This week in AI: 21 Sep 2026 to 27 Sep 2026

9 stories this week across 6 categories. Each links to the official announcement, filing or paper it is based on.

Open-plan interior of the Cardiff Jobcentre Plus with numbered desks, monitors and staff meeting visitors. — DWP says 16,000 jobseekers have used its AI Work Assistant since the Work Hub launch in June

AI in Industry25 Sep 2026, 09:00 UTC

The UK Department for Work and Pensions said on 25 September 2026 that about 16,000 people have used the AI Work Assistant in Work Hub and 20,000 its CV tool.

Summary

The UK Department for Work and Pensions published its first usage figures for Work Hub on 25 September 2026. About 16,000 people have used the AI Work Assistant, which gives personalised guidance on job searches, applications and interviews, and around 20,000 have used the Build a CV tool since the service launched as a pilot in June. DWP says the tools add to jobcentre support and do not change Universal Credit requirements.

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Microsoft adds Home, Code and Autopilot to the Copilot app, with agent work on usage billing

AI Tools & Apps25 Sep 2026, 09:00 UTC

Microsoft announced Home, Code and Autopilot for the Copilot app on 25 September 2026. Everyday AI stays on a per-user licence; agent work uses Copilot Credits.

Summary

Microsoft announced three capabilities for its Copilot app on 25 September 2026. Home brings Chat and Cowork into one start page. Code builds apps, dashboards and automations from a description, using the same technology as GitHub Copilot. Autopilot, formerly Scout, is a cloud agent that runs recurring work without prompts. Home and Code start in the Frontier program; Autopilot goes to private preview. Microsoft says agent work runs on usage-based billing with Copilot Credits on top of the per-user licence.

Office buildings on the Microsoft campus in Redmond seen from an upper floor, with tall evergreen trees and a parking area. — Microsoft Agent Framework adds AG-UI frontends, Foundry memory and resumable workflows

AI Agents24 Sep 2026, 15:00 UTC

Microsoft detailed Agent Framework updates on 24 September 2026: AG-UI frontends, Foundry memory, sandboxed CodeAct and workflows that resume after a crash.

Summary

Microsoft described a set of Agent Framework updates for .NET and Python on 24 September 2026. Agents can now be exposed to web frontends through the AG-UI protocol, stable in Python and in preview for .NET. A Foundry memory provider adds long-term memory, CodeAct runs model-written code in a Hyperlight sandbox, and hosted workflows in Foundry can resume from checkpoints after a process stops. Microsoft warns that recovery does not guarantee exactly-once side effects.

In brief

DWP says 16,000 jobseekers have used its AI Work Assistant since the Work Hub launch in June The UK Department for Work and Pensions said on 25 September 2026 that about 16,000 people have used the AI Work Assistant in Work Hub and 20,000 its CV tool.
Microsoft adds Home, Code and Autopilot to the Copilot app, with agent work on usage billing Microsoft announced Home, Code and Autopilot for the Copilot app on 25 September 2026. Everyday AI stays on a per-user licence; agent work uses Copilot Credits.
Microsoft Agent Framework adds AG-UI frontends, Foundry memory and resumable workflows Microsoft detailed Agent Framework updates on 24 September 2026: AG-UI frontends, Foundry memory, sandboxed CodeAct and workflows that resume after a crash.
Zapier unveils Next Gen Zaps, built from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, billed from 1 December Zapier unveiled Next Gen Zaps at ZapConnect on 23 September 2026: workflows built from MCP clients such as Claude, free in early access until 1 December 2026.
Hugging Face transformers now runs llama.cpp GGUF quants on Apple Silicon with ggml kernels Hugging Face added packed GGUF inference to transformers on 22 September 2026, reusing ggml Metal kernels so quantized llama.cpp checkpoints run on Macs.
Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5 at $4 per 1M input tokens, 20% below Claude Opus 5 Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on 22 September 2026 at $4 input and $20 output per 1M tokens, with a 1M-token context and Fable 5.1 level results it says.
Xiaomi open-sources MiMo-V2.6 Pro, a 1.02T-parameter omnimodal model, under the MIT licence Xiaomi released MiMo-V2.6-Pro and MiMo-V2.6-Flash on 22 September 2026 with open MIT weights, a 1M-token context and API prices unchanged from V2.5.
Strands harness launches as an open-source AWS agent with a claimed 28% lower token cost AWS released Strands harness on 21 September 2026, an Apache 2.0 general-purpose agent it says costs 28% less to run than rival harnesses on the same models.
xAI releases Grok 4.7 on a larger base model at Grok 4.6's $2 per 1M input token price xAI, now SpaceXSI, released Grok 4.7 on 21 September 2026 with a larger base model, a 500,000-token context and Grok 4.6's $2 input and $6 output prices.