A jovial President Donald Trump held a warm and friendly meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman at the White House, packed with plenty of handshakes and back pats. He brushed aside questions about Saudi Arabias human rights record, praised the prince for his statesmanship and announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new Saudi investment in the United States.
The White House rolled out plenty of pomp for the Saudi royal on Tuesday, dispatching fighter jets that the two leaders watched from a red carpet, parading out an honor guard on horseback and giving a lavish dinner in the East Room.
In a sitdown in the Oval Office that took place just seven years after Prince Mohammad was implicated by U.S. intelligence agencies in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump and the prince took numerous questions from reporters one of whom was repeatedly insulted by Trump on everything from commerce to the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Riyadh.
Here is a look at some of the takeaways from the visit:
Movement on military cooperation
Trump had previewed his decision to sell F-35s on Sunday but formalized it before the prince on Tuesday when he said the approval was complete and that Israels fears about maintaining its qualitative military edge in the Middle East would be addressed.
Details of the deal were not immediately clear, but some in the Pentagon and other agencies have opposed the sale because of the potential for advanced technology being shared with China, which also has close ties with Saudi Arabia.
As far as Im concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line, Trump said of Saudi Arabia and Israel, which already has F-35s. Israels aware and theyre going to be very happy.
Israeli officials have suggested that they would not be opposed to Saudi Arabia getting F-35s as long as Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords framework.
The Saudis have said they would join the Abraham Accords but only after there is a credible and guaranteed path to Palestinian statehood, a position Prince Mohammad repeated in the meeting.
We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution, he said. Were going to work on that to be sure that we come prepared for the situation as soon as possible to have that.
Trump also said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia would complete a broader agreement on military and security issues during the visit and that the U.S. would proceed with a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, about which Israel also has raised concerns.
The two nations also signed a deal that calls for the Saudis to purchase nearly 300 tanks from the U.S.
At the dinner Tuesday night, Trump announced he was designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, a largely symbolic move that gives foreign partners some defense, trade and security cooperation benefits.
Khashoggi’s killing gets swept aside
Tuesdays meeting was the first White House visit for the crown prince since Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018.
U.S. intelligence said Prince Mohammad likely approved the slaying.
In a remarkable scene in the Oval Office, the prince, nicknamed MBS, faced questions from reporters, something not typical for the de facto head of the absolute monarchy where dissent is criminalized.
He was asked about Khashoggi’s slaying along with the role that Saudi citizens played in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Trump, however, lashed out at the reporter for the line of questioning.
Trump called Khashoggi, a Saudi pro-democracy activist, extremely controversial and said a lot of people didnt like that gentleman that youre talking about. Whether you like him or didnt like him, things happen, but he (the crown prince) knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that.
Prince Mohammad, who has denied involvement in Khashoggi’s killing, replied that his government had taken action.
Its been painful for us in Saudi Arabia, he said. We did all the right steps of investigation, etc., in Saudi Arabia, and weve improved our system to be sure that nothing happens like that again. And its painful, and it was a huge mistake.
Trump also commended the Saudi leader for strides made by the kingdom on human rights without providing any specific detail but presumably referring to reforms relating to womens rights. Whats he done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else, Trump said.
Lots of pomp and circumstance
Trump greeted Prince Mohammed at the White Houses South Lawn entrance with a handshake and arm slung over the prince’s shoulder. Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for the Saudi leader, with a military band on hand and a flyover by U.S. military planes, before showing the crown prince his decorations along the White House Colonnade.
We have a extremely respected man in the Oval Office today, Trump said at the top of meeting, calling the prince a friend of mine for a very long time.
Trump also castigated his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, for greeting Prince Mohammed with a fist bump during his 2022 visit to Saudi Arabia.
When you get out of the plane and you get the future king and a man who is one of the most respected people in the world you shake his hand, you dont give him a fist bump, right? Trump said. Trump doesnt give a fist bump. I grab that hand and he did just that.
At the dinner Tuesday night, the tuxedo-clad president and first lady Melania Trump welcomed the crown prince back on the red carpet again, before feting him at a dinner attended by tech titans such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with golfer Bryson DeChambeau and soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
They dined on a pistachio-crusted rack of lamb, followed by a couverture mousse pear for dessert.
Vast but vague commercial and economic deals
Prince Mohammad told Trump that his country would be increasing its financial commitments to the U.S. from $600 billion, which ws announced during the presidents trip to Riyadh in May, to $1 trillion.
Details of those deals were not immediately clear but are expected to include investments in a variety of American businesses, including artificial Intelligence, as well as the purchase of jet engines and other equipment.
Matthew Lee, AP diplomatic writer
Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
Time slows. The mind chatter quietens. Outside distractions dial down to a hum. You are at one with the task at hand. Congratulations, youve reached flow state.
