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Anthropic Releases AI to Automate Mouse Clicks for Coders

Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Anthropic Releases AI to Automate Mouse Clicks for Coders

Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Anthropic, a startup backed by Alphabet and Amazon.com, released a pair of updated artificial intelligence models on Tuesday, along with a new capability to autonomously perform computer tasks and save users keystrokes.

The new "computer use" feature can tell AI "where to move the mouse, where to click, what to type, in order to do quite complicated tasks," Anthropic's Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan said in an interview.

The capability is tailored to software developers and represents a move toward AI agents, programs that require little human intervention to carry out multi-step actions. Researchers have touted agents as a frontier for AI development beyond chatbots, which easily conjure prose or computer code though not actions.

Anthropic demonstrated a use case for the feature that entailed coding a basic website, and another that used various programs including Google Search and Apple Maps to plan a sunrise outing.

Anthropic offers software developers three versions of Claude, its family of AI models, at price points that vary based on their performance. This week's updates come to Sonnet, the mid-tier model, and Haiku, the cheapest.

The new 3.5 Haiku can generate computer code in a manner "almost comparable" to the version of Sonnet released in June, according to Kaplan. CEO Dario Amodei told Reuters at the time that the company intended to update Opus, the most capable model, by the end of the year.

The computer use feature is currently limited to the new version of Claude 3.5 Sonnet and comes with safeguards to prevent its application toward spam, fraud and election-related misuse, Anthropic said. Kaplan said the AI still makes mistakes.

Mike Krieger, a co-founder of Instagram who joined Anthropic this spring as chief product officer, said the company wants feedback from business customers to learn where to focus development of the feature. Meanwhile, a labs team inside Anthropic is exploring how to make the capability available for consumers, something Krieger said he personally wants.

"I was booking flights," he said. "I really just want this to be completely automated."

Microsoft on Monday unveiled an application for its clients to build their own agents that can handle queries, identify sales leads and manage inventory.

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Technology

AI May be Creating Instead of Destroying Jobs for Now, ECB Blog Argues

FILE PHOTO: A view of the European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jana Rodenbusch/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A view of the European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jana Rodenbusch/File Photo
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AI May be Creating Instead of Destroying Jobs for Now, ECB Blog Argues

FILE PHOTO: A view of the European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jana Rodenbusch/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A view of the European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jana Rodenbusch/File Photo

The increasing use of artificial intelligence by firms may be creating some jobs in the euro zone rather than destroying them as many fear, a European Central Bank blog post argued on Wednesday.

Economists have been debating whether AI could put white collar staff out of work, and a recent study by Germany's Ifo Institute found that more than a quarter of German firms expect AI to ⁠lead to job ⁠cuts in the next five years.

But the ECB's own Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises found that companies making significant use of AI are more likely to take on additional staff ⁠in the near term.

"In other words, AI-intensive firms tend, on average, to hire rather than fire," the blog post, which is not necessarily the view of the ECB, said.

Firms planning to invest in AI are also more likely to have positive expectations for future employment growth, the blog argued.

"This is true regardless of the level of planned AI investment ⁠and ⁠suggests that a pause in hiring due to investment in AI technology is also unlikely over the next year," the blog, written by two ECB staff economists, said.

However, the outlook may change on the longer horizon, the authors said.

Most of the gloomier surveys cover longer horizons than the ECB's own question and the outlook could change once AI starts to significantly transform production processes.

Technology

EU Experts to Start Work on Social Media Ban for Children Thursday

The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP)
The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP)
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EU Experts to Start Work on Social Media Ban for Children Thursday

The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP)
The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP)

An EU expert group is to begin work this week on whether to ban social media for children with the aim of coming up with recommendations by the summer, Brussels said Tuesday.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen will attend the consultative panel's inaugural meeting on Thursday, having launched the initiative in September, the European Commission said.

Brussels is considering setting a minimum age to access social media after Australia in December required TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other top sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, or face heavy fines.

The EU panel will hold a series of meetings to then "advise the President and the commission as a whole on potential additional measures to put in place to protect our kids online," said commission spokesman Thomas Regnier.

The commission did not say who was on the panel.

Brussels is keeping a close eye on how successful the Australian ban proves, with legal challenges already filed against it.

France, along with Denmark, Greece and Spain, has been pushing for similar action at EU level.

Von der Leyen has advocated going further with a minimum age limit, but first wants to hear from experts on what approach the 27-nation bloc should take.

EU efforts to rein in the influence of big tech firms -- most of which are based in the United States -- have angered the administration of President Donald Trump.

Technology

Tech Sovereignty and AI Networks Set to Dominate Mobile Meet

A picture taken on March 2, 2026 in Barcelona shows Qualcomm's stand adverstising 6G technology during the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile technology showcase and fair. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)
A picture taken on March 2, 2026 in Barcelona shows Qualcomm's stand adverstising 6G technology during the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile technology showcase and fair. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)
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Tech Sovereignty and AI Networks Set to Dominate Mobile Meet

A picture taken on March 2, 2026 in Barcelona shows Qualcomm's stand adverstising 6G technology during the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile technology showcase and fair. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)
A picture taken on March 2, 2026 in Barcelona shows Qualcomm's stand adverstising 6G technology during the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile technology showcase and fair. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Tens of thousands flocked to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona Monday, with this year's edition of the telecoms trade fair marked by efforts to integrate AI into networks.

Celebrating its 20th year in the Catalan capital, the annual event is expected to draw around 109,000 professionals and visitors as well as major telecoms operators and equipment manufacturers from around the world, AFP reported.

Usually the day for major announcements, Monday will see appearances from the heads of Indian telecoms giant Bharti, America's AT&T and France's Orange.

And attendees are expected to pack an address by SpaceX chief Gwynne Shotwell, as press reports swirl of an imminent stock market listing for the Elon Musk-owned satellite internet firm.

The broader satellite communications sector will once again be "one of the defining themes of MWC this year", analysts from British research firm CCS wrote.

So-called "direct-to-device" connectivity -- in which phones or other connected gadgets communicate directly via satellites overhead -- "is the hottest topic right now, not just in the satellite industry, but in the mobile operator community", they added.

The telecoms industry can look back on a year of strong growth for global smartphone sales in 2025, adding 1.9 percent to reach 1.26 billion devices.

But firms will also have to ride the waves of multiple upcoming transformations in the sector.

"Sovereign AI will be a big discussion item" at this year's MWC, according to analysts from the GSMA telecoms industry association that hosts the fair, as countries look to insulate their tech infrastructure from geopolitical tensions.

Beyond political considerations, "the mobile industry is facing one of the most unprecedented challenges in its history," said Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst for market intelligence firm IDC.

Manufacturers are confronted with a surge in the price of working memory (RAM) for devices, pumped up by massive demand from tech giants building up their AI computing capacity.

Korean heavyweight Samsung showed off its latest phone models on Wednesday, with the expected prices of the three new gadgets already higher due to the cost of memory.

Over the short term, the price surge will likely trigger a "market contraction" in phones this year, IDC predicted.

But manufacturers will still be keen to show off the innovations crammed into their latest models.

Chinese producer Honor is displaying what it calls a "robot phone" designed to function as a portable AI companion.

The device has a camera on a small robot arm that acts as its head, which Honor said in a Sunday demonstration would be able to nod along with a conversation or look around in response to the user's questions.

The phone is set for launch in the second half of this year.

Chinese competitors Xiaomi and Huawei, sales champions in the connected devices sector, this weekend announced new ranges of watches, headphones and tablets.

Displayed on flashy corporate stands, such new gadgets will line the avenues of the multiple cavernous halls at MWC for visitors to peruse until Thursday.