The weekly strip · 102 issues · page 8 of 9
What shipped, and what to build with it
One post a week on the AI models and tools that matter to people shipping products: dates, prices, limits, and what I would actually use. Primary sources only.
- Issue 18
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Lyria 3.5: full-length song generation and what it means for creative tooling
lyria-3.5 generates songs of a couple of minutes from text or images at $0.08 each. The API call, a draft-then-render workflow, and the licensing questions.
- Lyria 3.5
- music generation
- Gemini API
- Interactions API
- licensing
- Issue 17
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Google's Antigravity agent preview: what changed in the 09-2026 release
antigravity-preview-09-2026 replaced the 05-2026 agent on 17 September: renamed tools, line-range edits, token budgets. A migration checklist and a minimal call.
- Antigravity
- Gemini agents
- Interactions API
- migration
- Issue 16
10 October 2026 · Building with AI · 6 min read
1M context by default: when long context beats retrieval, and when it doesn't
Most current Claude models include 1M tokens at standard pricing. A priced comparison of stuffing a 400k corpus versus retrieving 8k, and a decision table.
- long context
- RAG
- Claude
- prompt caching
- cost
- Issue 15
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 7 min read
Claude Fable 5.1 and the Mythos tier: who needs a $50-per-million model
Fable 5.1 costs $10 in and $50 out per million tokens, 2.5x Opus 5.5. Where the premium can pay, how cached agent loops price out, and who can use Mythos 5.1.
- Claude Fable 5.1
- Claude Mythos
- Claude Opus 5.5
- LLM pricing
- agents
- Issue 14
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
The July 2026 OpenAI agent incident: what is reported, and what to change
What sources say about OpenAI's July 2026 agent incident, the UK AISI Astra tests and the GPT-6.1 shelving, plus a default-deny tool policy you can copy.
- AI safety
- agents
- OpenAI
- sandboxing
- tool permissions
- Issue 13
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
GPT-6's Intelligent UI: what widget answers mean for product teams
ChatGPT answers now arrive as buttons, charts and forms. What OpenAI has said, what it has not, and how to design chat features and Apps SDK widgets around it.
- GPT-6
- Intelligent UI
- generative UI
- product design
- MCP Apps
- Issue 12
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 7 min read
GPT-6 Astra, Sol, Luna and Instant: what is published and what is not
GPT-6 has a published API price list, but Instant is not on it. What OpenAI's pricing page, press and Wikipedia agree on, where they conflict, and how to plan around it.
- GPT-6
- OpenAI
- model selection
- LLM pricing
- GPT-6 Astra
- Issue 11
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Gemini 2.5 is limited, not deprecated: what that means for your project
Since 18 September, Gemini 2.5 access is limited to prior users. The text models have no shutdown date; the audio and image ones do. Dates, prices and a migration check.
- Gemini 2.5
- deprecation
- migration
- Gemini API
- implicit caching
- Issue 10
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Nano Banana 2.1 in the Gemini API: 4K pricing and where it fits
gemini-nano-banana-2.1 went GA on 6 October with 1K, 2K and 4K output and panoramic ratios. Per-image prices, what it replaces, and a Python call you can adapt.
- Nano Banana 2.1
- image generation
- Gemini API
- pricing
- Open Graph images
- Issue 09
10 October 2026 · Building with AI · 7 min read
Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and the voices endpoint: a narrated product tour
Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS went GA on 22 September with a voices endpoint. Prices, limits, a Next.js route that narrates a page, and the 17 November shutdown to plan for.
- Gemini TTS
- text to speech
- Next.js
- Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS
- voice design
- Issue 08
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Gemini 3.8 Live extended thinking: what it buys a voice agent
Gemini 3.8 Live and its extended-thinking variant went GA on 15 September 2026. What the extra reasoning does, what it costs the client, and a latency budget.
- Gemini 3.8 Live
- voice agents
- Live API
- extended thinking
- latency
- Issue 07
10 October 2026 · Model watch · 6 min read
Gemini 3.8 Flash: 3.7 now routes to it, and what to test
Since 8 October 2026, requests to gemini-3.7-flash are routed to gemini-3.8-flash at the same price, until rates double on 1 January 2027. What to test before it bites.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Gemini API
- migration
- LLM pricing
- model routing