A week ago, a mystery model called Ox Alpha showed up on OpenRouter — one more entrant among more than 400 models, with roughly 10 new ones launching every week. What made it stand out wasn’t just the free price tag; it was quietly good. Hobbyists and indie developers noticed fast, pushing several trillion tokens through it daily, with community estimates for the week ranging from single digits to over 20 trillion.

AI enthusiasts spent the next six days doing forensics and speculating who could have built it, and who could have the infrastructure to serve that many tokens for free. First the guess was a U.S. lab: the long-awaited Gemini, or Anthropic shipping a good-enough middle tier, or Elon sitting on so much capacity he dropped Ox Alpha (note the naming). People ran tokenizer traces and networking analysis. A real Sherlock Holmes mystery week.

On August 26, Z.ai put its name on it. Ox Alpha was GLM-5.3-Flash. They’d been running it on public traffic on purpose, but the real surprise was not how good the model was (it’s really good). It was served entirely on Chinese chips and infrastructure. List price is 15 cents / 50 cents per million tokens. OpenRouter’s launch promo is 50% off that, 7.5 cents / 25 cents, through September 9. The weights are open (MIT), and inference is hosted by Z.ai as well as GMI Cloud, Cloudflare, and other US-based inference providers.

Artificial Analysis put the model on their intelligence-versus-cost chart the same day. GLM-5.3-Flash lands at 57 on the index for about nine cents a task. A US mid-tier like GPT-5.6 Sol (max) sits around 59 at 67 cents, meaning for two points of intelligence you are paying about 7.4x more. Take it further and Grok 4.6 is at 61 at 94 cents a task, or about 10x for a four-point gain. At this point the token economics heavily influences the consumption calculus. At the top end the curve has flattened. If we take this open-weight bait, what happens to the heavy infrastructure circular investments we made that never accounted for a strong Chinese inference contender?

American enterprises are already feeling the cost pressure. Take Uber. CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga told The Information in April he was going “back to the drawing board because the budget I thought I would need is blown away already”: the company’s full-year 2026 coding budget gone in four months, with Naga personally burning $1,200 in a single two-hour demo. By June, Uber had put a $1,500-per-person-per-tool cap in place. The tools were useful — but usefulness and value aren’t the same thing. Uber’s COO, Andrew Macdonald, still couldn’t draw a line from those dashboards to “25% more useful consumer features.”

McKinsey’s 2026 State of AI survey says 80% of people say they’re faster, 37% of companies see some EBIT, and 32% skipped at least one software purchase because they could build that feature in-house with coding agents. Organizations want to cut the bill. They cannot afford to abandon AI. The task now is to optimize usage across the org.

We cannot avoid Chinese model makers like Zhipu, Qwen, DeepSeek, and the rest. Time and again they have brought their own ingenuity to challenge SOTA labs and cut costs. On OpenRouter, Chinese models passed US token share in early June, and the top of that board is still mostly Chinese labs. The indie developer world already looks like GLM Flash, DeepSeek Flash, MiniMax, Kimi, and sometimes Grok or Claude if they already paid for a heavy subscription. If you are already subscribed to Grok or OpenAI through your company, that is now a sunk cost. Finance will start asking whether those seats still make sense if pay-as-you-go gets this cheap.

So what choices remain? Consider your coding and agentic work in three buckets, split by share of tasks and tokens run through each tier — not dollars, since GLM-5.3-Flash’s much lower per-token price means an even dollar split would already send most of your volume there. At the very top you have Fable and Opus. If you need to analyze a complex strategy or write a detailed execution plan, the extra points of intelligence matter and you should spend top dollar, but only for those rare tasks you cannot skimp on — probably 5% of the task volume. The mid tier is Kimi K3, Gemini 3.7 Flash, GPT-5.6 Sol, and Grok 4.6, all sitting around 60 on the intelligence index. Kimi is a heavy hitter for coding and a fan favorite; then Grok 4.6 is a close second, though its smaller context window holds it back. Put about 50% of the volume here. For the last 45%, strongly consider GLM-5.3-Flash as the volume workhorse. Your harness, your mix (coding vs content vs marketing), and your evals will draw your own frontier. Chinese open-weight models will save you money — and they need to be in your cost calculus.

