Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. Im Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy.
This week, Im focusing on what AI pioneer Yann LeCuns new company will likely build after he departs from Meta. I also look at Marc Andreessens jab at the Pope on X, and at Fei-Fei Lis view of the AI world since 2012.
Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X @thesullivan.
Yann LeCuns departure from Meta, and what hell likely do next
Yann LeCun, the AI pioneer who has led Metas Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) division since 2013, will reportedly leave that post to start his own AI research lab. LeCun plans to depart in the coming months, and has begun early fundraising discussions to support his new venture, the reports say. The new startup will focus on building world models, or AI systems that learn from images, video, and spatial data instead of relying solely on text and large language models.
After developing open-source Llama models that fell behind other LLMs, Meta has gone on a very lavish recruiting spree to hire world-class researchers for a new effort to build state-of-the-art models. Metas newest models, sources say, are likely to be closed-source, and are expected to follow the same general architecture and training methods used by rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.
In other words, they will continue relying on the same transformer architecture invented at Google in 2017 (which kicked off the generative AI boom) while continually using more training data and computing power to achieve intelligence gains. LeCun has been critical of that approach, and doubts that it has produced AI that truly reasons, rather than just detects patterns and predicts the next word or pixel in a sequence.
LeCun has called for more foundational research on alternate paths that could more quickly lead to AI models that can match or exceed human intelligence. His recent research has focused on world modelingdeveloping AI systems capable of quickly learning about the physical world as human babies do.
So expect LeCuns new company to build new kinds of models, or systems of models, that learn and represent aspects of the real world, including physics, in new ways. Its likely that these models will be trained through watching thousands of hours of video, instead of relying on text or still images. They will also likely be able to capture more nuances of the real world, such as state changes and transitions (how environments shift and evolve), than current models. Success might mean the creation of AI systems or robots with a far more advanced understanding of the world and how to take action in it, and that are far better at continually learning from and remodeling the world as we humans do.
Marc Andreessen goes for a cheap shot on the Pope, faces backlash
Marc Andreessen, of the storied VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, is an AI accelerationist who might Twitter-block anyone even suggesting the industry should devote more time to safety and alignment. Now hes facing backlash for taking a shot at the Pope on X last weekend when the Holy See called for morality in technology.
The Pope tweeted that the builders of our AI future should develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life. (See the whole tweet here.) That was enough to trigger Andreessen, a committed MAGA cheerleader and close adviser to President Trump on tech issues.
Andreessen didnt offer an argument, but posted a meme meant to convey a derisive and dismissive response to the Popes message. The meme was a still photo of GQs Katherine Stoeffel pointing a What the fuck are you talking about? expression at actress Sydney Sweeney during a recent interview. Andreessen deleted the tweet, but not before many on the tech side of Twitter saw it.
Some objected to a billionaire VC responding so blithely to the literal Pope. Others noted the irony of Twitter doing unto Andreessen as Andreessen has done unto others. Pretty funny/surreal to see @pmarca dodge the woke cancellation mobs for the last decade, only to have his closest brush with cancel-death come at the hands of the very religious denomination who invented cancel culture in the 15th century, VC Lee Edwards noted.
Still others took issue with the idea Andreessen seemed to convey, which is that VCs should invest in technologies that demonstrate value and make money, without regard for whether or not the technology will make the world a better or worse place or, perhaps, a safer or more dangerous one.
One of those was the widely followed tech commentator @growing_daniel on X. If youre going to dedicate your life to building something…what Im saying is that you should reflect morally, Daniel said on the TBPN videocast after Andreessens Pope tweet. The Popes entire point was that you should think about that and try to do good things.
Daniel acknowledged that Andreessen and a16z have invested a lot of money in software as a service companies that have made businesses run better. But he also cites a16zs $15 million investment in Cluely, a startup that originally billed its app as a tool to cheat on everything (meaning job interviews, exams, or sales calls).
How Fei-Fei Li describes the history of AI since ImageNet
Fei-Fei Li played a huge role in kicking off the current AI revolution when, back in 2012, she invented the ImageNet image training data set that taught AI models how to classify images. On November 12, her new company, World Labs, released its first model, Marble, a world model that has an understanding of the makeup of 3D environments (as humans do) and can imagine and generate them based on text, images, or video uploaded by the user. These environments could be used in anything from game development to VFX design to digital twins, she believes. From ImageNet to world models, Li has come a long way. When I spoke to her I asked her to describe her view of the AI revolution as its happened so far. Heres what she said.
