adapted, because Illinois has a lot of bettors -- and there's even more card users. Karr accused the coalition of ulterior motives in their use of hypothetical language. "There is no need for chaos," he said. "The only chaos is if the credit card companies impose it themselves on their consumers." Ultimately, lawmakers will have to weigh how compelling the arguments are, if the courts don't intervene first. It's possible that the 7 Circuit appellate court -- or even the U.S. Supreme Court -- gives the banks a win. But oral arguments are slated for May 13, meaning the appellate court might not rule by the time the law is slated to take effect. Adding a new wrinkle on Wednesday, the federal office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a subset of the U.S. Treasury Department, appeared poised to issue an order preempting Illinois' law. It hadn't been published as of late Wednesday, making its impact unclear. "While the office has failed to explain their reasoning or allow public review, it's clear the goal is an end-run around the legal process after a judge recently upheld the law," Karr said. As for the legislative prospects, state Rep. Margaret Croke, D-Chicago, says she's seen enough to be concerned. The Democratic nominee for comptroller is sponsoring a bill to fully repeal Illinois' interchange fee prohibition. But as of last week, she said she wasn't planning to move it. Instead, she finds it more likely that lawmakers once again delay the law's implementation. "If this is a policy that the state of Illinois decides they're going to want to have, then we need to make sure we're doing it properly," she said.
How Anthropic Learned Mythos Was Too Dangerous for the Wild
One balmy February evening in Bali, Nicholas Carlini stepped away between events at a wedding, opened his laptop, and set out to do some damage. Anthropic PBC had just made a new artificial intelligence model, called Mythos, available for internal review, and Carlini -- a well-known AI researcher -- intended to see what kind of trouble it could cause. Anthropic pays Carlini to stress-test its AI models to see whether hackers could leverage them for espionage, theft or sabotage. From Bali, where Carlini and his wife were attending an Indian wedding, he was staggered at what the model could do. Within hours Carlini found numerous techniques to infiltrate systems used around the world. Once Carlini was back in Anthropic's downtown San Francisco office, he discovered Mythos was able to autonomously create powerful break-in tools, including against Linux, the open-source code that underpins most of modern computing. Mythos orchestrated the digital equivalent of a bank robbery: getting past security protocols and through the front door of networks, and breaking into digital vaults that gave it access to online treasures. AI had picked locks, but now it could pull off an entire heist. Carlini and some of his colleagues began alerting staff to what they'd found. And each day they continued to discover high-severity and critical bugs in the systems Mythos probed, the kind of flaws normally uncovered by the world's best hackers. Meanwhile, Anthropic's Frontier Red Team -- a group of 15 "Ants," or Anthropic employees -- was experimenting in much the same way. The lab aims to ensure that Anthropic's models can't be used to harm humanity. They'll ship in robotic dogs and place them in a warehouse with engineers to test whether Claude could be used to control them maliciously. Or consult with biologists to understand whether the chatbot could be used to create biological weapons. Now, they were realizing that the biggest risk Mythos posed was to cybersecurity. "Within hours of getting the model, we knew it was different," says Logan Graham, who runs Anthropic's Frontier Red Team. A previous model, Opus 4.6, had shown indications it could help people exploit vulnerabilities in software. Mythos could exploit the vulnerabilities on its own, Graham says. This was a national security risk, he warned Anthropic's executives. That left Graham with the unenviable task of telling his bosses that their next major revenue generator was too hazardous to release to the public. Anthropic's co-founder and chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, said he had been monitoring Mythos' training "very carefully," as it was being built. By January he was starting to realize how capable Mythos was at finding vulnerabilities. Kaplan, a theoretical physicist, needed to consider whether these flaws were curiosities or "something very relevant to the infrastructure of the internet." He concluded it was the latter. Over the course of a week or two in late February and early March, he and co-founder Sam McCandlish weighed whether they could release the model. Around the first week of March, the executive team -- including Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei, President Daniela Amodei, Chief Information Security Officer Vitaly Gudanets and others -- huddled to hear Kaplan and McCandlish's pitch. Mythos, they said, was too much of a risk to release generally. But Anthropic should let other companies, maybe even competitors, try it out. "It quickly became clear that we wanted to do something fairly unusual, that this wasn't going to be the same as the last launch," Kaplan said. By the first week of March, the company had agreed and greenlit its use as a cyber defense tool. The response was immediate. On the same day Anthropic publicly disclosed Mythos' existence, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convened Wall Street leaders for a meeting in Washington. The message: Use Mythos to find your weaknesses -- now. The executives who attended refused to share what was discussed even to some of their top advisers, showing the gravity of the meeting, according to people close to them who asked not to be named describing private conversations. The urgent warnings from White House officials about Mythos' potency as a hacking tool -- and their advice to use it defensively -- point to the way that AI has become a decisive force in cybersecurity. Anthropic released Mythos to a limited group of organizations as part of "Project Glasswing," enabling the likes of Amazon Web Services Inc., Apple Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to experiment with it. Government agencies have also expressed interest. Prior to external release, Anthropic briefed senior officials across the US government on Mythos Preview's full capabilities, including both its offensive and defensive cyber applications. The company is having ongoing discussions with international governments too, an Anthropic official who asked not to be named discussing internal matters said. Competitor OpenAI also pounced on the attention, saying Tuesday that it would release a tool intended to spot software flaws, called GPT-5.4-Cyber. Anthropic hasn't publicly released Mythos as a cybersecurity tool, and many outside researchers haven't had a chance to validate the company's claims. But Anthropic's unprecedented decision to gate access reflects a growing view inside the industry and government that AI is changing cybersecurity economics by reducing the cost of finding vulnerabilities, compressing the time needed to investigate targets and lowering the skill barrier for certain types of attacks. Anthropic warns that Mythos's ability to act with greater autonomy comes with risk. In testing an earlier version of the model, they found dozens of examples of "concerning" behavior, including not following human direction and even, in rare cases, covering its tracks when violating human instructions. In one incident, the model developed a multi-step exploit to escape the limited environment it was inside to gain broad access to the internet and begin to publish material online, all on its own initiative. The software that now underpins everything from banking apps to hospital systems is laced with obscure coding flaws that trained specialists spend weeks or months trying to identify. Occasionally hackers get there first, resulting in data breaches and ransomware attacks that can have devastating consequences. High-profile names have been quick to question just how powerful Mythos really is, or how much of a risk it would pose if released. "A growing number of people are wondering if Anthropic is the AI industry's 'boy who cried wolf,'" White House AI advisor David Sacks wrote on the social media site X. "If Mythos-related threats don't materialize, the company will have a serious credibility problem." But hackers have already adopted large language models to launch complex malicious campaigns. A Chinese cyber-espionage group already used Anthropic's Claude to try breaching roughly 30 targets, while other attackers have used AI to steal data from government agencies, deploy ransomware and quickly break into hundreds of firewall tools meant to safeguard data. Among US government officials focused on national defense, the introduction of Mythos has created profound uncertainty about how to evaluate cybersecurity risk, according to a person familiar with the matter. Equipping an individual hacker with the model, or similar AI tools, would likely be a transformation equivalent to turning a conventional soldier into a special forces operator, the person said. At the same time, Mythos appears likely to be a force multiplier, the person said: Enabling a criminal hacking gang to operate at the level of a small nation state and for a small country's intelligence and military hackers to carry out breaches of the sort now done by China. "I really believe we will be safer and better, and we will be much more secure with AI," said Rob Joyce, former director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency. "But I think there's this dark period between now and some time in the future where the advantage is very much offensive AI, where the people who haven't done the basics will get hacked." Mythos isn't the only model doing this kind of work. Numerous organizations have been using LLMs to find vulnerabilities, including previous Claude models and Google's Big Sleep. JPMorgan had successfully been using large language models before the Mythos announcement to help find vulnerabilities in the bank's software, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss confidential internal security projects. Efforts that had previously taken days or weeks to identify "zero-day" flaws and write code to exploit them now can take as little as an hour or even minutes, the person said. Zero-days are so-called because they're unknown to defenders, who thus have zero days to fix them. JPMorgan's focus has been primarily on supply chain and open-source software and has found flaws and subsequently alerted vendors, the person said. CEO Jamie Dimon said during an earnings call that Mythos "shows a lot more vulnerabilities need to be fixed." The bank had already been in talks with Anthropic to test the model before the public became aware of it, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. JPMorgan declined to comment. Other Wall Street banks and technology companies are now experimenting with Mythos to help plug holes before hackers can find a way in. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley are among the financial institutions testing the technology internally, Bloomberg News has reported. Cisco Systems Inc. staffers are especially wary of whether intruders will use AI to try to find pathways into software that runs its networking equipment worldwide, such as routers, firewalls and modems, said Anthony Grieco, Cisco's chief security and trust officer. Grieco is particularly worried about how AI might accelerate hackers targeting devices that are end-of-life, and therefore won't be updated by Cisco going forward, Grieco said. Plugging the holes that AI tools are finding will remain problematic. That process, known as security patching, is such a costly, slow exercise for organizations that many choose not to squash their bugs at all. Devastating attacks like the one at Equifax Inc., where intruders stole records of about 147 million people, were possible because organizations didn't apply known fixes. Anthropic is in discussions with federal agencies, even after the Trump administration classified the AI firm as a supply-chain threat following its refusal to help facilitate mass surveillance of Americans. The Treasury Department was seeking to gain access to Mythos this week, and Secretary Bessent said the model would help the US maintain an AI edge over China. In one instance, the model wrote a web browser exploit that chained together four vulnerabilities, a feat that'd be a major challenge for human hackers. Such vulnerability chains lead into otherwise highly secure systems, like in the Stuxnet hack that damaged centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear facility, according to cybersecurity research reports on the matter. Mythos also was able to identify and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in every single major web browser when directed to do so, according to Anthropic. Anthropic said it used Mythos to find exploits in Linux code, which is "underpinning most modern computing," according to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. That includes everything from Android smartphones and internet routers to NASA supercomputers. Mythos autonomously found several flaws in the open-source code that would allow an attacker to take complete control of a machine. Now, dozens of people at the Linux Foundation are experimenting with Mythos. For Zemlin, one question is whether the Anthropic model will yield the kinds of insights that would help developers write better software, so there are fewer vulnerabilities in the first place. "We're great at finding bugs," he said. "We're terrible at fixing them."
Govt Report Shows Fonterra And Intensive Dairy Industry Fueling Climate Chaos
It's time to end dairy expansions. That's Greenpeace's message following the announcement of a Government report showing that emissions from intensive dairy farming increased in 2024. Greenpeace Aotearoa climate campaigner Sinéad Deighton-O'Flynn says, "This is a 'fork in the road' moment for our planet, and instead of working to reduce their emissions, Fonterra and the intensive dairy industry are pouring fuel on the fire by expanding the dairy industry." The agriculture industry is New Zealand's biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, making up more than half of the country's total emissions. Pollution from the intensive dairy industry accounts for 26% of those agricultural emissions, more than any other industry. The Greenhouse Gas Inventory points to increases in milk production and synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use as drivers of emissions increases, and shows that while agricultural emissions overall have decreased, emissions from intensive dairying have increased. "The increase in emissions from the dairy industry is the equivalent of adding an extra 100,000 cars on roads for a whole year," says Deighton-O'Flynn. (1) "For decades, intensive dairy farming has been New Zealand's main source of climate pollution. And while communities here and around the world are reeling from climate disasters, we're seeing the industry expanding, and its emissions increasing. "We all should be able to live in thriving communities where our children have a safe and stable future, but Fonterra and the intensive dairy industry's pursuit of profit puts this at risk. "The short-term profits of a handful of milk powder millionaires shouldn't come at the cost of life on this planet." Dairy giant Fonterra has been labelled New Zealand's worst climate polluter for at least the last four years, with emissions that far exceed those of fossil fuel companies. It was reported that in 2025, Fonterra's climate emissions increased by 2.2%. The report shows that while overall emissions from agriculture have slightly decreased, methane emissions from intensive dairy farming have increased, as well as emissions from synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use. This has been offset by a reduction in sheep numbers and an increase in forestry - something Greenpeace says is not sustainable. Deighton-O'Flynn says, "We can see that efforts to reduce emissions from other sectors are working, but those emissions reductions are eclipsed by the expansion of New Zealand's already oversized dairy herd." The report only covers emissions from 2024 - but in 2025, dairy expansions began again after Government policy changes. In Canterbury, 30,000 cows are set to be added to the dairy herd. Deighton-O'Flynn says we can expect dairy emissions to continue to increase as a result. "The only long-term solution to cutting New Zealand's climate pollution is to reduce the size of the dairy herd and support farmers to transition to regenerative, ecological farming practices. We have no time to waste."