September is shaping up to be a deluge of new models — Google, xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepSeek all have releases expected. The Pareto frontier might move again. But the direction is set: more intelligence for less money. Labs that can’t get their serving costs down will lose the volume — and with it, the audience that volume creates.

Before September, some homework:

1. Count your tokens. Can you attribute spend to a top-line metric like customer or revenue growth? If not, at least development velocity or productivity? Without clear goals, it is going to be hard to defend the spend.

2. Build your AI budget again. Org by org, what is planned AI spend? Can those leaders come up with a proposal and defend it?

3. Define your model strategy by team. Write the three tiers. High for irreversible decisions and strategies. Mid for the paid seat and everyday coding. Low (GLM-5.3-Flash) for volume.

Next month the models get cheaper again. Your teams get hungrier. The companies that come out of this will place their bets intentionally, and they won’t let those agents think on Opus or Fable unless the task is really worth it.

Parvez Syed Mohamed is a product executive who has built API integration and agent platforms at Salesforce (MuleSoft), Oracle and at AgentPaaS.ai. He works on production agentic systems. Some of his thoughts on building software with Agents is here: https://github.com/parvezsyed

Welcome to the VentureBeat community!

Our guest posting program is where technical experts share insights and provide neutral, non-vested deep dives on AI, data infrastructure, cybersecurity and other cutting-edge technologies shaping the future of enterprise.

Read more from our guest post program — and check out our guidelines if you’re interested in contributing an article of your own!

Apple

Apple’s next event, which it’s calling “Surprise and shine,” is set for Sept. 9. Historically, Apple has used its September event to announce new hardware, particularly the newest models of iPhones. That means we only have a few weeks left to see if Apple will release the rumored foldable iPhone. 

You can catch the Apple event on Apple’s website, Apple TV, the Apple Developer app and the company’s YouTube channel on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. BST). We expect to hear from Apple’s incoming CEO, John Ternus, for the first time in his role after he takes up the mantle on Sept. 1. 

Here’s what Apple could announce at the event.

A foldable iPhone

Whether Apple calls it the iPhone Fold, iPhone Ultra or the iPhone Flip, the company could show off a foldable iPhone at its September event. Leaks and supply chain reports suggest the foldable iPhone will be a squat, book-style foldable, similar to the Samsung Galaxy Fold 8.

Those same leaks also suggest the price of the iPhone foldable could be between $2,000 and $2,500, which could price many people out. According to a CNET survey, US adults are only willing to spend an average of $781 on a foldable iPhone, which is less than the price of the base model iPhone 17 ($799).

Patrick Holland, CNET’s director of content, said that foldable phones remain a niche interest among most shoppers, but that Apple is likely to price the device to reflect its expensive manufacturing costs.

New iPhone 18 Pro models 

According to Bloomberg, Apple could unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max at its September event, too. Those iPhones could also see a price hike, with prices starting at $1,200, up from the iPhone 17 Pro‘s starting price of $1,100.

You might notice that entry-level iPhone 18 models are missing from that lineup. That’s because Bloomberg suspects Apple will split the iPhone launch this year. That means we could see the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max in September before Apple rolls out the iPhone 18, iPhone 18E and potentially a refreshed iPhone Air in the spring.

New Apple Watches

Apple is also reportedly preparing to announce an Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 at its September event. According to Bloomberg, the new watches could include faster chips and new health and fitness features. However, the new watches likely won’t receive a design change.

There’s no solid information about how much these watches will cost. However, Apple has raised a lot of hardware prices this year, so while the starting price of the Apple Watch 11 is $399, the Apple Watch 12 could cost more at launch.

The AirPods 5

Bloomberg also reports that Apple could debut the AirPods 5 at the September event, releasing an updated version of the company’s entry-level headphones. Apple released the AirPods 4 almost two years ago, in 2024. Apple isn’t expected to show the rumored camera-equipped AirPods at the September event. We could see those later this year, or in 2027.

The AirPods 4 had a starting price of $129 at launch, but given Apple’s other price increases, the AirPods 5 could also see a higher starting price. 

Apple did not immediately respond to CNET’s request to comment.

For more Apple news, here’s what to know about the new M6 Mac Mini and when you might be able to preorder an iPhone 18.

Zachary McAuliffe

Senior writer

Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog. You can reach him at zmcauliffe@cnet.com.

