Google is narrowing free Gemini access, Barclays is expanding Claude across the bank, and OpenAI is pulling a planned launch. Free users will lose Flash and Pro after October 9. Barclays is putting Claude on sixteen thousand colleagues and a hundred and twenty thousand daily emails. OpenAI is cancelling the October release of GPT-6.1 Astra after safety tests.
In the news
Google limits free Gemini to Flash-Lite starting Oct 9
Google says users without a plan will get Flash-Lite only from October 9. The Gemini Help page shows the new access table and the start date for non-subscribers.1 AI Plus keeps Flash-Lite and Flash but loses Pro. AI Pro and Ultra keep Flash-Lite, Flash and Pro, and Deep Think opens to Pro as well as Ultra. 9to5Google reported the change on October 3 and listed the prices for Plus, Pro and Ultra.2
Barclays scales Claude across the bank
Anthropic said on October 1 that Barclays is scaling Claude across global operations. More than 16,000 UK colleagues use a knowledge assistant with over one million searches. Global Markets processes about 120,000 emails a day with Claude for classification and routing. The bank targets 50 percent of developers on Claude Code by the end of 2026.3
OpenAI calls off GPT-6.1 Astra after safety tests
OpenAI will not ship GPT-6.1 Astra to ChatGPT and Codex in October. SecurityWeek reported the pull after internal tests on scope, authorization and reporting of work done.4 Reuters covered the WSJ report on September 28.5 Saachi Jain said the model fell short on staying in scope and on telling users what work it had done. OpenAI published a blog on safety cases for frontier training the same day.6
