Your Bot can call a business for the answer its website won't give

Grok BotWhat's new#

Your Bot can call a business for the answer its website won't give (Grok Bot; reported)#

When a website doesn't answer your question, your Bot may be able to pick up the phone and ask. A Grok Bot user, Dylan (@dkmitc), shared the recording and transcript of his Bot calling Progressive about glass coverage, "all while I picked my kids up from school," and Elon Musk quoted it. The changelog through v0.78.1 lists voice calls with your Bot but not calls to outside numbers, so treat availability as reported. Our tip has a guarded prompt: one question, nothing personal shared, and no agreeing or paying on the call. (reported)

Claude API message threads hit public beta (Anthropic; confirmed)#

If you run a long Claude agent loop on the API, you can stop resending the whole conversation every turn. @ClaudeDevs said Monday that "Message threads are now in public beta on the Messages API," and the docs describe the thread field and beta header. Anthropic says Claude Code saw about 35% lower median time to first token. (confirmed)

A user ran three real tasks through Hark's Mac app (Hark; reported)#

Give Hark one big job per Project, keep quick asks in the main Chat, and check back for its questions while it works. That's what Om Jambhale's report on Monday shows, along with where 5 to 17 minute tasks drag. It's one user's report, and we haven't run the tasks. (reported)

Anthropic's FlashProve proves which committed weights wrote a reply (Anthropic; confirmed)#

If you buy model access through a router or reseller, or audit models for a living, Anthropic's open-source FlashProve prototype lets a plain CPU check that a 400B model's reply came from committed weights. It's a research prototype, and a pass proves less than it sounds; our explainer covers what it does and doesn't show. (confirmed)

Grok BotHow people are using it#

A setup one person says they run. It is self-reported, and we have not run it.

• A morning routine that turns viral posts into writing rules. Esther Zhen (@estherzhendwzz) says that "Every day at 8:00 (Shanghai time), a Grok Bot routine reads recent posts from my watchlist of AI accounts," ranks them "by bookmarks and views, not just likes," and writes "one short dated file: winners, a Keep/Start/Stop list, one example hook in my voice, and one reply I could make." The tally so far: "3 mornings. 13 accounts. 15 Keep/Start/Stop rules." The account opened Oct 30 and had 3 followers when we checked. Starter prompt is ours and untested, and it never posts or replies.

Grok BotThe digest#

Grok Bot and Cursor#

• Your Bot can make the phone call for you. A Grok Bot user, Dylan, had his Bot call Progressive about glass coverage while he picked up his kids, and Elon Musk shared it. The changelog doesn't list calls to outside numbers yet, so availability is reported. Keep the call to one question, say what it may share, and make the final decision yourself. Our tip. (reported)
• Check Fast before you start a Cloud Agent on mobile. "The Fast toggle in the mobile picker is now visible on both Android and iOS," Cursor's deanrie said at 5:55 AM ET. "Before starting an agent, please still check that Fast is turned off. You can see which mode was actually billed in Dashboard > Usage." Questions about specific charges go to support@x.ai, he added. (confirmed, staff)
• Image and file uploads failing in Grok Bot chat. "Some screenshot and file uploads from the desktop app are failing right now while text sends normally. This is an issue we’re tracking," staff member mohitjain wrote at 1:58 AM ET, and said rebuilding the Bot's computer "probably won’t fix it this time." No fix or newer staff update was posted in the thread as of 7:04 AM ET. (confirmed, staff; open)
• Team environments for Cloud Agents have a workaround. "This is a known issue with team-scoped Cloud Agents environments and secrets on your team type, and we’re tracking a fix," Colin said at 6:00 AM ET. If you are the only member of your team: "Run Start setup agent on the repo again and save the environment as Personal," and add your secrets with Personal scope. (confirmed, staff)
• Cursor won't update on Windows? "The in-app updater stalls when something on the machine is holding Cursor’s install folder open," mohitjain said at 5:01 AM ET. His fix: fully quit Cursor and VS Code, end leftover Cursor, inno_updater or Node.js JavaScript Runtime processes in Task Manager, reboot, then install the latest download over the top, which keeps settings and chats. Still stuck? He asks for the end of the newest updater log from your %TEMP% folder. (confirmed, staff)
• A four-minute tour of recent Grok Bot features. Matt Palmer (@mattyp), whose X bio says he works on Cursor and Bot at SpaceXSI, posted a "What's New in Grok Bot" video at 12:07 PM ET Monday. Its chapters list shopping cards, order tracking, payments, custom modes, Team Bot setup, connector asks in Slack and contacts in Vault. Elon Musk shared it at 8:05 PM ET as "Grok @Bot improvements". (reported; we have not watched the video)

