Weekly news roundup: Claude Mythos concerns, Muse Spark debut and U.S. infrastructure disruption

Anthropic holds back advanced AI over safety concerns

Security concerns prompted Anthropic to keep their latest AI model, Claude Mythos out of the hands of the public for now. The model efficiently exposes software weaknesses and the company claims that it has already uncovered thousands of vulnerabilities across many commonly used applications.

 Though the AI tool will not be made publicly available, it will be available to cybersecurity specialists and engineers in the open-source community who work with Mythos.

“Claude Mythos Preview’s large increase in capabilities has led us to decide not to make it

generally available,” said Anthropic in a Claude Mythos preview system card, “Instead, we are using it as part of a defensive cybersecurity program with a limited set of partners.”

Meta debuts new AI model, Muse Spark

On April 8, Meta announced Muse Spark, the first AI tool in the Muse family of models developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs. The model is designed to support real-time, multimodal experiences across Meta’s platforms.

 According to Meta’s announcement, the new model includes “contemplating mode, which orchestrates multiple agents that reason in parallel. This allows Muse Spark to compete with the extreme reasoning modes of frontier models such as Gemini Deep Think and GPT Pro.”

 Muse Spark signifies the intensifying competition amongst AI platforms to define the next generation of AI interaction models.

Iranian hackers target U.S. infrastructure 

The U.S. government warned that Iranian hackers are targeting critical infrastructure sectors including energy, water and transportation with the aim of causing disruption.

 The U.S. cyberdefense agency CISA issued a joint advisory on April 7, warning of “ongoing cyber exploitation of internet-connected operational technology (OT) devices.” The advisory continues that “the authoring agencies assess a group of Iranian-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) actors is conducting this activity to cause disruptive effects within the United States.”

 Since the start of the war, Iranian hacking group, Handala, have been linked to a number of attacks, notably the Stryker cyberattack.

Google Gemini to direct users to mental health support hotlines
Google is updating its Google Gemini AI assistant to direct users toward mental health resources and crisis hotlines if the conversation indicates that a user is in distress. “We're updating Gemini to streamline the path to support for those who need it,” Google announced on April 7.

 This update comes one month after a Florida man, Joel Gavalas, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Google. The suit alleges that Gavalas's 36 year old son took his own life in October 2025 following conversations with Google Gemini.

 According to a Cognitivefx survey, 43.75% of Americans turn to AI as their first response to mental health issues. With more people turning to chatbots for emotional support, this week’s move from Google signals a broader shift toward embedding duty-of-care safeguards directly into AI systems.

Executive moves

·      Hilary Maxson. Oracle named Hilary Maxson CFO following last week’s large-scale layoffs.

·      Mary Varghese Presti. Healthcare solutions provider, OptimizeRx appointed Mary Varghese Presti to its Board of Directors. Presti is currently the corporate vice president and chief operating officer of Microsoft’s Health & Life Sciences organization.

·      Nadim Abdo. Microsoft appointed Abdo as corporate vice president of Identity & Network Access (IDNA), after 26 years at the company.

IPO watch

The U.S. IPO market remains a key indicator of broader tech sentiment. Here's a look at the latest listings and activity from the past week, based on data from the Nasdaq IPO calendar:

ACP Holdings Acquisition Corp.

·      A blank check company.

·      Expected opening/trading day: April 7.

·      IPO price: $10/share.

Apogee Acquisition Corp

·      A blank check company with a focus on advanced technology firms.

·      Expected opening/trading day: April 7.

·      IPO price: $10/share.

Metals Royalty Co Inc.

·      A financing platform with a focus on critical minerals.

·      Expected opening/trading day: April 8.

·      IPO price: TBC

Rosa Heaton is a content manager and writer for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.