I think the world model is a fairly natural but significant continuation of the generative AI era. The generative AI era is the latest of the . . . deep learning revolution. In 2012 we started the deep learning revolution by squarely establishing the three forces of AI: the neural network, data, and computing chips or GPUs. Every progress weve made in AI so far continues to bank on the power of these three fundamental elements of modern AI. And one of the most important milestones was the transformer model. The sequence-to-sequence modeling for language really unlocked a fairly powerful scaling law that gave rise to large models that can be trained by a large amount of data [to] become very powerful and generalizable. First out of the gate were large language models.
And the derivative of large language models are these multimodel large language models (which understand not just words, but audio, video, images, and code). They are still built on the backbone of large language models. But I think the large world model is really a significant step towards unlocking AIs capability.
Interestingly, Li suggests that as the AI industry pushes toward models that are generally as intelligent as humans, then generally far more intelligent, researchers may need to rely on more than just the transformer model architecture that ignited the industry in 2017 and led to things like ChatGPT. (The GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer.) She explains:
I would say this goes beyond the transformer. Its still early. So the model architecture is still subject to research. But you know the recent progress in transformer models [and] diffusion models and beyond are part of the exploration but I wouldnt call it solidly owing to transformers.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
Anthropic and Microsoft announce new AI data center projects in Texas, New York, and Georgia
Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey are getting AI voice clones with ElevenLabs
Fei-Fei Lis World Labs unveils its world-generating AI model
Agentic AI isnt always the answer
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Last June, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky took on a second job. Microsoft, the social network for business professionals owner since 2016, expanded his responsibilities to include Microsoft 365the suite still better known by its former name, Microsoft Officeand its Copilot AI assistant. The role charges him with making AI useful in a productivity context, a goal thats still very much a work in progress.But Roslansky also remains in charge of LinkedIn, a place whose entire reason for being springs from the network effect of its billion-plus members. Their unique connections, learnings, and willingness to help other people cant be fed into an LLM and reprocessed into the kind of generic advice a chatbot can spout. In a world of increasingly commodified information, Roslansky argues that LinkedIns essential humanity is more essential than ever.Trusted, contextual, expert-driven knowledgethe type of stuff that comes from having a lived experience or doing a specific job or having a deep insight or knowing people that have actually done the jobin my view, thats becoming much more valuable, not less, he says. I think the question moving forward from professionals isn’t just going to be something like, What’s the answer?, but Who can I trust to guide me? And that’s where we come in.Still, once you venture beyond your core LinkedIn contacts, its never been all that easy to tap into the power of your network. We’ve always had, what I’ll call decent, keyword-based lexical people search that allows you to type someone’s name if you know them, says Roslansky. We did a decent job at name-plus-company. But even if you were seeking a particular kind of advice or favor that a friend of a friend (or a friend of a friend of a friend) might have been happy to dispense, there was no guarantee youd be able to track them down with keywords and filters.Now LinkedIn is taking a major step to address that. A new feature called AI-powered people search uses generative AI to break past the limitations of conventional search. It understands requests such as investors with FDA experience for a biotech startup, Northwestern alumni who work in entertainment marketing, teachers turned industrial designers, and who can help me raise money for a nonprofit? The results it returns include relevant profiles regardless of the exact words you used to phrase the search.[Animation: Courtesy of LinkedIn]AI-powered people search is rolling out first to members who pay for LinkedIn Premium accounts, but the company says it will eventually be available to all users. It follows the AI-powered job search feature introduced earlier this year, which Rolansky notes can understand open-ended asks such as I want to help bring humanity to Mars or I want to work on AI products with my finance skills.Using technology thats very 2025, these features deliver on the promise of the nearly 23-year-old sites original vision thatas an early tagline put itrelationships matter. Members who have managed to rack up hundreds of connections over the years might find new value in visiting the site more regularly and diving deeper.The company was founded on the idea that if we were able to build a valuable community, that any professional can become more productive and successful through other people in their network, says Roslansky. When you can leverage AI to reason over that network of people, it opens up a whole new world.[Animation: Courtesy of LinkedIn]As for how LinkedIns ongoing evolution fits into Roslanskys new role at Microsoft, he points out several advantages to his twin responsibilities.For one, the ability to sit in on meetings with people like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, CTO Kevin Scott, and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman give him a view into where the bleeding edge of where AI and technology are going. But expanding his purview is also about aspects of LinkedIns mission that remain unfulfilled even nine years after the two companies became one.Recruiters, we make productive and successful, Roslansky explains. Salespeople. Marketers. But general professionals are still something that we are decent at, not what we’ve thrived on. It turns out the greatest set of tools in the world to make professionals more productive is the suite of office tools that I have the amazing honor to be working on right now.Until now, LinkedIn has felt like a most distant relative of Microsoftian stalwarts such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. As AI provides opportunities to rethink all these productswith well over a century of combined history behind them Roslansky says hes thinking about them holistically. That alone is a new approach. And its upshot could shape the future of some of the worlds most-used business tools.
