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• Anthropic released Opus 4.8, its latest general-purpose model, and closed a $65 billion fundraise.
• The company’s new $965 billion valuation brings it above OpenAI’s as the rivals eye IPOs.
• Opus 4.8 is a “modest” improvement, Anthropic says, adding that Mythos is on the way.

Anthropic has arrived with the newest entrant in the AI race — and a new stack of cash.

On Thursday, the AI lab announced a new $65 billion fundraise, valuing it at a staggering $965 billion and making it the most valuable AI startup — surpassing its rival OpenAI.

The same day, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8, a new version of its general-purpose large language model. Anthropic called it a “modest but tangible improvement on its predecessor” and said it’s better at coding, reasoning, and general knowledge work.

Anthropic is in the midst of a high-stakes fight for technological supremacy and market share with OpenAI, and this new model marks the latest in a series of salvos. Each lab is gearing up to go public, pushing to sell its coding tools to as many developers as possible, and angling to secure enough computing power to sustain growth.

In a post about the fundraise, Anthropic said the new money will help it “expand compute to meet growing demand for Claude,” among other efforts.

Anthropic’s latest valuation is a huge leap from its $380 billion valuation in February. OpenAI’s last fundraise in March valued the company at $852 billion; its last model release, GPT-5.5, came in April.

What’s new about Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 model

Anthropic chose this model release to launch a new “effort control,” which lets users toggle between settings that determine how much computing power a model devotes to an answer. Companies have begun to reckon with their AI spending, and this tool will help engineers use their Claude Code budgets more slowly, for example.

Opus 4.8’s fast mode is three times cheaper than the previous versions on Anthropic’s models, the company wrote, offering another way for customers to cut costs.

Opus 4.8 is not the much-awaited Mythos model that Anthropic held back due to cybersecurity concerns.

Anthropic had kicked off a worried frenzy in the cybersecurity community in April when it said that Mythos was far better than past models at finding vulnerabilities to hack. It says it has been working with trusted companies and organizations, particularly in cybersecurity, as it develops guardrails for Mythos.

“We’re making swift progress on developing these safeguards and expect to be able to bring Mythos-class models to all our customers in the coming weeks,” the Thursday announcement said.

Anthropic called the new Opus 4.8 model “weaker” than Mythos and said it’s “substantially behind” the unreleased model on cyber capabilities. The company also wrote that while Mythos always admits it’s an AI, Opus 4.8 could be tricked into saying it’s human in about 3% of tests.

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• Business Insider asked bartenders to share the drinks people should consider ordering more often.
• For those who enjoy vermouth, a gin 50/50 martini, boulevardier, or Martinez are perfect options.
• In its intended form, the classic daiquiri deserves way more attention than it gets.

With cocktails becoming increasingly more expensive, it’s important that you’re not disappointed after ordering a drink from the bar. But at the same time, ordering the same tried-and-true martini or margarita can get boring.

That’s why Business Insider asked bartenders about which underrated drinks they think customers should order more often. Here’s what they said.

Lemon-drop cocktails have a high level of versatility, but aren’t ordered super often.

For those looking for an elevated drink choice, Madison Weeks, a bartender at 1861 Distillery in Georgia, recommends a lemon-drop cocktail.

“The lemon drop offers more than just its classic vodka base. For seasoned cocktail enthusiasts, a simple addition like a splash of elderflower liqueur or fresh herbs like thyme can turn the lemon drop into a more complex, refined drink,” Weeks told BI. “These small tweaks add depth and balance to the sweet-tart profile.”

The sloe gin fizz has a bright, refreshing taste.

Ben Pozar, the lead bartender at Hotel Vin, Autograph Collection in Texas, told BI more people should opt for a sloe gin fizz because of its bright, delicious flavors.

For this cocktail, the gin is mixed with lemon, simple syrup, and a bit of soda water.

“I don’t know why people don’t go for them at bars,” Pozar said.

He told BI they work great as an aperitif — an alcoholic drink served before a meal to stimulate the appetite.

A gin 50/50 martini gives vermouth a chance to shine.

Evan Hawkins, a bartender who owns Romeo’s in New York City, recommends ordering a gin 50/50 martini, which consists of equal parts gin and dry vermouth.

“I feel like people were taught to dislike vermouth in martini orders because it’s been shamed for so long, but I think it’s the move. A lemon twist and an olive complete this delicious, snack-like drink,” Hawkins told BI.

A classic daiquiri — in its intended form — is well-balanced and delicious.

