The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Building a resilient technology company is hard. Building one that can withstand constant policy change is another level of hard. Right now, companies across sectorsnot just fintechare staring down government and regulatory shifts happening faster than most orgs can process, let alone implement.
For industries like financial technology, where regulatory changes directly impact how products work, how they’re priced, and how they’re sold, the stakes are existential. Adapting in real time isn’t just an edgeit’s the bare minimum to stay in the game.
Thats why companies need to think beyond using AI as a tool. They need to rethink the entire way they build software, make decisions, and operationalize compliance. At april, we didnt bolt AI onto our dev team; we restructured how we work to make regulatory agility the foundation. Our approach uses AI to take human-written analysis and turn it directly into code. It means faster updates, fewer silos, and a dev cycle that actually moves at the speed of policy.
When every state writes its own rules, you build for change
The U.S. tax system isnt a single rulebookits a fragmented, constantly shifting web of federal and state-level regulations. Each year, we see hundreds of changes across jurisdictions: new credits, sunset clauses, redefinitions of income, filing thresholds, and form logic. And none of them arrive on a predictable timeline. A change that passes in October still needs to be implemented and tested before filing season begins in January.
We knew we couldnt keep up with that kind of churn using the legacy software development model most incumbents rely onlong handoffs between policy, legal, and engineering teams, often stitched together manually. So we built something different.
At april, our Tax-to-Code system lets policy experts write structured analysis, and generative AI turns that into functioning software, reviewed and refined by engineers before it ships. The AI doesnt replace experts; it extends them. It kills the back-and-forth and accelerates our response time from weeks to days.
This is what regulatory agility looks like: Tax code changes go from policy to product without bottlenecks.
Automation isnt the goalstrategic bandwidth is
Theres a lot of noise about AI automating work. But in regulated environments, the real value isnt just speedits the space it frees up for experts to focus on strategy.
AI helps us eliminate the repetitive, time-sucking tasks that bog down compliance work. That doesnt just cut costs; it gives our team the bandwidth to think several steps ahead. Whats the next policy change likely to be? What would it take to adapt? What needs to be built now to stay ahead?
Thats what most companies are missing. Theyre spending all their energy reacting. AI infrastructure, done right, gives you the room to anticipate.
AI cant function without the right architecture
This only works if your infrastructure is designed to support it. We didnt start with generative AIwe started with the assumption that regulatory change is constant and unpredictable. From there, we built a system where:
Domain experts define the logic.
AI transforms it into code.
Engineers validate and ship.
The result? A feedback loop where tax and policy changes get implemented at pace, not after a six-month dev sprint.
More importantly, its adaptable. This model isnt just for tax. Any company in a volatile regulatory spacehealth insurance, auto, logistics, energyneeds a system that can cascade policy changes through their tech stack fast, accurately, and with oversight.
Lessons for leaders in regulated industries
If youre leading a company where compliance is high stakes, heres what to prioritize:
Structure your tech org for change, not stability. You cant assume next quarters rules will match this ones.
Build collaboration between experts and AI. Dont let legal, ops, and engineering operate in silos. AI works best when it sits between human knowledge and execution.
Focus on speed and oversight. AI without accountability is dangerous. Human-only systems are too slow. You need both.
This is the new baseline
In todays environment, adaptability is non-negotiable. Leaders cant rely on manual processes or slow engineering cycles to keep up with real-time policy shifts. And AI isnt some magic solution on its own; it needs the right infrastructure, the right workflows, and the right people in the loop.
At april, weve built our company around that reality. Thats how we move fast without breaking thingsand how others in high-regulation industries can, too.
Ben Borodach is the cofounder and CEO of april.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
At the Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA), we enable high level women to mentor each other for personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organizations founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from some of the thought leaders who are part of EWA.This month I introduce to you Emily Moorhead, president of the Henry Ford Jackson Hospital.
Q: Tell me how you are embracing change in the healthcare industry.
Moorhead: We live in an age of remarkable medical innovation. Technology has advanced healthcare in ways we could have only imagined a decade ago. Artificial intelligence can help identify diseases in their earliest stages. Robotic-assisted surgery offers unprecedented precision. Patients can consult with a physician from the comfort of their living rooms.
Yet, human connection is still the most powerful medicine we offer.
