AI is transforming the worlds of fashion and retail.Canva Welcome to my first installment of this new series. The rationale behind it is simple. AI is evolving so rapidly—and with such seismic effects on business and society—keeping up is no longer optional. In that spirit, here are some of the top stories and why they matter to you. #1 Google launched Agent2Agent The Story: It’s Monday morning. As an AI-powered recruiter you work smarter, not harder. You log into your company’s dashboard on your phone. It tells you three critical roles have been sourced, vetted, and scheduled for interviews—all without a single direction from you. What happened? First your AI agent reviewed your client’s needs. Next, another AI agent culled candidates off LinkedIn using live market data. Yet another AI agent background-checked those candidates, clearing the top picks. Importantly, none of these agents were built by the same company. In the past this would be a problem. They wouldn’t be able to “talk” to each other. Not anymore—enter Agent2Agent (A2A), Google’s new open protocol. Why It Matters: A2A gives AI agents a shared language. Suddenly, bots can communicate and collaborate across platforms like never before. Welcome to the Internet for AI workers. AI agents from Salesforce, PayPal, SAP, and 50+ others can now sidestep the old Tower of Babel problem. MORE FOR YOU To put it another way: They now speak the same operational tongue. Moving forward, agents won’t just automate tasks within their own spheres. They will form multi-agent swarms much like The Avengers, solving complex, cross-platform problems in real time. Just don’t let them drop the Infinity Stones into the wrong hands. #2 Walmart Supercharges Fashion Trends—Courtesy of AI The Story: What if future fashion could be predicted with AI oracle abilities? Here’s how it will work. A major clothing label like Sonoma decides it cannot waste any more money as clothes linger for ages on packed racks. After all, weeks—if not months or even years—can elapse between the moment a fashion influencer drops a viral video and the time it takes to get product(s) to stores. By then a fashion trend will have died—and with it—revenue. This is the problem Walmart’s new AI tool, Trend-to-Product solves. It compresses design and development timelines. Now instead of waiting for fashion trends or even chasing them, the massive retailer is setting them, combining fast-fashion alacrity with data-driven precision. If we accept the premise AI now knows our tastes better than we do, it’s all about giving customers what they want—before they even know they want it. Why It Matters: Again, Walmart’s Trend-to-Product AI Tool works proactively. How? It scours social media, search trends, and purchasing data to act as a modern fashionista Cassandra. Its crystal ball discerns patterns to predict what styles will blow up—then guides the requisite design, sourcing, and inventory decisions in double time. Years ago, Walmart adapted and revolutionized Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery for retail, making them a global logistics powerhouse. Now, they’re evolving again to speed up conversion rates. Their AI tool portends a next level shift in retail agility. Clothing manufacturers can now glimpse into the future, enabling unprecedented go-to-market nimbleness. Imagine cutting your timetable from six months to six weeks. It mitigates the risk of overproduction and unsold inventory—long the albatross around so many retailers’ necks. More, it enables hyper-responsiveness to consumer behavior, enabling businesses to capitalize on fashion’s fickleness with minimal lag. Where will predictive analytics go next? My money’s on entertainment. What if prescient AI could suggest the next big movie based on scouring the zeitgeist for a wave before it crests? #3 AI Gets a Seat at the Top: White House Demands Federal AI Leaders The Story: Everyone knows government moves at glacial speed. That’s why no one at the Department of Transportation expected their backlog of infrastructure grant applications to get through review without it taking months. And months. That was until a newly appointed Chief AI Officer took the reins. We’ll call him Chuck. In the name of efficiency, Chuck rolled out an AI protocol that slashed review times by 80%. Suddenly, applications were flying by, getting stamped good-to-go or unapproved in weeks, if not days. Meanwhile, across town, the Department of Health and Human Services had its own systemic problems. Medicaid fraud patterns continue to proliferate, escaping the notice of human workers doing their best to spot such trickery. That was until a newly appointed Chief AI Officer took the reins. We’ll call her Becky. Becky directed AI’s powers of pattern detection to super use, detecting scams and cons that once evaded human notice. Why It Matters: Fictional for now, these breakthroughs aren’t isolated—they’re part of a sweeping White House directive. Every federal agency must now have a Chief AI Officer. Meant to modernize government operations and cut red tape, it reminds me of another story I published this week on how the corporate sector is also using AI to go on the compliance offensive: Overwhelmed By Compliance? AI Could Save Your Business. Now that government is busy unlocking the kind of efficiency private industry is also tackling, it’s important to ask the question: how long until the public starts to demand AI leaders over human politicians? That’s not as farfetched as you might think. Last year Eric Schmidt, Henry Kissinger and Craig Mundie published Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit, examining how AI will empowers humanity to address its monumental challenges in novel ways. The authors wonder when people will abdicate more authority to AI as it becomes increasingly intertwined in every aspect of life. “Today’s human leaders should prepare to be the first in a line of human sovereigns to face the struggle of locating a balance between leveraging the advantages—and, in some cases, the need—for AI in governance without going so far as to succumb to total dependency, instead finding the proper synthesis between the extremes of despotism and anarchy, merging the will of humans, the knowledge of machines, and the wisdom of history.” Caution is still needed. While AI’s ability to fix government inefficiencies is impressive, we must be cautious not to over-rely on it. More, we need to ensure its ethical deployment. We don’t want a situation where generations from now, citizens cannot recall a time where AI wasn’t running everything. ***** That’s it for this week. Tune in next for the latest developments. In the meantime, here’s to making us all smarter in the Intelligence Age.

