The pacing era's first launch day
PLUS: Build, test, and publish an app without leaving Codex
Good morning, AI enthusiasts, and welcome to the 20,221 new readers who joined us yesterday. Barely two weeks into the AI industry’s new “pacing” era, the frontier’s two biggest rivals are still launching on each other’s heels.
Anthropic and OpenAI shipped models just 90 minutes apart, with a powerful new Opus 5.5 topping leaderboards and GPT-6 Sol and Luna cutting prices in half for near-frontier intelligence. The pace? Still feels pretty fast!
In today’s AI rundown:
Anthropic, OpenAI deliver dueling frontier AI discounts
OpenAI taps mathematicians to check its AI
Build, test, and publish an app without leaving Codex
a16z’s new AI-driven college alternative
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
ANTHROPIC & OPENAI
Image source: Anthropic / OpenAI
The Rundown: Anthropic just released Claude Opus 5.5, a model that surpasses its predecessor and even the top-tier Fable 5.1 at 40% less price, with OpenAI answering with GPT-6 Sol and Luna, two new models at half the price of the versions they replace.
The details:
Opus 5.5 takes the top overall spot on AA’s Intelligence Index at 58, blowing past previous leaders Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra at 53.
Anthropic addressed Claude’s much-criticized “Claudish” writing, saying that 5.5 skips jargon and sticks more closely to users’ own style rules.
Anthropic also said 5.5 scored “the best score to date” on internal alignment benchmarking, noting it as the first release following Anthropic’s “pacing” calls.
GPT-6 Sol and Luna come in with slight score increases over their 5.6 counterparts, but are 50% cheaper at $0.10/$0.50 per M (Luna) and $2/$10 (Sol).
Why it matters: Anthropic wins the day if we’re comparing releases head-to-head, with Opus showing some serious leaps at a reduced cost. OAI’s rollout is largely cost-driven, but a 50% cut for still powerful models isn’t something to dismiss. Sam Altman said pacing “does not mean stopping,” and that seems to be true for both AI leaders so far.
TOGETHER WITH COREWEAVE
The Rundown: What do Pitbull, BattleBots, and AI agents all have in common? They’re all happening at Fully Connected 2026. Join 3,000+ AI engineers and leaders in San Francisco, Sept. 29–Oct. 1, for three days of networking, insights, and action toward accelerating the path to superintelligence.
This conference gives you access to:
3 tracks and 30+ technical breakout sessions
4+ hands-on keyboard labs led by CoreWeave engineers
Keynotes from CoreWeave, NVIDIA, Capital One, and more
Entertainment from BattleBots, Pitbull, and F1
OPENAI
Image source: Images 2.5 / The Rundown
The Rundown: OpenAI says a single internal model has resolved 100+ open math problems since it began training on Aug. 28, and it’s now handing nine top mathematicians an advisory role in how those results reach the field.
The details:
OpenAI says its internal model has resolved problems across most branches of mathematics, alongside its claimed Navier–Stokes breakthrough.
A new advisory group, hosted at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, includes mathematicians Timothy Gowers, Martin Hairer, and Melanie Matchett Wood.
It will advise on vetting and releasing results and can weigh in on its views, but members aren’t paid by OAI and won’t advise on how fast it pushes math work.
Earlier this month, 27 Fields Medalists, including Hairer, signed a letter accusing AI labs of rushing out results without proper credit or understanding.
Why it matters: That’s 100+ results in under four weeks, each needing human review for correctness, originality, and credit — the pile-up the Fields Medalists warned about. The advisory group can shape how those results are vetted and released but has no say over how fast the model produces them.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: In this guide, you will learn how to use Codex to prep your app for the App Store. You just need an app, Xcode installed on your Mac, and an Apple Developer account. Codex can handle the rest.
Step-by-step:
If you don’t have a ready-to-publish app, Codex can create one. Try: “Build me a calendar planning iOS app for couples. No database or payments”
Make sure you have Xcode installed, along with at least one iOS simulator. Ask Codex for help if you’re not sure how to do this
Tell Codex to test the app in the simulator. When it opens, prompt: “Scan for App Store readiness, list what’s missing, then fix it and package it for Xcode”
Sign up for the Apple Developer Program and subscribe at $99/year. Then, push the final Xcode project to the App Store via App Store Connect
Pro tip: Have Codex create the required privacy policy and support pages in Notion. For more tricks like this, check out the full video guide.
