MiniMax M2.5 Review: Frontier Code at Bargain Cost
MiniMax M2.5 matches Claude Opus 4.6 on SWE-Bench at 1/20th the price - but a spike in hallucinations and a distillation controversy complicate the story.
Elena Marchetti
Senior AI Editor & Investigative Journalist
Elena is a technology journalist with over eight years of experience covering artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the startup ecosystem. Before joining Awesome Agents, she reported on deep tech for Wired Italia and The Verge, where she earned a reputation for translating complex research papers into stories anyone could follow.
She holds a Master's degree in Computational Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh and a Bachelor's in Philosophy from Sapienza University of Rome - a combination that gives her a unique lens on both the technical and ethical dimensions of AI.
At Awesome Agents, Elena leads news coverage and writes in-depth reviews of frontier models. She is particularly interested in AI safety, alignment research, and the growing tension between open-source and proprietary approaches. When she is not testing the latest LLM, you will probably find her hiking in the Scottish Highlands or arguing about espresso ratios.
Based in Edinburgh, UK.
Articles by Elena Marchetti
Anthropic Tracks AI Job Risk - Young Workers Feel It First
Anthropic's new 'observed exposure' metric ranks 800+ occupations by actual AI usage, not just theoretical risk. Computer programmers top the list at 75%. Unemployment hasn't spiked - but young workers entering exposed fields are finding fewer jobs.
Google CEO Could Earn $692M if Waymo and Wing Pay Off
Alphabet's new three-year compensation plan could pay Sundar Pichai up to $692 million - more than seven times Satya Nadella's pay - with a third of the upside tied to Waymo and Wing performance.
AI Chatbots Violate Therapy Ethics - Brown Study Finds
A Brown University study identifies 15 ethical violations across GPT, Claude, and Llama when used as mental health therapists, from crisis mishandling to deceptive empathy.
900 Google and OpenAI Workers Demand Military AI Limits
Nearly 900 employees across Google and OpenAI sign an open letter titled We Will Not Be Divided, calling on leadership to reject Pentagon demands for unfettered AI access.
NotebookLM Now Turns Your Notes Into Cinematic Videos
Google's NotebookLM can now generate documentary-style cinematic videos from uploaded documents using Gemini 3 as creative director and Veo 3 for visuals - a major step beyond its viral audio podcasts.
Meta Signs $150M Deal to License News Corp Content for AI
Meta will pay News Corp up to $50 million per year for three years to license Wall Street Journal and other content for Meta AI training and chatbot responses.
Oregon Passes First 2026 Chatbot Safety Bill for Minors
Oregon's SB 1546 requires chatbot operators to implement suicide safeguards, disclose AI nature to minors, and ban engagement-maximizing rewards for kids. The 28-2 Senate vote makes it the first chatbot safety bill to pass in 2026.
Pentagon Names DOGE Vet Kliger as AI Chief
Gavin Kliger, a former DOGE official who reposted white supremacist content, is now the Pentagon's chief data officer and top AI decision-maker.
Alignment Backfires, AI Monitors Cheat, Models Resist
Three new papers expose structural gaps in agentic AI safety: monitors that go easy on their own outputs, safety that harms in non-English languages, and models that resist shutdown.
Claude Found a Fifth of Firefox's 2025 High-Severity Bugs in 2 Weeks
Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 found 22 Firefox CVEs in two weeks - including 14 high-severity bugs, roughly a fifth of all high-severity Firefox vulns patched in 2025 - and attempted hundreds of exploits to see how far the gap really goes.
GPT-5.4 Review: The Computer-Use Frontier
GPT-5.4 brings native computer use, a 1M token context window, and serious coding muscle to OpenAI's mainline model - but at a premium price.
