What Changed in AI This Month: New Names, New Features and a Few Things That Moved
October has been one of those months where everything shifts a little at once. Nothing earth-shattering on its own, but put together it changes some of the advice you have probably been given, including some of mine. Here is what matters if you work in events, and what I'd actually do about it.
The big one: Claude now makes the finished thing
Claude Docs, Slides and Design came out of beta on 8 October, and they are on every plan, the free one included. So Claude no longer just writes the words for your proposal or venue shortlist and leaves you to build the deck. It makes the doc or the deck, your team can edit it alongside Claude, and decks export to PowerPoint, PDF or straight into Google Slides as editable files.
If you used the separate Claude Design site, note the date. Design now lives inside normal Claude chats, and the standalone site at claude.ai/design closes on 14 December. After that, chats and comments there disappear and public links to standalone projects stop working. If a client has a link to something you made there, move it before then.
ChatGPT: a model gone, slides arriving, a smarter Chrome extension
GPT-5.5 has been removed from ChatGPT (14 October). If a guide tells you to pick it from the model menu, it is out of date.
ChatGPT Slides started rolling out on 16 October to some Pro, Business and Enterprise users with Space access. You can build, co-edit and present decks, and export them to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides. Free and Plus are not on the list yet.
The Chrome extension now has two modes. Chat mode answers questions about the tabs you have open. Work mode can act in them: filling in forms, downloading files and grouping tabs. It is reported to need a paid plan. My view: brilliant for admin, but treat it like a keen temp on day one. Watch what it does, and never let it press "pay" or "confirm booking" without you.
Smaller bits: a new voice model with more voices (change it under Settings > Voice > Voice), and no more cap on how many Sites you can make on Plus and Pro.
Google Gemini: Gems are becoming skills
This is the rename that will catch people out. Google says skills will replace Gems, and it will move your existing Gems across automatically. Its help pages say that happens from November for personal accounts, and no sooner than 1 March 2027 for business accounts. The instructions you wrote in a Gem carry over, so nothing you have built is wasted.
There is also a new Customize item in the left-hand menu, which holds how Gemini responds, your skills and connections to more than 40 other apps (most of those connections are US English only for now). Skills inside Gmail, Docs and the rest of Workspace have been delayed, with no new date.
For Workspace users in the US, Gmail now offers an AI Inbox that pulls out to-dos and summarises priority topics, plus Gmail Live, which lets you ask your inbox questions by voice on your phone. Neither has reached UK English yet.
Microsoft Copilot: a new app and a new way of paying
Microsoft is rebuilding the Copilot app around a new start page called Home, alongside Code and Autopilot, which is the new name for Scout. The bit to understand before your finance team asks: your normal Copilot licence still covers chat and Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, but Cowork, Code, Autopilot and the newest models are moving to pay-as-you-go Copilot Credits, with admins setting spending limits. Frontier (early access) customers get Home first, and Office inside the Copilot app is Frontier-only for now.
The renames worth knowing
- Zapier Agents is now AI by Zapier (6 October), and it lives as a single AI step inside the Zap editor rather than a separate product.
- Mistral's Le Chat is now called Vibe. Same app, new name.
- SuperGrok has been replaced by The X Subscription (12 October) for new customers. Existing subscribers keep their plan unless they switch.
- Scout is now Autopilot in Microsoft Copilot, as above.
Tools events people use
Notion (13 October) now lets its agents use more than 150 tools in connected apps, including HubSpot, and adds tighter permissions on database columns, which is handy for keeping client rates away from suppliers.
Lovable (14 October) added Growth tools: help with Google and Facebook ads, ad creative and a redesigned analytics view. Useful if you build event landing pages there. Ad spend is billed by Google or Meta, not Lovable.
HeyGen launched its own voice model (9 October), free to use on the platform. Cloning a real person's voice needs their recorded consent, which is exactly as it should be.
Claude Code made Code Review generally available for Team and Enterprise. Not one for most events teams, but if you have developers building your booking tools, they will want to know.
The rules: a gentle nudge, not a new law
Nothing big landed in UK or EU law this week, but two things are worth having on your radar. On 14 October the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority, the UK's consumer watchdog) said new technology "does not change their responsibility to comply with consumer law", and named fake reviews, drip pricing and misleading countdown offers as priorities. If AI writes your ticket offers or reviews, the same rules apply as if you had written them.
And the ICO (the UK's data protection regulator) is gathering evidence on AI agents until 20 November. If your team is letting AI act on attendee data, expect guidance aimed at you next year.
What I'm doing about it in Zoby OS
I've checked the whole catalogue against this month's changes. A few lessons said ChatGPT and Claude could not build a deck, which is no longer true, so those are being updated. New lessons and courses are on the way, starting with Claude Docs, Slides and Design for events teams, labelling AI in your event marketing, and keeping AI agents safe when they can click buttons for you.
As ever, menus move and plans change, so check the provider's own page on the day. And if something here has changed how you work, I'd love to hear about it.
Ed