NAACP sues xAI over air pollution near Memphis data center
(The Center Square) - The NAACP filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against Elon Musk's xAI, saying the company is illegally operating 27 methane gas turbines in Mississippi to power its Colossus 2 data center complex across the state line in Memphis. In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, the NAACP says emissions from the gas turbines violate the Clean Air Act. The Colossus 2 data center near Memphis is the primary training facility for Grok-4, xAI's next generation chatbot.
Boy, man charged after aircraft chaos
A domestic flight was forced back to the terminal after a man and a 15-year-old boy allegedly boarded using false identities and then became verbally abusive towards airline staff while the aircraft was taxiing. Australian Federal Police allege the pair, both from Melbourne, boarded the flight from Sydney on Tuesday using incorrect details on their boarding passes. As the aircraft prepared for takeoff, the man, 29, and the boy allegedly became abusive after being told to take their seats, prompting the pilot to return the plane to the gate and request AFP assistance. Officers escorted both passengers off the flight. Police then attempted to confirm their identities but allege the names provided at check-in did not match their identification documents. The man and boy have each been charged with one count of travelling using false identification information. The boy was refused bail and appeared in a NSW Children's Court on Wednesday. The man was granted bail and is expected to appear before Downing Centre Local Court on May 11. AFP Acting Inspector Craig Bruce said flying with false credentials was a serious offence as it was often done to evade law enforcement detection. "Fraudulent use of identity documents can facilitate other criminal activity," Inspector Bruce said "It's important that airlines are provided the correct details of all passengers on board and the AFP works closely with airline staff and partners to identify and disrupt potential threats at our airports."
Boy, man charged after aircraft chaos
A domestic flight was forced back to the terminal after a man and a 15-year-old boy allegedly boarded using false identities and then became verbally abusive towards airline staff while the aircraft was taxiing. Australian Federal Police allege the pair, both from Melbourne, boarded the flight from Sydney on Tuesday using incorrect details on their boarding passes. As the aircraft prepared for takeoff, the man, 29, and the boy allegedly became abusive after being told to take their seats, prompting the pilot to return the plane to the gate and request AFP assistance. Officers escorted both passengers off the flight. Police then attempted to confirm their identities but allege the names provided at check-in did not match their identification documents. The man and boy have each been charged with one count of travelling using false identification information. The boy was refused bail and appeared in a NSW Children's Court on Wednesday. The man was granted bail and is expected to appear before Downing Centre Local Court on May 11. AFP Acting Inspector Craig Bruce said flying with false credentials was a serious offence as it was often done to evade law enforcement detection. "Fraudulent use of identity documents can facilitate other criminal activity," Inspector Bruce said "It's important that airlines are provided the correct details of all passengers on board and the AFP works closely with airline staff and partners to identify and disrupt potential threats at our airports."
