Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 Valve's Steam Machine: Everything we know Anthropic beefs up Claude's free tier as OpenAI prepares to stuff ads into ChatGPT's You no longer need a subscription to create files or use Connectors and Skills in Claude. Anthropic is upgrading Claude's free tier, apparently to capitalize on OpenAI's planned integration of ads into ChatGPT . On Wednesday, Anthropic said free Claude users can now create files, connect to external services, use skills and more. Anthropic added the ability for paid users to create files in September. Starting today, free users of the chatbot can also create and edit Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word docs and PDFs.

PCWorld reports that Zoom launched AI Companion 3.0, making AI features available to free users for up to three meetings monthly with capabilities like summaries and notes. The update introduces Zoom Docs for document creation and editing, plus integration with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive for enhanced data analysis. Key productivity features include automated follow-up task generation, email drafting, and daily meeting reports, significantly expanding AI accessibility beyond paid subscribers. Yesterday, Zoom launched its AI Companion 3.0 initiative (reports TechCrunch), which now makes the company's AI assistant available via the web and to free users. Users with a Zoom Basic account can use the AI companion for up to 3 meetings per month.

ChatGPT's built-in image generation feature is now available to everyone. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last week that the company is delaying its rollout to free tier "for a while," because the tool was way more popular than they had expected. But the company made the feature available to free users over the weekend, allowing them to generate images from within ChatGPT and without having to switch to OpenAI's DALL-E generator. Prior to its rollout to the free tier, the tool was only available to Plus, Pro and Team subscribers. Altman previously said that free users will get a limit of three images per day.

Free ChatGPT users will have to wait a while longer to be able to use its built-in image generation capability. OpenAI has just launched a feature that will allow users to generate images directly inside of ChatGPT, and it was supposed to roll out to all Plus, Pro, Team and Free users. But according to company CEO Sam Altman, it has been way more popular than OpenAI had expected even though they already had high expectations to begin with. As such, its rollout to the free tier is "unfortunately going to be delayed for a while." People have been posting ChatGPT's output all over social media.

ChatGPT and other similar AI chatbots are becoming a bigger part of everyday life for many people. Though a Windows app for ChatGPT has been available for some time, it's only been for those who have ponied up for a premium plan -- until now. The Windows app for ChatGPT is now available to all, just like the web and mobile apps. Poking around a bit in the Windows app, it seems more or less the same as the interface I've tested on my Android phone, though of course in Windows it's easier to input larger amounts of text or submit images for scanning. It has the popular conversation mode along with a handful of digital voice options, but it's just as restrictive as it is elsewhere -- I hit the freebie interaction limit in just a few minutes.

It feels like artificial intelligence is in everything these days -- TVs, laptops, phones, websites, even PDF editors -- and that big boom can be attributed to the wild success of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Microsoft is doing its best to compete with its own Copilot AI chatbot, and both ChatGPT and Copilot are pretty good at providing answers, generating text and images, and holding conversations. Most importantly, they're both free to use. But ChatGPT and Copilot both offer paid plans in the form of ChatGPT Plus and Copilot Pro, respectively. Why would you pay for them when they're freely available?

In Singapore, Italian expat Stefano Cantù has created an AI-powered app that can suggest recipes in response to you telling it what ingredients you have in your fridge and cupboards. In a nod to the app being powered by ChatGPT he has called it "ChefGPT". "I'm Italian, so of course I cook stuff," says Mr Cantù, whose day job is at a software company. He says he came up with the idea "over a weekend" after asking ChatGPT for recipe inspirations. The app also has drop-down menus and toggles, to let a user specify tools they have in their kitchen, or if they're in a hurry or not a very good cook.

OpenAI introduced voice chats with ChatGPT on Android and iOS back in September, giving users the option to have actual back-and-forth conversations with the chatbot if they want to. The company only made the feature available to Plus and Enterprise subscribers back then, though, with the promise that it will eventually release it to other groups of users. Now, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman has announced on X that voice conversations on ChatGPT have started rolling out to all free users on mobile. ChatGPT Voice rolled out for all free users. Give it a try -- totally changes the ChatGPT experience: https://t.co/DgzqLlDNYF

The days of creating as many free IFTTT applets as you want are over, with IFTTT announcing that--like so many other formerly free services--it's going the subscription route. The IFTTT Pro plan, which will allow subscribers to create an unlimited number of applets with new and more advanced features, will ultimately cost $10 a month, although if you sign up before October 7, you'll be able to pay what you want for a year. Meanwhile, IFTTT's "free forever" plans will now cap the number of applets you can create to just three, and if you've already created more than three applets, you'll need to pick which three you want to keep if you're planning on sticking with a free account. IFTTT built a loyal following over the years, with its users building and sharing millions of free applets that connect a wide variety of online services and gadgets, ranging from Google Calendar and Twitter to Roombas and Philips Hue smart bulbs. Free users will still be able to use as many IFTTT community applets as they like, but the new three-applet creation cap poses a dilemma for those who've built a number of IFTTT applets of their own.

The days of clicking on traffic lights to prove you are not a robot could be ending after Google's decision to charge for the tool prompted one of the web's biggest infrastructure firms to ditch it for a competitor. "Captcha" – an awkward acronym for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart" – is used by sites to fight automated abuses of their services. For years, Google's version of the test, branded reCaptcha, has dominated, after it acquired the company that developed it in 2009 and offered the technology for free worldwide. Google's introduction of charges for the service has prompted Cloudflare, a little-known firm that protects around 12% of the internet from bot attacks, to seek an alternative. The company's founder and chief executive, Matthew Prince, said: "It would have added millions of dollars in annual costs just to continue to use reCaptcha for our free users. That was finally enough of an impetus for us to look for a better alternative."