Journal: what changed this year.
The changes from October 2025 to September 2026 that touch a website, a shop or a small company in Germany. Each article is dated and lists its sources.
· LatestSora closed, Nano Banana stayed: AI images and video for a small businessOpenAI shut down Sora seven months after the Sora 2 app launched. Google’s image models kept shipping. What that means if you make product images with AI.Read the article
- EU Data Act: from 12 September 2026, products must hand users their dataThe Data Act has applied since September 2025. From this month, new connected products must be designed so users can reach their own data directly.
- A PDF is no longer an e-invoice: Germany’s deadlines, 2025 to 2028Since January 2025 every German business must be able to receive e-invoices. Paper and PDF issuing ends on 31 December 2026 for most firms.
- Stripe in 2026: checkout inside ChatGPT, and what a small shop should set upStripe powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and processed $1.9 trillion in 2025. The parts a small shop actually needs are older and simpler.
- MCP explained: the plug between AI assistants and your own toolsAnthropic’s Model Context Protocol is now run by a Linux Foundation fund, has more than 10,000 servers in production and changed its core on 28 July 2026.
- DMA fines and the cookie that stayed: what changed in ads and trackingGoogle was fined twice under the Digital Markets Act in July 2026. Third-party cookies, meanwhile, are not leaving Chrome after all.
- The AI Act in August 2026: which duties now apply to a small companyMost of the AI Act applies from August 2026. For most small businesses the duty that matters is transparency: say when people talk to an AI.
- AI Overviews take the clicks: SEO and AEO in 2026Pew found that about 1% of users click the links in Google’s AI Overviews. Google itself says optimising for AI search “is still SEO”.
- NIS2 is German law: 11,500 of about 29,850 firms had registered by the deadlineGermany’s NIS2 law took effect on 6 December 2025. The BSI registration deadline passed on 6 March 2026 with most firms missing.
- Vibe coding, one year on: faster code, more flawsCollins made “vibe coding” its Word of the Year 2025. The studies since then say the code ships faster and breaks more often.
- Windows 10 is out of support: what ESU costs, year by yearSupport ended on 14 October 2025. For businesses, Extended Security Updates double in price every year: $61, $122, $244 per device.
- The accessibility law (BFSG): who has had to comply since 28 June 2025Germany’s Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz brought accessibility duties to private companies. Shops are in; very small service firms are out.