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined the term to describe a state of complete immersion in an activity, one in which focus comes naturally and youre in the zone. Think of the hours flying by as a painter gets lost in their art. Or when youre juggling three browser tabs, the caffeine hits, and suddenly, your fingers start flying across the keyboard.
Well, over on TikTok, a new trend has the internet sharing the hyper-specific ways they genuinely enter their “flow statethe more chaotic, the better.
One example: When the iced latte, Zyn & Adderall hit at the same time and I genuinely reach flow state, a TikTok user wrote, blinking and looking around the room with full alertness, punctuated by slurping coffee through a straw.
When I have a drink for hydration, a drink for caffeine, and a drink for fun & genuinely reach a flow state, another wrote, triple-fisting beverages while standing in front of a laptop.
Another added, When youre matching socks and genuinely reach flow state. Boom.
While the trend takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the psychological phenomenon, it is a real, if elusive, feeling.
Csíkszentmihályi explains that flow happens when our abilities line up just right with the task in front of us. Too easy, and we get bored. Too hard, and we get stressed.
Flow occurs in the sweet spot where were both completely absorbed and able to enjoy the process.
Theres this focus that, once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity: you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other; you get immediate feedback, Csikszentmihalyi said in a 2004 TED Talk. You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger.
Research shows that entering the flow state can boost performance in activities such as sports or music, and also improve both creativity and well-being. Csíkszentmihályi went as far as to call it the secret to happiness, with research showing those who regularly experience flow appear to be less susceptible to depression.
With Gen Z locking in” from now until the end of the year, now is as good a time as ever to practice getting in the zone, blocking out all distractions, and checking off some goals before 2026.
Or, as one TikTok user suggested: When Im eating the wings and fries at the same time while also getting water and I genuinely reach flow state.
Tyson Foods has agreed to stop making claims about reaching net zero or selling climate-smart beef for at least five years, part of a settlement from a lawsuit brought against it by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG).
EWG sued Tyson in 2024 over false or misleading marketing claims. The lawsuit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, alleged that Tyson misled customers through materials that said the companys industrial meat production operations will reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and also claims that it produces climate-smart beef.
Beef is one of the worst climate offenders when it comes to proteins. It is responsible for eight to 10 times the carbon emissions as chicken and up to 50 times those of beans. Climate experts highlight beefs immense land and water use, deforestation, and the methane emissions from cattle as top environmental impacts.
In the United States, agriculture at large accounts for about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. About half of that comes from livestock, with cattle specifically making up 35% of agriculture emissions.
“No plan” to achieve net zero goals
In 2023, Tyson launched a Climate-Smart Beef Program.” It advertised that its Brazen Beef products were part of that program, and that they came from animals raised with emissions reduction practices in mind, per the lawsuit.
On its Brazen Beef website, Tyson had said that its emissions were already down 10% (the website is no longer available).
But EWG says that Tyson never defined what exactly climate-smart beef is, what baseline it is using for comparison, or how it is measuring any alleged [greenhouse gass] reductions, the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit also alleged that Tyson has no plan to achieve its net zero goals.
In the settlement, announced this week, Tyson agreed to no longer make those environmental claims for five years. Tyson also cannot introduce new environmental claims unless they are supported by expert analysis and verified facts, per the nonprofit.
The five-year restriction is meaningful because it prevents Tyson from turning around and re-introducing these claims without doing the hard work to substantiate them, Caroline Leary, general counsel and chief operating officer at EWG, says via email.
Five years is a substantial window for a company of Tysons size to either make real, measurable progress on reducing its emissions, or for it to reconsider the accuracy of the claims it makes to consumers, she adds.
In a statement, a Tyson spokesperson says the settlement does not represent any admission of wrongdoing by the company.
Tyson Foods has a long-held core value to serve as stewards of the land, animals and resources entrusted to our care, the spokesperson added.
Spin and bones
The Tyson settlement comes in the same month as a separate settlement between the New York attorney generals office and JBS USA, part of the worlds largest meat company.
In that settlement, JBS also agreed to stop making unsubstantiated claims about reaching net-zero emissions.
JBS USA will also pay $1.1 million for agriculture programs to help New York farmers reduce emissions and become more climate resilient.
The settlements highlight both the environmental impact of meat companies and also their intense marketing practices.
A 2024 report found that meat and dairy companies are failing to address these impacts, and none have net-zero targets that meet UN standards. The industries spend more on advertising than on climate solutions, the report found.
EWG, which was represented by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Earthjustice, Edelson PC, andFarmSTAND in the suit, called the settlement a significant victory and says it will continue to review climate claims across the meat industry.
