Technology News: AI Agents, Research and Digital Services

Technology updates focus on bringing AI agents into browsers, scientific research and personal computers. Alongside these new tools is a framework for independent risk assessment at Anthropic. In digital services, Zalo reports the scale of its public service rollout, Bluesky expands its creative tools, and Google adds a cross-retailer shopping cart.

ChatGPT adds the ability to view and control Chrome tabs

ChatGPT can view open browser tabs when users tag Chrome in the ChatGPT web or desktop app. The updated sidebar lets users access ChatGPT and their full conversation history in Chat or Work without leaving the page they are viewing. With ChatGPT Work, users can control Chrome tabs to perform tasks such as sending messages, filling out forms or uploading files. The extension also supports sorting or grouping open tabs. These changes combine information from browser tabs with conversations and on-page actions, helping users get work done directly in Chrome.

Google uses Antigravity to find an antimicrobial peptide candidate

Google introduces Antigravity as an agent-based scientific workspace that brings searches across multiple databases into a single session. The demonstration workflow uses ProtNLM, a model that predicts biological function from amino acid sequences, to screen proteins with unidentified functions in UniProt. A new antimicrobial peptide candidate was found and predicted to have activity against a pathogen that causes respiratory infections. However, the candidate is still undergoing experimental validation, and its efficacy has not been confirmed. In this workflow, the researcher sets the strategic direction, while the agent coordinates database use, structural analysis and literature synthesis.

Meta launches Muse Spark Open in collaboration with Apple

Meta launches Muse Spark Open, an open-weight mixture-of-experts model with approximately 816 billion total parameters, around 42 billion active parameters per token and a context window of up to one million tokens. The model accepts text, images, audio and video but produces text output. Meta trained the model for agentic coding, including reading source code, writing and debugging code, and calling tools. Meta and Apple collaborated on the launch; Meta says the model can run on two Mac Studio M5 Ultra machines with the latest version of MLX. This configuration offers a desktop deployment option for an open-weight multimodal model.

Drylab AI raises funding for scientific research agents

Drylab AI raised US$3 million in a seed round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, with participation from PatSnap. Founded in 2025, the company develops an agentic AI platform for life sciences research. Drylab aims to build agents that can understand research goals, develop strategies and choose from more than 800 integrated scientific tools and databases. The new funding is expected to be used to expand the sales team, hire engineers and biology specialists, and complete security certification. The plan focuses on both specialist capabilities and the requirements for deploying the platform in research.

Anthropic grants METR internal access

Anthropic is granting six METR researchers employee-equivalent access to independently assess its models, safety practices and risk governance. The team is being provided with company laptops, workspace and internal tools nearly equivalent to those available to Anthropic’s risk assessment teams. METR will publish its own assessments of the company’s risks, incidents and practices, with Anthropic having no veto power. However, Anthropic may request redactions within narrowly defined, predetermined categories, including customer data, information protected by attorney–client privilege or model architecture. METR is currently the only evaluator at the highest level of a three-tier system under development.

Windows adds AI agent support on RTX Spark laptops

RTX Spark combines an Arm CPU, a Blackwell GPU and unified memory to run AI models on laptops. Microsoft says the new Get Started experience on these machines lets users find, install and access AI agents in two clicks. Agents can be installed and updated through Windows Store. Hermes, Perplexity and OpenClaw are the first three agents officially supported by Windows at the RTX Spark launch. Microsoft has also optimized its emulator for the RTX Spark microarchitecture to bring x64 applications to the platform, alongside changes aimed at simplifying local AI use.

FLUX.3 Image Klein integrates with Diffusers at launch

Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.3 Image Klein is supported in Diffusers from day one. A single model handles text-to-image generation, image generation from multiple reference images and layout control using bounding boxes. The release includes two open checkpoints: a timestep-distilled version for fast inference and a base version. It also includes LoRA training scripts for both text-to-image generation and image editing. This integration brings multiple image generation and editing methods into a single model in Diffusers, while providing tools for users to train LoRAs rather than only use existing checkpoints.

Zalo reports the scale of public service OAs and mini apps

By the end of September, government agencies, healthcare providers, educational institutions and public utilities had 20,647 Zalo OA channels and 2,055 mini apps operating across 34 provinces and cities. Zalo OA began rolling out to these organizations in 2018 and attracted more than 36 million follows over eight years. Launched in 2022, mini apps support checking application records, submitting administrative applications, booking medical appointments, paying tuition and paying for public services without installing a separate app. During natural disasters in 2025, Zalo SOS recorded 651,000 people sharing their safety status, around 82,000 requests for assistance and nearly 73,000 calls to the 112 hotline, alongside its role in providing everyday public services.

Bluesky expands Attie to websites and games

Bluesky is expanding Attie with tools that let users create websites, quizzes, games, polls and other interactive experiences. Previously, Attie provided AI technology for building custom social media feeds. The expanded scope moves beyond organizing content in feeds to building interactive products through prompts. The websites, games and experiences created will run on AT Protocol. When building with Attie, users can bring their own AI models or use open-weight options. This change broadens the types of products users can create with Attie while keeping them connected to AT Protocol infrastructure.

Google brings Universal Cart to Search and Gemini in the US

Universal Cart is now available to US users, allowing them to collect and track products found through Search and the Gemini app. The cart can bring together products from multiple retailers and send notifications when saved items drop in price or come back in stock. Google says the tool can also consider credit card offers when helping users choose a payment method and display relevant promotional codes. Checkout is linked to Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard introduced by Google. The tool connects product discovery and price and stock tracking with payment assistance, but its stated rollout is currently limited to the US.

Quick summary

ChatGPT adds the ability to use information from and take actions in Chrome tabs; Microsoft brings agent installation and updates into the Windows experience for RTX Spark.
Antigravity demonstrates a search for an antimicrobial peptide, but the candidate still needs validation; Drylab AI raises US$3 million for its research platform.
Muse Spark Open adds an open-weight multimodal model option, while FLUX.3 Image Klein integrates image generation and editing in Diffusers.
METR gains access to Anthropic’s internal tools and will publish independent assessments, with some limits on information disclosure.
Zalo reports the scale of its public services; Attie expands into interactive experiences, and Universal Cart brings together products from multiple retailers in the US.