Week 44, 2026
Coverage window 23 – 29 October 2026.
For the interpretation of this week, see the companion essay: Weekly AI Tools That Matter to Me: Part 14, Week 44. This page is the record; the essay is the read.
This week’s record
Claude Desktop 4 added a beta setting that runs a security scan on each skill a user creates or uploads before it can be used, and blocks skills that fail the scan.
- Claude Enterprise made the unified chat and Cowork experience generally available, and made smart reports, in-app surveys and pooled group budgets generally available.
- Anthropic filed a registration statement on Form S-1 for a proposed initial public offering, and published the safety, privacy and security design of Claude Duet.
- ChatGPT Enterprise disabled the creation of new custom GPTs in affected workspaces, pointing to Plugin Creator, and retired automatic switching to higher thinking levels.
- OpenAI rolled out GPT-6.1 Terra in ChatGPT Work and Codex.
- Gemini Enterprise made VPC connectivity and static IP egress for custom MCP servers generally available.
What changed this week
| Platform | What changed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AnthropicFiled (Oct 26)Corporate | Filed a registration statement on Form S-1 for a proposed initial public offering of Class A common stock, intended for the Nasdaq Global Select Market under “ANT”; size and price not yet determined | Anthropic |
| Anthropic Claude DesktopReleased, beta setting (Oct 29)Admin / skills | v4.4212.0: “skillScanningEnabled (beta): run a security scan on each skill a user creates or uploads before it can be used. Skills that fail the security scan are blocked”; projectsEnabled to hide projects without deleting them; sessionStatusLine; per-site local network access in the built-in browser; (breaking) from 10 November, coworkTabEnabled set to false alone no longer keeps Cowork off; device-level browser and remote-control settings now apply alongside admin console settings | Changelog |
| Anthropic Claude DesktopReleased (Oct 27)Admin / connectors | v4.29.0: Cowork’s Skip all approvals follows the organisation’s Cowork setting; web fetch in scheduled tasks needs a URL named in the instructions or found by search; managed MCP connectors can ship switched off (defaultState) with per-server tool timeouts; token-limit warning at 75 percent; GitHub connector write tools ask before every call; an unset desktopHome opens Unified Claude after 10 November | Changelog |
| Anthropic Claude DuetPublished (Oct 23)Agents / safety | Safety design published: approval cards showing “the action, the destination, and the content, including every recipient”; a separate check outside the working model; actions off-limits even with approval, such as trading securities; a classifier for information that must never be shared and information that needs consent; Duet “never sees your passwords, browser cookies, sign-in tokens, or other credentials” | Claude |
| Anthropic Claude EnterpriseGA (Oct 23)Product | Unified chat and Cowork generally available; “Agentic work runs in a cloud environment that Anthropic manages”, with role-based access and a new Efficient mode | Claude |
| Anthropic Claude EnterpriseGA (Oct 28)Admin / analytics | Smart reports (analysis of a sample of a team’s transcripts into workstreams, spend, friction and recommended skills; “they aren’t for evaluating individual performance or making employment decisions”), in-app surveys, and pooled group budgets with member limits as a guardrail | Claude |
| Google AntigravityReleased (Oct 26 – 28)Agents / plugins | 2.28.0: built-in browser in the side panel, PDF viewer, attachments of any file type; 2.28.1: a notice about third-party developer tools on the Marketplace tab, with each plugin’s developer, version and links on its page; 2.27.0 Markdown previews | Changelog |
| Google Gemini EnterpriseGA (Oct 27 – 28)Connectors / residency | VPC connectivity and static IP egress for custom MCP server data stores, routing tool traffic through Agent Gateway, with private MCP servers through Private Service Connect (Oct 27); Brazil in-country region, GA with allowlist (Oct 28) | Release notes |
| Google WorkspaceRolling outProduct | Gemini Notebook as a Connected App in the Gemini app, creating and editing notebooks and sources from chat, on by default (Oct 23); cell-level web citations in Fill with Gemini (Oct 28) | Workspace Updates · Fill with Gemini |
| Microsoft 365 CopilotReleased (batch Oct 13 – 27)Connectors | Admins can create custom MCP connectors in the Microsoft 365 admin centre and deploy them across Microsoft 365; Work IQ API endpoints for declarative agents | Release notes |
| OpenAI ChatGPTRolling out (Oct 26 – 28)Models / product | GPT-6.1 Terra in ChatGPT Work and Codex for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu, not in Chat for Business and Enterprise; no UAE inference residency (Oct 26); iCloud Mail and Calendar plugins (Oct 27); texting your dot over iMessage or RCS, beta for US Pro (Oct 28) | ChatGPT release notes |
| OpenAI ChatGPT Enterprise and EduReleased (Oct 23 – 28)Admin / retirement | New custom GPT creation disabled for affected Enterprise workspaces, FedRAMP excepted; “Use Plugin Creator for new reusable workflows” (Oct 26); automatic thinking retired, with no automatic switch from Instant to higher thinking levels (Oct 28); workspace analytics across Usage and Insights, and a fixed 7-day grace period for personal workspace migration (Oct 23) | Enterprise and Edu release notes |
| OpenAI / OracleAnnounced (Oct 27)Partnership | Oracle applications and data coming into ChatGPT through Oracle AI Workspace, with access “governed by each organization’s permissions and approvals” | OpenAI |
Late captures in this edition. Claude Desktop v3.1623.4 (22 October) made plugins ask before using tools they pre-approve when an organisation’s managed settings allow only managed permission rules. ChatGPT Enterprise added shareable profiles within a workspace (22 October). Google Workspace added eDiscovery filtered exports for Gemini in Workspace conversations to Google Vault, with retention rules and holds to follow (22 October). Antigravity 2.26.0 (22 October) docked question and permission prompts above the message box. Anthropic committed a portion of its shares to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund (18 October).
No changes this week (scanned, nothing net-new)
Scanned for the 23 – 29 October window with no net-new release:
- Claude apps release notes (support centre): newest entry 21 October.
- Gemini app release notes: newest entry 13 October.
- chiefmartec: no new dated post since May.
Scanned but unresolved, reported as source states rather than vendor silence:
- Gemini 4 Argon on by default in Gemini Enterprise from 27 October: no release note on that date mentions it.
- Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform release notes and the Antigravity CLI, SDK and IDE changelog tabs: not read this week.
Watching next (Week 45)
- Claude Desktop client-certificate fallback warning on 3 November; Unified Claude for all organisations on 10 November; Anthropic Usage Policy in effect 12 November.
- What the Claude Desktop skill security scan checks, and when it leaves beta.
- Agent Skills at the Agentic AI Foundation: first versioned release and security guidance for skill authors.
- OpenAI models in Antigravity and the Gemini Agent.
How this is compiled. Each edition is assembled from official release notes, changelogs and newsrooms. An AI assistant does the first-pass scan, reading release notes in a browser or through vendor-published Markdown and feed routes, and I review and edit before publishing. Items are checked against the primary source; anything I could not confirm is marked inline. Dates and status reflect what was published as of the current-as-of date and can change.
Corrections and method notes. Spot an error? Tell me and I will fix it in the next edition. Cross-note: Marketo’s MCP Server scope section, Treasure AI’s per-person OAuth for MCP endpoints and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement’s 40 MCP tools are recorded in MarTech Watch, Week 44.
AI Watch is compiled and edited by Andrea Veggiani, Head of Cross Channel Marketing / Martech Solution Architect at BitBang.