Our hope is that this settlement raises the bar for the entire industry, and that companies like Tyson will take a fresh look at what substantiation actually requires, Leary says. If Tyson or any other company chooses to resume climate claims without the evidence to back them up, we will be prepared to take appropriate action. Consumers deserve truth in advertising, now and in the future.
Starting a new job can be exhilarating and stressful at the same time. You are excited to meet new people, take on new responsibilities, and grow. You also want to demonstrate to your new employer that they made the right choice by hiring you.
So, how do you put your best foot forward?
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about that impression is that how you do things is more important than what you accomplish in those first few weeks. You are helping your new colleagues to get to know what it is like to work with you. This approach is valuable whether youre entering the organization near the bottom or the top of the org chart.
Listen first
When you first start with a new company, you dont know what you dont know. Even if you have lots of experience in similar industries, you are still entering an organization with its own history, people, and ways of doing things. In addition, you are stepping into conversations that have been going on for a long time. Of course, youre going to want to immediately demonstrate your value to others, and it will seem like the best way to do that is to make suggestions.
Start by listening: How do people talk to each other? What is the best way to build on other peoples ideas? Which people in the organization have the respect of others? Who seems to have influence in meetings and behind the scenes?
The best way to answer all of these questions is to listen. When you go into meetings with the intent to impress and say things, then you listen long enough to figure out what youre going to say next. When you enter meetings to learn, then you listen a lot and miss less of the subtlety of the discussion going on around you.
Be curious
When you get hired, you want other people to respect the knowledge and skills youre bringing to your new team. As a result, you may not want to admit ignorance. Instead, you should be a sponge. Assume you know very little and that you are there to learn from others rather than to spread your knowledge and wisdom.
Ask a lot of questions of other people. When you hear a phrase or acronym that is new to you, stop the conversation and ask for clarification. When someone moves forward with a particular plan or a decision gets made, ask why it was done? Clarify that youre asking why to understand the criteria and values people are using to reach decisions.
Ask your new team members whether there are documents you can read to understand how current projects have reached the point where they are. Attend as many briefings on projects as you can. Monitor communication channels like Slack to see how projects get discussed.
Admit mistakes
Of course, youre going to make mistakes. That is inevitable. It is particularly likely early on. Youre going to misunderstand an instruction, or try something and get it wrong.
That doesnt mean you should blunder about. If you are asked to do something and youre not completely sure you understand the request, get clarification. It is better to be walked through the steps of a new task than to move forward with it and do it badly so that you or someone else has to redo it.
No matter how carefully you clarify, though, youll do some things wrong. It is crucial that you tell a supervisor or other colleague as soon as you recognize that you have made a mistake. Ask for help and find out what you can do to correct any problems that arise.
You might think that admitting a mistake will immediately tag you as someone who is not trustworthy. The paradox is that when you admit a mistake quickly, you are letting the people around you know that you are paying attention to the outcomes of your actions and that you are going to let others know as soon as something goes wrong. As a result, admitting mistakes quickly is likely to gain you trustas long as you dont make the same mistakes repeatedly.
Be trainable and correctable
When you first start in a new role, you probably feel a little apprehensive. You want to prove that you belong. When someone offers you some information or advice, you might want to demonstrate your prowess by telling others when you already know something you have been told. Resist that urge.
Instead, thank people for the advice they give and for taking you under their wing. You want everyone around you to know that you can be taught and trained. Even new executives have a lot to learn. Youd like everyone in the organization to feel like they have a vested interest and a role to play in your success.
In addition, if youre in a leadership role, you should also clarify to everyone that you dont want their deference. You are likely to say things that reflect that you are new to the organization (and have blind spots). Encourage people to correct things you say that are wrong and to push back on ideas they disagree with. Start early to create an atmosphere of productive disagreement and constructive criticism.
If someone does offer you a critique of a position, accept it gracefully even if you disagree with it. Thank them for the feedback and take it seriously, even if you still think what you said originally is correct.
After all, people are watching what you do as a guide toward how to treat you. If you dismiss well-intentioned feedback, you will probably dissuade other people from offering suggestions in the future.
The flight disruptions during the record government shutdown that ended last week inspired a rare act of bipartisanship in Washington on Tuesday, when congressional representatives from both parties introduced legislation that would allow air traffic controllers to get paid during future shutdowns.
The bill proposes funding salaries, operating expenses, and other Federal Aviation Administration programs by tapping into a little-used fund with $2.6 billion that was created to reimburse airlines if the government commandeers their planes and they are damaged. The bill’s sponsors, which include four of the top Republicans and Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, hope that relying on the fund might make their bill more attractive than other proposals because it would limit the potential cost of doling out paychecks.
U.S. Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, the GOP chairman of the committee, said in a statement that the bill would help keep the traveling public safe during future shutdowns. The other sponsors include Democratic U.S. Reps. Rick Larsen of Washington and Andre Carson of Indiana, along with Republican U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, who leads the aviation subcommittee.