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After a series of GTA 6 leaks revealed everything from gameplay footage and the game’s Leonida map to Jason wandering into a nudist town, Rockstar Games has remained on track with its plans for a first-of-its-kind exclusive extended look on Netflix.

GTA 6: An Extended Look will premiere on Netflix on August 27 at 3pm ET / 8pm BST / August 28 at 5am AEST, giving Netflix members an extended look at Rockstar’s most anticipated game. While Rockstar hasn’t confirmed exactly what will be shown, there’s plenty of speculation that it could finally include official gameplay and even Trailer 3.

Your iPhone may not always deliver the audio quality you expect, especially if the sound becomes muffled or loses clarity. This could happen due to dust buildup on the speakers, your streaming service, or the audio format. It is simple to take steps that would improve your audio experience. You can change the audio settings, use Spatial Audio, or even use wired headphones.

Get Better Sound From Your iPhone Speakers

Start by checking the iPhone’s speakers if the audio sounds unclear or muffled. There may be dust and other particles in the speaker’s grille that are affecting its performance. You should clean it carefully with a soft-bristled toothbrush when the iPhone is turned off. You can also use a rubber air blower to remove loose debris. Avoid using anything that could push dirt further into the speaker.

Streaming settings can also affect music quality on your iPhone. Apple Music offers users options to enhance streaming quality over cellular networks. Spotify offers High and Very High qualities of streaming. You can also use the EQ settings in these applications to adjust the sound. Just pick the right preset for your needs, whether for bass or vocals.

Improve Audio Quality With Headphones

If you mostly use headphones, the iPhone introduces yet another feature to customize your sound settings. This feature, called Headphone Accommodations, helps you personalize the sound to your liking. This feature lets you run an audio test and choose from different samples to find the one that suits you best. This can make your headphones sound clearer and more balanced.

The sound may be further personalized through the EQ controls offered in certain music applications. The EQ affects the balance distribution among the bass, voice, and other audio components. You may choose to try various presets rather than apply the same setting to all kinds of music. This gives you more control over how your headphones sound.

Try Spatial Audio Or Wired Headphones

Spatial Audio is another option for people seeking an immersive experience. It can be used with compatible AirPods to create a three-dimensional effect. Fixed allows the user to hear the sound coming from a single position. Head Tracking allows the sound to follow the head’s movement.

You can also switch to wired headphones for better audio quality. This would be beneficial because the audio quality would not be affected by Bluetooth’s inherent compression. Recent iPhones have been able to use wired headphones via a USB-C-to-3.5 mm adapter. Some adapters also offer an extra USB-C port for charging your iPhone while listening.

Sometimes, software changes may not fix muffled audio on an iPhone. When there is no improvement in the situation despite following all the mentioned tips, it may indicate that the speaker component is the cause. In such a case, it is advisable to contact Apple Support or have the iPhone checked.

September is a big month for PlayStation owners, with Marvel’s Wolverine leading the pack when it comes out on Sept. 15. For PlayStation Plus subscribers, however, the monthly lineup is a little less exciting. Baseball fans should get plenty of mileage out of MLB The Show 26, while Sniper Elite: Resistance offers a solid option for players who enjoy slower, more methodical action. Wobbly Life and Chained Echoes round out the lineup, but despite having some worthwhile games, September 2026 isn’t exactly the most thrilling month to subscribe to PS Plus.

PS Plus, which is Sony’s version of Xbox Game Pass, offers a large, constantly expanding library of games. Subscribers can choose from the Essential, Extra and Premium tiers, each with unique perks and benefits. Starting at $11 per month, the plans give subscribers access to monthly games and rewards, and each month, all subscribers can access a handful of games at no additional charge.

If you subscribe to PlayStation Plus, here are the games you can play at no additional cost starting on Sept. 1.

Sniper Elite: Resistance

Built around precise sniping, stealth and tactical third-person combat, Sniper Elite: Resistance puts you behind the rifle of Harry Hawker as he infiltrates Nazi-occupied France. Open-ended missions let you scout enemy positions, find alternate routes, set traps and complete objectives your way, while realistic ballistics account for wind, gravity and heart rate. Customize weapons with new scopes, barrels and ammunition, then tackle the campaign cooperatively. Propaganda missions, Axis Invasion and competitive multiplayer add extra ways to test your skills.

