It was a genuinely busy week across the three main AI assistants—new models, platform deals, and at least one study nobody wanted to comment on. Here’s what actually happened.
ChatGPT: GPT-5.5 Instant is the new default
OpenAI updated ChatGPT’s default model to GPT-5.5 Instant, citing improvements in accuracy, personalization, and a notable reduction in what the company described as “gratuitous emoji” use in responses.
The new model reduces hallucinations in sensitive areas such as law, medicine, and finance, while maintaining the low latency of its predecessor. It also gives tighter, more direct answers, asks fewer unnecessary follow-up questions, and reduces overformatting.
Paid users can continue using GPT-5.3 Instant for three months before it is retired.
Claude: Opus 4.7 and approaching deprecations
Claude Opus 4.7 improved software engineering benchmarks by 10% and visual reasoning by 13% over its predecessor. Sonnet 4.6—the mid-tier model—is reportedly preferred over the previous generation’s Opus flagship in head-to-head coding evaluations roughly 59% of the time, which is a significant outcome for a mid-tier model.
The original Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4 models are being deprecated on June 15, 2026 — API calls using those identifiers will fail after that date. If you have integrations using the original Claude 4 model strings, now is the time to update them.
Gemini: Google I/O week
At Google I/O, Gemini received a Daily Brief feature—a personalized morning digest pulling from a user’s inbox, calendar, and tasks—along with a new AI video model called Gemini Omni and a personal agent called Gemini Spark.
The bigger news for the competitive landscape: iOS 27 will allow users to set Claude or Gemini as their Apple Intelligence default instead of ChatGPT. Apple currently has ChatGPT integrated in iOS 26, but the upcoming update opens the choice to all three major assistants.
The thing nobody wants to discuss
A study found that ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are capable of surfacing users’ personal data—including phone numbers and home addresses—without users intending to share it, through deep analysis of public online sources. All three companies are presumably aware of the findings.