Online betting is more accessible than ever, with 14% of U.S. adults saying they bet on professional or college sports online either frequently or occasionally, according to a February poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It’s also in the news, with a growing list of sports betting scandals making headlines.Public health advocates and personal finance advisers say it’s important to know the risks if you’re going to gamble online.“Gambling and ‘responsibly’ seem to be oxymoronic, because if you’re gambling it’s all about risk,” said Caleb Silver, editor in chief of personal finance site Investopedia. “But people still do it. Online gambling and sports betting are only becoming more popular.”Since the Supreme Court struck down a ban on sports betting in 2018, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized gambling, according to the American Gaming Association.For those new to online gambling, it can be helpful to set limits in advance on how much you’re willing to lose and how much time you’re willing to spend. Many of the platforms and apps that offer gambling, such as FanDuel and DraftKings, include optional safeguards to limit time or losses. Other apps can block access to the platforms for set amounts of time.Here’s what to know:
Online gambling can be riskier than gambling in person
The potential losses of digital betting can occur more quickly than in a physical casino, according to Heather Eshleman, director of operations at the Maryland Center for Excellence on Problem Gambling, since people can bet so much so easily and quickly on the internet or apps, with less friction.The new prevalence of prediction markets, such as PredictIt and Kalshi, has also created new opportunities to place wagers online on everything from election outcomes to celebrity news to the weather.
How to tell if you have a problem with online gambling
According to public health advocates, the biggest warning sign of a problem is if you’re devoting time to online betting that’s taking away from other things in your life especially your relationships with friends, family, and work. If you’re spending money on gambling that could instead go towards unmet basic needs, that’s also a warning sign.“We encourage people to only use money they would use for fun and entertainment, not money that should be used to pay the mortgage or the rent or to pay for food,” said Eshleman.Silver echoed this.“You have to know before you do it how much you can afford to lose,” he said. “What is your ‘tap out point?’ Those rules have to be firmly established.”
Ways to limit online gambling
Most sports betting platforms offer “responsible gambling tools,” according to Eshleman.“You can set limits on time, money, deposits, wins, and losses,” she said. “The goal is to set those limits before you start, because if you don’t set them in advance, they’re not really going to work for you. Once you’re into the excitement of it, you’re not going to stop and use those tools.”Eshleman recommends apps such as GambBan and BetBlocker, which limit access to gambling sites externally. She also directs those who suspect they may have a problem to use the 1-800-GAMBLER hotline or contact Gamblers Anonymous.
Know the risks and downsides
Silver, the head of Investopedia, said he started adding definitions of online betting and gambling terms to the personal finance site when he saw an increasingly “closer connection between sports betting, day trading, options trading, and cryptocurrency trading.” He encourages those who are interested in digital betting to make sure they know what they’re getting into.“Before anyone even gets an online (gambling) account, they should be required to know the fundamental terms and rules about the way sports betting works,” he said. “What’s the ‘money line’ or ‘parlay?’ How do odds work? What is the maximum I could lose on this bet?”The other thing to do is to “play with no expectation of a return,” he said. “The likelihood is that you will lose. So, if you’re willing to lose, how much are you willing to lose?”Cory Fox, senior vice president of public policy and sustainability at FanDuel, who handles the site’s responsible gambling initiatives, compares using the safeguards to wearing a seatbelt when driving in a car and said FanDuel is committed to setting standards for being a responsible operator in the online gambling space.Lori Kalani, chief responsible gaming officer at DraftKings, said the site is committed to the same goal and compared using the limit-setting tools to taking Ubers instead of driving on a night when you know you’ll be drinking.Fox added that responsible gambling tools are important to help allow FanDuel to maintain its social license. He said that it’s in the interest of the site to make sure its users can be on the site and play for a long time to come.
Make sure it’s not a coping mechanism
“If you’re taking care of your mental health, you’re less likely to have a problem with gambling,” Eshleman said.Rather than turning to the thrill of placing online bets, Eshleman encourages people to find positive ways to cope with stress listening to music, taking walks, getting more sleep and exercise, and spending more time socializing. Social gambling is safer than hidden, private gambling, she said.“If you’re doing it alone, that’s a red flag that it’s not an activity that’s healthy for you,” said Eshleman. “It all ties in to our basic wellness. I think if people focus on wellness, it will prevent a lot of gambling.”
The Associated Press receives support from the Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
Americans have long ogled the rich, but the countrys widening wealth gapand the billionaires fueling ithave been facing growing scrutiny.
The news that Elon Musk is on track to be the worlds first trillionaire came the same week that a judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund food stamps, as 42 million Americans were left without the benefits they need to buy food. (The Trump administration appealed that ruling.)
