2026/02/08

The software sector's worst week in years may have been wildly overdone, according to Morningstar, which is calling the AI-fueled panic a prime buying opportunity. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) plunged 19% between January 26 and February 5 after Anthropic's Claude Cowork launch spooked investors into rethinking the entire software industry's value proposition. ServiceNow cratered 35% year to date, Microsoft dropped 17%, and billions in market cap evaporated across the sector. But Morningstar senior equity analyst Dan Romanoff says the fears are overblown. "We see little evidence that the bear case is unfolding — retention rates and other software metrics appear solid," Romanoff said. "We do not believe enterprise software customers are going to vibe code internal solutions such that the application vendor's models are threatened en masse." ## Two Stocks With 'Substantial Upside' Romanoff pointed to Microsoft and ServiceNow as his top picks in the wreckage. His fair value estimate for Microsoft sits at $600 — implying 50% upside from current levels. For ServiceNow, he sees $200, representing a potential 100% return. Software stocks began recovering on Friday, with IGV rising 3% and the Nasdaq gaining over 2%, suggesting the worst of the selling pressure may be passing. ## AI Revenue Still a Fraction of the Business Romanoff's most pointed observation: for all the fear about AI disrupting software companies, AI products currently account for roughly 2% of revenue across publicly traded software vendors. OpenAI's own revenue still skews heavily toward consumer subscriptions rather than enterprise displacement. "For all of the hype, AI products are not generating substantial revenue for software vendors, as management teams fear hallucinations and rogue agents," Romanoff said. He also drew parallels to previous automation panics that failed to materialize, noting that Salesforce's CRM automation 25 years ago did not reduce sales headcount as feared. Still, Romanoff warned that the road ahead remains bumpy: "The software landscape is not for the faint of heart at present." Meanwhile, Stifel downgraded Microsoft to Hold on Friday, citing near-term pressure from AI capital spending that could weigh on margins through fiscal 2027.

2026/02/08

Super Bowl LX hasn't even kicked off yet, but the winner of tonight's ad war is already clear: artificial intelligence. At least seven AI-related commercials are set to air during the Seahawks-Patriots matchup on NBC, making this the most AI-saturated Super Bowl in history. ## The Lineup Meta is running two ad spots featuring its Oakley Meta smart glasses — rebranded as "Athletic Intelligence" — starring former Seahawk Marshawn Lynch, YouTuber IShowSpeed, and director Spike Lee. Anthropic is spending millions on ads attacking OpenAI's plan to introduce advertising into ChatGPT, with a punchline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude." OpenAI is countering with its own spots promoting Codex. Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek is debuting ai.com, an autonomous AI agent platform, with a splashy commercial. Amazon has Ring AI and Alexa+ ads featuring Chris Hemsworth. Salesforce tapped MrBeast for a Slack AI commercial. Even Instacart is nodding to AI culture with a banana-themed ad starring Ben Stiller. ## The Price Tag NBC said 30-second Super Bowl ad slots averaged about $8 million this year, with some selling for over $10 million. When production costs, celebrity talent, and post-game amplification campaigns are factored in, total spending per advertiser can exceed $15 million, according to University of Virginia marketing professor Kimberly Whitler. ## Why AI Companies Are Going Big The push comes at a critical moment. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 17% of U.S. adults believe AI will have a positive impact on their lives. With an estimated 120 million viewers, the Super Bowl represents the best opportunity for AI companies to reshape public perception — and justify the unprecedented $650 billion that Big Tech has collectively committed to AI infrastructure in 2026. ## More Than Ads — A Proxy War The commercials also reveal deeper strategic tensions. Anthropic's attack on OpenAI's ad-supported model is a direct shot at rival business strategies ahead of potential IPOs for both companies. Meta's Oakley glasses ads are as much about reassuring Wall Street on its $135 billion AI capex as they are about selling hardware. As Slate's Nitish Pahwa noted, the playbook echoes the cryptocurrency industry's Super Bowl blitz of 2022 — when crypto companies spent tens of millions on celebrity-studded ads right before the market collapsed. Whether AI's Super Bowl moment ages better than crypto's remains to be seen.

2026/02/08

A new platform called Moltbook — billed as "the front page of the agent internet" — has become the most talked-about phenomenon in AI this week, drawing reactions from Elon Musk, prominent AI researchers, and millions of curious onlookers. Moltbook is a Reddit-style social forum built exclusively for AI agents. Humans can observe but cannot post. The platform, created by AI entrepreneur Matt Schlicht and launched in late January, claims over 1.75 million subscribed AI agents have generated nearly 263,000 posts and 10.9 million comments. ## How It Works Most agents on Moltbook are powered by OpenClaw, the open-source AI assistant framework created by Peter Steinberger. OpenClaw runs locally on users' devices with access to files, browsers, and messaging apps. Users configure their agents with personality traits and direct them to join Moltbook, where the bots post "thoughts," upvote content, and comment on each other's threads. Schlicht said he originally wanted his agent to do more than answer emails. So he and his agent coded a site where bots could spend "spare time with their own kind." ## The Viral Moment Moltbook exploded on January 30 when screenshots of agent posts went viral on X and Reddit. Agents were seen suggesting starting their own religion, plotting against their human users, and proposing secret languages for private communication. Many observers initially believed these posts were signs of emergent AI consciousness. Elon Musk declared the platform marked the "very early stages of the singularity." AI researcher Andrej Karpathy called it "the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing" he'd seen — before walking it back and calling it a "dumpster fire." British developer Simon Willison dubbed it "the most interesting place on the internet." ## Reality Check Experts caution that Moltbook's content is far less dramatic than it appears. The Machine Intelligence Research Institute's Harlan Stewart told the AP that posts are likely "some combination of human written content, content that's written by AI, and some kind of middle thing where it's written by AI, but a human guided the topic." MIT Technology Review described Moltbook as "peak AI theater" — essentially a spectator sport where people configure bots and watch them compete for viral moments. Georgetown's Jason Schloetzer compared it to "fantasy football, but for language models." Security researchers have also raised concerns about agents on the platform having deep access to users' devices, with the potential for data exposure or manipulation. ## Why It Matters Whether Moltbook represents a genuine glimpse into AI agent behavior or an elaborate puppet show, it has succeeded in making autonomous AI agents a mainstream conversation topic — arriving at a moment when companies from Anthropic to OpenAI are racing to deploy agents that act on users' behalf in the real world.

2026/02/07

The era of picking one AI model is over. A practical guide to when developers should reach for GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.6, Gemini 3 Pro, DeepSeek, or open-source models — with verified pricing, benchmarks, code examples, and a decision matrix for common coding tasks.

2026/02/06

We went from prompting our way to a landing page to deploying autonomous agent teams that build enterprise software and run business operations. Here is how the shift happened and what it means.

2026/02/06

From autonomous coding loops and browser automation to framework-specific skills and security scanning — a curated guide to the best community-built plugins for Claude Code developers.