What's up: Anthropic calls its latest AI model the best in the world for coding; California's Gavin Newsom signs AI safety bill; China’s DeepSeek unveils new AI model

Good morning. The use of AI in the enterprise has been concentrated in a limited number of applications, namely coding and customer service. Could AI commerce scale next, and if so, are merchants ready for it?

OpenAI said yesterday it is letting ChatGPT users buy things through the chatbot, without leaving the confines of its platform. U.S.-based ChatGPT users will be able to buy goods from online marketplace Etsy’s domestic sellers, as well as some merchants on Shopify’s e-commerce platform. The service, called Instant Checkout, currently only supports single-item purchases.

OpenAI also unveiled an open-source technical standard for merchants to build integrations with ChatGPT, called Agentic Commerce Protocol, which the company hopes will draw more merchants onto its chatbot platform. The protocol allows merchants to make their products shoppable inside ChatGPT. Amazon and Walmart, the nation’s two largest digital retailers, aren’t currently using the protocol, OpenAI said.

If Instant Checkout is a success, it could help OpenAI monetize its massive consumer base, most of which uses a free version of ChatGPT. More than one in 10 people who use ChatGPT have some intent or interest in making a purchase, Michelle Fradin, OpenAI’s product lead for commerce in ChatGPT, told the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Belle Lin. Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases through ChatGPT. OpenAI declined to specify the amount of that fee, citing confidentiality agreements with its partners.

Late last year, OpenAI pushed directly into Google’s territory with the launch of a search engine for ChatGPT. The company added product recommendations inside ChatGPT in April, making it easier for chatbot users to compare products and services.

Amazon has launched an AI-powered shopping assistant called Rufus. eBay has developed a shopping agent, too.

It’s a start, but there’s more work to be done. OpenAI’s move lays groundwork for future AI agent-based shopping, but it’s still in its infancy, Belle writes:

Companies should take stock of AI commerce now, though. For online merchants, there’s a risk of losing a direct connection to shoppers who might otherwise be visiting their websites, Belle writes. “ChatGPT serves a very different purpose than a merchant’s website,” Fradin said. The chatbot also sends customer payment information through the payments processor Stripe, which forwards that data to the merchant. Fradin said that allows merchants to maintain control over their customer relationships.

True, but those merchants will increasingly rely on other companies to help preserve their place in the commerce ecosystem, and as a result they will need to be very careful to develop competitive advantage in areas that they control, such as customer service, brand and product.

Is your company preparing for AI commerce? Use the links at the end of this email and let us know.

Meanwhile, AI is hardly finished shaking up software development.

Anthropic calls its latest AI model the best in the world for coding. Released Monday, Claude Sonnet 4.5 can work on  multistep coding tasks for more than 30 hours at a time, allowing for the creation of AI agents capable of handling more complex tasks.

From DeepSeek, a new AI model that could halve usage cost. The Chinese AI developer has released an experimental large language model that it says has much better training and reasoning, and which can be operated at a lower cost. WSJ reports that the LLM uses a “sparse attention” technique, which allows AI models to handle large amounts of information more efficiently. Google and OpenAI have also explored the technique. 

The WSJ reports that the company is putting the ball in the court of talent agencies and studios, telling them that they will need to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their copyrighted material in videos Sora creates.

But OpenAI doesn’t plan to accept a blanket opt-out across all of an artist or studio’s work, people familiar with the new Sora tell the Journal. Instead, it sent some talent agencies a link to report violations that they or their clients discover.

As much as 267%: The rise over five years in the cost of electricity for a single month in areas with significant data center activity, according to a Bloomberg analysis

California's Gavin Newsom signs AI safety bill, first in the nation.

The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, or S.B. 53 requires that major AI companies with annual revenues of at least $500 million report safety protocols used in building their models. The law also provides an avenue for the public to report safety incidents, Politico reports.

Newsom vetoed an earlier version of the bill last September that required companies to create a kill switch if a model started behaving dangerously.

AI companies that make the state home are divided.  Some Silicon Valley firms have stepped up activity in political-action committees to advocate against strict AI regulations. But Anthropic earlier this month voiced its endorsement of SB 53, saying it would "formalize practices that Anthropic and many other frontier AI companies already follow." 

Microsoft is trying to instill its Office apps with a new vibe through a pair of additions, including a new Agent Mode in Excel and Word that lets users generate spreadsheets and documents with a prompt. A new agent in Copilot chat, powered by Anthropic, will also let users dream up PowerPoints, the Verge reports.

Japanese beveragemaker Asahi has suspended some shipments Monday after a cyberattack hit operations, Bloomberg reports.

Old school Googler/Yahoo-er Marissa Mayer has a new act: CEO of an AI startup. Wired reports that Mayer shut her software startup Sunshine recently, selling its assets to Dazzle, her new, AI-focused startup.

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit that President Trump brought against the company and its chief executive over its suspension of Trump’s account after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Boeing is planning a new single-aisle airplane that would succeed the 737 MAX, according to people familiar with the matter, a long-term bid to recover business lost to rival Airbus during its series of safety and quality problems. (WSJ)

Top Democrats said they made their case to President Trump for restoring billions of dollars in healthcare spending as part of any deal to avoid a government shutdown, but they said there was no breakthrough in talks. (WSJ)

Many car companies, faced with softening EV sales and a Trump administration hostile to green-energy initiatives, have called for looser regulations. None has backtracked as quickly and dramatically as GM. (WSJ)

With roughly a month left in the New York City mayoral race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is banking on a campaign reset to power him to victory after incumbent Eric Adams dropped out. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.