This is the news from Tuesday 20 October. Read the latest news
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Automattic’s 33-hour board revolt, Google update talk and more
Today in 30 seconds
- Automattic’s board tried to remove Matt Mullenweg for 33 hours
- Is there a Google October update? Google’s dashboard says no
- Google tests a “Source preferences” button in AI Mode
- Google Posts move higher in the local business panel
- Four Gemini 4 agents beat Minecraft with no human help
- Microsoft 365 E7 will score every AI agent for risk
- Anthropic puts 5% of its shares into a Public Benefit Fund
- Stripe Link now powers about 200 AI shopping agents
- Sphinx quizzes you on your AI’s code before you push
- Leap seconds will end in 2027 to protect computers
- iPhone Duo has a 4,883mAh battery, and it ships this Friday
Good morning. Today has a bit of drama, a bit of SEO and a lot of AI. Automattic’s board tried to remove Matt Mullenweg, and four Gemini agents finished Minecraft on their own.
Automattic’s board tried to remove Matt Mullenweg for 33 hours
Automattic’s board put CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave on 9 September, Fortune reported on 19 October. About 33 hours later, he was back in control. Automattic owns WordPress.com, Tumblr and WooCommerce.
The board had named CFO Mark Davies as interim CEO. Within days, two directors resigned and a third was removed. Davies and the chief legal officer were fired. Mullenweg then named a new board. Fortune says he holds about 84% of the voting power. Nobody has explained why the board acted.
Why it matters Automattic runs WordPress.com and pays many people who build WordPress itself. Nothing changes for your site today. WordPress is open source, and your copy keeps working whoever runs the company.
My take: this is a reminder to own your stack. Keep your own backups and a host you can leave. Not sure which platform fits you? I compared WordPress, Shopify and Webflow here.
Is there a Google October update? Google’s dashboard says no
Site owners on forums report Discover drops, old Google News results and Search Console delays. Many expect an October update. But Google’s Search Status Dashboard shows no ranking update after the September spam update, which finished on 8 October.
The last core update was the May 2026 core update. Search Engine Watch says most complaints are about Discover and News, not normal web results. Those reports started in late August.
Why it matters Before you change your pages, find where the drop happened. In Search Console, filter the Performance report by Search, Discover and News one at a time. If clicks fall while impressions rise, AI answers or ads are the more likely cause.
Google tests a “Source preferences” button in AI Mode
Google is testing a “Source preferences” button inside the AI Mode citations panel, Search Engine Roundtable reported on 19 October. It opens your list of preferred sources, where you can add or remove sites.
Damien Andell spotted the test and shared a video on X. AI Mode has supported preferred sources since May. Google hasn’t commented on this test.
Why it matters Readers can now pick their favourite sites right next to the answer. Your site may then show up more often for them. Ask loyal readers to add you as a preferred source in Google. I explain how AI search picks sites in this guide.
Google Posts move higher in the local business panel
Google appears to be moving the Google Posts section higher in local business panels, Search Engine Roundtable reported on 19 October. Google moved posts to the bottom of the panel back in 2018.
Ben Fisher spotted the change on LinkedIn. He said posts moved up, went down after about three days, then came back. Google hasn’t said if it will stay.
Why it matters Local businesses get free space near the top of their panel. Post an offer, event or update in your Google Business Profile this week. It takes five minutes.
Four Gemini 4 agents beat Minecraft with no human help
Four AI agents running Gemini 4 Argon beat Minecraft’s final boss, the Ender Dragon, Engadget reported on 19 October. Google researchers say it is the first full run of the game by AI agents with no human help.
The run took 27.23 hours. The agents wrote and ran 2,783 small programs, sent each other 229 messages and died 605 times. They shared coordinates, warned each other about danger and split up the work. A fifth agent watched for cheating. The run used 1.35 billion input tokens, about US$810 at Gemini’s list price.
Why it matters This is a team of agents finishing a long, messy job together. The same idea is coming to work tasks like site audits and content updates. Watch the cost, though. Long agent runs burn a lot of tokens.
Microsoft 365 E7 will score every AI agent for risk
Microsoft is adding risk scores for AI agents to Microsoft 365 E7 and Project Perception, GeekWire reported on 19 October. Each agent gets a score that updates based on what data it can reach and whether it drifts from its task.