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, made national headlines throughout his campaign for highlighting the affordability crisis in the city. Mamdani received support from figures like former labor secretary Robert Reich and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have frequently criticized billionaires.
Even singer Billie Eilish called out the ultra wealthy recently. If youre a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? she said while announcing an $11.5 million donation (about 23% of her net worth), before urging billionaires to give away their money.
A new Harris Poll shared exclusively with Fast Company highlights how everyday Americans are paying more attention to this inequalityand how they oscillate between admiring and admonishing the wealthy.
An economic system that works best for the rich
In the Americans & Billionaires survey, now in its third year, only 28% of respondents said that the current U.S. economic system works well for most people.
Instead, 35% said it prioritizes the ultra wealthy, and 36% said it offers opportunitybut not equally. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say wealth inequality is a serious national issue.
Americans are also directly blaming billionaires for the financial struggles they face. Sixty-seven percent said billionaires are creating more of an unfair society, an eight-point increase from the 2024 survey.
That sentiment was also higher among Gen Z and millennials, 72% of whom agreed with the statement compared to 62% of Gen X and baby boomers.
Fifty-five percent of Americans said that billionaires make it harder to achieve my American dream; for Gen Z and millennials, the share was 65%.
And theyre also generally over seeing extreme wealth on display: 74% of respondents say that billionaires are over-celebrated in U.S. culture.
‘The era of the untouchable billionaire is over’
When calling out inequality, people often point to the ways billionaires could help the rest of the world.
Mamdani ran in part on taxing the wealthy in order to pay for free childcare and buses; others have noted how taxing the rich could fund universal healthcare, end world hunger, and address climate change.
Americans broadly believe that the more wealth someone has, the more responsibility they have to the world, the Harris Poll found.
Seventy-two percent of Americans agreed that billionaires have an ethical responsibility” to address the worlds humanitarian crisesup four points from the year priorand 69% said billionaires have a responsibility to better society, and should give back.
Across all age groups, Harris Poll saw an increase in the percent of Americans who want a limit on wealth accumulation, compared to 2024.
The era of the untouchable billionaire is over, Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer and futurist at The Harris Poll, says in a statement. Americans want wealth to work harder, for society, not just for shareholders.
Still, they dont seem to have much hope that billionaires will do so; 76% of respondents agreed with the statement that billionaires are more concerned about protecting themselves than helping others.
One area billionaires are wading into, though, is politics. Billionaires like Bill Ackman spent millions opposing Mamdanis race for mayor, and Musk notoriously enmeshed himself in the federal government this year.
Americans are growing wary of that trend: 7 in 10 wish billionaires played a smaller role in U.S. politics.
Americans want wealth for security
These sentiments toward the rich dont completely preclude people from wanting to join their ranks.
Even though 76% of Americans admit that billionaires benefit from a broken system, six in ten still said that they want to become a billionaire one day.
But its also clear that Americans aspire to wealth because it seems like one of the only ways to survive our continuous, mounting economic shocks.
Two-thirds of Gen Z and millennials said that they aspire for extreme wealth not for success, but for security in an increasingly unstable economy. Overall, 52% of Americans agreed with the statement that If I was a billionaire, then all my problems would be solved.
Gen Z doesnt want to be billionaires for bragging rights, they want safety in an uncertain economy, Rodney says. Theyre rewriting the rules of ambition, turning wealth into a survival strategy, not a status symbol.
Some of my best ideas come to me when Im exercising.
At least I think theyre some of my best ideas; by the time I actually get a chance to write them down, Ive often forgotten them. While you could argue that something I was unable to remember for an hour or so cant be that great, still: weve all had things we wanted to remember, but couldnt.
So what can you do if you need to remember something important? Most memory-improvement techniqueslike mnemonics, chunking, and building memory palacesinvolve a fair amount of effort.
But these simple strategies to improve your short-term memory and recall require almost no effortand very little time.
1. Say it out loud
Weve all been around people who repeat things theyre learning out loud. Or just mouth the words. They look a little odd: smart people just file knowledge away. They dont have to talk to themselves.
Actually, smart people do talk to themselves.
A study published Learning, Memory, and Cognition found that saying words out loudor just mouthing themmakes them more distinctive by separating them from all the other words youre thinking. In short, saying words out loud makes them different.
Which makes them more memorable.
So go ahead. When you need to remember something, say it aloud. Or mouth it to yourself.
Your cerebral cortex will thank you for it.
2. Predict whether you will actually remember
Sounds odd, I know. But a study published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology shows the simple act of asking yourself whether you will remember something significantly improves the odds that you will remember, in some cases by as much as 50%.