A hot potato: It appears that one of the most controversial features Microsoft has ever created, Recall, will launch soon. Recall is designed to capture screenshots of everything you do on a Copilot+ PC so users can search through their previous activity, including web browsing. But it was delayed more than once over security concerns. Microsoft wrote in a post yesterday that a preview version of Recall is being rolled out to Insiders in the Release Preview Channel on Windows 11, version 24H2, suggesting a broader release isn't far off. Recall was supposed to arrive as a feature on Copilot+ PCs in June 2024. In a demonstration of the product, Microsoft showed how users could type in (or speak) something to search for, before scrolling through a timeline of everything they had done on a PC related to that query. Unsurprisingly, people weren't too happy about a feature that took snapshots of everything they did on a PC. Microsoft tried to quell the concerns by emphasizing that all processing and data storage is local, but researchers still said it was a security disaster. Microsoft's response was to delay the official launch of Recall, moving it to a preview experience for Windows Insiders as it looked to add additional security protections. // Related Stories In August, Microsoft said that the Windows Insider preview of Recall would land in October. But once again, the company decided to push back the Recall preview to refine the experience. Microsoft did make a preview of Recall available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel for Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs in November. It arrived for Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs a month later. Microsoft says that Recall requires users to opt-in to saving images of their activities and enroll in Windows Hello to ensure only they have access to the screenshots. Users can also filter specific apps or websites and delete any stored snapshots, while sensitive information such as passwords and financial data is excluded – though Recall was still capturing credit card and security numbers in December. Despite the added security measures, responses to the early previews of Recall have ranged from love it to hate it – or both, in one case. Recall remains exclusive to Copilot+ PCs

If you’re no longer excited by the traditional screens that currently have monitor deals, it might be time to try an ultrawide display. You may want to set your sights on the LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor, which is on sale with a $260 discount from LG. Instead of its original price of $600, you’ll have to pay just $340 — but only if you hurry. You won’t always get the chance to buy a 34-inch ultrawide monitor for nearly half-price, so complete your purchase before stocks run out. Going for an ultrawide monitor is the more stylish alternative to a multi-monitor setup. With the LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor, you’ll get a 34-inch curved screen with QHD resolution and a 21:9 aspect ratio that will be able to show all the apps that you’re using — no need to switch between windows while you’re multitasking. The display also supports HDR10 for elevated image quality that delivers amazing color and brightness, as well as AMD’s FreeSync Premium Pro to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering if you’re thinking about playing the best PC games on the LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor. With a 160Hz refresh rate, animations will look extremely smooth on the LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor, and with MaxxAudio-equipped built-in speakers, video games and streaming shows will come to life. The monitor also comes with an adjustable stand, so you can change its tilt and height into the most comfortable position for you, in case you’ll have to look at the screen for several hours at a time. Related The LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor is currently on sale for a steal price of $340, for savings of $260 from its sticker price of $600. If you want to try an ultrawide monitor for your desktop computer, this is a solid option, especially if you’re able to secure it with LG’s discount. You shouldn’t hesitate with your purchase if you’re interested though, because a lot of other shoppers won’t think twice about getting the LG 34WP75C UltraWide monitor for almost half-price. Buy it now while the bargain is still active! Editors’ Recommendations

Argonne National Lab has an AI-based tool that can help design and operate nuclear reactors—at a time when AI itself is feeding a power frenzy.

Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season 3 will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode seven, "Goldeneyes," which was released on April 10. Lee: Welcome back—and that was nuts. There’s a ton to talk about—the Battle of the Two Rivers! Lord Goldeneyes!—but uh, I feel like there’s something massive we need to address right from the jump, so to speak: LOIAL! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! That was some out-of-left-field Game of Thrones-ing right there. My wife and I have both been frantically talking about how Loial’s death might or might not change the shape of things to come. What do you think—is everybody’s favorite Ogier dead-dead, or is this just a fake-out? NOOOOOOOOO Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios NOOOOOOOOO Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Standard sci-fi/fantasy storytelling rules apply here as far as I'm concerned—if you don't see a corpse, they can always reappear (cf. Thom Merrillin, The Wheel of Time season three, episode six). For example! When the Cauthon sisters fricassee Eamon Valda to avenge their mother and Alanna laughs joyfully at the sight of his charred corpse? That's a death you ain't coming back from. Even assuming that Loial's plot armor has fallen off, the way we've seen the show shift and consolidate storylines means it's impossible to say how the presence or absence of one character or another couple ripple outward. This episode alone introduces a bunch of fairly major shifts that could play out in unpredictable ways next season. But let's back up! The show takes a break from its usual hopping and skipping to focus entirely on one plot thread this week: Perrin's adventures in the Two Rivers. This is a Big Book Moment; how do you think it landed? Fain seems to be leading the combined Darkfriend/Trolloc army. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Fain seems to be leading the combined Darkfriend/Trolloc army. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: I would call the Battle of the Two Rivers one of the most important events that happens in the front half of the series. It is certainly a defining moment for Perrin’s character, where he grows up and becomes a Man-with-a-capital-M. It is possibly done better in the books, but only because the book has the advantage of being staged in our imaginations; I’ll always see it as bigger and more impactful than anything a show or movie could give us. Though it was a hell of a battle, yeah. The improvements in pulling off large set pieces continues to scale from season to season—comparing this battle to the Bel Tine fight back in the first bits of season one shows not just better visual effects or whatever, but just flat-out better composition and clearer storytelling. The show continues to prove that it has found its footing. Did the reprise of the Manetheren song work for you? This has been sticky for me—I want to like it. I see what the writers are trying to do, and I see how “this is a song we all just kind of grew up singing” is given new meaning when it springs from characters’ bloody lips on the battlefield. But it just… doesn’t work for me. It makes me feel cringey, and I wish it didn’t. It’s probably the only bit in the entire episode that I felt was a swing and a miss. Darkfriends and Trollocs pour into Emond's Field. Darkfriends and Trollocs pour into Emond's Field. Andrew: Forgive me in advance for what I think is about to be a short essay but it is worth talking about when evaluating the show as an adaptation of the original work. Part of the point of the Two Rivers section in The Shadow Rising is that it helps to back up something we've seen in our Two Rivers expats over the course of the first books in the series—that there is a hidden strength in this mostly-ignored backwater of Randland. To the extent that the books are concerned with Themes, the two big overarching ones are that strength and resilience come from unexpected places and that heroism is what happens when regular, flawed, scared people step up and Do What Needs To Be Done under terrible circumstances. (This is pure Tolkien, and that's the difference between The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire—WoT wants to build on LotR's themes and ASoIaF is mainly focused on subverting them.) But to get back to what didn't work for you about this, the strength of the Two Rivers is meant to be more impressive and unexpected because these people all view themselves, mostly, as quiet farmers and hunters, not as the exiled heirs to some legendary kingdom (a la Malkier). They don't go around singing songs about How Virtuous And Bold Was Manetheren Of Old, or whatever. Manetheren is as distant to them as the Roman Empire, and those stories don't put food on the table. So yeah, it worked for me as an in-the-moment plot device. The show had already played the "Perrin Rallies His Homeland With A Rousing Speech" card once or twice, and you want to mix things up. I doubt it was even a blip for non-book-readers. But it is a case, as with the Cauthon sisters' Healing talents, where the show has to take what feels like too short a shortcut. Lee: That’s a good set of points, yeah. And I don’t hate it—it’s just not the way I would have done it. (Though, hah, that’s a terribly easy thing to say from behind the keyboard here, without having to own the actual creative responsibility of dragging this story into the light.) In amongst the big moments were a bunch of nice little character bits, too—the kinds of things that keep me coming back to the show. Perrin’s glowering, teeth-gritted exchange with Whitecloak commander Dain Bornhald was great, though my favorite bit was the almost-throwaway moment where Perrin catches up with the Cauthon sisters and gives them an update on Mat. The two kids absolutely kill it, transforming from sober and traumatized young people into giggling little sisters immediately at the sight of their older brother’s sketch. Not even blowing the Horn of Valere can save you from being made fun of by your sisters. (The other thing that scene highlighted was that Perrin, seated, is about the same height as Faile standing. She’s tiny!) We also close the loop a bit on the Tinkers, who, after being present in flashback a couple of episodes ago, finally show back up on screen—complete with Aram, who has somewhat of a troubling role in the books. The guy seems to have a destiny that will take him away from his family, and that destiny grabs firmly ahold of him here. Perrin is tall. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Perrin is tall. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Yeah, I think the show is leaving the door open for Aram to have a happier ending than he has in the books, where being ejected from his own community makes him single-mindedly obsessed with protecting Perrin in a way that eventually curdles. Here, he might at least find community among good Two Rivers folk. We'll see. The entire Whitecloak subplot is something that stretches out interminably in the books, as many side-plots do. Valda lasts until Book 11 (!). Dain Bornhald holds his grudge against Perrin (still unresolved here, but on a path toward resolution) until Book 14. The show has jumped around before, but I think this is the first time we've seen it pull something forward from that late, which it almost certainly needs to do more of if it hopes to get to the end in whatever time is allotted to it (we're still waiting for a season 4 renewal). Lee: Part of that, I think, is the Zeno’s Paradox-esque time-stretching that occurs as the series gets further on—we’ll keep this free of specific spoilers, of course, but it’s not really a spoiler to say that as the books go on, less time passes per book. My unrefreshed off-the-top-of-my-head recollection is that there are, like, four, possibly five, books—written across almost a decade of real time—that cover like a month or two of in-universe time passing. This gets into the area of time that book readers commonly refer to as “The Slog,” which slogs at maximum slogginess around book 10 (which basically retreads all the events of book nine and shows us what all the second-string characters were up to while the starting players were off doing big world-changing things). Without doing any more criticizing than the implicit criticizing I’ve already done, The Slog is something I’m hoping that the show obviates or otherwise does away with, and I think we’re seeing the ways in which such slogginess will be shed. There are a few other things to wrap up here, I think, but this episode being so focused on a giant battle—and doing that battle well!—doesn’t leave us with a tremendous amount to recap. Do we want to get into Bain and Chiad trying to steal kisses from Loial? It’s not in the book—at least, I don’t think it was!—but it feels 100 percent in character for all involved. (Loial, of course, would never kiss outside of marriage.) A calm moment before battle. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios A calm moment before battle. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: All the Bain and Chiad in this episode is great—I appreciate when the show decides to subtitle the Maiden Of The Spear hand-talk and when it lets context and facial expressions convey the meaning. All of the Alanna/Maksim stuff is great. Alanna calling in a storm that rains spikes of ice on all their enemies is cool. Daise Congar throwing away her flask after touching the One Power for the first time was a weird vaudevillian comic beat that still made me laugh (and you do get a bit more, in here, that shows why people who haven't formally learned how to channel generally shouldn't try it). There's a thread in the books where everyone in the Two Rivers starts referring to Perrin as a lord, which he hates and which is deployed a whole bunch of times here. I find myself starting each of these episodes by taking fairly detailed notes, and by the middle of the episode I catch myself having not written anything for minutes at a time because I am just enjoying watching the show. On the topic of structure and pacing, I will say that these episodes that make time to focus on a single thread also make more room for quiet character moments. On the rare occasions that we get a less-than-frenetic episode I just wish we could have more of them. Lee: I find that I’m running out of things to say here—not because this episode is lacking, but because like an arrow loosed from a Two Rivers longbow, this episode hurtles us toward the upcoming season finale. We’ve swept the board clean of all the Perrin stuff, and I don’t believe we’re going to get any more of it next week. Next week—and at least so far, I haven’t cheated and watched the final screener!—feels like we’re going to resolve Tanchico and, more importantly, Rand’s situation out in the Aiel Waste. But Loial’s unexpected death (if indeed death it was) gives me pause. Are we simply killing folks off left and right, Game of Thrones style? Has certain characters’ plot armor been removed? Are, shall we say, alternative solutions to old narrative problems suddenly on the table in this new turning of the Wheel? I’m excited to see where this takes us—though I truly hope we’re not going to have to say goodbye to anyone else who matters.Closing thoughts, Andrew? Any moments you’d like to see? Things you’re afraid of? Perrin being led off by Bornhald. Things didn't exactly work out like this in the book! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Perrin being led off by Bornhald. Things didn't exactly work out like this in the book! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: For better or worse, Game of Thrones did help to create this reality where Who Dies This Week? was a major driver of the cultural conversation and the main reason to stay caught up. I'll never forget having the Red Wedding casually ruined for me by another Ars staffer because I was a next-day watcher and not a day-of GoT viewer. One way to keep the perspectives and plotlines from endlessly proliferating and recreating The Slog is simply to kill some of those people so they can't be around to slow things down. I am not saying one way or the other whether I think that's actually a series wrap on Loial, Son Of Arent, Son Of Halan, May His Name Sing In Our Ears, but we do probably have to come to terms with the fact that not all fan-favorite septenary Wheel of Time characters are going to make it to the end. As for fears, mainly I'm afraid of not getting another season at this point. The show is getting good enough at showing me big book moments that now I want to see a few more of them, y'know? But Economic Uncertainty + Huge Cast + International Shooting Locations + No More Unlimited Cash For Streaming Shows feels like an equation that is eventually going to stop adding up for this production. I really hope I'm wrong! But who am I to question the turning of the Wheel? Credit: WoT Wiki

John Edwards, Technology Journalist & AuthorApril 11, 20255 Min ReadMikhail Reshetnikov via Alamy Stock PhotoEvery IT team seems to have one -- the member who's highly dedicated and talented, yet also something of a free spirit. Knowing how to tolerate and cater to this individual's unique needs without alienating other team members isn't a task generally covered in Management 101 courses for CIOs and IT leaders, yet it's essential in order to keep your team happy and productive. Instead of trying to fit a quirky team member into a rigid mold, work to understand what makes them tick and leverage that unique perspective, suggests Anbang Xu, founder of JoggAI, an AI-powered video platform, and a former senior product manager at Apple and senior software engineer at Google. It’s important to give these individuals space to thrive in their own way, while maintaining clear communication and setting expectations, he observes in an email interview. "By focusing on their strengths, I’ve found that they can bring innovative solutions and fresh ideas that would otherwise be overlooked." Embracing Uniqueness Embrace uniqueness while setting clear expectations, recommends Chetan Honnenahalli, engineering lead at software firm Hubspot and a former team leader at Meta, Zoom, and American Express. "Focus on their strengths and the value they bring to the team but establish