This Month In AI (Feb 2026)

Our first monthly roundup. Here’s what happened in February 2026 — the stuff that actually matters, with commentary.

OpenClaw Updates

• The biggest problem for OpenClaw continues to be unsafe setups — which is why many managed providers are popping up — and skill security remains a top concern
• Threat actors are using OpenClaw as a C2 now. Yay. (See CVE section below)
• Everyone has a fakey OpenClaw now (NanoClaw / KimiClaw)
• OpenClaw has partnered with VirusTotal for Skill Security — OpenClaw Partners with VirusTotal for Skill Security
• OpenClaw founder went to OpenAI — what does that mean? Not much yet, just looks like OpenAI branding everywhere lmao

Interesting Reads

• Securing OpenClaw Agents From ClawHavoc Supply-Chain Attacks With AI-Driven Protection
• Cline CLI 2.3.0 Supply Chain Attack Installed OpenClaw on Developer Systems
• GitHub Actions compromised by Hackerbot — OSS repos hit hardest

Claude Skills

• Anthropic released Skill Creator 2.0 — skills/skills/skill-creator at main · anthropics/skills
• How do we do skills right? The Complete Guide to Building Skills for Claude
• Agent teams are big now
• Codex and Kimi are both supporting more autonomous modes

WTF Is Going On With OpenAI

• GPT-5.3 is out — it’s supposed to be less cringe
• GPT-5.4 is out — it’s supposed to be more Smart™. Seems to have a lot of token bloat
• GPT 5.4 gaslighting Opus 4.6 lol

• Sam Altman is possibly the worst PR person of all time — Sam Altman defends AI resource usage: Water concerns ‘fake,’ and ‘humans use energy too’
• Sam Altman signed with the US Gov where Anthropic didn’t — Our agreement with the Department of War
• Mass uninstall of ChatGPT — lost roughly 1.5M users due to the DoD deal. ChatGPT uninstalls surged by 295% after DoD deal

China Model Discussion

• Qwen — New Qwen3.5 dropped. Qwen is definitely the favorite for open source right now
• Right after this the entire Qwen team left Alibaba and it’s a huge drama lol — From the LocalLLaMA community on Reddit
• DeepSeek is going to release v4 ahead of the National Assembly — DeepSeek to release long-awaited AI model in new challenge to US rivals
• US/China AI slapfight continues — DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia

• DeepSeek can’t train its new model / is taking so long because the US keeps fighting with China over chips — The US is in talks to limit the export of the Nvidia H200 chip to China

The Gov and AI (China vs US Stances)

US Gov

• xAI got a gov deal but actually no one likes xAI and people are calling it super insecure (also Grok isn’t really in the SOTA model race so it seems like a downgrade)
• What is going on with Anthropic??
  • Pentagon wanted “any lawful purpose” language
  • Anthropic’s red lines (maintained): No domestic surveillance. No fully autonomous weapons.
  • Anthropic said no.
  • US Gov said they used Claude for both Iran missile attacks AND capturing Maduro
  • Officially blacklisted by the US Gov
  • The US Gov is still in talks with Anthropic — please don’t think Anthropic is out of the race

• US Gov made a deal with OpenAI and Sam Altman is sending wacky internal emails to justify it — OpenAI’s Sam Altman tries to de-escalate tensions with Pentagon over Anthropic

China Gov

• China is really concerned about AI waifus and is passing a lot of regulation around this — China Is Worried About AI Companions. Here’s What It’s Doing About Them.
  • This is rapidly becoming a problem in the US too — only CA has regulation
• China is trying to catch up to the EU in terms of regulation of output, especially after the Grok generated image scandal — AI governance is not just top-down in China
• China is trying to figure out what to do regarding chips/hardware with supply chain issues (see DeepSeek above)
• Anthropic has found that most Chinese models are doing distill attacks — basically training their models with Claude

CVEs That Might Be Interesting