At Henry Ford Jackson Hospital, we recognize that healing doesnt begin with a test result or a treatment planit begins with a conversation and a sense that someone truly cares. When people feel seen, heard, and valued, outcomes improve. Trust deepens. Teams thrive. And the experience of giving and receiving care becomes more meaningful.
This belief isnt just rooted in philosophy, its revealed in practice. In every role across our hospital, we ask: How do we make space for connection? How do we create environments where peoplepatients, families, caregivers, and team membersfeel supported and respected?
Human connection is not a soft skill, but a strategic imperative. We are working to hardwire it into every corner of our organization.
Q: Why do you believe human connection still matters in a high-tech healthcare environment?
Moorhead: Healthcare is fundamentally human. While we celebrate the role of data and devices in diagnosing and treating illness, what patients remember most is how we made them feel. Did we listen? Did we look them in the eye? Did we take time to explain whats next?
Connection builds trust, and trust drives everythingfrom medication adherence to satisfaction scores to team morale. When we prioritize relationships, we dont just provide better care, we create a better experience.
Q: Are there tangible outcomes linked to stronger provider-patient relationships?
Moorhead: Absolutely. Numerous studies have shown that patients who feel connected to their care team are more likely to follow treatment plans, report higher satisfaction, and have better overall outcomes. Thats not a coincidence. Its the result of feeling respected, informed, and involved in decisions about their own health.
Its not just about patients. Providers and team members who feel connected to their colleagues and their purpose experience lower rates of burnout and higher engagement. Its easy to focus solely on clinical excellence, but we cant overlook emotional well-being. When our people feel supported, theyre more present, compassionate, and effective in their roles.
Healthcare is complex, high-stakes work. Connection can be the stabilizing force that keeps us aligned, grounded, and resilient.
Q: How do you balance the demand for efficiency with the need for connection?
Moorhead: Thats the tension so many leaders face. Healthcare is under pressure to do more with less, and every minute matters. But what weve found is that connection and efficiency arent in conflict; they reinforce each other.
When patients feel understood, they ask fewer repeated questions. When teams communicate clearly and respectfully, workflows improve. Investing a few extra moments in meaningful interaction can prevent backtracking or miscommunication later.
Its about being intentional in how we show up. Presence doesnt require an extra hour in your dayit requires a mindset. Even brief encounters can be deeply meaningful when approached with empathy and authenticity.
Q: What role does leadership play in modeling this culture of connection?
Moorhead: As a president, I make it a point to be visiblewalk the halls, join huddles, and engage in real conversations, because culture is contagious. If I want my team to prioritize people, I must demonstrate that myself.
Every leader sets the tone, intentionally or not. When leaders make time to listen, offer encouragement, and show appreciation, it sends a powerful message about what we value.
We equip our leaders with tools to celebrate effort and support physical and psychological safety. Creating a culture of connection starts at the top, but it grows when everyone sees its realwhen it becomes part of daily habits, not just organizational statements.
Q: How can organizations outside of healthcare apply these lessons?
Moorhead: Whether youre leading a hospital or a tech startup, people want to feel seen. They want to know their work matters. They want to trust the people around them. Organizations that foster those connections outperform those that dont.
Every company should be asking: Are we designing our systems only around efficiency or around people?
Human connection isnt a healthcare issueits a leadership issue. It affects everything from retention to innovation to long-term sustainability.
Q: What gives you hope about the future of healthcare?
Moorhead: Despite the challengesworkforce shortages, financial pressures, the emotional tollI see daily reminders of what makes healthcare extraordinary. Were surrounded by people who choose to show up every day not just to do a job, but to make a difference.
Those moments may not make headlines, but theyre the heartbeat of healthcare. No matter how much technology evolves, the most powerful breakthroughs will always begin with human connection.
Connection isnt an add onits the foundation.
Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO ofThe Exceptional Women Alliance.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
While talent intelligence platforms (TIPs) serve an important purpose in identifying skills, they are inherently limited and never designed to address the fundamental question: How is work itself structured and how is it changing?
AI has dramatically magnified and accelerated those pre-existing limitations. Its not just creating new skill gapsits redefining work at its core. Yet most organizations are still trying to track skills like its 2020.
In the next few decades, AI is projected to transform up to 70% of all job tasks across industriesnot just by replacing work, but by fundamentally reshaping how work gets done, who does it, and what value it creates.
