Amazon editors have named the top 20 literary newcomers of 2026.

The shortlist includes the main fiction novels, memoirs and documentary investigations of recent months.

The full list of the main books of the year so far:

📍Kin (Tayari Jones) is a novel about the growing up of two friends in the American South in the era of segregation.
📍London Falling (Patrick Radden Keefe) is a documentary investigation into the mysterious death of 19-year-old Zach Brettler in 2019, who fell from the balcony of a luxurious London skyscraper.
📍Yesteryear (Cara Claire Burke) is a satire about a beauty blogger who is suddenly transported to the 19th century.
📍Strangers (Bell Burden) is a memoir about divorce and the sudden collapse of a long-term marriage.
📍Night Objects (Eli Rafael) — a detective story about the dark secrets of an elite boarding school.
📍Land (Maggie O'Farrell) — a family saga about life on a remote Irish peninsula.
📍American Men (Jordan Ritter Conn) — the story of four completely different Americans.
📍Cherry Baby (Rainbow Rowell) is a romantic drama about self-acceptance and a second chance at love.
📍Nothing Tastes as Good (Luke Dumas) is a body horror about society's unhealthy fixation on appearance.
📍Crux (Gabriel Tallent) is a touching story of a strong friendship forged through rock climbing.
📍Transcription (Ben Lerner) is an ironic novel about people's obsession with recording their entire lives on smartphones.
📍Famesick (Lena Dunham) is a memoir by the creator of the TV series Girls about her public life and her struggle with chronic illness.
📍A Far-Flung Life (M. L. Stedman) is a deep family drama set in the Australian outback.
📍Five (Ilona Bannister) is a psychological thriller about five strangers at a train station in London.
📍Into the Blue (Emma Brodie) is a romantic drama about the power and inevitability of first love.
📍John of John (Douglas Stewart) is a new book by a Booker Prize winner about mysteries on a remote Scottish island.
📍Mad Mabel (Sally Hepworth) is a witty and sad family story.
📍The Calamity Club (by Katherine Stokett) is a novel by the author of The Help about the survival of women during the Great Depression.
📍Homebound (by Porsha Alan) is a philosophical fiction about finding one's place in the world.
📍Lady Tremaine (by Rachel Hochhauser) is a reinterpretation of the Cinderella story from the perspective of her "evil" stepmother.

The US has banned access to top-tier AI Anthropic.

The US government has ordered Anthropic to close access to advanced models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all non-citizens of the country for national security reasons. Since the company does not have a passport verification system, the developers had to disable these neural networks for all users in general.

Analysts believe that citizenship checks will soon become the norm for other AI giants.

DeepSeek is preparing one of the largest AI rounds in China's history.

The Chinese AI startup is preparing to raise about 50 billion yuan – approximately 531.5 billion rubles.

According to Dao Insights, such a round could value the company at 400 billion yuan.

Potential investors may include:
📍Tencent
📍CATL
📍 JD.cоm
📍NetEase
📍China's National AI Fund.

It is also reported that DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng may invest around 20 billion yuan through his affiliated fund, High-Flyer. If the deal goes through, it will be one of the largest private tech rounds in China's history.

OpenAI's loss has increased eightfold.

OpenAI's net loss for 2025 amounted to 39 billion dollars against 5 billion a year earlier. Research and development last year cost 19 billion dollars, sales and marketing—almost 6 billion.

The company's expenses are still covered by investors: this year, it raised \$122 billion at a valuation of \$730 billion. Additionally, the company is preparing for an IPO with a potential valuation of over $1 trillion.

Gemini Project Co-Head Noam Shazir leaves Google for OpenAI.

The developer announced this on the social network X. According to insiders, at OpenAI, he will lead the direction of architectural research.Shazeer is one of the key creators of modern neural networks and a co-author of the fundamental 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which described the transformer architecture (the basis for GPT and Gemini).

His departure is called a major loss for Google: in August 2024, the corporation paid for the technological licensing of his startup Character. AI about $2.7 billion, in fact, for the sake of Shazeer's return to the staff.

The specialist himself received about $1 billion from the deal. Google confirmed Shazir's departure.

Ian Lekun called Elon Musk's AI lab a failure and warned about the industry's bubble.

In an interview with CNBC, the founder of the startup AMI Labs and a Turing Award winner called Elon Musk's xAI project "something of a failure." According to him, the company is no longer able to compete on equal terms with OpenAI and Anthropic.