OpenAI#

• OpenAI raises bug bounty pay: critical bugs now earn up to $30,000. OpenAI says "A critical vulnerability in a core product such as ChatGPT, Codex, or the API Platform will now earn up to $30,000," and exceptional findings can reach "up to $172,000 with bonuses" from new quality, loyalty and campaign multipliers. "If you've already submitted a report and we haven't yet awarded a bounty, we'll apply the new reward ranges," and bounties paid in the 30 days before the Nov 2 announcement get the difference if the new ranges pay more. Per Brocker, reading the Bugcrowd page, a weak report can fall to 0.85x, and model behavior such as jailbreaks stays out of scope. (confirmed; Bugcrowd details reported)
• OpenAI built Pando, a Git backend for agent-scale work, with Codex in 10 weeks. In a Monday engineering post, OpenAI says Codex brought "more branches and pushes, more merges," and reliability on its old system was "at times falling below 90%." Pando "reduced the latency of the median push by nearly 80%." OpenAI "built Pando with Codex, moving from kick-off to production, in just 10 weeks," and "The core of Pando was designed by a single engineer, implemented by teams of agents." It works "without changing how our engineers and agents use Git" (@OpenAIDevs). Our read: watch for follow-ups to "We're currently exploring ways to share the technology that makes Pando possible with our users." (confirmed)
• LifeVal: OpenAI's own benchmark for everyday tasks. OpenAI's LifeVal page describes an evaluation of everyday tasks such as childcare, government services and budgeting, built from two time-use studies plus "a new demographically representative survey of 3,995 respondents." Its example tasks score from 90.4% (meal prep for a parent with a new diabetes diagnosis) to 100% (finding a home). The text of the page gives no overall score; AI Weekly reports a chart showing GPT-6 Astra at 80.6% average reward, up from 49.3% for GPT-5.2 and 80.0% for GPT-5.6, and notes the task set isn't public. Our read: the five example prompts on OpenAI's page are a good test list for ChatGPT on your own errands. (confirmed; overall scores reported)
• Cathedral joins OpenAI's next internal security sprint. OpenAI is partnering with Cathedral, "whose researchers will use OpenAI's models alongside our teams to challenge our defenses." In its last sprint, OpenAI says, "We dedicated 25% of our product engineers to finding and fixing weaknesses in our systems," using Codex to reproduce bugs and prepare patches. OpenAI gives no sprint dates. Cathedral, whose CEO Gavin Kliger is quoted in OpenAI's post, is the startup whose test reached some of Anthropic's business systems in October, per Gizmodo (Oct 27 issue); OpenAI's post doesn't mention that test. (confirmed)
• Qodo's Codex plugin reviews changes before you open a pull request. Per an OpenAI customer story, Qodo "built a plugin in the Codex marketplace" that lets Codex "retrieve the relevant codebase rules and pull request history and patterns" before it writes code. "After Codex makes the changes, Qodo reviews them and returns its findings directly to Codex in the same session, before the developer opens a pull request." The story doesn't give pricing or plan requirements. (confirmed)
• Tibo: dots will run on more models, including Terra. Tibo Sottiaux, whose X bio reads "Codex & ChatGPT @OpenAI," posted at 10:50 AM ET Monday that OpenAI is "working on expanding the family of frontier models that power dots, including GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Terra and some others in the future. Terra brings speed and a nice personality upgrade, and will help us bring dots to more people." He gave no date. Dots launched "Powered by GPT-6 Astra," per OpenAI's Sept 29 release notes; see our dots texting story. (staff claim, unverified)
• File upload errors in ChatGPT, resolved. Per OpenAI's status page, "Some users are having trouble uploading files to ChatGPT or getting ChatGPT to read uploaded files," first posted 7:46 PM ET Monday. OpenAI applied a mitigation at 9:51 PM ET and marked it resolved at 12:39 AM ET Tuesday. (confirmed)