Past technological shifts unfolded over decades; todays agentic AI is reshaping entire industries in a matter of months.
Work intelligence is the next evolution: a strategic, systems-level approach that moves beyond skills to decode how work itself is being restructuredtask by task, role by role, organization by organization.
Why TIPs were never the full solution
Many companies have invested in TIPssystems that identify emerging skills by analyzing job postings and creating “living taxonomies” to inform talent practices. While valuable as a first-generation approach, TIPs suffer from a fundamental limitation: They’re inherently reactive.
By analyzing existing job postings and making projections, TIPs create a perpetual time lag. By the time organizations identify, develop, and deploy these skills, the landscape has already shifted. With AI changing jobs faster than companies can update talent strategies, organizations need to look beyond current skills to understand how work itself is being reimagined.
Skills are changing because work is changing
The rapid evolution of skills isnt the root challengeits a symptom of a deeper issue. AI has simply brought this issue to the forefront: Work itself is changing.
Skills development remains importantbut it must be anchored in a deeper understanding of how work is transforming. Organizations investing in skills programs haven’t wasted their efforts, but they need to evolve their approach to connect it with work redesign. Otherwise, even robust skills initiatives wont deliver lasting value in an AI-transformed landscape.
Failing to grasp how work is transforming leads to:
Blind workforce decisions
Hiring for roles that wont exist
Reskilling for skills that wont matter next year
Ignoring AIs fundamental impact on work design
Work intelligence is a smarter way to navigate AI disruption
Work intelligence begins with a comprehensive understanding of the work itselfthe outcomes, tasks, processes, and roles that drive business value.
Advanced work intelligence systems can analyze work across industries and create a universal language of work that integrates with existing organizational structures. This deep understanding enables business leaders to:
Eliminate redundancies across roles: Consolidating overlapping responsibilities into fewer roles can reduce coordination costs while creating more meaningful work.
Identify AI automation opportunities: Work intelligence can pinpoint exactly which tasks are prime for automation, which tools can accomplish this, and how to reallocate remaining human tasks.
Optimize end-to-end process flows: By analyzing entire workflows, leaders can redesign processes to leverage AI and human capabilities. In customer service, automating initial contact while routing complex inquiries to specialists might reduce process steps by 30%.
Focus talent development strategically: Work intelligence anticipates the roles and skills emerging from these transformations before implementation. This enables proactive talent development that runs parallel to work redesign efforts. Organizations can build learning paths aligned with their future work design, ensuring investment in capabilities that drive business value while preparing employees for meaningful roles in advance of changes.
The future of work design
This approach creates a fundamentally different talent ecosystem where roles, skills, and capabilities evolve naturally from optimized work processes. While competitors struggle with isolated AI initiatives or broad automation targets, leaders with work intelligence can make precise, strategic decisions about where to invest in technology and human capabilities.
Redesign work for the AI era
What organizations face isn’t merely a skills problemit’s a fundamental workforce capability challenge accelerated by AI transformation.
The most successful organizationsthose reengineering work with the future in mindwill be able to answer these critical questions:
Which work should be done by humans versus AI?
How should we reorganize roles and processes around these new capabilities?
What truly human capabilities should we develop in our workforce?
How can we create systems that continuously evolve as technology advances?
Transform your organization with work intelligence
Don’t wait for AI to disrupt your workforce. The competitive advantage gap is already widening between organizations that proactively redesign work and those that merely react to change.
Heres how to start your work intelligence journey:
Assessment: Begin with a rapid, data-driven assessment of your current work design using work intelligence tools that quickly identify high-value transformation opportunities.
Pilot project: Select a high-impact process to redesign using work intelligence principles.
Strategic roadmap: Develop a phased approach to implementing work intelligence across your organization, aligned with your broader business strategy.
Capability building: Equip your leaders with the tools and mindsets to lead transformation through a work intelligence lens.
The market leaders of tomorrow aren’t just adapting to AI disruptionthey’re actively harnessing it to reshape work, drive value, and create meaningful roles that maximize human potential.
Siobhan Savage is cofounder and CEO of Reejig. Amy Wilson is product strategy advisor at Reejig.