The scientist believes that the main reason for the difficulties is a shortage of staff: almost all of the key co-founders have left the startup, and Musk's strict management style has made it extremely difficult to hire top talent. Additionally, Lekun pointed out that xAI has been renting out its data center computing power to competitors (including Google and Anthropic) in order to recoup its massive investment in infrastructure. Lekun also warned about the potential risk of a large financial bubble in the AI market.

He noted that the costs of running large models are not decreasing fast enough, and the largest laboratories continue to incur huge losses and artificially lower their rates.

Etsy, a marketplace specializing in handmade goods, launched the "Shop Other Jeffs" campaign.

The platform is reminding everyone that there are not only billionaire Jeff Bezos and Amazon, but at least 5,000 other Jeffs in the world—Etsy sellers who sell furniture, ceramics, lamps, and various other handmade goods.

Amazon users will be able to design products using AI.

The Alexa for Shopping app has a new feature that allows users to create their own designs for products such as t-shirts, hoodies, and water bottles by describing the idea in the Amazon Shopping app or on the Amazon.com website. The tool uses artificial intelligence. All users need to do is describe their desired design, and the feature will instantly create it.

Customers can share these designs with their friends and family and order similar products. Amazon takes care of everything else, from production to delivery.

Creating merchandise is free, and customers only pay for the products they purchase. All products are made to order and delivered with the option of Prime delivery. This feature is now available to all US customers.

🔋 Magnetic power banks remain one of the most reliable bestseller categories

Despite constant gadget innovation, magnetic smartphone power banks continue generating strong demand.

Their success comes from simplicity. Users can charge devices without cables, connectors, or extra setup.

Top-performing listings focus on convenience during travel, commuting, and everyday use.

👉 Seller takeaway: products that remove friction and save time often achieve long-term bestseller status.

Amazon has abandoned the release of the Sam Altman film with Yura Borisov and Andrew Garfield.

The biopic about the scandalous dismissal of Sam Altman from OpenAI in 2023 "Artificial" will now try to sell to other distributors. The main role in the project was played by Andrew Garfield, and the image of the co-founder of the startup Ilya Sutskever was embodied by the Russian actor Yura Borisov.

According to insiders, the final cut of the film is much darker than the original script, and Altman is portrayed as a calculating manipulator. The film's removal from release is linked to Amazon's business interests, as the company recently entered into a major partnership with OpenAI and invested \$50 billion in the company. Additionally, Altman is close to the Donald Trump administration, which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is currently trying to win back.

Game as a new sales channel in eCommerce.

“Paint by numbers” is a newly launched mobile game based on real paint-by-numbers designs from iFutureArt. But this is more than just a casual app — it is a direct sales driver.

How the model works:
Users color real product designs inside the game
They experience the product → desire the physical version
Move to marketplaces → complete a purchase
Return to the game with renewed engagement
This creates a closed growth loop:
game → marketplace → game → marketplace
A new promotion channel where content drives sales, and sales bring users back into the product.

What amplifies the effect:
Available everywhere: standalone apps for iOS and Android + bot versions (Telegram)+Web
Low entry barrier — users can start instantly without installation
Solo and multiplayer modes → retention through social mechanics
Real iFutureArt designs instead of abstract content
Notably, the entire game was built using AI.
Not as a supporting tool, but as the core production engine — from logic to visuals.

Why this matters:
A new acquisition channel without paid traffic
Conversion driven by experience, not product descriptions
Fast and scalable content expansion
Seamless integration of digital and physical products
In essence, this is no longer a product page — it is an interactive product demo.

OpenAI has acknowledged the superiority of the human brain over AI in the realm of creative design.

Andrew Ambrosino, head of the Codex project at OpenAI, outlined the key obstacles to automating creative professions. He noted that neural networks struggle significantly to produce high-quality designs due to the lack of objective evaluation criteria. Verifying program code is far simpler: the system immediately detects whether or not the code compiles. In contrast, training models for visual art runs up against the subjectivity of human taste.

ChatGPT, Alisa AI, and DeepSeek are the Russians' favorite neural networks.

For the first time, a separate category of neural networks appeared in the study of Russians' favorite brands ChatGPT became the leader of the rating. Yandex's Alisa AI came in second place, and the Chinese DeepSeek came in third. GigaChat and Kandinsky from Sber also made it into the top five.

In the second half of the ranking, there are Shedevrum, Google, Midjourney, Gemini, and Perplexity. The TOP 10 includes Russian, American, and Chinese developers, and the competition between individual brands is intense.

Many notable market players are not included in the top 10, such as Claude, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, Character. AI, Suno, Runway, and Leonardo AI. As AI services become more widely used and users become familiar with new products, the ranking may change.