boundaries to ensure their behavior doesn’t disrupt team dynamics or project goals," he says in an online interview. "Frequent one-on-one check-ins can help address potential concerns while reinforcing their contributions." Related:Balance respect for individuality with the needs of the team and organization. By valuing their quirks as part of their creative process, you'll foster a sense of belonging and loyalty, Honnenahalli says. "Clear boundaries and open communication will prevent potential misunderstandings, ensuring harmony within the team." Tolerance should depend on the impact of their behavior on team dynamics and project outcomes, Honnenahalli says. "Quirks that enhance creativity or problem-solving should be celebrated, but behaviors that cause disruptions, undermine morale, or create inefficiencies should be addressed promptly." Toleration Techniques Quirky behavior can become an issue if it interferes with the employee's ability to perform their work or if it disrupts fellow team members, says Matt Erhard, managing partner with professional search firm Summit Search Group, via email. "In these cases, the best approach is to have a one-on-one conversation with that employee," he advises. "Address the specific behaviors of concern and establish some expectations and boundaries about what is and isn't acceptable within the workplace." Related:Give the quirky team member strategies and guidelines to adapt their behavior within the workplace setting, Erhard recommends. "It should be made clear that you aren't criticizing or trying to change their personality but rather establishing rules about how they're expected to interact with their colleagues or customers when they're at work." As long as a maverick's behavior doesn't impede team collaboration, project deadlines, or morale, there’s room for individuality, Xu says. "The level of quirkiness you’re willing to tolerate is really a matter of balance," he states. "If their personality adds value without disrupting the team's harmony or performance, then it’s worth embracing." Team Impact Set team norms that allow for individuality while ensuring mutual respect and collaboration, Honnenahalli recommends. Address issues directly and constructively, ensuring open dialogue and fair resolutions. "Highlight how the individual’s quirks contribute positively to the team’s success, encouraging a culture of acceptance." Open communication is vital, Erhard says. "Talk to other team members about the issues they're having and why it's a concern for them." Facilitating a dialogue between the individuals can help both parties see each other’s perspectives. Related:When to Clamp Down Leaders should aim to channel quirkiness constructively rather than working to eliminate it. For instance, if a quirky habit is distracting or counterproductive, the team leader can guide the individual toward alternatives that achieve similar results without causing friction, Honnenahalli says. Avoid suppressing individuality unless it directly conflicts with professional responsibilities or team cohesion. Help the unconventional team member channel their quirks productively rather than trying to reduce them, Xu suggests. "This means offering support and guidance in ways that allow them to thrive within the structure of the team." Remember that quirks can often be a unique asset in problem-solving and innovation. Diverse Perspectives In IT, where innovation thrives on diverse perspectives, quirky team members often deliver creative solutions and unconventional thinking, Honnenahalli says. "Leaders who manage such individuals effectively can cultivate a culture of innovation and inclusivity, boosting morale and productivity." Every team needs a mix of personalities to excel, Xu observes. "The most innovative teams I’ve worked with had a variety of thinkers -- some more conventional, others quirky in their approach." It's the diversity in thinking that drives creativity and breakthroughs. "As leaders, it’s our responsibility to cultivate an environment where these differences are not only accepted but celebrated."About the AuthorJohn EdwardsTechnology Journalist & AuthorJohn Edwards is a veteran business technology journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous business and technology publications, including Computerworld, CFO Magazine, IBM Data Management Magazine, RFID Journal, and Electronic Design. He has also written columns for The Economist's Business Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers' Communications Direct. John has authored several books on business technology topics. His work began appearing online as early as 1983. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, he wrote daily news and feature articles for both the CompuServe and Prodigy online services. His "Behind the Screens" commentaries made him the world's first known professional blogger.See more from John EdwardsWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

The war on cancer continues, with new tech such as this AILIS breast-screening machineKlaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images Metastasis Nafis Hasan (Common Notions) In 2000, then-US president Bill Clinton said: “It is now conceivable that our children’s children will know the term cancer only as a constellation of stars.” A quarter of a century later, cancer is far from banished to the celestial realm. In fact, cancer deaths are predicted to nearly double globally by 2050, and cases are rising in the under-50s across many different tumour types. Clinton made his prediction at an event celebrating the mapping of…

For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific, conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, onboard the ships, an experiment was unfolding: The Marines in the unit responsible for sorting through foreign intelligence and making their superiors aware of possible local threats were for the first time using generative AI to do it, testing a leading AI tool the Pentagon has been funding. Two officers tell us that they used the new system to help scour thousands of pieces of open-source intelligence—nonclassified articles, reports, images, videos—collected in the various countries where they operated, and that it did so far faster than was possible with the old method of analyzing them manually. Captain Kristin Enzenauer, for instance, says she used large language models to translate and summarize foreign news sources, while Captain Will Lowdon used AI to help write the daily and weekly intelligence reports he provided to his commanders.  “We still need to validate the sources,” says Lowdon. But the unit’s commanders encouraged the use of large language models, he says, “because they provide a lot more efficiency during a dynamic situation.” The generative AI tools they used were built by the defense-tech company Vannevar Labs, which in November was granted a production contract worth up to $99 million by the Pentagon’s startup-oriented Defense Innovation Unit with the goal of bringing its intelligence tech to more military units. The company, founded in 2019 by veterans of the CIA and US intelligence community, joins the likes of Palantir, Anduril, and Scale AI as a major beneficiary of the US military’s embrace of artificial intelligence—not only for physical technologies like drones and autonomous vehicles but also for software that is revolutionizing how the Pentagon collects, manages, and interprets data for warfare and surveillance.  