We all saw that the system can be vulnerable when Congress cant get its job done, Graves said. This bill guarantees that controllers, who have one of the most high-pressure jobs in the nation, will get paid during any future funding lapses and that air traffic control, aviation safety, and the traveling public will never again be negatively impacted by shutdowns.
The bills introduction comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday by a Senate subcommittee to examine the impacts of the 43-day shutdown on aviation.
But it’s not clear whether this bill or any similar proposals that have been floating around Congress since the 2019 shutdown will have a chance to get approved before the next government funding deadline at the end of January. Nearly all the other proposals, including one from U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, would rely on the aviation trust fund that collects money from fees the airlines pay, and the Congressional Budget Office has given those bills a much higher price tag.
Fixes have been proposed, but none approved
Over the years, lawmakers have tried a handful of fixes for a long-term solution to keep air traffic controllers and other essential aviation workers paid during funding lapses. The proposals often gained bipartisan attention, especially after the 35-day shutdown that ended in 2019 during President Donald Trumps first term, but none made it over the finish line.
Moran’s bill, known as the Aviation Funding Stability Act, for example, is a recurring proposal in Congress that would allow the FAA to tap into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Lawmakers in both chambers have reintroduced versions of it over the years, including in 2019 and 2021.
The legislation resurfaced in March when Moran, the Republican chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation, put it forward. It came up again in September, weeks before the shutdown began, when Carson and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, also a Democrat, introduced it in the House.
The new bill introduced Tuesday would cut off the money if the insurance fund dips below $1 billion. But Transportation Committee staffers estimate that would still provide enough funding to keep FAA operating for four to six weeks.
Air traffic controllers stretched thin during shutdown
The issue gets so much attention because of all the flight delays and cancellations that happen during a shutdown as more air traffic controllers call out of work. The existing shortage of controllers is so severe that just a few absences in an airport tower or other FAA radar facilities can cause problems.
The controllers and the FAA technicians who maintain the equipment they rely on are expected to continue working without pay during a shutdown to keep flights operating. But as the shutdown dragged on this fall, more controllers began calling out of work, citing the financial pressures and the need to take on side jobs.
The delays got so bad during the latest shutdown that the government ordered airlines to cut some of their flights at 40 busy airports nationwide, in what the FAA said was an unprecedented but necessary move to relieve pressure on the system and controllers. Thousands of flights were canceled before the FAA lifted the order entirely and airlines were able to resume normal operations Monday.
Why the insurance fund was created
The fund that the bill introduced Tuesday would use was created years ago to pay for claims an airline might file if the government uses one of its planes for a military operation or other use. But that’s not common anymore.
The last time a claim was made was after Americas withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The fund has continued to grow as it collects interest.
For a time, it was also used for an insurance fund at a time when airlines were having trouble getting any insurance coverage after 9/11. For years, airlines paid into the fund regularly to get coverage from the government.
But by the early 2010s, the insurance market for airlines had stabilized. Congress let the insurance program expire at the end of 2014.
Josh Funk and Rio Yamat, AP transportation and airlines writers
New York City’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, hasn’t taken office yet. But he’s already the new avatar of evil for conservative media figures.
He’s been called downright sinister and incompatible with America. His labels include commie, Marxist, jihadist sympathizer and seething leftist. Fox News’ Laura Ingraham warned her viewers not to be fooled by smiling socialists who rule like Soviet tyrants.
A New York Post post-election cover that depicted Mamdani holding aloft the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle symbol sold out on newsstands by noon and was offered on e-Bay for $75. By the end of the day, the Post was selling baby onesies and commemorative plates emblazoned with the cover.
Already, conservative outlets see Mamdani joining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton as someone guaranteed to make their audiences’ blood boil. And by doing so, they can help Republicans in the midterm elections.
It’s very clear that he’s going to be the No. 1 target of right-wing media for the foreseeable future, well into 2026, said Howard Polskin, publisher of the Righting, a newsletter that follows conservative media. He’s colorful, controversial and not afraid of a fight.
The new bogeyman for conservative media
The head of an outlet that Polskin regularly monitors, the Daily Signal, said Mamdani is likely seen as a threat because his appeal to working-class Americans who feel left behind by the economy is similar to that of President Donald Trump, although they have different ideas about how to handle that.
Remember years ago there was Nancy Pelosi who was the bogeyman for Republicans, said Rob Bluey, president and executive editor of the Daily Signal. I think Mamdani is probably going to be the new person. I think thats why you see a lot of emphasis on him in conservative media.