Payments without borders: pay for SellerDen AI with a card from any country.

Do you sell on Amazon, eBay, Shopee, or another major platform? Automate your marketplace business with AI. When choosing any SellerDen AI plan, you can now use a new payment option — “Pay with a foreign card.”

Payments are processed through an international payment provider trusted by millions of services worldwide.

How it works:
Choose a plan on SellerDen AI → click “Foreign card” → pay via international acquiring.

Visa, Mastercard, any currency — conversion at the current exchange rate is automatic.

Subscription auto-renewal works without any extra action on your part.

Ready to try it? 👇
Go to SellerDen AI and automate your marketplace business with AI from anywhere in the world.

❗️❗️❗️OpenAI is discussing the possibility of giving the US government a stake in the company of about 5% (about $43 billion) amid growing political pressure and a growing government interest in controlling the development of artificial intelligence, the Financial Times reports.

This is a potential deal in which the government could get a stake in the company's capital, which would be an unprecedented move for a private technology startup.

❗️On June 29, the French Senate passed a bill against Chinese marketplaces, citing the environmental damage caused by "fast fashion." However, European companies operating in the same niche were not subject to the restrictions.

Claude found an inheritance consisting of 25 land plots in India for a guy.

The guy simply entered his own details, as well as those of his father and grandfather, and asked for a search; the AI ​​dug into government registries, located the properties and land plots, and provided all the necessary information. Upon verification, it all turned out to be true—the working-class guy really did have an inheritance.

The European Union has started charging 3 euros for each low-value package from China.

Starting from July 1, 2026, the European Union has started charging 3 euros for each low-value package from China that was previously imported duty-free. This measure is aimed at online retailers such as Shein, Temu, and AliExpress, which have been exploiting customs benefits to sell products at ultra-low prices. The fee applies to each product category in the shipment: for example, a package with three different types of products is subject to a 9-euro fee.

The €150 duty-free threshold has been in place since 2008, but in recent years, the volume of e-commerce shipments entering the EU under this rule has increased dramatically, from 1.4 billion in 2022 to 5.8 billion in 2025. According to MEP Dirk Gotink, "the benefit has become an industrial-scale dumping tool and has been working against European producers."

Shein prepared for the changes in advance by expanding its warehouse facilities in Poland and increasing the volume of shipments of goods to the EU. AliExpress said that the product cards will display the note "Price includes duties and VAT", and for other items, buyers will be shown details of import fees before placing an order.

Amazon, which launched the Amazon Haul service in response to the rise of Temu and Shein, reported that 97% of its shipments to the EU last year were made from warehouses within the Union. The 3 euro fee is being introduced temporarily. Starting on July 1, 2028, it will be replaced by category duties when the new EU Customs Office starts operating.

Charging that is always with you: how roads become "power banks".

China has taken an important step towards dynamic charging, which could potentially change the familiar transport infrastructure around the world. In the city of Suzhou, an experimental section of the highway was tested, during which electric vehicles receive a charge. The result: an additional range of approximately 1.3 kilometers for driving 120 meters of asphalted "charging" equipped with built-in induction coils.

The idea of charging electric vehicles on the go has been a long-cherished concept among developers around the world. Attempts to implement this idea have been made in Sweden, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, Norway, the United States, and other countries. However, it has only been in recent years that significant progress has been made.

❓Why most product pages don't convert.

One thing we've noticed while talking to ecommerce brands is that almost everyone is trying to improve their ads before improving their product pages.

The problem is that ads don't make people buy. They simply bring visitors.

The product page does the selling.

If your photos don't grab attention, your listing looks generic, or your description doesn't answer basic questions, more traffic won't fix the problem—it will only make you spend more.

That's one of the reasons we built SellerDen AI.

Instead of juggling photographers, designers, copywriters, and video editors, you can start with a single product photo and generate lifestyle images, product videos, infographics, and SEO-ready descriptions in just a few minutes.

We're not trying to replace creativity. We're trying to remove the repetitive work that slows product launches down.

AI startups are moving from being assistants to being performers.

Two recent deals show where the market is headed today.

Legal AI startup Norm is competing with the law firm model. Its agents take on routine legal tasks, and lawyers review the results. The project raised $120 million and received an evaluation of $1.2 billion.

Swedish AI startup Lovable is negotiating a $300 million round at an evaluation of $13.2 billion. The platform helps to build a product at the start: the user describes the idea, and the system generates code and refines the application according to new requests. The ultimate goal for Lovable is to make the path from idea to MVP shorter and cheaper.