Claude got a promotion and a chaperone

Bears don’t pee during hibernation.

Instead, they recycle waste into usable protein, which helps them preserve muscle and save energy all winter.

Fair enough. It’s freezing. Nobody wants to get up.

What’s in store:

Read Time: 5 minutes

ANTHROPIC

Launched with one hand on the panic button

Claude has launched Fable 5, its most powerful generally available model yet, built for coding, research, vision, knowledge work and longer, more complex tasks.

The company says Fable 5 outperforms its previous models across most major benchmarks, especially on work that needs deeper reasoning and more context. 

Early testers reported strong results too, including Stripe saying the model handled a major codebase migration in one day instead of more than two months. Casual.

But a model this powerful also comes with obvious risks. 

To reduce misuse, Claude has added stricter safeguards around areas such as cybersecurity, biology and chemistry. 

If Fable 5 detects a higher-risk request, it will hand the response over to Claude Opus 4.8 instead. 

Claude says this fallback happens in fewer than 5% of sessions on average, though some harmless requests may still get caught.

Claude is also launching Mythos 5, which uses the same underlying model as Fable 5 but with some safeguards lifted for approved users. 

For now, access is limited to cyber defenders, infrastructure providers and, later, selected life sciences researchers through trusted programmes.

The model also shows promise in science. 

Claude says Mythos 5 helped speed up parts of drug design by around ten times and produced molecular biology hypotheses that researchers preferred over previous Opus-class models in blind tests.

The main bits:

Mythos stays invite-only

Both models cost $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. 

Fable 5 is available through the Claude API, while subscription users on Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans get included access until June 22. 

After June 23, usage credits will be required unless Claude extends the free access window.

Anthropic built the AI equivalent of a gifted child, then immediately told it not to touch the chemistry set. - MG

Vote for live results + see results and opinions from yesterday at the bottom of the email.

AI AGENTS

The AI Agent Playbook That's Creating 10x Operators in 2026

Evolution didn’t prepare us to compete with robots that never need sleep/caffeine, and read 1,000-plus pages per minute. 

But it did prepare us to commandeer their wayward skills for saving time at work. Read our 2026 AI agent playbook with insights from Futurepedia to use tools like Claude better than 99% of the population.

Meet your personal assistant: 

Link up with tools like Claude to rethink work.

Number Crunch

A circle has radius 5cm. What's its area in terms of π?

Find the answer at the bottom of the email!

Watch This

What if the tricks that keep people glued to apps were used for something useful? Luis von Ahn breaks down how Duolingo used the psychology of games and social platforms to make education more engaging at scale.

GOOGLE

The bundle war

Google has cut the price of its budget AI plan in the U.S., making the AI subscription race look a lot more like a discount aisle.

Google AI Plus now costs $4.99 a month, down from $7.99. The company is also doubling storage from 200GB to 400GB, with the update rolling out over the next few days.

For comparison, Claude Pro and ChatGPT plus each cost $20 a month in the U.S.

The new Google plan is aimed at individual users and students, and includes tools like Omni Flash for video generation, Google Flow, and NotebookLM.

Users who need more features or higher limits can still upgrade to AI Pro or AI Ultra.

The bigger story is the price cut. Until now, U.S. AI companies have not really fought on subscription cost. That may be changing.

Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien says AI infrastructure is entering a “commoditisation” phase, where basic AI tools become cheaper and harder to sell as premium products.

Google has an advantage here because it can bundle AI into products people already use.

In brief:

Google flexes scale

That could put pressure on standalone AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, especially as both are reportedly moving towards public listings.

This pricing battle has already started in India, where OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go for about $4.60 a month and Google followed with its own sub-$5 AI Plus plan.

Now, the same strategy appears to be reaching the U.S.: cheaper plans, bigger bundles, and a race to win users before rivals do.

The AI industry promised us the future, and the future apparently comes with a discount code.- MG

Mindstream Picks

Recommended Reading: The Follow Up is the newsletter for people who actually sell. Twice a week, we break down real tactics, wild sales stories, and secret hacks that are closing deals right now.

Health: Thousands of prostate cancer patients will gain access to a new NHS radiotherapy treatment that cuts treatment time from weeks to just five sessions.

Gaming: Spyro: A Realm Beyond has been described as the start of a new era for the franchise, with developers hinting at more games to come.

Movies: Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning explores Facebook’s controversies and whistleblower revelations in a companion piece to The Social Network. Its first trailer dropped yesterday.

Don’t Miss: Insta360 has officially launched the Luna Ultra, its first handheld stabilized camera, featuring dual cameras capable of shooting up to 8K video on a 3-axis gimbal. With a detachable wireless touchscreen remote and advanced tracking features, it takes direct aim at DJI’s popular Pocket camera lineup.

AI Art

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Yesterday’s Poll

“Will a dedicated Siri app make people use it more?”

Yes, this actually sounds useful - 61% ✅

No, trust was lost in 2017 - 39%

Your Views:

“Seems they have all realised the cost of integrated intelligence and separate and app and watch how quick it becomes a subscription like iCloud.” - critc

“We haven't been at the cool kid table but Siri and I are buds. I'm excited to see my bestie finally catch up to the cool kids.” - kbridg

“my entire chat history with siri is going to be like: hey siri, 5 minutes. hey siri, stop. hey siri, 5 minutes. hey siri, stop. hey siri, 5 minutes. hey siri, stop. hey siri, 5 minutes. hey siri, stop. hey siri, 5 minutes. hey siri, stop” - catdep

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