February 13, 2026

MCP Weekly: EU Challenges Meta, OpenAI Targets Enterprise, and Claude Opus 4.6 Arrives

Gatekeepers meet regulators as enterprise agents move into production

Welcome to the latest installment of the MCP Weekly, covering major developments from February 7th to February 13th. This week brought regulatory intervention in AI platform access, major enterprise product launches from OpenAI and Anthropic, and new infrastructure for cloud-hosted data access.

TL;DR

The European Commission formally challenged Meta for blocking rival AI assistants from WhatsApp, threatening interim measures to restore access. OpenAI launched Frontier, a comprehensive enterprise platform for autonomous AI agents, while also beginning ad testing in ChatGPT for free users. Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6 with breakthrough reasoning capabilities and 1 million token context support.

Google Cloud launched a hosted MCP server for Data Commons, removing local environment barriers for enterprise data access. Sabre, PayPal, and Mindtrip announced a Q2 2026 partnership for end-to-end agentic travel booking across 420 airlines and 2 million hotels. IBM introduced autonomous storage with agentic AI that reduces manual management by 90% and detects ransomware in under 60 seconds.

Major Updates of the Week

EU Targets Meta Over WhatsApp AI Access

The European Commission issued a Statement of Objections to Meta over a new WhatsApp policy update (October 2025) that banned rival AI chatbots, like ChatGPT and Copilot, from the WhatsApp Business API, making Meta AI the exclusive provider.

EU regulators may mandate temporary access restoration in the EEA during the investigation. Meta contends WhatsApp wasn't designed for general AI distribution and that high-volume third-party traffic strains its infrastructure, though temporary exemptions exist in Italy and Brazil.

OpenAI Updates: Enterprise Platform and ChatGPT Advertising

OpenAI launched "Frontier," a platform for building, deploying, and managing autonomous AI agents as corporate workers. Frontier acts as a centralized intelligence layer, connecting internal systems via a shared semantic layer, giving agents unique identities, permissions, and audit logs. Early adopters include Oracle, Uber, and HP, with strategic customers receiving assistance from Forward Deployed Engineers. CFO Sarah Friar projects enterprise customers will contribute 50% of total revenue by year-end, up from 40%.

OpenAI began testing ads within ChatGPT on February 9th, targeting logged-in adult Free and Go users; higher tiers remain ad-free. Ads appear at the bottom of responses, separated from AI answers. Strict privacy measures are in place: advertisers cannot access chat history, and ads are blocked for sensitive topics. Free users can opt out of ads but will face reduced daily message limits. Initial partners include Target, Adobe, Omnicom Media, and The Knot.

Anthropic Ships Claude Opus 4.6

Anthropic ships Claude Opus 4.6, boosting benchmarks (e.g., 68.8% ARC AGI 2, 84.0% BrowseComp). The first Opus with 1 million token context (beta), it can process entire codebases or financial archives. New features include Adaptive Thinking, Agent Teams for parallel tasks, and Context Compaction to prevent long-session failure. Early users like Harvey, Shopify, and bolt.new reported breakthrough performance in legal precision, debugging, and proactive planning.

Other Updates

Vendor/Product	Key Action / Feature	Significance
Google Cloud Data Commons	Launched hosted MCP server, transitioning from local Python environments to cloud infrastructure	Removes local environment constraints and enables usage in high-security environments where open-source tool installations are restricted
Sabre, PayPal, Mindtrip	Strategic partnership for end-to-end agentic AI travel experience, scheduled for Q2 2026 release	Integrates conversational interface, secure commerce, and enterprise travel infrastructure for unified booking workflow across 420 airlines and 2 million hotels
IBM FlashSystem	Introduced next-generation storage with agentic AI integration for autonomous operations	Reduces manual storage management by up to 90% and detects ransomware in under 60 seconds with hardware-accelerated analytics

My Thoughts: The Battle for AI Distribution and Trusted Execution

This week underscores how AI is crossing into the operational core of business and triggering the regulatory consequences that come with real power. The EU’s action against Meta is not merely a competition case; it is a fight over control of the AI distribution layer. If messaging platforms harden into closed ecosystems, independent AI developers lose direct access to billions of users, and the market inevitably consolidates around a small set of gatekeepers.

In parallel, OpenAI and Anthropic are signaling that the true revenue frontier lies not in consumer chat, but in enterprise-grade infrastructure. Frontier and Opus 4.6 are optimized for long-running, high-stakes workflows, where reliability, governance, and auditability outweigh novelty. The next phase of AI will be shaped less by raw model intelligence and more by who can deliver trusted execution at scale.

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Om Shree

Technical Evangelist

About Om Shree

Om Shree is a researcher, technical writer, and AI evangelist who focuses on making complex AI and agent workflows easier to understand. Om's passion is breaking down emerging technologies into clear, practical insights. He's excited to provide useful in-depth research that supports product planning and helps developers navigate new tools and systems with ease.

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