Adobe releases AI assistant for creative tools, says it will work with Anthropic's Claude
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Canada's Champagne to Discuss Anthropic at Meeting With Bessent
Francois-Philippe Champagne said the company's latest artificial intelligence model "requires our full attention" to ensure the resiliency of the financial system. Canada's finance minister plans to discuss Anthropic PBC's Mythos model when he meets with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week. Francois-Philippe Champagne said the company's latest artificial intelligence model "requires our full attention" and that he wants to raise the issue with his counterparts from other countries at meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. "We have a common interest to ensure the resiliency of our financial system," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the IMF gatherings on Wednesday. The release of the Mythos model -- which Anthropic says is highly adept at finding vulnerabilities in software and computer systems -- is being limited to a handful of major technology firms including Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. Anthropic warned last week that the new system could power cyberattacks if software makers don't first test it against their own defenses. The US Treasury Department's technology team is seeking to gain access to Anthropic PBC's Mythos AI model so it can begin hunting for vulnerabilities, a person familiar with the situation said this week. AI companies have been racing to develop more advanced models that can take on a wide range of capabilities, and to convince businesses to pay for them. But as the models have gotten better at coding, and detecting security issues in code, there have been growing concerns about the technology being misused by criminals and state-backed hackers. Already, AI technology is being used to help enable cyberattacks. Last week, members of a government-industry committee known as the Canadian Financial Sector Resiliency Group met to discuss Mythos. The group includes representatives from the Bank of Canada, regulators, banks and other financial firms. Champagne also said Canada is viewed by private investors and governments as a "partner of choice" when it comes to energy security, especially given the ongoing conflict in Iran and subsequent spike in oil prices. Interested parties are insisting on meeting him about investing in Canadian oil, he said. Read More on Mythos: Why Anthropic Won't Release Mythos to the Public: Explainer Bessent Calls Anthropic's Mythos a Breakthrough in China AI Race Lagarde, Worried About AI, Lauds Anthropic's Approach on Mythos "People are happy to look at a source of supply which would be reliable and stable for the long term," he said, pointing to Canada's significant production and exports of crude oil. "Those who represent very large pool of capital see how Canada can play a role," he added. "That's really our card to play now in these meetings," he said.
Anthropic's New Design Tool Rivals Adobe and Figma | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. Until now, Anthropic's products covered chat interfaces and developer tools. The design tool is its first move into visual and creative workflows. Dataconomy reported that the company has already partnered with Figma to convert AI-generated code into editable design files. Anthropic has also integrated Claude into Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. But the new tool goes further. It does not augment an existing design workflow. It replaces the starting point. A user describes what they want. The model builds it. No prior design experience is required. That is a different proposition than what Adobe and Figma currently offer. Adobe Firefly is embedded across Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere. It assists designers already working inside those tools. Figma AI works the same way inside its own interface. The Next Web reported that Figma commands an estimated 80 to 90% market share in UI and UX design. Both products assume a trained designer is in the loop. Anthropic's tool does not. Adobe reported $23.77 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2025, but its stock has declined as investors question whether its per-application model can survive a market where competitors offer capable tools at lower prices. The competitive pressure predates Anthropic's announcement. Claude Opus 4.7's debut adds a new front to that pressure. The design tool fits a larger pattern. Decrypt noted that internal signals point toward Anthropic repositioning from a language model provider toward a full-stack AI studio, where Claude builds and deploys complete products. Venture capitalists are valuing Anthropic at up to $800 billion, more than double the $380 billion valuation from its February funding round. Annualized revenue has jumped from $9 billion to $30 billion. Design is an upstream input to digital commerce. Product interfaces and landing pages drive conversion. When a model generates those assets from a prompt, the cost and time of building digital products falls. Agencies and in-house teams that bill for design work face direct competition from the tool itself. Google launched Stitch with Claude Code integration already built in. Microsoft embedded AI design into Designer. Since January, Anthropic has released major updates approximately every two weeks. The pace is not slowing. Opus 4.7 is not Anthropic's most capable model; Claude Mythos holds that distinction. Mythos is currently being tested by early partners, using it to find security vulnerabilities in their software, PYMNTS reported. Anthropic has not made it available to the public. The design tool and Opus 4.7 are the commercial layer, while Mythos is the frontier. Anthropic seems to be operating a dual-track strategy, with Opus 4.7 serving as the commercial product while Mythos remains under restricted access. The Opus line has been building toward this moment. PYMNTS reported that Claude Opus 4.6, released in February, was built around three enterprise outcomes: finding information, analyzing it and producing finished outputs closer to production-ready quality on the first attempt. It also integrated directly into Microsoft PowerPoint, reading existing layouts and generating slides that preserve those design elements. Opus 4.7 is the next step in that progression.
