Get Your Hands Dirty

Today we’re testing a new newsletter format, aimed at giving our readers both a taste of our long-form writing and our perspective on what matters in AI today. Let us know what you think.—Kate Lee

Today’s top story

“Your Best AI Strategy Starts at the Top” by Natalia Quintero and Mike Taylor: Executives might be waiting on the sidelines to see what will happen with AI, but they need to be get

ting their hands dirty with the tools, write Natalia Quintero and Mike Taylor, both part of Every’s consulting team. That’s because AI can’t be evaluated like software, where you compare features, platforms and integrations. It needs to be treated like a new kind of employee.

Natalia and Mike offer five concrete things for executives to do this quarter—starting with suspending skepticism—to get started building AI-native organizations. Read more.

Signal

Anthropic’s OpenClaw ban is a gift to OpenAI

The news: Anthropic blocked Claude subscriptions from being used with third-party agent harnesses like OpenClaw. OpenAI hasn’t.

The context: Anthropic’s stated reason for the ban is to prioritize compute for its own products, saying flat-rate subscriptions weren’t built for the high usage of third-party tools.

It’s a valid argument: Agents that run 24/7 are enormously expensive. But rival OpenAI has raised so much money it can afford to let subscribers use their models however they want.

The implications: Anthropic’s ban provides an opening for OpenAI to siphon away users. The strategy appears to be working: Opus 4.6 token usage is significantly down week over week; GPT-5.4’s has surged.

Bigger picture, the future of the industry depends on figuring out ways to drive down compute costs.

(Running frontier AI agents like OpenClaw can cost $300–$1,000 a day, a number that’s only growing.)

OpenAI has a clear advantage here. It’s building its own data centers, which puts it closer to the metal on compute. Meanwhile Anthropic is buying compute from third parties, and will never have as low a cost basis.—Laura Entis

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New job alert

We’re flagging new job postings that signal where AI is reshaping teams...

Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about:

1. New job alert: The role that only makes sense now that AI exists
2. Inside Every: Why the technical/non-technical split in AI adoption is the wrong one
3. Steal this workflow: HTML gets you to good. Figma gets you to great.