This observation covers technical changes formally announced, made available or reliably verified around the period from 8:33 am on 23 September to 8:33 am on 24 September 2026, Australia/Sydney time. It includes two items.
Amazon opens continuously running workflows to third-party sellers
On 23 September, Amazon introduced a continuously running service called “workflows” within Seller Assistant. In September 2025, Amazon had already expanded Seller Assistant from a question-answering tool into an agent that could monitor inventory, account health and compliance, then act with a seller’s authorisation. The new fact in this release is that sellers can define particular tasks that continue to run, such as issuing an alert when ratings fall suddenly or monitoring the price of specified products. Reuters also confirmed that workflows can connect through plug-ins to AI tools already used by sellers, initially Amazon Quick and Anthropic Claude.
The service is free and optional, and sellers can decide how much personal information to share. Amazon’s first-party material confirms that Seller Assistant runs on Amazon Bedrock and uses Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude; its existing agentic capabilities are available to all sellers in the US store, while Amazon has not provided a complete timetable for other countries. Public material does not specify the maximum duration of a workflow, invocation limits, error-recovery mechanisms or a country-by-country availability list. Nor is there an independent evaluation of the accuracy, false-positive rate or production impact of continuous monitoring. Amazon’s account of the capabilities and access conditions is developer material; Reuters independently confirmed the 23 September release, its free and optional status, the initial plug-in scope and sellers’ control over data sharing.
Direct sources: Amazon, “Amazon introduces agentic AI across the seller experience, transforming how sellers manage their businesses”, 17 September 2025, https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/seller-assistant-agentic-ai; Reuters, “Amazon rolls out new agentic AI for third-party sellers”, 23 September 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-rolls-out-new-agentic-ai-third-party-sellers-2026-09-23/
Qualcomm releases two 2 nm Snapdragon flagship mobile platforms
On 22 September, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 mobile platforms. Both use a 2 nm process, Qualcomm Oryon CPU, Adreno GPU and Hexagon NPU, and are intended for the next generation of flagship Android phones. The Extreme model’s CPU runs at up to 5.0 GHz. Compared with a single flagship platform, the current release introduces two tiers while placing on-device agents, imaging, gaming and connectivity within the same platform generation.
Qualcomm’s product brief reports that the Extreme model, compared with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, improves CPU performance by 13 per cent, GPU performance by 44 per cent, NPU performance by 35 per cent and AI performance per watt by 33 per cent. These are vendor comparisons, and Qualcomm states that results vary with OEM implementation and other factors. The brief also lists up to 8K 60 fps video capture, the X105 5G Modem-RF system and on-device always-sensing components, but those specifications are not measured results from retail phones. Qualcomm confirmed that HONOR, iQOO, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, REDMI, RedMagic, vivo and Xiaomi will launch related flagship phones, but the announcement did not provide specific models, release dates or prices. TechCrunch independently confirmed the dual-platform launch. No public independent benchmark based on production devices under standardised power conditions is yet available.
Direct sources: Qualcomm, “Snapdragon Leads the Agentic AI Age with Two of the World’s Fastest Mobile SoCs Powering the Next Generation of Smartphones”, 22 September 2026, https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2026/09/snapdragon-leads-the-agentic-ai-age-with-two-of-the-world-s-fast; Qualcomm, “Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 Mobile Platform Product Brief”, 22 September 2026, https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Extreme-Gen-6-Product-Brief.pdf; TechCrunch, “Qualcomm launches two new smartphone chips with emphasis on AI”, 22 September 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/qualcomm-launches-two-new-smartphone-chips-with-emphasis-on-ai/
Sources
Amazon, “Amazon introduces agentic AI across the seller experience, transforming how sellers manage their businesses”, 17 September 2025, https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/seller-assistant-agentic-ai
Reuters, “Amazon rolls out new agentic AI for third-party sellers”, 23 September 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-rolls-out-new-agentic-ai-third-party-sellers-2026-09-23/
Qualcomm, “Snapdragon Leads the Agentic AI Age with Two of the World’s Fastest Mobile SoCs Powering the Next Generation of Smartphones”, 22 September 2026, https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2026/09/snapdragon-leads-the-agentic-ai-age-with-two-of-the-world-s-fast
Qualcomm, “Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 Mobile Platform Product Brief”, 22 September 2026, https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Extreme-Gen-6-Product-Brief.pdf
TechCrunch, “Qualcomm launches two new smartphone chips with emphasis on AI”, 22 September 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/qualcomm-launches-two-new-smartphone-chips-with-emphasis-on-ai/
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