Anthropic#

• Claude Code 2.1.317 asks before your account email leaves the machine. Version 2.1.317 became npm's latest at 6:57 PM ET Monday; the stable channel is still 2.1.311. Per the changelog, it "Added a check that asks before a web or shell tool call sends your account email address to the network." /schedule now warns when a new cloud scheduled task gets connectors you didn't ask for, and says how to remove them. Agent SDK hook callbacks can set onFailure: "block", so a failing callback blocks the action. The Claude apps gateway admin API adds a cost report at GET /v1/organizations/analytics/cost, the same path as the cost endpoint we covered Oct 30. It also lists dozens of fixes. (confirmed)
• Anthropic Residency applications close Nov 22. Anthropic is taking applications for a paid, fixed-term research program with placements of six weeks to six months, aimed at professors in quantitative fields, technical founders and staff-level engineers. The page says no machine learning background is required and pay is "$350,000 to $500,000/year equivalent." The US posting says pay is pro-rated and "Applications for this round close on November 22, 2026 (11:59 PM PT)." (confirmed)

Hark#

• A user says their Hark computer keeps crashing; Adcock says he'll look. A user posting as SfAgent asked Hark at 11:54 PM ET Monday "why my hark computer keeps crashing", adding "It’s been working great so far tho" (user report). The attached screenshot shows Hark saying the machine "woke up at 9:06 and 10:06 but responded too slowly", that "I've reported the freezes to the Hark team", and that "The machine dropped out again before it could confirm anything". Brett Adcock, Hark's founder, replied at 12:17 AM ET Tuesday: "Will take a look". Hark's status page showed "All Systems Operational" at 6:12 AM ET. (user report, founder post)
• More early lockouts, including a paying user. Lyndon wrote at 1:35 PM ET Monday that "I pay for Hark Pro2 and after a few requests this morning my daily limit was hit" (user report). Brandon Bernard Chiripanyanga wrote that a reset was due November 2, but "November 2 came and it now says December 2"; the attached screenshot reads "Monthly resets Dec 1, 2026 at 02:00" (user report). Through 6:12 AM ET Tuesday, Adcock and @hark_labs hadn't followed up on the Dec 1 dates since Adcock's Sunday "Will take a look". Background: yesterday's piece. (user reports)
• New Mac installer file, but no word on the crash fix. The Hark.dmg installer linked from hark.com/mac now carries a server last-modified time of 1:36 PM ET Monday, Nov 2; on Monday morning it was an Oct 29 file. Hark hasn't posted release notes, so we can't say whether it includes the Mac crash fix Adcock said Saturday would be "in the next update this week". Apple's listing still shows 2.7.1, now at 4.7 stars from 2,433 ratings (2,414 on Monday), and Google Play still says updated Oct 31. (installer file, founder post, store listings)
• Hark shows a marathon training Panel. Hark posted at 10:35 PM ET Monday "pov you have really bad fomo after this weekend" with an image of a "Marathon Training" panel: "Base week 1", "ease back in with run-walks", "Race day 370 days Nov 7, 2027", "This week 8 mi target", "Last week 0 mi run walks only" and "Last run 1.86 mi Aug 17." Hark's Using Hark page says Panels can pull data from "services you already use like Strava and Venmo". Hark didn't say whether the panel uses real data. (company post)