A classic daiquiri shouldn’t be confused with the kind that comes from a frozen drink machine.

“In its original and intended form, it’s as pure as freshly fallen snow. A nice white rum, or even an Agricole, fresh citrus, and a well-balanced simple syrup make this drink the ultimate classic and the king of cocktails,” Hawkins said.

He said he often sees people in the bar industry ordering a classic daiquiri, but wishes more customers would catch on to it as well.

The New York whiskey sour deserves more attention for its stunning look and complex taste.

Richie Mello III, the head mixologist and tasting-room supervisor at Heritage Distilling Company, told BI the New York whiskey sour is a great twist on the classic cocktail.

“It’s a standard whiskey sour — whiskey, citrus, and simple syrup — finished with a red-wine float on top. The wine adds a beautiful color contrast and layers of flavor, making the cocktail visually stunning and deliciously complex,” he told BI.

He added that the combination of citrus and red wine creates a dynamic sip every time.

Palomas are often overshadowed by margaritas.

Though margaritas are often seen as a go-to drink, Sanwar Mal Khokhar, a mixologist at Sanjh Restaurant and Bar in Texas, said he thinks the hype surrounding them causes other tequila-based drinks to be overlooked.

“The paloma’s refreshing blend of tequila, grapefruit, and lime makes it a great, lesser-known option. Light, tangy, and perfectly balanced, it’s a versatile drink that pairs effortlessly with grilled seafood or spicy tacos,” Khokhar said.

The boulevardier should be on every whiskey enthusiast’s list.

Instead of an old-fashioned, Khokhar recommends trying out a boulevardier.

“The boulevardier’s perfect blend of bourbon, Campari, and sweet vermouth is a must-try for whiskey enthusiasts looking for something with more depth beyond the familiar old-fashioned,” he said.

Khokhar said the boulevardier is almost always overlooked. But with its bitter-sweet complexity, it stands out from other cocktails.

Try a Martinez instead of a martini.

Clay Sears, the head bartender at Virginia’s in New York City, said he wishes the Martinez wasn’t constantly overshadowed by the martini.

Dating back to the late 1800s, a Martinez is made up of gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and bitters.

“This martini predecessor has such a storied history in the cocktail canon. The interplay between orange bitters and maraschino leads the classic gin and vermouth formula to a much rounder, complex finish,” Sears told BI. “It’s stiff and boozy but still has a subtle smoothness that makes you want to return for another sip.”

This story was originally published in October 2024 and most recently updated on May 28, 2026.

• A plan to tax multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City has officially passed.
• Gov. Hochul and Mayor Mamdani’s new tax on properties worth over $5 million aims to raise $500 million.
• Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, whose property was singled out by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has criticized the move.

The long-awaited tax on billionaires’ second homes in New York City is now official.

A joint proposal from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani to tax multimillion-dollar second homes has been incorporated into New York’s state budget, which was passed Wednesday, two months after it was initially due. That pied-à-terre tax targets homes worth over $5 million whose owners don’t live in New York City — focusing on the ultrawealthy who own crash pads or vacation homes in the city, but may not pay city or state income taxes.

It’s one avenue lawmakers are taking to plug budget shortfalls, and a victory for Mamdani’s tax-the-rich agenda; while Hochul has squashed increasing income or corporate taxes on higher earners, the new levy will target those wealthy enough to maintain a multimillion-dollar second residence in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Hochul and Mamdani estimated the tax could raise $500 million, although the total revenue could end up coming in lower.

The tax, currently set to apply through 2031 when it will be up again for legislative renewal, will increase depending on how much a property costs. Single-family homes worth between $5 million and $15 million will be subject to a 0.8% surcharge, and those between $15 million and $25 million will be subject to 1.05%. Properties worth $25 million or more will face a 1.3% levy. In its first two years, the tax will rely on Department of Finance “assessed values” to determine which homes will face a new charge, while the city and state work out a new valuation system.

“The assessed value for a $5 million property is hardly ever five million,” said Jonathan Miller, a renowned real estate appraiser. “You significantly reduce the pool, so you’ve got to lower the threshold to some arbitrary number like a million dollars.”

The tax will fall on co-ops and condos that are currently valued at $1 million or more by the DOF. The state said the lower cutoff is a result of assessed values typically being far below what they would actually sell for. The initial rates for those will be 4%, 5.25%, and 6%, depending on the condo’s market value, during those first two years of implementation. After that initial onramp period, the city will develop a new assessment system, and surcharges will be applied at those 1.3% or lower rates.