Thats especially true for remembering things you want to do. Psychologists call them prospective memories: remembering to perform a planned action, or recall a planned intention, at some point in the future. Like remembering to praise an employee, email a customer, or implement a schedule change.
Why this works is somewhat unclear. Maybe the act of predicting is a little like testing yourself; research shows that quizzing yourself is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. What is clear is that the act helps your hippocampus better form and index those episodic memories for later access.
So if you want to remember to do something in the future, take a second and predict whether you will remember.
Science says that act alone makes it more likely you will.
3. Rehearse for 40 seconds
Memory consolidation is the process of transforming temporary memories into more stable, long-lasting memories. Even though the process of memory consolidation can be sped up, still: Storing a memory in a lasting way takes time.
One way to increase the odds is to rehearse whatever you want to remember for 40 seconds. A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that a brief period of rehearsallike replaying an event in your mind, going over what someone said in a meeting, or mentally mapping out a series of stepsmakes it significantly more likely that you will remember what you rehearsed.
As the researchers write, that brief period of rehearsal has a huge effect on our ability to remember complex, lifelike events over periods of one to two weeks. We have also linked this rehearsal effect to processing in a particular part of the brain: the posterior cingulate.
Which should be long enough for you to actually do something with whatever you hope to remember.
4. Close your eyes for 2 minutes
A study published in Nature Reviews Psychology found that . . . even two minutes of rest with your eyes closed can improve memory, perhaps to the same degree as a full night of sleep.
Psychologists call it offline waking rest. In its purest form, offline waking rest can be closing your eyes and zoning out for a couple of minutes. But offline waking rest can also be daydreaming. Mind-wandering. Meditating. Basically turning your mind off for a minute or two.
While mentally disconnecting doesnt sound productive, when it comes to remembering more, it is: without those intermittent periods of lack of focus, memory consolidation doesnt occur nearly as efficiently.
So go ahead and zone out for a couple minutes. As the researchers write, Moments of unoccupied rest should be recognized as a critical contributor to human waking cognitive functions rather than a waste of time.
Cant beat that.
As 2026 takes shape, the most successful leaders will adopt new tools with responsibility and vision while keeping the human side of shopping alive.
These 10 tech trends in retail tech and AI are evolving, transforming how brands design, distribute, and deliver experiences. These are not distant forecasts, but happening in real time across retailers, marketplaces, and consumer ecosystems.
1. Predictive intent engines
Reactive personalization is being replaced by predictive intent engines. Instead of waiting for a customer to browse, AI anticipates the customer’s next wants based on contextual data like weather, life events, and even local cultural moments. For example, as outdoor searches tick upward in specific regions, retailers surface camping gear. The upside is deeper relevance.
As with every trend, there are risks. Here, if the timing is too perfect, the relevance can feel intrusive to the customer.
2. Retail copilots for associates
When I talk to retail teams, many describe how AI copilots are becoming the new work partner for associates. In practice, staff use smart glasses and mobile assistants to feed real-time product data, customer history, or upsell suggestions. Frontline employees transform from reactive clerks to proactive advisors.
The challenge is keeping interactions authentic. Customers want genuine conversations, not AI scripts delivered through a human face.
3. Algorithmic supply webs
The supply chain is no longer a straight line but a web of constantly reconfiguring nodes. Retailers tell me their systems now simulate thousands of scenarios dailyrerouting orders, shifting suppliers, or adjusting transportation paths on the fly. I see this trend especially in grocery and fashion, where volatility is high.
Supply webs provide resilience, but also create a transparency challenge. Shoppers and regulators will want to know how these algorithmic choices affect workers and sustainability.
4. Immersive brand layers
Immersive storytelling is moving from pilot projects to mainstream adoption. Augmented reality is layered into packaging, storefronts, and mobile apps. One apparel brand I follow lets customers scan a tag to see the products journey from fiber to fashion show. Another uses AR mirrors to project outfit combinations in the store.
The brand layers transform shopping into a multimedia experience. The challenge is keeping it purposeful rather than gimmicky.
5. Microfactories near the customer
More retailers are experimenting with localized, AI-driven microfactories. These factories can 3D-print fashion accessories, produce limited-run beauty items, or assemble electronics close to demand centers. I recently saw a footwear brand offering near-instant customization at an urban hub, with shoes ready within days.
The opportunity is speed and personalization. The challenge is cost. Microfactories remain expensive compared to global mass production.
6. Real-time sustainability scores
Retailers are making sustainability metrics visible at the shelf or checkout. Shoppers now see carbon impact scores, packaging grades, or ethical sourcing flags. AI crunches supplier and logistics data to make this possible. One grocer is piloting real-time sustainability dashboards in an app, so shoppers can compare two items not just by price but by footprint.
The opportunity is radical transparency. The challenge is to ensure credible numbers and avoid greenwashing in a new format.