As the score rises, the system can make an agent read-only, ask a person to approve big steps or shut it down. Microsoft can now spot 60 kinds of agents on staff computers, up from 25. The list includes Claude Code, Codex and GitHub Copilot. It is in private preview, with wider release planned for Microsoft Ignite on 17 to 19 November.
Why it matters Companies want to use coding agents without losing control of them. Even in a small team, give each agent only the access it needs.
Anthropic puts 5% of its shares into a Public Benefit Fund
Anthropic will commit 5% of its shares to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, the company said on 18 October. It needs stockholder approval. The board can add 2% more for every 50% rise in the company’s value above a set baseline.
With earlier pledges from its co-founders and staff, about 20% of Anthropic’s shares are now set aside for public good. The fund can’t use its shares for lobbying or political giving. One example use is helping people whose jobs change because of AI.
Why it matters It doesn’t change Claude today. It shows how AI companies are planning for the effect of AI on work, which affects anyone who builds sites for a living.
Stripe Link now powers about 200 AI shopping agents
Link by Stripe now powers about 200 AI agents that buy things for people, Upstarts Media reported on 18 October. That is about double the 70 agents in Stripe’s September data. Stripe’s Dan Hill says the volume is “becoming very material”.
Link has about 300 million users, so agents are still a small part of it. Grok Bot, Muse and Instinct are among the assistants using Link to pay for things.
Why it matters AI agents are starting to shop at real stores. Keep your product data clean, with clear prices, stock levels and shipping details. And make sure your checkout doesn’t block a fast, polite bot.
Sphinx quizzes you on your AI’s code before you push
Sphinx is a new free Git hook that asks you a question about agent-written code before it can be pushed. It reached the Hacker News front page on 18 October. It is open source under the MIT licence.
A reviewer that never saw your chat reads the diff and asks what the change does. Answer well and the push goes through. Answer badly and it explains why. It works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode or plain Git, and needs Node 22.19 or newer. Install it with npm install -g sphinx-understand.
Why it matters AI writes code fast, but you still own every line on your live site. A two-minute quiz is cheaper than a broken checkout.
Leap seconds will end in 2027 to protect computers
The General Conference on Weights and Measures has voted to stop adding leap seconds, The Register reported on 19 October. From 2027, a scheme called “Continuous UTC” lets clock time drift up to an hour from the Earth’s rotation.
The vote warns that a negative leap second has never happened and carries a “high risk” for critical systems. It compares the cost of getting ready for one with the Y2K bug.
Why it matters Leap seconds have crashed servers and broken certificate checks before. One less odd second means fewer weird outages for your site and your host.
iPhone Duo has a 4,883mAh battery, and it ships this Friday
Apple’s foldable iPhone Duo has a 4,883mAh battery made of two cells, 9to5Mac reported on 18 October. The figure comes from Apple’s EU filing. That is bigger than the iPhone 18 Pro’s 4,288mAh but smaller than the 18 Pro Max’s 5,567mAh.
Apple quotes up to 44 hours of video on the outer screen and 31 hours on the inner screen. The Duo goes on sale on Friday 23 October. Prices start at US$1,999.
Why it matters A folding iPhone means a new screen shape for your site. Test your layouts at tablet-like widths on phones, and check nothing jumps when the screen unfolds.
Quick hits
- Node.js ships security fixes for 26.x, 24.x and 22.x on or after 21 October. Plan to update. Node.js
- Vercel AI Gateway offers MiniMax M3.1 Flash for free until 20 October. Vercel
- Google Local Service Ads will stop showing featured professionals, and headshots are now optional. Search Engine Roundtable
- Anthropic has bought Opaque Systems, a confidential computing startup, and its team is joining. SecurityWeek
- Disney will hire most of Character.AI’s staff after the chatbot company’s bankruptcy filing. TechCrunch
- Apple has launches lined up: HomePod mini 2 on 30 October, then HomeView and Apple TV 4K on 13 November. MacRumors
- NextDC paused its shares over a power supply delay at its M3 Melbourne data centre. Kalkine
- Regex Marble Run turns a regular expression into a 3D marble run, so you can watch backtracking happen. Regex Marble Run
You're all caught up
That's today's web, tech and SEO news. The next edition lands tomorrow morning, around 3 am Melbourne time.That was the news from Tuesday 20 October. A newer edition is waiting for you.
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That’s you caught up. If you’re wondering whether Google changed something in October, my SEO service can find out what moved and why. And if the Automattic news made you nervous, my site updates service keeps your WordPress site backed up and current. See you tomorrow.
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