In the Washington Examiner, editor-in-chief Hugo Gurdon saw ominous signs in Mamdani’s election night victory speech. He was downright sinister, glorying not just in his achievement but in having laid low his vanquished enemies and stuck it to others besides. He took off his smiling campaign mask and revealed his venomous self, Gurdon wrote.
Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt called Mamdani the mayor for the foreign-born. We have flooded the country with diversity, and diversity delivered us Zohran.” In an interview, Schmitt said he wasn’t quite ready to anoint Mamdani as a deliberate target for the conservative media.
A go-to bogeyman makes it sound like it’s manufactured, he told The Associated Press, whereas we are just appropriately concerned about people that are spewing or trying to push an ideology that is destined to not work.
The Post recognized Mamdani as a target of interest well before the election. Between Oct. 27 and Nov. 5, he was the subject of seven of the tabloid’s covers. One, headlined Mam-Child,” depicted Mamdani in a little boy’s overalls to illustrate a column warning that the city wasn’t a toy to hand to a baby like Zohran. Another front page blared Not Zo Fast to herald a tightening race in the polls. Election Day’s lead headline was Trump to New York: Keep the Commie Out.
Mamdani reached out to the White House post-election for a meeting with Trump and the president said Sunday that we’ll work something out.
A socialist or a communist?
Mamdanis status as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and his Muslim background are behind many of the conservative media attacks.
Asked on NBC’s Meet the Press this spring whether he was a communist, Mamdani said, No, I am not. Webster’s defines socialism as a political theory where the community or government owns and controls the production and distribution of goods. Communism, advanced by revolutionary Karl Marx, is considered a step beyond, where private property and capitalism no longer exist.
Many of Mamdani’s critics make no distinction. Commie takeover in the Big Apple, one Fox News onscreen headline read. They elected a communist, World Net Daily wrote. Communist, not socialist, Trump said in a 60 Minutes interview last month. Communist. He’s far worse than a socialist.
Some Jewish groups have expressed skepticism about Mamdani, who has supported Palestinian rights and criticized Israel’s attack in Gaza as genocide. But he has denounced Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and said he will work to combat antisemitism.
Republicans have a clear interest in seeing more American Jews traditionally a group that leans toward Democrats switch over. But that doesn’t account for some of the hostility seen in the media.
The National Review said Mamdani’s win meant it’s open season on New York Jews. Megyn Kelly said the tenets of Islam are inconsistent with American values and Muslims should not be elected mayors or governors. Podcaster Michael Savage called him a Marxist jihadist sympathizer. Influencer Laura Loomer predicted Mamdani would encourage Muslims to commit political assassinations to acquire power and silence critics.
Mamdani’s staff did not return messages from The Associated Press. In the waning days of his campaign, he spoke out against some of the religious-based attacks on him.
I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face or racist, baseless attacks all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith, he said. I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.
Making Mamdani the leader of his party in consumers’ eyes
Some of the attacks reflect a common theme in politics and the media not unique to Mamdani to associate all members of a political party with the beliefs of one who could be depicted as on the fringe. The Daily Signal wrote after his election that Mamdani is now the putative leader of his party.
The Victory Girls conservative blog used an illustration of the incoming mayor in a military uniform. “The socialists are coming, and Mamdani is just the begining, the blog wrote. If we ignore them, we will all be in big trouble.
He’s the new AOC in the sense that they have found someone who is relatively unknown that they get to define and hold up as the example of what it means to be a Democrat, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America.
Carusone said he’s not sure if Mamdani will become a villain of the conservative media on the level of a Clinton or Pelosi, but he can understand the urgency.
If you don’t check him now,” Carusone said, he’s going to capture the young people.”
David Bauder, AP media writer
In todays hyper-competitive B2B landscape, marketing leaders face a paradox: The pace of change is relentless, yet the need for clarity and purpose has never been greater. With artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping every facet of business, the imperative is not just to keep up but to lead the charge.
To navigate this complexity, we must lead with vision and innovate with intentfocusing our efforts, aligning teams, and making decisions that drive the business forward. Below is a no-nonsense framework for CMOs to fulfill our mandate of not just keeping up with the market but shaping what comes next.
VISION IS THE STRATEGIC COMPASS
Vision is more than a lofty statement on a corporate website. Its a strategic compass that sets a clear direction for decision-making, inspires bold thinking, and aligns marketing with broader business transformation goals.
AI is not just a technology trendits a strategic lens through which visionary CMOs anticipate market shifts, personalize at scale, and create new sources of value. Vision encourages us to look beyond quarterly targets and toward long-term value creation. Its not just about where were going, but why our destination matters. Peter Druckers insight that the best way to predict the future is to create it reminds us that visionary marketers dont wait for trends to unfold. They shape themoften by harnessing AIs predictive and generative power.