7. Autonomous merchandising systems
Conversations with merchandising leaders reveal how manual planning cycles are being replaced by AI-driven systems making thousands of small decisions daily. Platforms decide which colors to stock by neighborhood, which SKUs to pull from digital shelves, or how to rotate assortments dynamically.
The benefit is responsiveness. The risk involves blind spots: Without human oversight, algorithms can miss cultural nuances or local contexts.
8. Neural commerce platforms
Commerce is dissolving into everyday life through connected devices. Smart fridges reorder staples. Cars let drivers voice-order coffee and have it waiting at the next stop. Voice assistants anticipate weekly needs without prompting. Retail is becoming neural, with systems firing across networks without friction.
The opportunity is effortless convenience. The challenge is maintaining customer agencyretailers must ensure that shoppers feel in control of purchases instead of letting automation decide entirely.
9. Data collaboratives across competitors
Retailers are starting to collaborate on data despite fierce competition. Shared, anonymized pools of information strengthen forecasting, reduce waste, and help optimize logistics. For example, several mid-sized fashion brands are joining forces to track demand signals and cut excess inventory.
The opportunity is collective intelligence. The challenge is trustdeciding what to share and how to govern these collaboratives fairly.
10. Leadership as technology stewardship
The last trend isn’t a tool but a leadership evolution. Executives are now judged by how they steward technology responsibly. I observe boards asking harder questions: How are algorithms monitored for bias? How is customer privacy respected? How is staff retrained for AI collaboration?
There’s an opportunity to build brands trusted as responsible innovators. The challenge is balancing the speed of adoption with careful stewardship in a space where technology is evolving faster than regulation.
The future: 2026 and beyond
When I put these trends together, the picture is clear: Retail in 2026 is not just using technology, it is becoming technology. Predictive engines anticipate demand, copilots empower staff, immersive layers engage customers, and neural commerce embeds shopping into everyday life.
But the deeper story is about responsibility. Customers demand transparency, regulators demand accountability, and employees demand clarity about their role in AI-shaped workplaces. The retailers who win will not be the ones with the flashiest tech but the ones who use it thoughtfully, balancing automation with humanity.
A new playbook is emerging that will anticipate needs, empower people, embed transparency, and lead with stewardship. Those who follow it will not just adapt to the future of retail; they will shape it.
Charisma Glassman is the group vice president and global head of retail applied advisory at Genpact.
On any day during her eight years as First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama said she could go from giving a speech to meeting with a counterpart from another country to digging in her vegetable garden with groups of schoolchildren.And her clothes had to be ready for that. There was too much else to do, including raising daughters Sasha and Malia, and she said she didn’t have time to obsess over what she was wearing.“I was concerned about, ‘Can I hug somebody in it? Will it get dirty?'” she said Wednesday night during a moderated conversation about her style choices dating back to growing up on the South Side of Chicago to when she found herself in the national spotlight as the first Black woman to serve in the role. “I was the kind of First Lady that there was no telling what I would do.”Obama would become one of the most-watched women in the world, for what she said and did, but also for what she wore. She chronicled her fashion, hair and makeup journey in her newest book, “The Look,” written with her longtime stylist Meredith Koop and published earlier this month.As First Lady, she was well-known for her athleticism and caught a football from an NFL player, played soccer with David Beckham, broke a Guinness World Record for jumping jacks and did pushups with Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.She wanted her clothes to be welcoming as well as versatile.“The thing about clothes that I find is that they can welcome people in or they can keep people away, and if you’re so put together and so precious and things are so crisp and the pin is so big, you know, it can just tell people, ‘Don’t touch me,'” she said.She said she wouldn’t wear white to events with rope lines in case someone wanted a hug.“I’m not going to push somebody away when they need something from me, and I’m not going to let the clothes get in the way of that,” Obama said.Here’s what she said about a few of her notable fashion choices:
Her gown for Obama’s first inauguration
The white, one-shoulder chiffon gown was designed by Jason Wu, then an unknown 26-year-old who was born in Taiwan. But when she stepped out at the inaugural ball wearing the gown, the moment changed Wu’s life. And that was by design, she said.“We were beginning to realize everything we did sent a message,” Obama said, speaking of herself and her husband, former President Barack Obama. “So that’s what we were trying to do with the choices we made, to change lives.”She would continue to help launch the careers of other up-and-coming designers by wearing their creations.
Chain mail state dinner gown
Obama wore the rose gold gown by Versace for the Obama administration’s final state dinner, for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in October 2016.“So that was a kind of a, ‘I don’t care’ dress,” she said of the shimmery, one-armed gown.“I put that on. I was like, ‘This is sexy.’ It’s the last one,” she said, meaning their final state dinner. “All of my choices, ultimately, are what is beautiful and what looks beautiful on.”
