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Top stories today:
- Google unveils Universal Commerce Protocol for AI shopping agents
- Claude for Healthcare launched by Anthropic with HIPAA-ready tools
- DeepSeek said to ready next-gen V4 AI model by mid-Feb.
- Powell says DOJ threatened Fed with criminal indictment
- a16z raises $15B to build $90B power broker shaping tech, capital
- Amazon said to revive big-box retail plans with Chicago-area store
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Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Google unveils Universal Commerce Protocol for AI shopping agents
UCP was co-developed with Shopify, Walmart, and Target, and backed by 20+ commerce and payments partners:
The open standard lets AI agents operate across multiple stages of the buying process.
It interoperates with other agentic protocols, including AP2 and MCP.
Google plans to use UCP for eligible product listings in AI Mode and Gemini apps.
Personalized ads are also coming to AI Mode, Google announced.
Walmart has also partnered with Google to let users buy items directly on Gemini.
Walmart will also expand Wingās drone delivery to 150 more stores, reaching 270+ locations and ~10% of the U.S. population.
2. Claude for Healthcare launched by Anthropic with HIPAA-ready tools, following OpenAI
Targets healthcare providers, insurers, and consumers.
Builds on Claude for Life Sciences, focused on research and drug discovery.
Powered by Opus 4.5 with extended reasoning capabilities.
Supports tasks like checking clinical criteria against patient records, pulling CMS or custom coverage rules, and speeding up claims and appeals.
Claude for Life Sciences has also added new connectors to Medidata, ClinicalTrials.gov, bioRxiv, medRxiv, Open Targets, ChEMBL, and Owkin.
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4. DeepSeek said to ready next-gen V4 AI model with stronger coding by mid-Feb.
