May the best agent win

Plus: ElevenLabs valuation at eleven figures

February 06, 2026

Welcome back! Tinder is turning to AI to solve “swipe fatigue.” The dating app will include personalized match suggestions and conversation starters based on your behavior and preferences—and, of course, powered by AI. 

The goal is to make dating apps feel less like a job and more like, well, dating. What do you think? Can AI actually fix what's broken about online dating?

GitHub Adds Claude and Codex AI Coding Agents

Via The Verge

GitHub just integrated Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's Codex directly into its platform, giving developers access to multiple AI coding agents that can write, debug, and explain code in real time. The move is part of GitHub's "Agent HQ" vision to make AI agents native to how developers use GitHub every day—and it's now available in public preview for Copilot Pro Plus and Copilot Enterprise subscribers.

How it works: Developers can compare how Copilot, Claude, Codex, or custom agents generate solutions. They can assign different agents to issues and pull requests. The goal? Let developers move from idea to implementation without losing context or switching tools.

What's next: Access to Claude and Codex will expand to more GitHub Copilot subscription types soon. GitHub is also working with Google, Cognition, and xAI to bring even more agents into the platform. 

The bigger picture: GitHub is embracing AI as a way to aid developers rather than fighting it. Instead of locking developers into a single AI assistant, GitHub is positioning itself as the platform where developers get to pick the best tool for each task.

ElevenLabs Raises $500M From Sequoia At An $11 Billion Valuation

ElevenLabs, the AI voice cloning and text-to-speech company, just raised $500 million from Sequoia Capital at an $11 billion valuation—a huge leap from its $3 billion valuation in January 2025. The startup, which launched in 2022, specializes in generating realistic synthetic voices. 

Who's involved: Sequoia led the round, with Sequoia partner Andrew Reed joining the board at ElevenLabs. Existing investor Andreessen Horowitz quadrupled its investment, and Iconiq, which led the last round, tripled its stake. New investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, and Bond. ElevenLabs has now raised over $781 million total. 

The competitive landscape: Voice AI is hot, attracting both investor dollars and strategic acquihires from big tech. Rival Deepgram raised $130 million in January at a $1.3 billion valuation, and Google hired top talent from voice model company Hume AI, including CEO Alan Cowen.

Why it matters: Investors are still pouring nine-figure checks into AI startups, even as bubble warnings grow louder. ElevenLabs' valuation grew by $8 billion in 13 months. Are we inflating a bubble, or is this proof of true value? 

Amazon’s Alexa+ Now Available Across the US

Amazon just opened up Alexa+, its generative AI-powered assistant, to all US customers. The upgraded version is free for Prime members across devices and available with limitations to non-Prime users via the Alexa website or mobile app for $19.99/month. 

What's different: Alexa+ is model-agnostic, running on a combination of Amazon's foundation models and those from other companies to choose the best AI for each task. Unlike the original Alexa, it can carry on natural language conversations with follow-up questions and back-and-forth chat. It handles everything the old Alexa did but can now plan trip itineraries, update shared calendars, save recipes, help with homework, and more. 

The rollout: Amazon addressed beta feedback about Alexa+ being too chatty or interrupting at the wrong time by adding features like "Is that for me?" when the AI is unsure who's being addressed. Users can turn off follow-on mode if they don't want Alexa to keep listening after responding. 

Why it matters: AI is everywhere, and tech companies want to make sure access is seamless. Amazon's strategy is to embed Alexa+ into every surface users already touch. 

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NodeTool is an open-source, local-first workflow builder that lets you design and run complex AI pipelines. Users can connect drag-and-drop nodes (LLMs, image/audio/video generation, RAG, and agents) with full visibility into each step. 

How you can use it

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Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • Amazon plans to spend $200 billion on AI, chips, and robotics.

  • OpenAI introduces Frontier, a new platform for building, deploying, and managing enterprise AI agents.

  • Google unveils a new Gemini ad that will air during the Big Game on Sunday.

  • Anthropic pledges not to put ads in Claude.

  • Mistral releases two speech-to-text models with ultra-low latency.

  • OpenAI and Ginkgo Bioworks use GPT-5 to cut cell-free protein synthesis costs by 40% through automation.

  • Perplexity AI debuts Model Council, a multi-model research feature designed to deliver unified answers.

Are Anthropic and OpenAI escalating the model race? I break down the release of Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.3-Codex, and where the AI wars are headed next.

That’s a wrap! See you next week for more.

—Matt (FutureTools.io)