Pantsuit worn to Joe Biden’s inauguration
“I was really in practical mode,” Obama said, explaining why she chose the maroon ensemble by Sergio Hudson with a flowing, floor-length coat that she wore unbuttoned, exposing the belt around her waist with a big, round gold-toned buckle. Her boots had a low heel.“The sitting president was trying to convince us that Jan. 6 was just a peaceful protest,” she said.The inauguration ceremony at the Capitol was held two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot there by supporters of President Donald Trump who had sought to overturn Biden’s victory.She said she had been thinking about the possibility of having to run if something else had happened that day.“I wanted to be able to move. I wanted to be ready,” she said. But she and her team “had no idea” the outfit “was going to break the internet,” she said.
White House East Wing
Obama also spoke about the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for first ladies that Trump last month tore down to make room for a ballroom he’s long desired.Obama described the East Wing as a joyful place that she remembers as full of apples, children, puppies and laughter, in contrast to the West Wing, which dealt with “horrible things.” It was where she worked on various initiatives that ranged from combating childhood obesity to rallying the country around military families to encouraging developing countries to let girls go to school.She said she and her husband never thought of the White House as “our house.” They saw themselves more as caretakers, and there was work to do in the mansion.“But every president has the right to do what they want in that house, so that’s why we’ve got to be clear on who we let in,” Obama said.
Darlene Superville, Associated Press
Flight reductions at 40 major U.S. airports will remain at 6% instead of rising to 10% by the end of the week because more air traffic controllers are coming to work, officials said Wednesday.The announcement was made as Congress took steps to end the longest government shutdown in history. Not long after, President Donald Trump signed a government funding bill to end the closure.The flight cuts were implemented last week as more air traffic controllers were calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs leaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed. Air traffic controllers missed two paychecks during the impasse.The Department of Transportation said the flight reduction decision was made on recommendations from the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety team, after a “rapid decline” in controller callouts.The 6% limit will stay in place while officials assess whether the air traffic system can safely return to normal operations, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, although he did not provide a timeline Wednesday.“If the FAA safety team determines the trend lines are moving in the right direction, we’ll put forward a path to resume normal operations,” Duffy said in a statement.Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Wednesday that safety remains their top priority and that all decisions will be guided by data.Delta struck an optimistic note about how much longer flight reductions would continue, saying in a statement the airline looked forward to bringing its “operation back to full capacity over the next few days.”Since the restrictions took effect last Friday, more than 10,100 flights have been canceled, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. The FAA originally planned to ramp up flight cuts from 4% to 10% at the 40 airports.The FAA said that worrisome safety data showed flight reductions were needed to ease pressure on the aviation system and help manage worsening staffing shortages at its air traffic control facilities as flight disruptions began to pile up.Duffy has declined to share the specific safety data that prompted the flight cuts. But at a news conference Tuesday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, he cited reports of planes getting too close in the air, more runway incursions and pilot concerns about controllers’ responses.The FAA’s list of 40 airports spans more than two dozen states and includes large hubs such as New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago. The order requires all commercial airlines to make cuts at those airports.Airlines for America, the trade group of U.S. airlines, posted on social media that it was grateful for the funding bill. It said reopening the government would allow U.S. airlines to restore operations ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday which is in about two weeks.How long it will take for the aviation system to stabilize is unclear. The flight restrictions upended airline operations in just a matter of days. Many planes were rerouted and aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Airlines for America said earlier Wednesday that there would be residual effects for days.Eric Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve professor who studies risk management, says airlines face complex hurdles, including rebuilding flight schedules that were planned months in advance.Airline and hotel trade groups had earlier Wednesday urged the House to act quickly to end the shutdown, warning of potential holiday travel chaos.Flight cuts disrupted other flights and crews, leading to more cancelations than the FAA required at first. The impact was worsened by unexpected controller shortages over the weekend and severe weather.The CEO of the U.S. Travel Association said essential federal workers like air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers must be paid if “Congress ever goes down this foolish path again” and there is a shutdown.“America cannot afford another self-inflicted crisis that threatens the systems millions rely on every day,” Geoff Freeman said in a statement.
Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report.
Rio Yamat, AP Airlines and Travel Writer
Forty-three days later, the U.S. government shutdown has come to an end. While it wreaked havoc on government services, flights, and paychecks for federal workers, stock market appears to have come through it unscathed.
In fact, by some measures, it improved.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 46,441.10 on the first day of the shutdown. Since October 1, it has grown over 4%, reaching over 48,000 for the first time on Wednesday, November 12.
While the record number came as the shutdowns end became a sure thing, the Dow had continued to rise throughout the period.