Though the US military has been developing computer vision models and similar AI tools, like those used in Project Maven, since 2017, the use of generative AI—tools that can engage in human-like conversation like those built by Vannevar Labs—represent a newer frontier. The company applies existing large language models, including some from OpenAI and Microsoft, and some bespoke ones of its own to troves of open-source intelligence the company has been collecting since 2021. The scale at which this data is collected is hard to comprehend (and a large part of what sets Vannevar’s products apart): terabytes of data in 80 different languages are hoovered every day in 180 countries. The company says it is able to analyze social media profiles and breach firewalls in countries like China to get hard-to-access information; it also uses nonclassified data that is difficult to get online (gathered by human operatives on the ground), as well as reports from physical sensors that covertly monitor radio waves to detect illegal shipping activities.  Vannevar then builds AI models to translate information, detect threats, and analyze political sentiment, with the results delivered through a chatbot interface that’s not unlike ChatGPT. The aim is to provide customers with critical information on topics as varied as international fentanyl supply chains and China’s efforts to secure rare earth minerals in the Philippines.  “Our real focus as a company,” says Scott Philips, Vannevar Labs’ chief technology officer, is to “collect data, make sense of that data, and help the US make good decisions.”  That approach is particularly appealing to the US intelligence apparatus because for years the world has been awash in more data than human analysts can possibly interpret—a problem that contributed to the 2003 founding of Palantir, a company now worth nearly $217 billion and known for its powerful and controversial tools, including a database that helps Immigration and Customs Enforcement search for and track information on undocumented immigrants.  In 2019, Vannevar saw an opportunity to use large language models, which were then new on the scene, as a novel solution to the data conundrum. The technology could enable AI not just to collect data but to actually talk through an analysis with someone interactively. Vannevar’s tools proved useful for the deployment in the Pacific, and Enzenauer and Lowdon say that while they were instructed to always double-check the AI’s work, they didn't find inaccuracies to be a significant issue. Enzenauer regularly used the tool to track any foreign news reports in which the unit’s exercises were mentioned and to perform sentiment analysis, detecting the emotions and opinions expressed in text. Judging whether a foreign news article reflects a threatening or friendly opinion toward the unit is a task that on previous deployments she had to do manually. “It was mostly by hand—researching, translating, coding, and analyzing the data,” she says. “It was definitely way more time-consuming than it was when using the AI.”  Still, Enzenauer and Lowdon say there were hiccups, some of which would affect most digital tools: The ships had spotty internet connections much of the time, limiting how quickly the AI model could synthesize foreign intelligence, especially if it involved photos or video.  With this first test completed, the unit’s commanding officer, Colonel Sean Dynan, said on a call with reporters in February that heavier use of generative AI was coming; this experiment was “the tip of the iceberg.”  This is indeed the direction that the entire US military is barreling toward at full speed. In December, the Pentagon said it will spend $100 million in the next two years on pilots specifically for generative AI applications. In addition to Vannevar, it’s also turning to Microsoft and Palantir, which are working together on AI models that would make use of classified data. (The US is of course not alone in this approach; notably, Israel has been using AI to sort through information and even generate lists of targets in its war in Gaza, a practice that has been widely criticized.) Perhaps unsurprisingly, plenty of people outside the Pentagon are warning about the potential risks of this plan, including Heidy Khlaaf, who is chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, a research organization, and has expertise in leading safety audits for AI-powered systems. She says this rush to incorporate generative AI into military decision-making ignores more foundational flaws of the technology: “We’re already aware of how LLMs are highly inaccurate, especially in the context of safety-critical applications that require precision.”  One particular use case that concerns her is sentiment analysis, which she argues is “a highly subjective metric that even humans would struggle to appropriately assess based on media alone.”  If AI perceives hostility toward US forces where a human analyst would not—or if the system misses hostility that is really there—the military could make an misinformed decision or escalate a situation unnecessarily. Sentiment analysis is indeed a task that AI has not perfected. Philips, the Vannevar CTO, says the company has built models specifically to judge whether an article is pro-US or not, but MIT Technology Review was not able to evaluate them.  Chris Mouton, a senior engineer for RAND, recently tested how well-suited generative AI is for the task. He evaluated leading models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and an older version of GPT fine-tuned to do such intelligence work, on how accurately they flagged foreign content as propaganda compared with human experts. “It’s hard,” he says, noting that AI struggled to identify more subtle types of propaganda. But he adds that the models could still be useful in lots of other analysis tasks.  Another limitation of Vannevar’s approach, Khlaaf says, is that the usefulness of open-source intelligence is debatable. Mouton says that open-source data can be “pretty extraordinary,” but Khlaaf points out that unlike classified intel gathered through reconnaissance or wiretaps, it is exposed to the open internet—making it far more susceptible to misinformation campaigns, bot networks, and deliberate manipulation, as the US Army has warned. For Mouton, the biggest open question now is whether these generative AI technologies will be simply one investigatory tool among many that analysts use—or whether they’ll produce the subjective analysis that’s relied upon and trusted in decision-making. “This is the central debate,” he says.  What everyone agrees is that AI models are accessible—you can just ask them a question about complex pieces of intelligence, and they’ll respond in plain language. But it’s still in dispute what imperfections will be acceptable in the name of efficiency. 

