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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is calling for a massive overhaul of the American social contract, publishing a detailed blueprint for how the government should tax, regulate, and redistribute wealth generated by AI. Altman warned that superintelligence is so close and its potential for disruption so high that the U.S. requires a response on the scale of the Progressive Era or FDR’s New Deal. To address these risks, Altman is proposing a “New Deal” that includes treating AI as a public utility like electricity and creating a system where every American becomes a “shareholder” in OpenAI to directly benefit from the wealth the technology creates.

Over the past few months we’ve reported on the OpenClaw phenomenon, the popular AI agent that users can communicate with via text message to direct it to autonomously complete tasks. Late last week Anthropic put a bit of a damper on the OpenClaw frenzy, announcing that paid Claude subscribers at the Pro ($20 per month) and Max ($100-$200 per month) levels could no longer link their Claude accounts to the tool and similar third-party AI agents, citing the strain usage of these tools puts on Anthropic’s compute resources. “We’ve been working hard to meet the increase in demand for Claude, and our subscriptions weren't built for the usage patterns of these third-party tools,” said Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code. OpenClaw users can still power their agent with the Claude AI.

In the first three months of 2026, the Apple App Store released 235,800 new apps, which marks an 84% increase compared to the first three months of 2025. This comes on the heels of 30% growth of the overall number of apps released on the App Store in 2025. Although there is no official confirmation of the cause of this surge, the likely culprit is vibe coding, the use of AI tools to develop and deploy software without requiring specialized coding knowledge. In a sign that Apple may be threatened by this democratization of code, the company has barred the top three vibe coding apps, Replit, Vibecode, and Anything, from the App Store, citing a violation of App Store guidelines.

Lean TECHniques works alongside Midwest companies to leverage technology for business impact. Through advisory, coaching, and embedded delivery, Lean TECHniques helps organizations develop high-performing teams, create environments that fuel innovation, and deliver best-in-class customer experiences. Core areas of expertise include software, cloud, artificial intelligence, product management, and technology leadership.

This could be huge. Microsoft has brought the power of Claude Cowork to Copilot with its latest release, Copilot Cowork. It’s currently available through the Frontier program, so we don’t have access to this quite yet (but we will test it out as soon as we do). This marks a shift from AI that simply answers questions to AI that completes multi-step projects. Copilot Cowork allows users to delegate complex tasks, such as calendar management, daily briefings, and monthly budget reviews, by describing a desired outcome. See it in action in this video.

To celebrate our Make the Switch to Claude workshop on April 15, we designed an image that throws it back to the 80s. It is a Pepsi Challenge-style tribute to the era of malls and neon.

A growing number of brands are leaning into "No AI" disclaimers to preserve their authenticity. Aerie and Coterie are leading the charge, with Aerie specifically pledging to never use AI to generate or manipulate human bodies, building on its long-standing promise of "realness." A recent Gartner survey found that 68% of consumers question the reality of the content they see, and half would prefer to spend their money with brands that avoid generative AI in their marketing.

The gambling profession took a big sigh of relief this week, as it turns out LLMs are no better at predicting NCAA brackets than the rest of us. We asked four LLMs to predict the NCAA brackets. All four started strong, but faded as the tournament continued. None of them had Michigan winning it all.

Here’s their final points, ESPN rankings and percentile.

ChatGPT: 870 points | Rank: 7,399,663 | Percentile: 73.2%
Grok: 870 points | Rank: 7,399,663 | Percentile: 73.2%
Gemini: 760 points | Rank: 13,198,112 | Percentile: 52.1%
Claude: 720 points | Rank: 15,348,563 | Percentile: 44.3%