Chapter, a Medicare advisory startup cofounded by Vivek Ramaswamy, announced on Wednesday it has closed on $75 million in Series D funding, at a valuation of $1.5 billion, backed by venture firm Stripes, and a number of private equity investors.
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, was an early adviser to President Donald Trump’s second term and is a former Republican presidential candidate.
Chapter told Fast Company that while Ramaswamy helped found the company in 2020, “he stepped down from the board when he ran for office and is no longer involved in the company.”
What does Chapter do?
The platform helps the nation’s seniors navigate the Medicare system and choose a health plan, prescription drug coverage, find doctors and hospitalsall of which can be challenging for elderly Americans.
Navigating Medicare is needlessly complex. Too many people end up with plans that cost more and cover less than they should, Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz, Chapter’s cofounder and CEO, said in statement. At a time when the regulatory environment and Medicare ecosystem is rapidly changing, we remain committed to bringing transparency and trust to a system that desperately needs it.
Blumenfeld-Gantz told Fast Company that its “mission is to provide unbiased, consumer-first Medicare guidance to all Americans” as Medicare insurance carriers continue to change their benefits structure, and as regulations have continued to be updated over the past five years.
The startup has at least historical links to the Trump administration, including to current Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who helped fuel Vance’s rise in politics. Narya Capital, which Vance founded before leaving to run for office, led Chapter’s Series A funding; Thiel has invested in the company, and at one time, held a seat on the board, according to TechCrunch.
Blumenfeld-Gantz said Vance has no involvement in Chapter.
It’s worth noting Ramaswamy was previously involved with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), along with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which critics say could affect Medicare’s ability to perform business as usual.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which houses Medicare, is facing a massive overhaul, including staff layoffs, as DOGE slashes budgets and staff across federal agencies. At HHS alone, some 10,000 employees have been laid off, and combined with early retirements, the administration has slashed some 20,000 jobs, per CNN.
Meanwhile, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will reportedly cut at least 300 jobs from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which, among other programs, oversees Medicare and Medicaid for some 160 million Americans, as the administration tries to downplay the reduction and its effect on the Medicare, according to CNBC.
New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Discord on Thursday, alleging that the social platform recklessly exposed children to “harassment, abuse, and sexual exploitation by predators who lurk on the platform.”
The move makes it the first state to sue Discord. Founded in 2015, Discord is a platform where its millions of users can communicate in chatrooms and direct messages. It shot up in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many users were stuck at home and wanted to connect. Children, in particular, make up a “significant portion” of its 200 million global monthly active user base, per the suit.
The New Jersey complaint alleges that Discord knew its safety features and policies wouldn’t actually protect its young user base and didn’t make changes.
Discord markets itself as a safe space for children, despite being fully aware that the applications misleading safety settings and lax oversight has made it a prime hunting ground for online predators seeking easy access to children, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a release announcing the lawsuit. These deceptive claims regarding its safety settings have allowed Discord to attract a growing number of children to use its application, where they are at risk. We intend to put a stop to this unlawful conduct and hold Discord accountable for the harm it has caused our children.
Discord, for example, doesn’t allow users under the age of 13. However, the platform only requires users to enter their date of birth when creating an account and uses no other systems to verify age. The suit also alleged the platform made it simple for malicious actors to send children explicit content due to its default safety settings.
“As a result of Discords decisions, thousands of users were misled into signing up, believing they or their children would be safe, when they were really anything but,” Platkin said in the statement.
The complaint cited a number of instances where adults in New Jersey were accused of using the platform to contact children and attempted to engage in conversation, solicit nude pictures and videos, and engage in sexual performance while video chatting.
Discord, for its part, is reportedly denying the attorney general’s claims. In a statement shared with Fast Company, it said: “Discord is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer. Given our engagement with the Attorney Generals office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today. We dispute the claims in the lawsuit and look forward to defending the action in court.
New Jersey has taken part in past lawsuits targeting social media platforms for alleged unlawful contact relating to children. It sued TikTok based on “features that keep children and teens online for ever-increasing amounts of time despite the harms that result” and Meta for similar alleged conduct.
In the three months since Target overhauled its policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the retailer has faced an onslaught of public criticism and a boycott that has carried on for weeks. There has been a clear impact on its business: Foot traffic has reportedly dropped for the last 10 weeks, and Target disclosed that sales had dipped in February. The company’s stock price is the lowest it has been in four years.
