Weekly AI roundup (May 23–30, 2026): Claude Opus 4.8 Fast Mode 3x cheaper, Qwen 3.7 Max beats Claude at half the price, ChatGPT moves into Excel
r/artificial
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Generative AI
Open Source AI
Pulling together this week's major AI releases for anyone who didn't have time to track every blog post. Sticking to substantive changes, not hype. Anthropic - Claude Opus 4.8 Released this week. Headline pricing unchanged, but Fast Mode dropped from $30 input / $150 output per million tokens to $10 / $50 - a 3x reduction on the premium tier. Reported improvements in "judgment" and longer autonomous runs. Also shipped 20+ legal MCP connectors and Microsoft 365 add-ins (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) in GA. Alibaba - Qwen 3.7 Max Launched May 20 at Alibaba Cloud Summit. 1M-token context.