Miri Buckland and Ellie Buckingham are the cofounders of Zeen. Courtesy of Zeen 2025-04-11T12:24:28Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Gen Z collage app Landing has rebranded to Zeen. Zeen is targeting fashion and lifestyle creators with tools for making shoppable content. Here's why the startup is pivoting from being a social media platform to being a creator tool. Landing, a social collaging app that became a favorite among Gen Z users, is making a pivot.The startup is rebranding to Zeen and targeting content creators as its core user base. Zeen is offering these creators the ability to make shoppable collages."We kept seeing this behavior of people wanting to shop from each other's collages, and fashion was always the biggest vertical on Landing," Zeen cofounder Miri Buckland told Business Insider.Like any social media platform these days — just take a glance at any TikTok or Instagram post that includes an outfit — Buckland said the comment sections on Landing posts were flooded with questions like "Where did you get that dress?"While some people (myself included) used Landing to create digital collages without clothing or products, Buckland said the overwhelming use case was outfit planning and fashion mood boarding.Zeen, the startup's new product, is doubling down on this.The web-only tool lets users design collages by dropping in online shopping links or uploading images. Creators can also include affiliate marketing links, like from ShopMy or LTK. Then, creators can save an image or a video of the collage to share on platforms like Substack, Instagram, and TikTok. Courtesy of Zeen "What we're building with Zeen is very strictly a tool and a utility," Buckland said. "We're not building a full social platform."Pivoting is par for the course for startups — and it's not Zeen's first time doing so. The startup originally focused on interior design with Landing before expanding into broader categories like vision boards or fandom art. Zeen shut down Landing in September.The startup has money in the bank to back its pivot, too.Last year, Zeen secured another $2.3 million in funding led by venture capital firm Stellation Capital, bringing the startup's total funding to date to $9 million, Buckland told BI. Building for the creator economyCreators often have a robust stack of creative tools they use to make content. If they're video creators, maybe that's editing tools like CapCut. For others, it could be Canva, Adobe, or photo-editing tools like VSCO.Zeen wants to be part of creators' tech stacks for making visual, shoppable content. Substack creator Erika Veurink has used Zeen to include collages in her newsletter. Erika Veurink Several of Zeen's early users are Substack newsletter creators, particularly in the fashion and lifestyle category. For instance, Erika Veurink, who writes a fashion Substack called "Long Live" with 28,000 subscribers, has used Zeen for in-newsletter collages of furniture and clothing. Veurink is an advisor to Zeen.Aditi Shah, a Peleton instructor and creator, has also been using Zeen on her Substack "Work in Progress" to showcase her favorite beauty products of the month.With Zeen, newsletter creators can earn money if they use affiliate links. When uploading affiliate links into a Zeen collage, the platform will generate a list of the products and links for creators to copy and paste into their newsletters. Creators like Aditi Shah can upload product imagery from online shopping links, such as Sephora, directly into Zeen. Courtesy of Zeen; Aditi Shah Zeen's premium tier ($6 per month) lets creators bulk-upload products from their ShopMy Collections, and unlocks unlimited use of tools like one that removes the background of product images and watermarks.While many of Zeen's early adopters are Substackers, the startup is "platform agnostic" and aimed at creators using any newsletter tool (such as Beehiiv) or social platform (like Instagram and TikTok). Creators can export collages to fit Instagram stories and export video versions of the collage for vertical video feeds."The idea is, can we take what our creators are really good at, which is this curation and merchandising of products, and then automatically give them something that allows them to have a content type that competes on a video-first platform," Zeen cofounder Ellie Buckingham said. Recommended video

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!We live in a consumerist society. But at least speaking for my own social circles, we also live in an anti-consumerist society: We purchase lots of things, and we also feel vaguely guilty about it and brag about all of the ways we do without. (Buy secondhand! Get things off a Buy Nothing group! Reuse! Recycle!)Some of this anti-consumerism is driven by concerns about work conditions in the developing countries we trade with, and I certainly think improving work conditions in those countries should be a high global priority. Some of it is driven by environmental concerns, and I would similarly rejoice at a carbon tax that tried to capture the externalities of our consumption.But I think some of the anti-consumerism is driven by less noble motives. The wealthier you are, the more accessible the alternatives are to buying things off Amazon. You can afford to get products custom-made for you, or make them yourself; you have more leisure time to go pick things up off Facebook Marketplace or drive up and down half the coast thrift shopping.Most people can’t. For them, the ability to purchase cheap consumer products at affordable prices is life-changing. And I think that, as the Trump administration tries to rationalize its tariffs by assuring us that we don’t need