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Business Tech News: OpenAI Releases Its Latest And Greatest Version Of ChatGPT
TOKYO, JAPAN - FEBRUARY 3: Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a talk session with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event titled "Transforming Business through AI" in Tokyo, Japan, on February 03, 2025. SoftBank and OpenAI announced that they have agreed a partnership to set up a joint venture for artificial intelligence services in Japan today. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
Getty ImagesHere are five things in tech that happened this week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
This Week in Business Tech NewsBusiness Technology News #1– ChatGPT-5 is here.
GPT-5, launched this week, is OpenAI's flagship model now powering ChatGPT, the API, and Microsoft Copilot. It represents a unified system that dynamically adapts its reasoning power to tasks like coding ("vibe coding"), math, and software development, eliminating the need for users to manually switch between model variants. GPT-5 delivers faster, more accurate, and more reliable responses with fewer hallucinations and elevated factuality. It supports multimodal interaction—text, image, and voice—and brings personalization enhancements like customizable "personalities," color themes, and integrations with Gmail and Google Calendar. While it is not AGI, GPT-5 offers notable steps toward artificial general assistance by providing more natural, context-aware, and personalized interactions. (Source: OpenAI)
Why this is important for your business:It's been a two year wait, but early reviews say it's worth it. No business owner should be without a good chatbot companion, be it ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Grok, Gemini or others. GPT-5's biggest benefits – at least for me – is its accuracy. I already use a few chatbots to review contracts, summarize long documents, parse through interview transcripts and help me create policies and other business documents. I'll be leaning more on GPT-5 over the coming months and expect its performance to be that much better.
Business Technology News #2 – Epicor expands cognitive ERP capabilities to optimizes supply chain and tax management.Epicor has announced strategic partnerships with SourceDay and Sovos to enhance its Epicor Kinetic ERP platform for manufacturers, which, according to the company will contribute towards advancing its vision of Cognitive ERP – an AI-driven approach that transforms ERP systems from passive record-keeping tools into proactive, intelligent systems of action that enable real-time data analysis. SourceDay integration automates and digitizes the entire purchase order lifecycle and improves supplier collaboration and data accuracy. Sovos enhances tax compliance capabilities while supporting automated tax reporting and regulatory adherence. (Source: Epicor)
Why this is important for your business:Epicor, like many great ERP system providers are not only enhancing their AI offerings but partnering with companies to fully leverage AI's benefits. Too many small and mid-sized businesses ignore these benefits and/or claim that they don't have enough time to implement them and I couldn't disagree more. Learning how to use these features and then investing the time and resources into getting them operational will have significant long term effects on both productivity and profitability. Regardless of whether you use Epicor, it's critical to dig into the features and functionality your business system provider is rolling out (or planning) and leaning into them.
Business Technology News #3 – Zuckerberg: superintelligence is now in sight.Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a post that shared Meta's vision to "bring personal superintelligence to everyone." Personal superintelligence – a deeply personalized AI assistant designed to help individuals achieve their goals, foster creativity, and enhance social connection – is a shift away from productivity-focused AI such as ChatGPT. Meta aims to deliver superintelligence through smart glasses and AR/VR headsets, which will become the "primary computing devices" of the future. (Source: Meta)
Why this is important for your business:"Superintelligence has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where people will have greater agency to improve the world in the directions they choose," Zuckerberg said. Here's my concern: no one really knows what this means. I'm not sure Mark Zuckerberg even knows the full implications of superintelligence. I'm not going to predict what superintelligence means for business yet. Because, like everyone else, I don't fully know the implications either!
