Hey Devs! Another wave of agentic AI innovations rolled in this week.
Claude Opus 4.7 (Anthropic)
Anthropic’s latest flagship model significantly improves coding abilities: SWE‑bench Verified scores jump from 80.8 % to 87.6 %, and CursorBench scores rise from 58 % to 70 %. The update increases vision resolution to 3.75 MP and introduces an “xhigh” effort level plus a new /ultrareview command for deeper analysis. However, it shows a regression on Terminal‑Bench and adds stricter safety filters to block prohibited cybersecurity exploits.
Read More about the model: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-7
Grok 4.3 Beta (xAI)
xAI quietly launched Grok 4.3 Beta, a large pre‑trained model matching the scale of Grok 4.20. It introduces agents that can create presentations, spreadsheets, and documents, moving beyond simple chat to deliver real downloadable files. The beta is available via an early‑access subscription priced around US$300 per month.
Read more: https://grok.com/release-notes/apr-17-2026
Major OpenAI Codex update
On April 16, OpenAI rolled out a major update to its Codex assistant. Codex can now operate the user’s computer, seeing, clicking, and typing on applications, and includes an in‑app browser. It supports multiple terminal tabs and remote dev boxes, integrates more than 90 plugins (e.g., Atlassian Rovo, CircleCI, CodeRabbit), and can generate images via gpt‑image‑1.5. A preview of memory lets Codex remember user context and preferences for long‑running tasks.
Read more: https://openai.com/index/codex-for-almost-everything/
Agents SDK 0.14.0 (OpenAI)
OpenAI’s April 15 update to the Agents SDK introduces a more capable harness for multi‑step agent loops, native sandbox execution, and separation of the harness from compute for better security and scalability. The SDK allows developers to give agents a controlled workspace to inspect files and run commands safely in sandboxed environments.
Read more: https://openai.com/index/the-next-evolution-of-the-agents-sdk/
Hermes Agent open‑sourced (Nous Research)
Nous Research released Hermes Agent, a self‑improving agent designed to co‑evolve with users. Part of the Hermes model series, it aims to transition from static large language models to “Large Action Models” (LAMs) by enabling adaptive, tool‑using agents. The open‑source project emphasizes user adaptability and encourages community contributions.
Read more:
https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/
GitHub Copilot Agents Explained: How to Build a Custom Agent
In this video, I’ll show you how to design custom AI agents in VS Code or Copilot CLI using GitHub Copilot and explain why GitHub Copilot AI agents for beginners is the most important skill to learn this year.
Watch on YouTube: GitHub Copilot Agents
See you next week! Cheers, proflead!