To determine who’s subject to the tax and what counts as a second home, the Department of Finance will consider if the home was occupied for the majority of a calendar year by a covered owner. Homeowners will be notified by August 30 that they’ll be expected to pay, and they will have a chance to submit proof that the unit is actually a primary residence.

The tax is estimated to fall on around 10,000 properties, one of which Mamdani targeted when he unveiled the tax last month. In the video announcement, Mamdani stood in front of a limestone tower on Central Park South, where Citadel CEO Ken Griffin bought a penthouse for $238 million in 2019.

The directness of the move ruffled Griffin, who also owns multiple apartments in a Park Avenue coop.

“Mamdani has made it very clear, New York does not welcome success,” the Citadel chief said earlier this month at the Milken conference in Los Angeles. He floated abandoning a planned New York office for Citadel, adding that he would “double down” on Miami.

Prominent business people, including investors Bill Ackman and Jason Calacanis, have derided the tax, which would likely affect dozens of billionaires, from Jeff Bezos to Michael Dell.

• CNN host Fareed Zakaria told Bard grads that humans can still do a lot that AI doesn’t grasp.
• The address comes as other commencement speakers keep receiving loud boos while talking about AI.
• Zakaria joked that AI had become the “two most provocative letters” in English.

Fareed Zakaria says he thinks humans still have a competitive advantage over AI.

During his commencement speech at Bard College in New York, the CNN host and Washington Post columnist said artificial intelligence is advancing with “astonishing speed and power.” Still, he argued that the rise of AI should prompt people to think less about competing with machines and more about what makes human intelligence distinct.

“So people naturally ask: ‘What will be left for human beings to do?'” he said. “But, perhaps that’s the wrong question. The better question is, ‘What does AI tell us about all the things we humans already do — and that are distinctive and irreplacable?'”

Zakaria’s speech came as mentions of AI keep drawing loud protests at college commencement speeches. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed while talking about AI and automation at the University of Arizona, while real-estate executive Gloria Caulfield was loudly jeered for bringing up the technology during her speech at the University of Central Florida.

Those viral responses helped Zakaria pre-empt the audience.

“At this point, I need to give you a trigger warning,” he told graduates early in the speech. “So I should warn you that I am about to utter the two most provocative letters in the English language today: AI.”

The mention of artificial intelligence drew jeers from the crowd.

“Feel free to get the booing out of the way,” he said.

Zakaria framed the rest of his speech around another two-letter initialism: HI, or human intelligence.

He pointed to the human brain, which he said weighs about three pounds and runs on roughly 20 watts of power — less energy than a laptop charger. AI systems, by contrast, can require data centers that consume enough electricity to power entire cities, he said. Human intelligence, Zakaria argued, is more efficient.

It is also better suited to the messy work of being human: reading emotions, understanding context, forming relationships, making art, and finding meaning in lived experience.

“A machine can write a sad poem, but it cannot weep at a funeral,” he said. “The more powerful AI becomes, the more we may rediscover how much we value the distinctly human.”

• Uber’s COO went viral after saying rising AI costs haven’t led to proportional productivity gains.
• Others now say the same thing as tech companies blow through their AI budgets early.
• Tokenmaxxing is the practice of burning through as many AI tokens as possible.

Silicon Valley’s debate over tokenmaxxing is reaching new heights.

Uber COO Andrew Macdonald said in an interview released last week that he hasn’t observed direct productivity improvements from increased AI token usage.

“That link is not there yet, right?” Macdonald said in comments that went viral, racking up over 2 million views on X. “I think maybe implicitly there is more that is getting shipped, but it’s very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, ‘OK, now we’re actually producing 25% more useful consumer features.'”

AI tokens are the basic building blocks processed by AI chatbots, making up roughly ¾ of a word each. “Tokenmaxxing” refers to using as many tokens as possible to boost productivity — and show off.

Macdonald’s remark struck a nerve because companies across the US are aggressively adopting AI internally. Meta now calls some employees “AI builders” and expects them to work in AI-native “pods.” Corporate giants like Disney and JPMorgan track employees’ use of AI. Visa rewards teams that build faster with AI and has bragged that its monthly token spend is almost 2 trillion.

As corporations race to embrace AI, an increasing number of tech professionals say it’s leading to massive waste. The AI push has sparked concerns about companies blowing through their budgets early. Uber used up its annual AI budget in the first four months of the year, the Information reported.