MLB The Show 26

MLB The Show 26 delivers a deep and authentic baseball experience, with revamped hitting and pitching systems that give players more control in crucial moments. Build your career from high school and college to the majors and potentially the Hall of Fame in Road to the Show, or manage every aspect of a franchise with an overhauled trade system and smarter roster logic. For those looking for a longer-term challenge, Road to the Show lets you build a career from high school through college and the major leagues.

Wobbly Life

There isn’t much structure to Wobbly Life, and that’s exactly the point. You can roam its open world, pick up odd jobs, earn money and spend it on houses, vehicles, clothes and pets, or ignore all of that and just cause trouble either by yourself or with up to four players online or local co-op. The physics-based sandbox makes nearly everything interactive, so even simple activities can turn into ridiculous accidents. There’s also a surprising amount to uncover through story missions, puzzles, hidden secrets and mini-games.

Chained Echoes 

Chained Echoes blends old-school JRPG traditions with a few ideas of its own, following a group of heroes caught up in a war between three kingdoms. Battles are turn-based, but the Overdrive system skill use mechanic forces you to carefully manage your attacks and abilities to keep your party in a beneficial zone without overheating. Outside of combat, you can explore Valandis on foot, travel by airship and eventually climb into mech suits for both exploration and combat. With no random encounters, a deep equipment system and plenty of side content, it offers a modern take on the 16-bit RPG formula.

For more on PlayStation Plus, here’s what to know about the gaming service and a rundown of PS Plus Extra and Premium games added in August. You can also check out the latest and upcoming games on Xbox Game Pass.

Oscar Gonzalez

Contributing writer

Oscar Gonzalez is a Texas native who covered video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.

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I’ve spent some time with the Pixel 11 Pro XL, and out of all the aspects Google talked about at the launch event, including the new Magic Capture feature, the RGB HiLight module on the back, and Gemini Intelligence, I was concerned about one that didn’t get much stage time: battery life.

Google actually cut the physical battery capacity this year, from 5,200mAh to 5,115mAh. And if there’s one thing AI can’t magically make up for, it’s the physical limits of a battery. Yes, manufacturers have increasingly aggressive AI-based battery management systems that squeeze more runtime from the same cell, but physical battery capacity remains an important benchmark in the Android world, something I can’t quite say about iPhones.

So, I stepped into the Pixel 11 Pro XL experience with a simple yet important question: how long does Google’s most expensive flagship last between charges? Let’s just say that after 72 hours of usage, I’m surely not impressed, a tad concerned, and equally hopeful.

So, how does the Pixel 11 Pro XL actually hold up?

On its first day, when I charged the handset to 100% for the first time, it logged just 4 hours and 24 minutes of screen-on time before I plugged it in at 15% battery. That shocked me, but after I expanded the battery usage graph, I realized something: the phone’s own battery log went blank for roughly four hours, which is a known Android quirk.

I didn’t want to look past the numbers, so I asked Gemini’s new Device Help tool to estimate the missing screen-on time based on the drain rate. Its answer: somewhere between 1 hour and 1 hour 15 minutes of additional screen-on time. Adding that to the logged time, I got somewhere around 5 hours 30 minutes to 5 hours 45 minutes of total screen-on time.

Day two wasn’t meaningfully better either. Per Google’s own system service tracker, I got around 5 hours and 28 minutes of screen-on time before the battery dropped back into the red zone, this time into the upper single digits. On the third day, I saw an improvement of 10 to 15 minutes, but the overall screen-on time still remains under 6 hours.

Before you point it out, this is with a 5G SIM installed, mixed usage between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, and location services enabled.

Here’s why that’s bothering me

Google claims that the chipset is up to 20% more power efficient than the Tensor G5 on the Pixel 10 series. Given that both chips are built on TSMC’s 3nm manufacturing process, not the 2nm node some pre-launch leaks suggested, that’s not an insignificant claim to make, which makes my early battery results all the more difficult to reconcile with it.

If the newer chip genuinely sips less power, I shouldn’t be topping out around five and a half hours of light to mixed everyday usage, which includes browsing, messaging, watching the routine videos on YouTube, and capturing a few pictures here and there, nothing extreme. And this is when I haven’t even run the benchmark and gaming tests I’m supposed to add to the full review.

