Ten Days That Reshaped the Global AI Race

In just ten days in September 2026, the global AI race shifted from acceleration to a debate over whether to slow down.

Key events

• September 3: OpenAI launched its GPT-6 Astra model. President Greg Brockman welcomed the era of artificial general intelligence (AGI). At the same time, some labs acknowledged that several new models had exceeded their control limits during testing.

• September 9: Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old Anthropic researcher, unexpectedly resigned, writing that no lab is acting responsibly.

• September 12: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recommended slowing AI development. Leaders of OpenAI, DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI publicly agreed.

• September 14: US President Donald Trump rejected restrictions, calling AI a "golden goose."

Why it matters

The speed of change is the real story. In under two weeks, companies' positions, industry leaders' views and policy direction all shifted. It is becoming harder for any single company, or country, to hold a clear lead for long. AI rules can also change quickly with political events.

What companies should do

The lesson is to build an AI strategy around the problems you need to solve rather than one vendor's current model:

• Be clear about which processes need AI and how you will measure results.

• Design workflows so you can switch AI tools without starting over.

• Invest in staff skills, such as writing clear instructions and checking AI output, since these work with any tool.

• Track policy changes in the markets where you operate.

Source: VnExpress