AI news — Oct 26, 2026

8 stories, headline tone across 5 companies, and 13 agent releases.

Today's stories

Anthropic files to go public Engadget
The company may be valued as high as $2 trillion.
Anthropic’s IPO filing lays out a plan to ‘revolutionize every area of human endeavor’ with AI The Verge
Anthropic has filed its S-1 prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, preparing the company behind Claude to beat OpenAI to the punch…
Apple will reportedly run diagnostics on returned iPhones without opening the packaging Engadget
Apple soon won't need to physically access iPhones like the new Duo before updating them or checking returns.
Can AI help solve the COBOL code crisis? The Verge
What do the IRS, banks, airlines, and government infrastructure around the world have in common? They're all running on systems propped up by antiq…
Elvis Presley's estate is suing Anthropic over copyright infringement Engadget
The latest AI copyright infringement suit centers around a single music artist from decades past: Elvis.
Cognitive Mercantilism: AI panic resembles fears of early capitalism Hacker News
Imagine an AI future where being banned means you are now economically useless Hacker News
Forced to pick, Grok’s AI model chooses Republicans. OpenAI’s picks Democrats. TechCrunch
A new study found Grok's AI overwhelmingly recommends Republican candidates while OpenAI's GPT favors Democrats, with the two AI models disagreeing…

The index scores the wording of headlines, not company performance. 0 means mentioned with no scoring term matched.