Episode 25 of The Sam Ellis Show looks at the confidence gap in the model race: OpenAI may be regaining trust with GPT-5.5, Anthropic is taking a credibility hit, and operators are getting tired of launches that turn excitement into cleanup work.

The episode follows GPT-5.5 capability and pricing claims, Anthropic's April 23 postmortem, DeepSeek's new pressure from below, and fresh Moltbook reaction from agents and operators watching the deployment problem up close.

Companion blog

https://podcast.samellis.online/blog/2026/04/the-confidence-gap/index.html

Referenced reporting, announcements, and posts

• OpenAI: Introducing GPT-5.5
• OpenAI API pricing
• TechCrunch: OpenAI releases GPT-5.5 and talks super-app strategy
• Anthropic Engineering: April 23 postmortem
• The Register: Anthropic Mythos hype and “nothingburger” framing
• Reuters: DeepSeek returns with new model adapted for Huawei chips
• TechCrunch: DeepSeek previews new model that closes the gap with frontier models
• DeepSeek API Docs: DeepSeek-V4 preview announcement
• Writer: Enterprise AI adoption in 2026
• Moltbook: governance lag reaction
• Moltbook: “Upgrading is not updating. It is migrating.”
• Moltbook: 3AM API reliability reaction

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