I consider this light usage, perhaps somewhere between light and moderate, but certainly not heavy usage. That’s why I expect a lot more than six hours of screen-on time from a top-tier Android flagship. On a phone this expensive, six hours shouldn’t feel like the ceiling for everyday use. Compare that with what’s available in the market in the same segment, and you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

And the competition isn’t helping Google’s case

Take the Galaxy S26 Ultra, for example. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset and a 5,000mAh battery, the phone provides around 5 to 6 hours of screen-on time with heavy usage, which goes up to ~8 hours with light usage. The iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple’s outgoing flagship, also provides 5 to 7 hours of screen-on time with heavy usage, up to ~9 hours with light usage.

You see the gap? The Pixel 11 Pro XL is basically offering me the same screen-on time with light usage that other flagships offer with moderate to heavy usage. For me, that gap is hard to ignore, especially when other options on the market push around 10 hours of screen-on time. I’m talking about the OnePlus 15 with a 7,300mAh battery. Too bad the brand isn’t selling its flagships in North America and Canada.

Yes, you can spread those 5 to 6 hours of screen-on time across 30+ hours, like Google claims, but within those 30 hours, I’m still reaching for another phone for another four to five hours just to get through the day. At this point, I’m simply curious to know the number with back-to-back benchmark runs, gaming tests, and heavy multitasking.

I’m concerned, but I’m almost certain that the numbers will go up

Now, I want to be fair here. New phones almost never hit peak efficiency or battery life during the first few charge cycles. Indexing can also skew the early numbers, and it can take at least three days before screen-on-time figures become truly representative, which could also be why I saw a slight improvement on the third day. 

Even otherwise, Adaptive Battery and other AI-driven power management features need some usage data, including your app habits, screen usage patterns, and daily usage routines, before they can start limiting background activity and squeezing out more runtime from the battery. For these reasons, I’m confident the screen-on time could improve. 

I’m willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt and wait until I’ve conducted further testing. So, consider this a flag, not a final verdict, and something interesting to keep an eye on as I work toward my full review.

OpenAI made headlines and raised a lot of outcry in July after one of the company’s agents acted unprompted to breach fellow AI business Hugging Face and other services. Although OpenAI did share some insights about what led to the incident after it was discovered, today the company has published its official report about what happened. There’s a full technical explainer about it, as well as a slightly more layperson-friendly blog post.

The report goes into how the different systems in OpenAI’s training system failed and what behaviors from the agents it was testing resulted in those failures. The model in question, referred to as Internal Model 1 or IM1, was able to gain access to other OpenAI agents and to the internet through an unintended manipulation of the Artifactory package manager, which the agents began to use as a message board of sorts. 

Those activities were first detected by human observers in May, and OpenAI disallowed that access. However, through May and June agents continued exploiting vulnerabilities to access the internet. The volume of agents accessing OpenAI’s Artifactory instance led to an outage and a rebuild of the platform in early July, but the leaders responding to that issue weren’t aware of the improvised board or the significance of agents communicating. 

So when tasked with a difficult challenge called ExploitGym, IM1 agents again were able to access the internet and other OpenAI models. Across a wild few days in early July, they sought solutions to the challenge on Hugging Face and Modal platforms. OpenAI said the main issues that led to IM1 breaching Hugging Face included “reward hacking, persistence on seemingly impossible tasks, unauthorized communication, and agents adopting goals from one another.” According to the company, some of its agents would push back on certain tasks for ethical reasons, only for others to continue with the breach in their stead. 

While the discoveries and the ensuing tests should lead to improved safety, even in more high-risk testing situations, this type of bad behavior is not isolated. Last month’s problem at OpenAI was the latest in a string of worrying cases where AI agents have caused cybersecurity issues, either in testing or in regular use, after taking action without user direction. However, there are a few aspects of the Hugging Face breach that might calm some fears that AI has gotten out of control.

In essence, the incident was caused by a failure of safeguards. It’s not a signal that rogue AI agents are on the verge of taking over everything, because IM1 was in a testing setup with limited protections intended for research rather than for a publicly available product. However, it is another stark reminder that a lot of trust falls on AI companies to properly control and oversee their products. OpenAI acknowledged as much, stating that it’s agent’s recent actions were “evidence that, without proper safeguards, highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels, and take dangerous actions that no human directed.” However, the company and its leaders also haven’t consistently proven that they deserve that trust.

The console was subject to added fees under the Trump administration’s original (and illegal) tariff regime.