affordable goods, it’s high time to acknowledge that, in fact, it is a good thing when goods are affordable.Cheap things are goodIt seems odd to write a defense of cheap things at all. Americans do, overwhelmingly, buy things on Amazon and on its even cheaper Chinese competitors. Keeping prices low is one of the most important issues to voters. In practice, everyone wants cheap consumer goods, everyone votes for cheap consumer goods, and everyone chooses cheap consumer goods. But, generally, they do it with a lot of hand-wringing. I wrote earlier this week on X about some of the things that cheap consumer goods have made possible in my life and for my family. I run a civics class at my kids’ school; there are 10 kids, and purchasing 10 of anything adds up quickly. But because consumer goods are cheap, I was able to buy equipment for papermaking when we wanted to learn about papermaking, model trees and people for our talk about urban design, dress-up costumes for the occasional special lesson, and much more. I can try a hobby I’d otherwise never try if it were a $1,000 outlay to get the equipment my (large) family needed. I bought plastic dice when I wanted to get into Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t have to jump down my oldest daughter’s throat when she inexplicably manages to rip the hem off every single dress she owns because we can afford to replace it. My family is wealthy; we could make do with higher consumer prices. But a lot of families cannot. And even for the well-off, lower consumer prices mean I can donate 30 percent of our income to charity and give my kids good lives and save for retirement. People on X were quick to assure me that all this is overconsumption. I could sew my kids’ Halloween costumes from scratch, someone told me. Why buy dice to play D&D? Don’t you know you can use a dice-roller app on your phone? (Another commentator objected in my defense to that response that “just own a phone” is perhaps not the most anti-consumerist of sentiments; the first commentator said anyone can get a phone because you can finance it.) Have I borrowed from my neighbors? Am I in my local Buy Nothing group?I am in my local Buy Nothing group; I do borrow from my neighbors, and lend to them. Nonetheless, access to cheap consumer goods makes my life wildly better, and it makes things accessible that otherwise wouldn’t be possible at all for me. I think some of the responses I received were less about how to live in harmony with the planet (for which living in a walkable neighborhood and not owning a car matters far more than buying things off Amazon) or how to improve economic conditions in poor countries (for which free trade is actually one of the best tools we know of) and more about if they represented a reflexive disgust of each other’s consumption habits. And so I’m anti-anti-consumerism, at least in its current form. It’s full of harsh judgment of other people for not sewing their children’s outfits by hand, which is willfully ignorant of all the ways that — even if you personally rely on thrifting and Buy Nothing groups — your lifestyle is made possible by the fact that consumer goods are affordable. I think it’s good when consumer goods are affordable; I think it’s good when people on a very limited income can still buy a pile of Christmas presents for their kids; I think it’s good that people can be financially responsible and also have lots of hobbies and fund lots of activities for their kids and their kids’ friends.The tariffs will make our lives worseAll of this is a major reason why I think the tariffs are extraordinarily bad. (One estimate on the tariffs as of Thursday — which, of course, may change any moment — is that they amount to a $4,400 tax hike per household.)I don’t think that hiking up the price of consumer goods will make our trading partners overseas better off, and I think it’ll make our lives worse and more difficult, impacting the people who are struggling to get by most profoundly. I think our society is so wealthy that in some ways we’ve lost sight of why, yes, material things do matter, and their inexpensive availability is something to celebrate. That celebration need not be unnuanced or clueless. Each week on Shabbat, my family says the traditional blessings and sings a song that’s not at all part of the traditional Shabbat liturgy, Vienna Teng’s “Landsailor” — a love song to trucks and trains and cargo ships and the global supply chain, a hymn of celebration for deep winter strawberries and the abundance that has made every person in America richer than a medieval king. It is also about the price in human suffering, animal suffering, environmental damage, and danger we’re inviting as we build a world increasingly powered by people and sacrifices we don’t see. But the spirit in the song is one of joy and celebration, tempered by awareness of the bigger picture — not one of condemnation, contempt, or disgust. Right now, it’s a MAGA talking point that affordable goods have somehow corroded our society and we have a patriotic duty to accept high price increases in the service of Trump’s vision. But their argument has a lot in common with the loathing of the American consumer on the left. I am generally in favor of a world where we tax externalities and ban forced labor, but I want a world where more people can consume like Americans, not a world where no one is. The good is something to celebrate, and abundance is a form the good takes. It’s also something that frees us up to tackle the world’s ills in both their ancient and modern forms.You’ve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you — join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More: