📬 Just a Sunday boost — your regular issues continue uninterrupted.

🟣 Sunday Special - Your AI Events, Learning, and Career Briefing

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Each Sunday, we round up the most relevant AI events, practical learning resources, and current job openings so you can plan your next moves with clarity. This issue focuses on tightening access to AI tools, major AI events coming up in early 2026, and where AI hiring demand is strongest right now.

Inside this issue:

• Anthropic cracks down on unauthorized Claude Code usage and third-party access

• Gmail introduces AI Inbox for priority-first email triage

• OpenAI acquires the Convogo team in a strategic acqui-hire

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Featured Spotlight

Anthropic Cracks Down on Unauthorized Claude Usage

Anthropic rolled out strict new safeguards blocking third‑party tools from spoofing Claude Code, cutting off unofficial harnesses and shutting down access paths used by rivals like xAI through Cursor. The move enforces commercial terms, protects Claude’s compute resources, and pushes high‑volume automation toward official APIs and Anthropic‑managed environments.

Why it matters:

• Ends “arbitrage coding” via consumer Max plans

• Secures Claude Code ahead of Anthropic’s expected IPO

• Signals a shift toward vertically integrated AI tooling

• Forces developers to migrate to enterprise‑grade access

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🗓️ AI Events

📌 AAAI-26 | Singapore | Jan 20 – 27, 2026
A premier global AI conference featuring peer-reviewed research, invited talks, workshops, tutorials, and posters across core and emerging AI fields.

📌 Cloud Roadmap Series: AI Innovation | Virtual | Jan 14, 2026 | 7:30 – 7:50 PM PST
A live Google Cloud session covering the latest AI platform updates, tools, and roadmap highlights for builders and leaders.

📌 Generative Media: AI-Powered Creative Is Just a Prompt Away | Virtual | Jan 14, 2026 | 8:30 – 9:28 PM PST
Learn how SMBs can use generative AI to create media and creative assets quickly using simple prompts and cloud tools.

📌 AI in Healthcare Summit | Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV | Jan 15 – 16, 2026
A leading healthcare AI event exploring how AI is scaled across care delivery, operations, governance, and patient engagement.

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New This Week

OpenAI Acquires the Team Behind Executive Coaching AI Tool Convogo

OpenAI kicked off 2026 with another acqui‑hire, bringing in the full Convogo team — but not the product or IP. The three founders will join OpenAI to accelerate its AI cloud efforts, while Convogo winds down operations.

Why it matters:

• Marks OpenAI’s ninth acquisition in 12 months

• Adds applied enterprise‑AI talent

• Signals OpenAI’s push into leadership, coaching, and enterprise workflows

• Reinforces OpenAI’s strategy of absorbing specialized teams rather than products

📚AI Learning Opportunities

🎓 Use MCP to Create AI Agents
Learn how the Model Context Protocol enables flexible, context-aware AI agents that integrate seamlessly with cloud tools.

🎓 Governing AI Agents
Explore frameworks for designing and deploying intelligent agents responsibly, with a focus on transparency and control.

🎓 Develop AI Agents on Azure
Build and deploy intelligent, interactive agents using Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, and enterprise-grade services.

🎓 AI Foundations for Everyone
A beginner-friendly series covering AI fundamentals, ethics, and hands-on applications for responsible adoption.

 Product Update

Gmail Introduces AI Inbox for Priority‑First Email Triage

Google announced AI Inbox, a new Gmail experience that automatically filters out noise and highlights what actually matters from urgent bills to time‑sensitive updates. It works like a personalized TL;DR for your inbox, surfacing key messages while keeping your data private and under your control.

The feature is rolling out to trusted testers now, with broader availability planned in the coming months.

Why AI Isn’t Replacing Affiliate Marketing After All

“AI will make affiliate marketing irrelevant.”

Our research shows the opposite.

Shoppers use AI to explore options, but they trust creators, communities, and reviews before buying. With less than 10 percent clicking AI links, affiliate content now shapes both conversions and AI recommendations.

Download the full report

💼 AI Career Opportunities

👩‍💻 Product Lead – AI Commerce | Hybrid, US
Lead AI-native commerce experiences across Copilot, Bing, and Edge, owning strategy and execution for AI-powered business products.

👩‍💻 Enterprise Security Engineer | San Francisco
Help design and secure enterprise-grade AI systems supporting large-scale OpenAI deployments.

👩‍💻 Principal AI Engineer | Remote / Hybrid (Netherlands)
Lead the design of enterprise-scale AI systems and deliver production-ready ML solutions across teams.

👩‍💻 Structural Engineer – Data Centers | Memphis, TN
Design resilient, mission-critical data center infrastructure supporting hyperscale AI compute workloads.

✨ Final Note

Keep building. Keep exploring.
One new idea every week and the future gets more interesting.

If this week’s issue helped you, forward it to one person who’d love faster smarter workflows.