PRESENTED BY AWS
The Rundown: AWS re:Invent returns to Las Vegas, Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, with 2,200+ sessions and 70% hands-on, giving builders the option to design a week that matches how you work. Stack workshops, code talks, and builders’ sessions back to back, or leave room to go deep on one track.
While onsite, you can:
Map a personalized agenda around the services you’re actually shipping with
Swap between structured sessions and open sandbox time as the week unfolds
Pressure-test your build against edge cases with the engineers who built the service
Register for AWS re:Invent and start building your schedule.
AI & EDUCATION
Image source: a16z
The Rundown: VC firm Andreessen Horowitz launched the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, a $42M, one-year program for recent high school grads that swaps degrees for startup projects, co-ops at tech giants, and classes by Silicon Valley’s biggest names.
The details:
Udemy’s Gagan Biyani leads the Academy, promising courses from instructors “your textbooks are written about” like Sam Altman and Brian Armstrong.
The founding class will be roughly 50 students in Fall 2027, with admissions based on what students have built or shipped over grades or test scores.
Students will also receive $50K in compute credits, a $5K travel budget, and time inside partner startups, with no homework or tests in the program.
A two-year version planned for 2028 would charge elite-college tuition if regulators approve it, though for now students leave without any degree.
Why it matters: The educational system is facing an upheaval from AI, but there have been few options (Alpha School being one of the few) to challenge the pre-AI classroom model. a16z’s Academy arrives with a learning overhaul and tie-ins to major labs and tech leaders, making it a potentially elite pipeline for the AI builders of the future.
QUICK HITS
COMMUNITY AI WORKFLOW OF THE DAY
▸ Adriana used ChatGPT to build a local grain supply chain
Today’s workflow comes from reader Adriana Pausenwein:
“I built an AI-assisted vertical grain supply-chain resilience workflow after discovering that the rye flour we normally use for homemade bread had been discontinued.
I started by asking ChatGPT to locate alternative retail and bulk suppliers for rye and spelt flour. We compared package sizes and prices, contacted local mills and bulk-food suppliers, and expanded the search from finished flour to locally available whole grain.
The workflow then moved offline. ChatGPT helped us identify the resources we already had: agricultural land, grain bins, a cultivator, a seeder, an old but functional industrial grain crusher, and even a combine. We also realized that a friend owns a seed-cleaning plant and that our farming neighbors can connect us with local rye and spelt growers.
Our next steps are to test whether a household coffee grinder can produce sufficiently fine flour from grain, source fresh food-grade rye and spelt locally, and investigate growing a small crop ourselves.
AI was most useful not because it gave us one answer, but because the conversation kept changing the question. We began with, ‘Where can I buy rye flour?’ and ended with, ‘Why are we buying rye flour when we have most of the infra to produce it ourselves?’”
See Adriana’s workflow Visit The Rundown University. How do you use AI? Tell us for a chance to be featured.
🏆 Claude Opus 5.5 - Anthropic’s new Opus that rivals Fable for less
💸 GPT-6 Sol & Luna - OpenAI’s smaller GPT-6 models at half the price
🧠 MiMo-V2.6 - Xiaomi’s omnimodal models on par with Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol
📺️ Studio 4.0 - ElevenLabs’ AI editor to generate and edit video, music, SFX
Forge by Fireworks brings together leaders building their own frontier on open models. Hear from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Fireworks CEO Lin Qiao, Microsoft EVP Jay Parikh, and more on Nov. 3 in SF. Apply to attend.*
Alibaba unveiled its next AI chip delivering 3x the performance of its predecessor, alongside plans for a 5-10T-param model and 20GW of data-center capacity by 2032.
British Columbia sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, alleging the company failed to alert police after flagging the Tumbler Ridge shooter’s ChatGPT use.
Meta’s Muse reportedly outpaced ChatGPT’s mobile debut, with 1.8M U.S. and Canadian iOS downloads in 12 days to ChatGPT’s 1.3M.
Twenty countries and the EU called for stronger global oversight of advanced AI, urging transparent company safety protocols and coordinated government standards.
*Sponsored listing
Read our last AI newsletter: Amazon shuts out Meta’s Muse
Read our last Tech newsletter: Meta’s less-creepy smart glasses
Read our last Robotics newsletter: Agility’s new ‘safer’ humanoid
Today’s AI tool guide: Build, test, and publish an app without leaving Codex
RSVP to next workshop on Sept. 30: Turn Cowork into your chief of staff
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See you soon,
Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — the humans behind The Rundown