Consider Microsofts transformation under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. By repositioning itself as a cloud-first, AI-forward enterprise leader, Microsofts market cap soared from ~$300 billion in 2014 to over $3 trillion by 2024. Unified branding, thought leadership, and marketing aligned with product visionand a bold embrace of AIwere instrumental in this journey. The lesson is clear: A rebrand aligned with long-term strategy and market trends, especially those driven by AI, can unlock massive shareholder value.
INNOVATION IS THE DIFFERENTIATION ENGINE
In saturated markets, differentiation is survival. Innovation allows us to stand out, not just in what we offer, but in how we engage, deliver, and evolve. AI-driven insights empower marketers to test, learn, and iterate at unprecedented speed, turning data into differentiated experiences that set brands apart. Whether through product, experience, or brand voice, marketers must respond to evolving customer needs and emerging technologies. The challenge is to build a unique voice, foster a culture of innovation, and lead with empathy and agility, even while navigating internal barriers like silos and legacy systems. Steve Jobs captured this imperative when he said, Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. For marketing leaders, innovationnow supercharged by AIis the engine that powers strategic impact.
Apples journey from the dot-com bust to unprecedented growth is a testament to visionary leadership and relentless innovation. Strategic repositioning built a premium brand and loyal customer base. The transformation wasnt just about technology. It was about storytelling, experience, and strategic marketing, now increasingly powered by AI-driven personalization and creative tools. When marketing aligns with product innovation, long-term strategy, and the intelligent application of AI, it can redefine industries and drive valuation from billions to trillions.
VISION MEETS INNOVATION
At onsemi, our own transformation showcases how aligning vision and innovation can redefine a brand. Once known primarily as a reliable supplier, onsemi has emerged as a high-value technology leader in intelligent power and sensing. Under CEO Hassane El-Khoury, our identity evolved from traditional, engineering-focused to forward-looking, innovation-driven. Marketing played a pivotal role in translating the strategic vision into measurable results.
Marketing leaders operationalize and bring vision and innovation to life with a strategic framework that tightly aligns marketing with business goals. Today, they must put AI at the center of every pillar. The backbone of a modern AI-centered marketing engine includes these eight fundamentals:
Brand purpose and positioning: AI-powered sentiment analysis and competitive intelligence inform meaningful, consistent messaging.
Market and audience intelligence: AI enables dynamic segmentation, lookalike modeling, and predictive analytics for personalization at scale.
AI-powered demand generation: Generative AI creates dynamic content, while predictive models fuel pipeline growth through targeted outreach.
Optimized digital experiences and customer intelligence platforms: AI-driven personalization engines and recommendation systems ensure every interaction is seamless and insight-rich.
Unified messaging architecture: AI helps keep the story coherent across channels, adapting in real time to audience feedback.
Innovative tactics: Agile marketing models, strategic AI personalization, and customer journey mapping empower teams to iterate quickly and adapt to change.
Customer experience: A relentless focus on customer experience transforms every touchpoint into a strategic advantage. AI tools can anticipate needs and deliver value before customers even ask.
Cross-functional collaboration: Marketing collaborating with sales, product engineering, and corporate strategy ensures that marketing is at the table, shaping the future rather than just communicating it.
Taken together, these elements create a marketing engine that drives growth, relevance, and long-term impact.
LEAD WITH VISION, EXECUTE WITH INNOVATION, DELIVER WITH IMPACTPOWERED BY AI
If theres one takeaway for marketing executives, its this: Lead with vision, execute with nnovation, and deliver with impact. Vision inspires teams and aligns stakeholders. Innovationnow inseparable from AIkeeps us relevant and unlocks differentiated value. Impact is measured not just in impressions and engagement, but in pipeline, revenue, and strategic growth. When we connect vision to execution, harness the power of AI, and measure our impact, we elevate marketing from a function to a force.
The future belongs to those who shape it. Lets continue to lead with clarity, execute with creativity, and deliver with purposeembracing AI as a core leadership competency for the next era of marketing.
Felicity Carson is chief marketing officer at onsemi.
A Gustav Klimt portrait painting that helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust sold Tuesday for $236.4 million, a record for a modern art piece.
Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold after a 20-minute bidding war at Sothebys in New York, where the flashiest item of the night was a solid gold, fully functioning toilet that went for $12.1 million.
The 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) portrait, painted over three years between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of one of Vienna’s wealthiest families adorned in an East Asian emperors cloak. It is one of two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that remain privately owned. The work was kept separate from other Klimt paintings that burned in a fire at an Austrian castle.
The colorful painting depicts the Lederer family’s life of luxury before Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Nazis looted the Lederer art collection, leaving only the family portraits, which were considered too Jewish to be worth stealing, according to the National Gallery of Canada, where the painting was previously on loan.
