#234 - Opus 4.6, GPT-5.3-codex, Seedance 2.0, GLM-5

Our 234th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 02/02/2026
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov (twitter.com/andrey_kurenkov) and Jeremie Harris (linkedin.com/in/jeremieharris)
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.comand/or hello@gladstone.ai
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at lastweekin.ai
In this episode:
• Major model launches include Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 with a 1M-token context window and “agent teams,” OpenAI’s GPT-5.3 Codex and faster Codex Spark via Cerebras, and Google’s Gemini 3 Deep Think posting big jumps on ARC-AGI-2 and other STEM benchmarks amid criticism about missing safety documentation.
• Generative media advances feature ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 text-to-video with high realism and broad prompting inputs, new image models Seedream 5.0 and Alibaba’s Qwen Image 2.0, plus xAI’s Grok Imagine API for text/image-to-video.
• Open and competitive releases expand with Zhipu’s GLM-5, DeepSeek’s 1M-token context model, Cursor Composer 1.5, and open-weight Qwen3 Coder Next using hybrid attention aimed at efficient local/agentic coding.
• Business updates include ElevenLabs raising $500M at an $11B valuation, Runway raising $315M at a $5.3B valuation, humanoid robotics firm Apptronik raising $935M at a $5.3B valuation, Waymo announcing readiness for high-volume production of its 6th-gen hardware, plus industry drama around Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad and departures from xAI.

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Timestamps:
• (00:00:10) Intro / Banter
• (00:02:03) Sponsor Break
• (00:05:33) Response to listener comments
• Tools & Apps
• (00:07:27) AAnthropic releases Opus 4.6 with new 'agent teams' | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/02/05/anthropic-releases-o…)
• (00:11:28) OpenAI's new GPT-5.3-Codex is 25% faster and goes way beyond coding now - what's new | ZDNET (zdnet.com/article/openai-gpt-5-3-codex-faster-…)
• (00:25:30) OpenAI launches new macOS app for agentic coding | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/openai-launches-new-…)
• (00:26:38) Google Unveils Gemini 3 Deep Think for Science & Engineering | The Tech Buzz (techbuzz.ai/articles/google-unveils-gemini-3-d…)
• (00:31:26) ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 Might be the Best AI Video Generator Yet - TechEBlog (techeblog.com/bytedance-seedance-2-0-ai-video-…)
• (00:35:14) China’s ByteDance, Alibaba unveil AI image tools to rival Google’s popular Nano Banana | South China Morning Post (scmp.com/tech/article/3343082/chinas-bytedance…)
• (00:36:54) DeepSeek boosts AI model with 10-fold token addition as Zhipu AI unveils GLM-5 | South China Morning Post (scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3343225/deep…)
• (00:43:11) CCursor launches Composer 1.5 with upgrades for complex tasks (testingcatalog.com/cursor-launches-composer-1-…)
• (00:44:03) xAI launches Grok Imagine API for text and image to video (testingcatalog.com/xai-launches-grok-imagine-a…)
• Applications & Business
• (00:45:47) Nvidia-backed AI voice startups ElevenLabs hits $11 billion valuation (cnbc.com/2026/02/04/nvidia-backed-ai-startup-e…)
• (00:52:04) AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/ai-video-startup-run…)
• (00:54:02) Humanoid robot startup Apptronik has now raised $935M at a $5B+ valuation | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/humanoid-robot-start…)
• (00:57:10) Anthropic says ‘Claude will remain ad-free,’ unlike an unnamed rival | The Verge (theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/873686…)
• (01:00:18) Okay, now exactly half of xAI's founding team has left the company | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/nearly-half-of-xais-…)
• (01:04:03) Waymo’s next-gen robotaxi is ready for passengers — and also ‘high-volume production’ | The Verge (theverge.com/transportation/877902/waymo-sixth…)
• Projects & Open Source
• (01:04:59) Qwen3-Coder-Next: Pushing Small Hybrid Models on Agentic Coding (qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3-coder-next)
• (01:08:38) OpenClaw’s AI ‘skill’ extensions are a security nightmare | The Verge (theverge.com/news/874011/openclaw-ai-skill-cla…)
• Research & Advancements
• (01:10:40) Learning to Reason in 13 Parameters (arxiv.org/abs/2602.04118)
• (01:16:01) Reinforcement World Model Learning for LLM-based Agents (arxiv.org/abs/2602.05842)
• (01:20:00) Opus 4.6 on Vending-Bench – Not Just a Helpful Assistant (andonlabs.com/blog/opus-4-6-vending-bench)
• Policy & Safety
• (01:22:28) METR GPT-5.2 (metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-…)
• (01:26:59) The Hot Mess of AI: How Does Misalignment Scale with Model Intelligence and Task Complexity? (alignment.anthropic.com/2026/hot-mess-of-ai)
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