Evening AI edition: benchmarks, agents, and AI startups

Kimi-K3 is reported as #1 on Frontend Code Arena and beating Claude Fable 5 in that benchmark context.

The same report lists 88.3 on Terminal Bench 2.1 for Kimi-K3, while GPT-5.6 Sol is at 88.8.

The Hacker News item titled "Kimi K3: Open Frontier Intelligence" is currently scoring strong community feedback.

The thread count is 877 upvotes and 525 comments, signaling high visibility among builders and model users.

Google announced on Thursday that it now allows users to link and interact with some of their go-to apps right in AI Mode, the tech giant’s conversational search experience. At launch, supported apps include Instacart, Canva, and YouTube.

With this new update, Google is expanding AI Mode beyond answering questions and into completing tasks across the apps they use regularly. The tech giant is also likely hoping that users will rely on AI Mode more often for things like planning and shopping. Plus, the rollout will allow Google to better compete with rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude , both of which support app integrations.

In one example, Google says that if you’re planning a barbecue and using AI Mode to create a grocery list, you can connect your Instacart account to add the ingredients directly to your shopping cart and quickly check out on the Instacart app or website.

Or, if you’re working on a project and need design ideas, like for a flyer, you can ask Canva to show you a selection of templates. In another example, Google says you could use AI Mode to curate a playlist for your next party and instantly save it to YouTube Music.

The update is rolling out to users in the U.S. Google says it’s working with a range of partners and plans to launch support for more apps soon.

Microsoft announced that Comic Chat is now open source in its official announcement.

That places the project in a code-visible posture where teams can fork, inspect, and adapt.

Community discussion around the item is non-trivial, with 427 upvotes and 96 comments.

For teams tracking practical AI interfaces, this materially lowers barriers to experimentation.

Today we're opening up the DoorDash CLI in limited beta. `dd-cli` lets you order DoorDash directly from your agent: search stores, find the best deals, check out, and more. Early access for US/Canadian macOS developers by waitlist. Excited to see what folks build! pic.twitter.com/rSFhjJnvjJ

Called “dd-cli,” the new tool is open to U.S. and Canadian macOS developers via a waitlist, said DoorDash co-founder and CTO Andy Fang in a post on X . DoorDash was asked for comment about the new feature.

The announcement is getting a lot of attention because, on the face of it, it’s rather funny. Command-line tools are associated with programming, not ordering lunch. An AI agent running commands to order your salad or sandwich can initially feel somewhat absurd.

But the DoorDash CLI isn’t actually a joke; it’s an example of what agentic commerce can look like.

With this move, the company is exposing DoorDash’s ordering platform to AI agents, allowing developers to add functionality to their own software and services. That means instead of visiting DoorDash’s app, developers could build their own tools for ordering food, groceries, or finding local lunch deals, among other things, or use those capabilities as building blocks that are combined with other tools.

Travel agency Fora announced a $60 million Series D round led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Fora , founded in 2021, is a two-part platform: It lets people easily become travel agents by providing the infrastructure to support client communication and travel planning; it also lets users find and communicate with advisors as they plan trips for occasions like honeymoons or family trips, to destinations like Costa Rica or Thailand.

Part of the fresh capital will go toward expanding Fora’s AI assistant, Via, which helps travel agents on its platform with tedious administrative tasks such as research and itinerary building. The hope is that the human travel agents who use the platform can instead spend more time building client relations, and that using Fora’s AI will help human productivity rather than attempt to replace it.

Fora said that since its launch, agents on the platform have booked over $3 billion worth of travel, with a majority of its agent users being new to travel advising. The company also hopes to use the money to hire and grow in other travel categories, such as cruises and flights.

This article was updated to correct the spelling of Fora’s name in the last paragraph.