In an attempt to save herself, Elisabeth Lederer made up a story that Klimt, who was not Jewish and died in 1918, was her father. It helped that the artist spent years working meticulously on her portrait.
With help from her former brother-in-law, a high-ranking Nazi official, she convinced the Nazis to give her a document stating that she descended from Klimt. That allowed her to remain safely in Vienna until she died of an illness in 1944.
The portrait was part of the collection of billionaire Leonard A. Lauder, heir to cosmetics giant The Estée Lauder Companies. He died this year at 92, leaving behind an impressive collection worth more than $400 million.
Sothebys declined to share the identity of the portrait’s buyer. The sale topped a previous record for 20th-century art set by an Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe, which sold for $195 million in 2022.
Five Klimt pieces from Lauder’s collection sold at the auction for a total of $392 million, Sotheby’s said.
Pieces by Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Edvard Munch were among other notable sales.
Later in the evening, an 18-karat-gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall hit the auction block. Cattelan has said the 223-pound (101-kilogram) piece, titled America, satirizes superwealth.
Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise, he once said.
The toilet, owned by an unnamed collector, was one of two that Cattelan created in 2016. The other was displayed in 2016 at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, which pointedly offered to lend it to U.S. President Donald Trump when he asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting.
Then the piece was stolen while on display in England at Blenheim Palace, the country manor where Winston Churchill was born. Two men were convicted in the toilet heist, but it’s unclear what they did with the loo. Investigators aren’t privy to its whereabouts but believe it was likely broken up and melted down.
America was exhibited at Sothebys New York headquarters in the weeks leading up to the auction. Sothebys called the commode an incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.
Hannah Schoenbaum, Associated Press
Google announced its widely anticipated Gemini 3 model Tuesday. By many key metrics, it appears to be more capable than the other big generative AI models on the market.
In a show of confidence in the performance (and safety) of the new model, Google is making one variant of GeminiGemini 3 Proavailable to everyone via the Gemini app starting now. Its also making the same model a part of its core search service for subscribers.
The new model topped the scores of the much-cited LMArena benchmark, a crowdsourced preference of various top models based on head-to-head responses to identical prompts. In the super-difficult Humanitys Last Exam benchmark test, which measured reasoning and knowledge, the Gemini 3 Pro scored 37.4% compared to GPT-5 Pros 31.6%. Gemini 3 also topped a range of other benchmarks measuring everything from reasoning to academic knowledge to math to tool use and agent functions.
Gemini has been a multimodal model from the start, meaning that it can understand and reason about not just language, but images, audio, video, and codeall at the same time. This capability has been steadily improving since the first Gemini, and Gemini 3 reached state-of-the-art performance on the MMMU-Pro benchmark, which measures how well a model handles college-level and professional-level reasoning across text and images. It also topped the Video-MMMU benchmark, which measures the ability to reason over details of video footage. For example, the Gemini model might ingest a number of YouTube videos, then create a set of flashcards based on what it learned.
Gemini also scored high on its ability to create computer code. Thats why it was a good time for the company to launch a new Cursor-like coding agent called Antigravity. Software development has proven to be among the first business functions in which generative AI has had a measurably positive impact.
Benchmarks are telling, but as the response to OpenAIs GPT-5.1 showed, the feel or personality of a model matters to users (many users thought GPT-5 was a dramatic personality downgrade from GPT-4o). Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis seemed to acknowledge this in a tweet Tuesday. [B]eyond the benchmarks its been by far my favorite model to use for its style and depth, and what it can do to help with everyday tasks. Of course users will have their own say about Gemini 3s communication style, and how well it adapts to user preferences and work habits.
With the release of Googles third-generation generative AI model, its a good time to look at the wider context of the race to build the dominant AI models of the 21st century. The contest, remember, is only a few years old. So far, OpenAIs models have spent the most time atop the benchmark rankings, and, on the strength of ChatGPT, have garnered most of the attention of all the players in the emerging AI industry.
History on its side?
From the start, Google has enjoyed some distinct advantages. Its been investing in AI talent and research for decades, starting long before OpenAI became a company in 2015. It began developing machine learning techniques for understanding search intent, defining page rank, and for placing ads as far back as 2001. It bought London-based AI research lab DeepMind back in 2014, and DeepMind has been responsible for some of Googles biggest AI accomplishments (AlphaGo, AlphaFold, Gemini models).
The big research breakthroughs that enabled the current wave of generative AI models took place at Google. In 2017, Google researchers invented the transformer language model architecture that allowed LLMs to learn much more from their training data than earlier language models. The following year Google used the transformer architecture to build its BERT language model, which led directly to the GPT models that power ChatGPT. In fact, the search giant developed an AI chatbot well before OpenAI did, but was conflicted about releasing it or infusing it into its other products because of legal and business model concerns.
