Why We’ve Switched from OpenAI to Claude

5 minute read time · Updated March 5, 2026

Over the past week, a significant and fast-moving controversy has unfolded in the AI industry – one that has caused us, along with many others, to take a hard look at which AI companies we choose to support and partner with.

We’ve decided to switch. From today, MIDAS is moving away from OpenAI and over to Claude, the AI assistant developed by Anthropic.

Here’s why.

What Happened

If you haven’t been following the news, here’s a quick summary. The US Department of Defense had been using Anthropic’s Claude AI on its classified networks – the first AI to be deployed in that context. As the contract came up for renegotiation, the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic remove two key restrictions from the agreement: a prohibition on using Claude to power fully autonomous weapons systems, and a prohibition on using it for mass domestic surveillance of American citizens.

Anthropic refused. Their CEO, Dario Amodei, was unequivocal: current AI models are simply not reliable enough to be trusted with lethal autonomous targeting decisions, and mass surveillance of citizens is incompatible with democratic values. The company had tried for months to reach a workable agreement, but the Pentagon’s position was that it required the ability to use AI for “all lawful purposes” without restriction – a standard that, as legal experts have noted, is far broader than it sounds.

The fallout was swift. President Trump ordered every federal agency to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Anthropic would be designated a national security supply chain risk. Hours later, OpenAI – having apparently been in talks throughout – announced it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to fill the gap.

Many of OpenAI’s own employees were furious. A number of them, along with other prominent tech figures, signed an open letter opposing the government’s retaliation against Anthropic. Sam Altman himself had written in an internal memo just days earlier that OpenAI shared Anthropic’s “red lines” – before going on to sign a deal that critics said those red lines were far less robustly protected.

The contrast in the two companies’ behaviour was stark and, for us, clarifying.

Why This Matters to Us

We’re a small UK software company. We make room booking software. We’re not in the defence industry, and the intricacies of US military contracting aren’t something we’d normally have strong opinions about.

But this issue isn’t really about US military contracts. It’s about what kind of company you’re doing business with – what they stand for, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to stay in favour with those in power.

Anthropic chose to walk away from a government contract worth up to $200 million rather than remove safeguards they believed were ethically essential. OpenAI, in the same week its CEO had privately affirmed those same values to his own staff, made the opposite choice.

We think that matters. The companies whose technology we choose to use reflect, in a small way, on us. And we’d rather reflect the values of a company that held its ground.

What We’ve Changed

We used OpenAI’s models primarily in two places within our products and workflows:

Miriam, our virtual assistant. When no live support agents are available, visitors to our website can get help from Miriam, our AI-powered chatbot. Miriam was previously powered by OpenAI. She’s now powered by Claude.

Code optimisation. As we written about previously, we’ve been using AI assistance to help our human developers optimise MIDAS source code – identifying opportunities to make our software run faster and more efficiently. We’ve switched that workflow from ChatGPT to Claude as well.

In both cases, the transition has been smooth. Claude is a highly capable model, and we’re pleased with the results so far.

We’re Not Alone

Claude surged to number one on the Apple App Store in the days following the controversy. Thousands of individuals and organisations made the same decision we did – not because Anthropic asked them to, but because the situation made the choice feel important.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t simply about picking a “winner” in a commercial rivalry. We genuinely hope the situation with Anthropic and the US government is resolved fairly and without further retaliation. Anthropic has, by all accounts, been one of the most thoughtful voices in AI development when it comes to safety and responsible deployment. The idea of that voice being sidelined – or punished for speaking up – should concern anyone who cares about where this technology is heading.

A Note on AI in MIDAS

As we’ve said before, AI is not taking over the development of MIDAS. Our software is, and will remain, built and maintained by our human team. But AI tools have become a genuinely useful part of how we work – and it matters to us that we use them thoughtfully, including being selective about whose tools we use and why.

If you have any questions about these changes, or about how AI is used in our products, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Tags: AI, Anthropic, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, Claude, OpenAI

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User Interface Improvements in MIDAS v4.42

2 minute read time · Updated March 3, 2026

MIDAS v4.42 introduces a range of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) improvements designed to make our booking software even faster, clearer, and easier to use. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the UI and UX improvements introduced in MIDAS v4.42.

If you follow our blog, you’ll already know about some of the new and improved features in v4.42. One example is the expansion of administrative permissions.

Administrative Area Improvements

The old “Manage MIDAS” screen has been split into separate sections, each now controlled by its own dedicated permission and accompanied by a unique icon.

Redesigned administrative area icons in MIDAS v4.42

Changes have also been made within each administrative area. We’ve moved the previous “Save Changes” button from underneath the settings to being fixed in the top-right corner. This eliminates the need to scroll through lengthy settings pages to save changes.

We’ve also refined the way changes are saved within administrative screens.