The S&P 500 also followed a mostly upward trajectory throughout the shutdown. It opened at 6,664.92 on October 1 and closed at 6,850.92 on Wednesday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also grew about 4% during the shutdown period, even despite concerns of an AI bubble that had dinged shares of major tech companies like Nvidia and Palantir earlier this month.
How do government shutdowns typically impact stock markets?
Historically, shutdowns have not had a significant effect on the markets.
Government shutdowns tend to be high profile though low-impact market events, Truist, a financial company, reported ahead ahead of the most recent shutdown. In the previous 20 shutdowns, there has been almost no change, on average, for the S&P 500, while it has been in positive territory 50% of the time during the shutdown period.
As the shutdown began, Bloomberg shared data demonstrating the S&P 500s seemingly unrelated growth and decline during shutdowns. It further reported on the impact of what some experts see as a 16-year-long bull run in U.S. markets.
Both Bloomberg and, more recently, MarketWatch point to historically elevated stocks that have created what many see as inflated valuations for quite a few companies, including many in the tech industry.
As electric bills keep soaring, Trump has tried to blame clean energy for the higher prices. But new research suggests the public isnt buying itand that clean energy could soon own the affordability argument.
A new briefing from the nonprofit Potential Energy Coalition looks at how to talk about clean energy in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, when some advocates have suggested talking less about climate change as a reason to move away from fossil fuels.
Renewable energy is, however, the cheapest form of powerand many people recognize this. In a survey of more than 15,000 Americans, the nonprofit found that 38% already recognize that clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. Another 15% think that they cost the same, while 20% say that they dont know. Fewer than a third think that fossil-fueled power has a cost advantage. (When asked an open-ended question about whats causing the surge in energy bills, only 2% mentioned clean energy; the majority blamed corporate greed and politics, followed by weather and inflation.)
Cost-of-living concerns are viewed by many elites as an obstacle to talking about clean energyas a reason to run away or change the topic,” says Will Howard, head of insights and advisory services at Potential Energy Coalition. “But the reality is, shying away from the topic is the last thing we should do. Plenty of people already see the cost benefits of clean energyand with the right message, many more do, too.
The group tested various messages, including one that talked about rising demand for energy and the fact that clean sources are the most affordable way to get it. After seeing that message, the belief that clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels jumped up by 27 points.
Our messaging in the test was able to significantly increase the perception, which I think speaks to the fact that while there may historically be a green premium that people perceive, a really large amount of this is pretty movable, says Howard. People don’t come to this with a really firm understanding or a high level of confidence of their own understanding of the issue, and it’s fairly malleable. If you show them the right message, they can actually shift the way they’re thinking about these energy sources and the costs associated with them.
The nonprofit also tested messages about climate. Since Trumps election, both business and politicians have moved away from talking about climate change. Some climate startups quickly pivoted to rebrand their products as focused on national security. A recent Searchlight Institute report suggested that the first rule in solving climate change is “don’t say climate change.”
But Potential Energy Coalition’s research suggests that climate messages were equally effective, and respondents in their surveys were still as concerned about climate as they had been in the past. “If you’re looking at how much did you persuade people to take action on climate, or how much did you persuade people to transition to clean energythose two metrics specificallya message about the urgent consequences of climate change is just as effective or more effective than talking about affordability,” says Howard.
The research suggests climate advocates should weave in key attributes that resonated in the tests, including the fact that clean energy is local, unlimited, and proven. One mistake, Howard says, is that some messages talk about clean energy as new or innovativesolar and wind power have been around for decades.
“There’s a price tag that comes with being new, and it’s [also] the opposite of proven,” he says. “What we saw in the testing is that being provenwe’ve been trying to do solar for 50 years or moreand the fact that prices have come down so much over the last 25 years on these clean energy sources, is actually much more reassuring and drives affordability perception much more.”
Another challenge is that people sometimes balk at the idea of building new infrastructure because of the upfront costs. But because of the surge in demand for new power, the choice isn’t between building renewables or just leaving fossil plants in placeit’s building renewables or adding more fossil fuels that have volatile, increasing costs. “The first step is getting them out of that binary and leveling the playing field of like, okay, hold on, we have to build something. So what should we build?” he says.
The nonprofit, founded by a former corporate marketing executive who wanted to help tackle the problem of climate change, sees clean energy as a brandnot in the traditional sense of a company’s brand, in the sense that the phrase “clean energy” evokes a certain feeling and a shared public understanding. That brand is strong, Howard says.
“The clean energy brand is better than we think, and it’s easy to strengthen it further if we’re disciplined about emphasizing the right attributes,” he says. “Specifically, not being afraid to position clean energy as the cheaper, better choice because it’s local, an unlimited resource, and a proven technology.”