“Pretty sure 50% of internal token spend is completely useless, but right now it’s hard to know which 50%,” posted Akshat Bubna, cofounder and CTO of AI startup Modal, on X.

“Tokens got burned for millions of dollars without any real significant ROI to show for it,” engineering manager Karthik Hariharan posted, referring to return on investment.

The issue is only getting worse, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said. At Google’s flagship developer conference, I/O, last week, Pichai said he’s heard from chief information officers that they’re “so concerned about how much their companies are blowing through budgets.”

“I think the problem is going to get worse as we go through the year,” Pichai added.

The tokenmaxxing debate has also led to concerns that the AI bubble is about to pop. On Monday, famed “Big Short” investor Michael Burry called tokenmaxxing a “crazy, rushed, temporary phase” and said that Nvidia stock has a high risk of an “aggressive” fall.

Tokenmaxxing has its defenders, though.

Garry Tan, the CEO of fabled San Francisco investment firm Y Combinator, has embraced the term, saying, “we’ve been tokenmaxxing longer than most people.”

There’s also a balanced way to take advantage of AI’s benefits without spending too much, according to a report from engineering intelligence company Jellyfish.

The report found that the top 10% of Claude Code users consumed about 10 times as many AI tokens as the median developer and produced only about twice the output.

To resolve this, companies should not reward or penalize raw token consumption. Instead, they should make sure costs are tied to concrete metrics, such as pull requests — how developers propose code changes to shared projects — the report said.

• My 8-year-old found the AirTag I secretly hid on his bike and felt deeply betrayed.
• Tracking his location eased my anxiety, but damaged the trust we had carefully built.
• I realized I was letting parenting fear undermine my son’s growing independence.

My oldest is 8 and super responsible, so I’ve started giving him a bit more independence. Things like riding his bike to one of the two parks within a block of our house or staying home alone for a few minutes while I go to a neighbor’s house.

But giving him more freedom also comes with more anxiety on my part. As a mom, I’ve struggled with not knowing exactly where he was enjoying his new independence without me. Since we’re anti-devices for kids under 16, I figured out a new way to track him — a small AirTag placed in an inconspicuous spot on his bike.

As expected, it didn’t take him long to find it, and when he did, he was irate. “You don’t trust me!” he’d yelled, incensed and embarrassed. Then I realized something: while knowing his location helped alleviate my anxiety, it undercut his newfound freedom.

Here’s what I learned from this experience, and how I’d do things differently next time.

It undermined trust

Since he was a responsible kid, I had always given him a bit more freedom than a normal 7 or 8-year-old. I could tell him to come back in 15 minutes for dinner or to leave for practice, and nine times out of 10 he would show up, right on time. He usually made good decisions, always looked before he crossed the street, and knew not to talk to strange adults.

He had earned my trust with a history of good decision-making, and tracking him without his permission had damaged that hard-earned trust.

I let anxiety win

Years ago, I read Kim Brooks’ “Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear,” and without being dramatic, it totally changed my view on parenting.

The book is based on the premise that anxiety and fear have taken over modern parenting, and that as parents, we’re worrying about all the wrong things. For example, statistically speaking, the chances of your child getting abducted are actually quite low. Kids are getting much less freedom in the real world than they used to, which undermines their independence and autonomy, Brooks writes.

In the end, I’m disappointed in myself for letting anxiety win over and giving in to the urge to know where he is at all times. Because logically speaking, letting him venture out into the world as a responsible 8-year-old in a relatively safe neighborhood isn’t inherently dangerous.

It gives a false sense of security

AirTags aren’t meant to track people. That’s because they use other people’s Apple devices to estimate a location. So in my case, if my son were riding his bike to a park and there was no one around with an iPhone, it wouldn’t give an accurate location.

Plus, the AirTag was on his bike, so it wasn’t actually tracking him. Meaning that if he left his bike and went somewhere else, I’d have a false sense of security thinking he was in the same place as his bike, which may or may not be true.

What I’d do differently next time

If I had it to do again, I would have been honest with him and told him about the AirTag. I would have explained to him why I wanted to know where he was, and that it wasn’t because I didn’t trust him. That an AirTag actually gave him more freedom, not less.

I also think I need to do a better job separating my anxiety from inherent risk. Giving kids limits is fine, but we can’t do so at the expense of their growth, development, and right to exist in the world independent of their parents.

And we will eventually explore other options as he gets older to keep him safe while still giving him freedom. Whether that’s a watch or a kids’ phone without internet, I’m not sure. What I do know? Letting go in parenthood is never easy.