Technical depth on AI, Azure, Next.js, and the engineering decisions behind them.
Anthropic prices prompt caching with three numbers: a 1.25x or 2x premium on cache writes depending on TTL, a 0.1x rate on cache reads, and the base input rate for everything after the last breakpoint. This deep-dive verifies every figure against the current official docs and covers per-model minimums, break-even math, batch stacking and how Claude on Azure converts it all into CCUs.
Microsoft's 11 and 25 August 2026 Copilot release notes shipped SharePoint Authoritative Sites for trusted grounding, Anthropic and OpenAI model choice in Word, Python execution in Excel, and a Viva Insights dashboard tracking Copilot credit consumption. Here is how Swedish M365 teams should configure the wave, and where the Anthropic option changes your data-flow documentation.
Anthropic's 19 August GA wave took computer use out of beta, launched a browser use toolset, and moved the Files API, Agent Skills and enterprise user management to production on the Claude API. The same release added allowed_domains and blocked_domains restrictions for agent web tools: how the matching rules work, when to allowlist versus blocklist, and what the controls mean for EU governance.
Google shipped gemini-3.7-flash as generally available on 13 August 2026 at an introductory $0.75/$3.75 per million tokens, two weeks after OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna by 80 percent and days after Anthropic locked Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10 permanently. We compare the three workhorse models on list price, context, Azure availability and EU residency, and show why cost per completed task beats cost per token.
Moonshot AI published Kimi K3's open weights on 26 July 2026: a 2.8-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model with a 1M-token context window, shipped in MXFP4 under a custom licence that gates large-scale commercial inference. We work through the licence terms, the GPU memory and cost math for serving it in an EU Azure region, and a decision framework for choosing between self-hosting, a managed API and a smaller single-node open model.
Claude Opus 5 launched on 24 July 2026 at $5/$25 per million tokens with a 1M context window and day-one availability in Microsoft Foundry. For long-running agents the per-token price is the wrong unit: we work through cost per completed task against Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol, and flag the EU data-residency caveat Swedish Azure teams need to check first.
Google's 21 July release of Gemini 3.6 Flash pairs an output-price cut from $9.00 to $7.50 per million tokens with a claim of roughly 17% fewer output tokens per task, compounding to about 31% lower output cost for unchanged work. That combination makes per-million-token price sheets unreliable for model comparison, and Azure teams should measure cost per completed task instead.
OpenAI released the GPT-5.6 series on 9 July 2026 in three tiers: Sol for hard reasoning and long autonomous runs, Terra for everyday work and Luna for speed and cost, with same-day availability in Microsoft Foundry and a new preferred-model role in Microsoft 365 Copilot. This playbook maps Azure workloads to the right tier, works the token math in SEK and flags the Copilot subprocessor setting Swedish admins must review before 24 July.
Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 5 started rolling out in Microsoft 365 Copilot on 2 July 2026, beginning with Copilot Cowork and Copilot in PowerPoint, and for EU tenants it is a governance decision rather than a feature update. The Anthropic subprocessor arrangement changed in May 2026, the models run outside the EU Data Boundary, and Swedish admins now face concrete choices about tenant settings, pilot scoping and DPIA updates.
Anthropic launched Claude Sonnet 5 on 30 June 2026 at an introductory 2/10 dollars per million tokens, posting 63.2% on SWE-bench Pro and near-Opus agentic performance at 40-60% of the cost per task. We run the cost math against Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5, set out a routing framework for when the cheap model wins, and draw the continuity lesson from the eighteen-day Fable and Mythos export-control pause.
Google made computer use a native tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash on 24 June 2026, putting vision-based UI agents in its low-cost tier for browser, mobile and desktop automation. A comparison with Azure AI Foundry's Computer Use and Browser Automation previews, with a decision framework for legacy-UI automation and the GDPR implications of shipping screenshots to a model endpoint.
Microsoft made Copilot Cowork generally available worldwide on 16 June 2026, giving every Microsoft 365 Copilot tenant an agentic system that plans and delivers multi-step work, billed through Copilot Credits at 0.01 dollars each with no usage bundled into the license. Swedish IT teams now need spending limits, a DPIA update for the Anthropic-by-default model lineup, and a clear answer on when Cowork beats building a Foundry agent.