Improved Save and Change Indicators

The addition of a new “Unsaved Changes” indicator alongside the new save button draws user’s attention to changes they’ve made to settings which have yet to be saved.

Unsaved Changes indicator in MIDAS administrative settings

In addition to the UI and UX improvements in the administrative area, we’ve also improved the “Quick Tour” in MIDAS v4.42.

Enhanced Quick Tour Experience

The “Quick Tour” is shown to new users by default upon their initial sign in. It provides a brief overview of the user interface and controls.

We have replaced outdated third-party code previously used to generate dynamic tooltips. In its place we’ve written new code for generating these tooltips. This has allowed us to make improvements, one of which is better highlighting of elements in the “Quick Tour”.

These updates reflect our ongoing commitment to making MIDAS both powerful and easy to use. By continually refining the interface and enhancing usability, we help administrators and end users work more efficiently every day.

If you’re new to MIDAS, start your free trial today and experience the improvements firsthand.

Tags: UI, user interface, v4.42

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Intelligent Data Imports

3 minute read time · Updated March 2, 2026

If you’re considering a new room booking system, one of your first concerns will likely be importing data from your current scheduling software.

MIDAS allows you to import bookings and data from a range of applications, and we’re always looking to extend this support.

In our last update, v4.41, we introduced better support for importing bookings from Skedda. This included support for “multi-room” bookings, as well as additional date and time formats.

In v4.42, we’ve introduced several additional improvements to make data imports even smoother.

Automatic Field Detection and Mapping

When importing data MIDAS needs to understand how fields in your source data correspond to fields in your MIDAS system. This process is known as field mapping.

After selecting a file to import, MIDAS offers a preview of your data in a table view. At the top of each column is a drop-down selector. This is used to inform MIDAS of the type of data contained in each column.

Field mapping interface when importing booking data into MIDAS

For example, if you’re importing bookings, one column in your source data will contain the room or space name. Setting that column’s drop-down selector to “Venue” ensures the data is imported correctly.

Until now, selecting the correct value from the drop-down selector at the top of each column was a manual process. For v4.42, MIDAS will now try and automatically detect the data in each column and suggest an appropriate value for its drop-down.

Of course, you should still check the drop-down for each column before continuing, but this new ‘auto detection’ feature should make importing data into MIDAS easier.

Support for Importing Split Client Names

In many cases of data import, client names are contained within a single field of data.

For instance, if you’re importing a booking for “Joe Blogs”, it’s likely that there’ll be a single field containing the text “Joe Blogs” in your raw data.

Some booking systems however may split client names across multiple fields when exporting data. There may for example be separate fields for first (given) name and last (surname).

MIDAS typically expects a single field containing the client name, but for v4.42 we’ve added support for instances such as the one described above where names are split across fields.

This improvement makes it easier to migrate to MIDAS from booking systems such as Hallmaster.

Together, these improvements reduce manual setup and make transitioning to MIDAS faster and more efficient.

Tags: import, v4.42

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Bulk Modify User Account Permissions

2 minute read time · Updated February 26, 2026

If you’re familiar with MIDAS booking software you’ll know that it offers an extensive range of access controls and permissions. Permissions can be assigned on a per-user basis. In fact, if you’ve been following our blog, then you’ll have seen that we’re adding 14 new permissions for MIDAS v4.42 too!

We’re now making it easier to apply bulk permission changes across multiple user accounts.

Previous Behavior

In previous versions, when adding or modifying a user account, an “assign permissions from group” drop-down was presented above the various user permissions that could be assigned:

Previous permission assignment method using user groups in MIDAS

This was a great way to quickly copy the current permissions from a user group to an individual user account.

However, this was a one-time action. MIDAS would snapshot the selected user group’s current permissions and apply them to the individual user account. Any subsequent changes to the group’s permissions would not affect existing user accounts.

Introducing Permission Inheritance

So we have re-worked this for MIDAS v4.42. The “Assign permissions from group” selector has been removed and replaced by a new role-based “Inherit Permissions from” selector.

When a user account is set to inherit permissions from a user group, any subsequent changes to that group’s permissions will automatically apply to all linked user accounts.

User account inheriting permissions from a user group in MIDAS v4.42

This now allows you to bulk modify user account permissions with ease!

When to use manual permissions

If you still want to grant or revoke individual permissions on a per-account basis, you can – simply set the “Inherit Permissions from” option to “[None]”. When you do this, MIDAS will display the complete list of current permissions for that user, allowing you to make individual changes as required.

User accounts set to ‘[None]’ will not be affected by changes to any user group permissions.

While this new feature may not be all that significant for customers with only a handful of user accounts, larger organizations with several hundred users will benefit greatly from the ability to modify user permissions in bulk.

Tags: bulk modify, user permissions, v4.42

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