All the data
Google has access to more and better-quality training data than any other AI company. Its been indexing most of the information on the web since 1998. It also owns huge amounts of information such as local business data, mapping data, and customer reviews, which can be used to train AI models or augment their output (within search results, for example).
Generative models are just now gaining the ability to learn about the world from video footage in the same way that models learn from large amounts of text. With YouTube, Google has access to mountains of it, and its AI models could gain an increasing intelligence advantage by training on it.
As AI begins to manage more and more of our personal and work tasks, Googles advantages in experience, talent, and data and other resources may help sustain Geminis state-of-the-art status and overall functionality in the years to come.
High stakes
This is more than about which company can sell the most API access to its models or subscriptions to a chatbot. As models like Gemini, Claude, and GPT-5 may eventually become smarter, perhaps far smarter, than humans at almost any task. The company with the models that reaches that level, also called artificial general intelligence (AGI) may dominate the marketplace for consumer and business AI in the same way Google has dominated search in the first decades of this century. With tech companies already spending hundreds of billions to build the infrastructure for their AI businesses, the pressure is mounting to push harder and faster on the development of new generations of AI models.
AI is bringing voice to the forefront of brand interactions. Smarter AI means we can talk to our technologyLLMs, software, phones, cars, fridges, and even banking apps. The novel part is this: Our technology is now talking back, and convincingly so. Brands are catching on, and the smart ones know that voice isnt just functional, it will form a core part of the brand identity itself.
Voice will be the next frontier of branding. And not metaphorically. A brands literal voicethe voice(s) used for advertising, on their website, and now, in interactive AI-based conversations with customersis becoming just as ownable as elements of a visual identity. But standing out wont come from just using voice tech alone. To cut through the noise, brands will need a voice thats authentic, distinct, and is uniquely associated with their brand.
The biggest brands already understand this. Theres a reason the most memorable brands choose to use the same voice actor across marketing campaigns, sometimes even across years: Consistency builds memorability, recognition, and trust. With voice AI, the opportunity for consistency and impact is even greater, and brands that embrace it will set themselves apart from the rest.
TURN CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINTS INTO BRANDED EXPERIENCES
The real gold in voice AI is its ability to provide both one-to-one and one-to-many communication at scale. AI is empowering brands to automate interactions across more customer touchpoints than ever before, including sales support, call center automations, and personalized ads, to name a few. As these channels incorporate voice AI, the need for consistency grows, making a singular, distinct voice more critical than ever.
With voice AI, brands can hold a million individual conversations at once while maintaining both continuity and a personal touch. In customer support, an AI-powered agent can provide instant answers and even act via voice. That same voice can guide them through a product tutorial, help pay a phone bill, or introduce your brand to customers in an ad.
Thats the beauty of voice AI as a brand asset: One voice can now efficiently scale, enabling a whole new level of brand cohesion across multiple interactions. Customers value predictability, and a consistent, trusted, and recognizable voice can really drive home that brand memorability and distinction.
SECURE A MEMORABLE VOICE THATS EXCLUSIVELY YOURS
With technology moving so fast, theres no shortage of ready-to-go AI voices. But the convenience of these voices doesnt guarantee exclusivity, and in branding, distinction is everything.
The problem with 100% synthetic AI voicesvoices entirely created with AI, with no real human in the loopis threefold:
They may become unavailable.
They are often forgettable.
They are rarely exclusive to the user.
As vendors update their library or licenses expire, the voice youve been using to represent your brand could change, or even completely disappear. Even if it doesnt, chances are: Other brands and creators are using that same off-the-shelf voice, erasing any sense of individuality. As a brand, youll want at least some exclusivity for your AI voice, so you dont end up sharing it with a competitor.
The reality is, the best AI voice clones come from real humans with the best voices: voice actors. You can hear a tangible difference between a synthetic AI voice and an AI voice cloned from a skilled voice talent. Done right, the one-to-one voice clone is higher quality than any synthetic voicenot only in its realism, but in its emotional nuance, uniqueness, and overall human quality.
Licensing a professional voice also gives you greater control over creative direction to ensure the pronunciation of brand names and technical terms is correct. Licensed voices also offer customizable licensing suited to your specific needs, securing long-term consistency, exclusivity, and greater legal protections. Its the difference between borrowing something generic and curating a voice experience that is yours.
The best, most successful branded voices in the market today are distinct and emotive. Customers wont remember an AI chatbot with a friendly middle-aged female voice, but they will remember a voice with personalityone that feels alive, intentional, and unmistakably part of the brand.
Thats the future: Voice as a distinguishable brand asset, just like a logo. And by working with real humans to create a unique AI voice, youll secure something competitors cant copy: A voice that is exclusively, recognizably, and enduringly yours.
Jay OConnor is CEO of Voices.com.