Business Technology News #4 – FBI warns of a particular scam involving QR codes.The FBI has issued a public alert about a new scam where criminals send unexpected packages containing malicious QR codes designed to steal personal data or install malware. Packages are sent to recipients who didn't place the order. Inside or on the package is a QR code that appears to offer tracking info or delivery verification. Scanning the code may either redirect the recipient to phishing websites or prompt them to enter personal/financial information. Malware can also be immediately downloaded to the device used to scan the QR code. (Source: Digital Trends)
Why this is important for your business:According to Trevor Mogg of Digital Trends this is a dangerous twist on the older "brushing scam", where vendors sent unsolicited items to boost fake reviews. Now, the goal is data theft and fraud. The FBI is advising people not to scan QR codes from unknown packages or sources; inspect packages carefully; preview QR links with suspicious URLs; and secure devices with antivirus software.
Business Technology News #5 – Walmart doubles down on GenAI as retail giant builds breakthrough tech to shape future of retail.Walmart is accelerating its investment in Generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI technologies to revolutionize how retail software is built and deployed – aiming for greater autonomy, speed, and innovation across its operations. The company is transitioning from basic automation to fully autonomous workflows. GenAI is being used to reimagine the software development lifecycle, boosting developer productivity and innovation. Walmart sees GenAI as foundational to next-gen retail tech and is actively scouting visionary startups that can contribute to this transformation. (Source: Retail Technology Innovation Hub)
Why this is important for your business:If you're in retail, it's important to keep up to date on what the big box retailers are doing with AI. Ultimately their actions will filter down to smaller chains and stores. As important as GenAI is right now I'm expecting that retailers will be leaning heavily into robotics, point-of-sale and payment technologies leveraging AI in the years to come.
Each week I round up five business technology news stories and explain why they're important for your business. If you have any interesting stories, please post to my X account @genemarks
This Week In EV Tech: New EVs To Look Forward To
With summer more than halfway over, new-car debuts are about to start happening in rapid succession.
The transition from summer to fall brings California's Monterey Car Week and IAA Mobility, the first of the season's major auto shows, in Munich, Germany. This week, we got first teases of some of the major EV debuts at those events.
Honda's new EV era gets closer
Acura Debuting during Monterey Car Week, the Acura RSX Prototype previews the Honda luxury brand's first in-house EV, which is scheduled to reach showrooms in the second half of 2026. Recycling the name of a sporty coupe sold in the United States as a 2002-2006 model, this RSX is an electric crossover SUV that leverages parent Honda's latest tech.
While the current Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are based on General Motors architectures, Honda is readying its own dedicated EV platform, plus a new operating system called Asimo — named after the humanoid robot that made the rounds at trade shows throughout the early 2000s — that Honda has claimed will enable more sophisticated driver-assist tech and an AI voice assistant.
The production RSX will have these features, wrapped in sleek styling inspired by the Acura Performance EV concept shown at last year's Monterey Car Week. When Honda and Acura use the word "prototype" instead of "concept," that generally means something pretty close to production-ready. So whatever Acura shows in Monterey should be indicative of the final version.The RSX will be built in Ohio alongside Honda's own 0 Series EVs, expected to include an SUV and a sedan based on the pair of vehicles Honda showed at CES 2025 — also designated "prototypes" by the automaker. The Ohio facilities will also build the Afeela 1 electric sedan for the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture.
Mercedes-Benz continues its EV revamp
Mercedes-Benz Mercedes swung and missed with its EQ EVs which offering luxury and comfort worthy of the brand, fell short on efficiency and alienated critics with their unusual styling. Starting with the 2026 CLA-Class compact sedan, Mercedes is pivoting to more commonality between its electric and combustion models. The new GLC EV will test that strategy.
Debuting at the IAA Mobility show, this crossover will formally be known as the GLC with EQ Technology because the Mercedes brass are apparently not fans of brevity. In addition to a complicated name, Mercedes revealed this week that the GLC EV will have a complicated grille comprised of 942 backlit dots in what the automaker describes as a "smoked-glass-effect lattice structure." That allows for programmable designs — like the pixelated one shown here — as well as animation.
