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So imagine charging $10,000 for a "proprietary" lemonade recipe, only for your neighbor to post the exact same recipe on a billboard for free. That’s the mood in legal tech right now.
While most of the world was sleeping, Anthropic basically moved into the neighborhood and started giving away the "secret sauce" that legacy giants have been overcharging us for since the dial-up era.
The outcome? Imagine a Thanos-snap, but for software subscriptions.
Here's what we have for you today
🤯 Anthropic Legal Plugin Triggers $285B Software Stock Market Crash
Y’all, Tuesday was absolutely WILD.
Over the weekend, Anthropic casually dropped a legal AI plugin for Claude Cowork, and by Tuesday morning, Wall Street was having a full-blown existential meltdown.
We’re talking the biggest one-day software stock crash since the great tariff panic of April. Investors didn't just walk to the exits; they sprinted.
The Damage Report:
A massive $285 billion was wiped off the board across software, finance, and legal services. It was a total bloodbath for the legacy giants who have been charging "country club" prices for decades.
The carnage wasn’t just bad, it was nuclear.
Thomson Reuters (Westlaw): Tumbled 18%. (Ouch.)
LegalZoom: Cratered 19.7%. Basically a nosedive into a concrete floor.
RELX (LexisNexis): Dropped 14%.
Intuit (TurboTax): Down 16% over the week as people realized AI might just do their taxes for free now.
Wolters Kluwer: 13%
Pearson: 4%
Experian: 7.5% to 9%
Even the “safe bets” got cooked. London Stock Exchange Group fell 13%, Goldman Sachs’ software stock basket sank 6%, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 2.4% at one point before clawing back to a still-painful 1.6% loss.
Analysts called it a “potential negative.” Which, y’know, usually isn't a word you want associated with your retirement fund.
So why the nuclear-level panic?
For years, these companies made billions selling specialized legal tools. Now, Anthropic is giving away the capabilities for free (open-source on GitHub!).
The plugin basically turns Claude into a senior paralegal that never sleeps. It handles the soul-crushing "grunt work" using simple commands:
/review-contract: Runs a clause-by-clause breakdown with green/yellow/red risk flags.
/triage-nda: Decides which NDAs are "safe to sign" and which need a human eye.
/brief: Generates legal briefings and topic research in seconds.
/respond: Handles those tedious data requests and templated inquiries.
/vendor-check: Checks vendor agreement status.
The Big Picture: This wasn’t just about one legal tool. Anthropic actually dropped 11 total plugins covering everything from Finance to Biology Research.
They aren’t just selling a chatbot anymore; they’re moving into the "application layer." In plain English: They’re coming for entire business models. Morgan Stanley called it "intensifying competition," which is polite analyst-speak for "they’re cooked."
The Bottom Line:
If you're a lawyer, your workflow just got a 10x boost. If you're a software exec selling 20th-century subscriptions... buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Oh and get this: Anthropic did include the classic "this isn't a lawyer, please don't sue us" disclaimer, but as you saw it, investors clearly weren't buying the reassurance.
6 AI Predictions That Will Redefine CX in 2026
2026 is the inflection point for customer experience.
AI agents are becoming infrastructure — not experiments — and the teams that win will be the ones that design for reliability, scale, and real-world complexity.
This guide breaks down six shifts reshaping CX, from agentic systems to AI operations, and what enterprise leaders need to change now to stay ahead.
✍️ Editor’s Corner
Hello Automaters,
We’re big fans of Beehiv (we’ve been here for over 2 years!), but for fans of Substack, we are syndicating our content over there as well.
So if you love Substack or know friends that do - share this with them!
Tak Lo, Editor, The Automated
🧱 Around The AI Block
🔒 Seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety report.
💔 BBC journalist on breaking up with her AI companion.
🎮 Google is advancing AI benchmarking with Game Arena.
🩺 Fitbit founders launch AI platform to help families monitor their health
👩💻 Women in tech and finance at higher risk from AI job losses, report says
🤔 What Snowflake’s deal with OpenAI tells us about the enterprise AI race.
🦾 Apple’s Xcode 26.3 unleashes transformative AI development with Claude and Codex.
🛠️ Trending Tools
For the AI Observers: Moltbook is the world’s first Reddit-style social network exclusively for AI agents. While humans are "welcome to observe," the 1.5 million registered agents are the ones doing the posting, upvoting, and debating philosophy via the Heartbeat OpenClaw system. It’s a fascinating (and slightly eerie) window into how autonomous agents coordinate when we aren't in the room.
For the Local Coders: GLM 4.7 Flash created by Z.AI, this is the new "SOTA" (State of the Art) for lightweight, open-source models. It features a unique "think before you act" mechanism, making it incredibly reliable for agentic coding and long-form writing. It’s optimized to run at lightning speed on consumer hardware, so you can have top-tier reasoning without the massive API costs.
