An AI that phones restaurants, locked chats, and housing starts down 5.2%

OpenAI began rolling out locked chats in ChatGPT on October 20. A locked chat sits in its own section and opens with a four-digit PIN or, on supported devices, Face ID or Touch ID. Locked chats have their own memory, so they do not change what ChatGPT remembers elsewhere. The lock is not end-to-end encryption and does not change how long data is kept, and resetting the PIN permanently deletes the locked chats.

The U.S. told federal civilian agencies to stop buying DeepSeek products and services and to remove them from government systems. The Department of Homeland Security cited national security concerns, including that Chinese authorities could reach sensitive data under Chinese law. The order also covers third-party products built on DeepSeek technology, applies to existing systems as well as new purchases, and lets agencies ask for exceptions. China's foreign ministry opposed the move.

Microsoft launched security features for companies that run AI agents, led by Guardian Agents, which monitor the agents a company uses. Its Defender tool can now detect up to 60 types of agents that employees bring to work, and new controls limit what agents can reach, adjust their permissions to the task and require a human to approve risky decisions. Microsoft's security chief, Hayete Gallot, said frontier models cannot be trusted because they are unpredictable, not because they are malicious.

The Commerce Department said privately owned housing starts came to 1.22 million at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in September, down 5.2% from August and below the 1.3 million economists polled by Dow Jones expected. Single-family starts fell 4.6% to 859,000. Building permits were 1.4 million, slightly above the 1.39 million expected.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said total mortgage applications fell 5.3% last week from the week before. The average rate on a 30-year fixed loan fell to 7.41% from 7.50%, the first decline in over two months according to the group's economist, but both purchase and refinance applications still dropped.

General Motors beat expectations for the third quarter on strong truck sales and subscription revenue, raised its free cash flow outlook, narrowed its 2026 forecast and announced a new multiyear buyback of $20 billion with no set timeframe. It said commodity cost increases will be close to $2 billion, the high end of its earlier range.