Now CEO Brian Cornell is meeting with Al Sharpton (at Target’s request) to discuss the company’s DEI stance and commitment to the Black community, according to a CNBC report. As the head of civil rights organization National Action Network, Sharpton has started taking companies to task for pulling back on DEI efforts: Just this week, he met with PepsiCo after threatening to mount a boycott against the company. Sharpton has said he would consider pushing for a boycott of Target as well, depending on the outcome of his discussion with Cornell.
You cant have an election come and all of a sudden, change your old positions, Sharpton said in an interview with CNBC. If an election determines your commitment to fairness then fine, you have a right to withdraw from us, but then we have a right to withdraw from you.
Target was not immediately available for comment.
Sharpton’s attempts to hold companies like Target accountable for their change of heart on DEI is also a counterweight to the social media campaign waged by conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who has pressured a number of companies to drop DEI policies over the last year.
The changes to Target’s DEI policieswhich the company announced in late Januarywound down its diversity goals and also ended its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, a popular benchmarking survey that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees. Plenty of other companies have taken a similar position in recent months, especially as the Trump administration has ramped up its attack on corporate diversity programs, increasing the risk of litigation for major employers.
But the vocal response to Target’s reversal on DEI is not exactly unexpected, given the company had made a concerted effort to engage Black entrepreneurs and consumers, particularly in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Target also took aim at programs that helped attract more Black and minority suppliers, which had benefited many underrepresented business owners over the years.
It’s not clear whether Sharpton will proceed to call for a boycott after speaking with Cornell. (Some Black entrepreneurs have also been split on the issue, arguing it could hurt their business.) But Sharpton has claimed he is looking for some kind of pledge that indicates Target will continue supporting the Black community. You made commitments based on the George Floyd movement what changed? Sharpton told CNBC. Are you trying to say everythings fine now, because the election changed? Thats insulting to us.
When it comes to sharing Instagram Reels with friends, the process of three taps to get a Reel from A to B can feel surprisingly tedious. Now, Instagram has addressed that issue with its latest feature: Instagram Blend.
Announced on Thursday, Blend lets users create invite-only, personalized Reels feeds with friends. By tapping a new two-emoji-hugging icon (the Blend icon) within a chat, you can start or accept a Blend. Once active, Instagram will begin recommending Reels for both users in a shared feed, powered by an algorithm. The feature works in one-on-one DMs as well as group chats. These recommendations, refreshed daily, are said to be unique to each Blend and based on prior activity on the platform.
“We want Instagram to be a place where people connect over creativity, and this is one more way to do that. Its a really fun way to not only share your interests, but to learn a little bit about your friends interests and then you can actually start conversations about that content that you discover,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a Reel.
View this post on Instagram A postshared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)
Instagrams newest feature offers something social media users currently cant find elsewhere (Im looking at you, TikTok). It arrives at a time when several platforms are positioning themselves to capitalize on TikToks uncertain future. Blend is most comparable to Spotifys Blend playlistsshared playlists that merge the music tastes of two or more users. But instead of listening to music while hanging out, youre scrolling Reels together.
For Instagram, Blend could boost watch time by encouraging shared short-form content consumption and allowing users to get to know each others algorithmic preferences. It might also increase Reel discovery, as the feed surfaces a mix of yours and your friendsor, if youre feeling bold, your loversrecommendations. You just have to hope they havent recently fallen into any particularly weird corners of the internet.
Shares of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) plunged by more than 22% Thursday morning after the company reported underwhelming first-quarter earnings and revised its full-year outlook.
The health insurance giant lowered its 2025 earnings forecast, now projecting net earnings of $24.65 to $25.15 per share and adjusted earnings of $26.00 to $26.50 per share. This marks a downgrade from its January guidance, which anticipated net earnings between $28.15 and $28.65 per share and adjusted earnings in the range of $29.50 to $30.00 per share.
UnitedHealth Group grew to serve more people more comprehensively but did not perform up to our expectations, and we are aggressively addressing those challenges to position us well for the years ahead, and return to our long-term earnings growth rate target of 13 to 16%, CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement.
The outlook was a result of two factors, the company revealed.