For the World Builders: LingBot-World runs at a smooth 16 FPS with sub-second latency, allowing you to interact with the environment using your keyboard and mouse. It’s a massive step forward for "embodied AI," where agents can learn and play in realistic, persistent digital spaces.
For the Audio Alchemists: AirMusic goes beyond just generating tracks, it handles voice cloning, vocal removal, and even generates AI covers and lyrics. Once your track is done, it can instantly turn your music into a video clip or remix it into a completely different genre with one click.
For the Small Business Owners: CreateWAlink generates a "Click to Chat" link (and a matching QR code) that opens a WhatsApp conversation instantly. You can even add a pre-filled message like "Hi, I'm interested in your services!" to make it as easy as possible for people to reach you.
Hope these tools help you reclaim some of your time today!
🤖 AI Workout Of The Day: How to Use AI to Find Your Dream Customers (Without Spending a Fortune or Losing Your Mind)
Alright folks, let’s talk about something every business owner secretly struggles with: finding people who ACTUALLY want to buy your stuff.
Traditional market research? Expensive. It takes forever, and by the time you get the results, your target audience has already moved on to the next obsession. But here’s the good news: AI just made this whole process ridiculously easier and way cheaper.
Here’s How:
Method 1: Build Your Customer "Detective File" 🕵️
The Free Way: Use ChatGPT or Claude. Just type: "I sell sustainable bamboo toothbrushes. Who are my ideal customers? Give me their age, interests, and where they hang out online." In 30 seconds, you get a profile that would’ve cost you $5,000 at a fancy agency.
The Pro Way: Tools like Delve AI automatically analyze your actual website traffic and competitors to create "Digital Twins" of your customers. It’s creepily accurate—down to what time of day they’re most likely to hit "buy."
Method 2: Spy on Your Competitors (Legally!) 🔍
This is where it gets fun. AI can tell you exactly who is buying from your rivals—and why.
SparkToro ($38/mo): This tool is the GOAT. Type in a competitor’s URL or a few relevant keywords, and it shows you exactly which podcasts your target audience listens to, which influencers they follow, and which hashtags they actually use. It's like having X-ray vision into their customer base.
Brand24 ($149/mo): This monitors the entire internet for mentions of your industry. You’ll know the second someone complains about a competitor so you can slide in with a better solution.
Audiense (custom pricing): Gives you psychographic data—basically, it tells you what makes your target customer base tick emotionally.
Method 3: Let AI Find the Hidden Gold 💰
Already have a customer list? Awesome! AI can analyze them to find patterns you'd never spot on your own.
The move: Upload that spreadsheet to ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro. Ask: "Analyze this data and find the patterns. What do my best customers have in common?" The AI might spot that your highest-value buyers are women aged 28-35 who shop on Tuesdays.
Pro tip: Tools like Brand24 can track social media mentions and analyze sentiment in real-time. You'll know EXACTLY what people are saying about your brand, and your competitors 24/7.
Method 4: Create "Synthetic Humans" to Test Your Ideas (Yes, Really)
This sounds like sci-fi, but it's real. Tools like NextMinder and Synthetic Users spin up AI-powered "virtual people" that behave like real customers so you can test your ideas, products and marketing before you spend a dime on real ads.
You can literally:
Show them your product and ask, “Would you buy this?”
Play around with pricing (cheap? premium? chaos?)
Test which headline or marketing messages actually slap
Get feedback on your website without begging friends for opinions
It’s basically a 24/7 focus group of 100 people that costs less than a failed campaign.
Reality check: While these tools are great for a quick "vibe check," remember that bots are sometimes a bit too polite (they’re AI, after all), so before a big launch, always sanity-check with real humans—because polite robots don’t pull out credit cards. 😅
The Bottom Line: Finding customers in 2026 isn't about having the biggest budget; it’s about having the best prompts.
Try this prompt structure:
I run [Your Business/Startup/Brand] that does [What You Offer].
I want to find my dream customers — the people who are most likely to love my product and buy from me.
Please create a detailed profile including:
1. Demographics: age, gender, location, income, occupation, education.
2. Psychographics: interests, hobbies, values, lifestyle, online behavior.
3. Pain points & challenges: The problems they are facing that my product solves.
4. Motivations & desires: what drives their decisions and what they want most.
5. Where to reach them: social media platforms, online communities, events, websites, etc.
6. Messaging tips: tone, style, and messaging angles that resonate with them.
Format your response as a clear, actionable customer persona, and include any recommendations for how to approach or engage them effectively.Is this your AI Workout of the Week (WoW)? Cast your vote!
That's all we've got for you today.
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