The internal-combustion GLC is Mercedes' bestselling model globally, so the GLC with EQ Technology is an important product for the automaker's electrification strategy. It will incorporate the latest Mercedes operating system, as seen in the CLA, and hopefully some of the efficiency improvements from that model as well. Mercedes will need them to take on the BMW iX3, also debuting at IAA, which represents that automaker's latest and greatest EV tech.
Hyundai goes cheaper
Hyundai There are already plenty of luxury EVs, but a lack of more-affordable models. According to the Korea Times, Hyundai is set to address that with the Ioniq 2. Prototypes of this smaller EV have already been spotted testing, but the Korean media outlet reports that the car will be publicly revealed in Munich at the IAA show.
Little is known about the Ioniq 2, but it's likely to be a Hyundai version of the Kia EV2, a small crossover that Kia unveiled earlier this year. The EV2 is expected to use a lower-cost version of the E-GMP architecture that underpins current models like the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 9, but with 400-volt charging (instead of the 800-volt system used in other E-GMP models) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells to keep costs down.
The Ioniq 2 looks like a shoo-in for Europe, where its small size will allow it to fit right in. But it may be too small for the U.S., and the combination of 15% tariffs on Korean cars and the elimination of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit further weaken its business case, the Korea Times notes. Hyundai is building the Ioniq 9 and Ioniq 5 at its new factory near Savannah, Georgia, but those models are better suited to U.S. Tastes. It's unclear if Hyundai would be willing to add U.S. Production of the Ioniq 2 — even if it would be a boon to EV affordability.
New Details Emerge About Ancient Inca Counting Technology
The Inca were a pre-Columbian civilization whose empire sprawled along South America's Pacific Coast from the 15th to the 16th century CE. Like other Andean peoples, they used khipus (also known as quipus), an intricate cord and knot system used to record information. According to Spanish colonial-era sources, only male Inca elites could make khipus. A new study, however, challenges this widespread notion.
In a paper published today in Science Advances, an international team of researchers investigated the primary cord of a khipu from around 1498 CE made from human hair. Their analysis revealed that the individual who wove their hair into the khipu ate a diet commonly associated with commoners, suggesting that a greater diversity of people used the instrument than previously thought.
"Despite recent advances in our understanding of Andean khipus, scholars know little about the specialists who created Inka khipus," the researchers wrote in the study. "With limited direct evidence concerning the lives of Inka khipu experts, our knowledge is based mainly on the chronicles of Spanish-language colonial observers."
An Incan khipu in Lima, Peru. © Claus Ableiter nur hochgeladen aus enWiki, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons Researchers believe that khipus were buried alongside their owners when they died. Unfortunately, however, the burials where experts have discovered many Inca khipus were previously looted, meaning they can no longer provide this crucial insight. As such, the team from the new study took a different approach.
"Historically, when human hair was incorporated into a khipu's primary cord, it served as a 'signature' to indicate the person who created the khipu," the researchers explained. "Recent advances in elemental analysis–isotope ratio mass spectrometry allowed us to undertake simultaneous carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S) measurements from a single KH0631 hair sample, revealing that this individual consumed a diet characteristic of low-ranking commoners," they added. "This evidence suggests that Inka commoners could be involved in creating Inka-style khipus."
Specifically, the individual in question ate tubers and greens instead of meat and corn, which was the typical Inca elite's diet. The researchers' approach also revealed that this khipu specialist, or khipukamayuqs, probably lived in modern-day southern Peru or northern Chile.
These results align with the fact that in the 19th and 20th centuries, "commoners," such as peasant farmers, farm laborers, and female peasants, created and used khipus. What's more, it bolsters recent research as well as accounts by Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, a 16th-century Inca nobleman and chronicler, that women in the Inca Empire also made khipus.
While the researchers admit that "KH0631 is only one khipu," they conclude that "the new isotopic evidence from KH0631 suggests that khipu literacy in the Inca Empire may have been more inclusive and widespread than hitherto thought."
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