Agents will replace no-code tools within a year.

Plus: OpenAI plans to charge $20K for PhD agents, Anthropic raises more capital, Amazon reportedly developing their own reasoning models.

Did Cursor + Anthropic's MCP just make billion-dollar businesses like Zapier obsolete?

MCP is an open-source protocol from Anthropic that lets AI agents connect directly with APIs, databases, and services—cutting out low-code tools like Zapier. This week, AI IDE Cursor just integrated it into their code agent, meaning you can now build end-to-end apps and workflows without manual automation tools.

Why This Is a Big Deal:

1. No More Static Triggers → AI Agents React Dynamically

Before: Zapier waits for an explicit trigger (“When an email arrives, do X”).

Now: MCP-powered agents monitor, understand, and act when needed—no predefined trigger necessary.

2. No More Manual Workflow Design → AI Builds Workflows on the Fly

Before: You set up rigid automation chains in Make or Pipedream.

Now: AI decides the best workflow based on real-time needs—no need to predefine connections.

The writing’s on the wall: with the pace of product improvements in software agents in the last few months, millions of people could generate end-to-end software or automation flows in minutes within the year.

Business processes. Personal apps and workflows.

All done by chatting with an LLM.

Strange? Inevitable.

While Cursor and Windsurf are more focused on developers today, the market for the "prosumer" app creator will eclipse this market. (e.g. Canva’s 130M users vs Figma’s 4M).

Fun fact: Zapier is the OG of seedscaling, getting to $230M ARR with only $1.4M in funding.

Enjoy the weekend.

Here’s what mattered in AI this week:

1. Alibaba’s new open source model QwQ-32B matches DeepSeek-R1 with way smaller compute requirements: Qwen Team, a division of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba developing its growing family of open-source Qwen LLMs, has introduced QwQ-32B, a new 32-billion-parameter reasoning model designed to improve performance on complex problem-solving tasks through reinforcement learning (RL). The model has been benchmarked against leading alternatives such as DeepSeek-R1, o1-mini and DeepSeek-R1-Distilled-Qwen-32B, demonstrating competitive results despite having fewer parameters than some of these models.
2. Google Search’s new ‘AI Mode’ lets users ask complex, multi-part questions: Google is launching a new “AI Mode” experimental feature in Search that looks to take on popular services like Perplexity AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search. The new mode is designed to allow users to ask complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Google Search.
3. OpenAI reportedly plans to charge up to $20,000 a month for Phd-level 'agents': OpenAI may be planning to charge up to $20,000 per month for specialized AI "agents," according to The Information. OpenAI intends to launch several "agent" products tailored for different applications, including sorting and ranking sales leads and software engineering. One, a "high-income knowledge worker" agent, will reportedly be priced at $2,000 a month. Another, a software developer agent, is said to cost $10,000 a month. OpenAI's most expensive rumored agent, priced at the aforementioned $20,000-per-month tier, will be aimed at supporting "PhD-level research”.. It's unclear when these agentic tools might launch or which customers will be eligible to purchase them.
4. Anthropic raises another $3.5bn, boosting valuation to $61.5bn: Anthropic has raised $3.5 billion in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing the AI startup at $61.5 billion. Anthropic’s Series E round included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. This brings Anthropic’s total funding to $18.2 billion.
5. Amazon is reportedly developing its own AI ‘reasoning’ model: Amazon reportedly is developing an AI model that incorporates advanced “reasoning” capabilities, similar to models like OpenAI’s o3-mini and Chinese AI lab DeepSeek’s R1. The model may launch as soon as June under Amazon’s Nova brand, which the company introduced at its re:Invent developer conference last year.
6. Scale AI announces multi million-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automation: ScaleAI announced a deal with the Department of Defense for a flagship AI agent program, a significant move in the controversial military use of AI. The AI giant, which provides training data to key AI players like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, has been awarded a prototype contract from the Defense Department for “Thunderforge,” the DOD’s “flagship program” to use AI agents for U.S. military planning and operations.
7. Podcasting platform Podcastle launches a text-to-speech model with more than 450 AI voices: Podcasting recording and editing platform Podcastle is now joining other companies in the AI-powered, text-to-speech race by releasing its own AI model called Asyncflow v1.0. An API for developers will also be available, allowing them to directly integrate the text-to-speech model in their apps. The model offers more than 450 AI voices that can narrate your text.