First, UnitedHealthcares Medicare Advantage plans saw more people using medical services than expectedespecially visits to doctors and outpatient care. This increase was clear at the end of the quarter and was much higher than the company planned for 2025, although it was similar to high usage levels it saw in 2024.
On top of that, Optum Health, a division of UnitedHealth Group, had some unexpected changes in its patients. Some health plans left certain areas, and the people covered by those plans didnt use services much in 2024, which affected the planning for how much money would come in for 2025. Also, more patients than expected were “complex” cases, people with serious or multiple health issues, and were heavily affected by past cuts to Medicare funding.
The number of people served by the companys offerings for seniors and people with complex needs grew by 545,000 in the first quarter and remains expected to grow up to 800,000 in 2025, according to the report.
The company said these factors are highly addressable over the course of 2025 and it looks ahead to 2026.
Other insurance stocks are tumbling, too
The health insurance sector saw significant stock sell-offs following what appeared to be surprising financial troubles at industry leader UnitedHealth, according to the Wall Street Journal. Humana, for instance, saw an 8% decline. Elevance Health and CVS Health saw their stock prices fall about 6% each early Thursday morning.
UnitedHealth Group reported revenues of $109.6 billion, marking a $9.8 billion increase year-over-year, with first-quarter earnings from operations totaling $9.1 billion.
Google has acted illegally to maintain a dominant position in online advertising, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. The tech giants exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Googles publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web, Judge Leonie Brinkema wrote in her 115-page ruling, which followed another federal judges ruling last year that Google had monopolized the search market.
Google was found liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act for actions in the ad exchange and tool sectors, but not that it operated a monopoly on ad networks. Google told Fast Company it disagreed with the courts decision, and would appeal it. We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half, said Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president, regulatory affairs, in a statement.
The latest decision is a big hit to the company, and acts as a prelude to further crackdowns in other jurisdictions, which some suggest could impact its operations. This is a very big deal, says Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The chokehold that Google has over the flow of information and ideas online, and its power to pocket the ad dollars, has been killing off local news outlets and undermining a key foundation of democracy.
Jason Kint, CEO of the trade association Digital Content Next, says the ruling underscores the global harm caused by Googles practices, which have deprived premium publishers worldwide of critical revenue, undermining their ability to sustain high-quality journalism and entertainment. Kint believes the decision is a significant step toward restoring competition and accountability in the digital advertising ecosystem.
Yet for all the headlines the decision will generate, theres still uncertainty about how much itll change Googles practicesand the wider web. While theres a recognition that the decisions will likely change how Google works, what impact that will have is uncertain. Frankly, the ad exchange market is so complicated that it’s hard to know what the impact of any changes to Google’s operations in that area might mean for internet users, says Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University.
Chander believes any changes compelled by this decision may not immediately be obvious to rank-and-file users. If Google is forced to spin out its ad exchange market or forced to open it up to more competitors, it’s not clear that the results will be visible to users, he says. The ruling could also present a Catch-22: While it may open up the ad market and benefit online publishers, it could also lead to increased data collection of users (since a raft of third parties would compete to gather more data on users to supplant Googles current single supply).
Still, the decision, whatever it means for end users, is another drumbeat in a wider shift in power between big tech giants and the governments trying to regulate them. And while attention is on the U.S. right now, its decisionmaking elsewhere that could have the more longer-lasting impact on the web. The U.S. courts decision will likely energize European regulators, who are conducting their own investigation into Googles ad tech practices. A decision there is expected imminentlyand could carry more weight.
After years of imposing fines that Google has shrugged off as a mere cost of doing business, the European Commission has the chance to break free from this cycle of whack-a-mole enforcement, says Stephen Kinsella, an independent legal expert with 30 years of experience in antitrust regulation.
European regulators may be prepared to go further than their American counterparts, potentially reshaping the digital ecosystem by compelling the breakup of Googles intertwined businesses. By taking decisive action and mandating a structural break-up, the EU can go beyond slapping big tech companies on the wrist, says Kinsella. It can restore a thriving, competitive and fair digital economy that works for its citizens, not entrenched monopolies. This is a moment that Europe cannot afford to let pass.
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Once again, Zillow has downgraded its 12-month forecast for national home prices. On Wednesday, Zillow economists published their updated forecast model, projecting that U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, will fall 1.7% between March 2025 and March 2026.
Back in March, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook for U.S. home prices to +0.8%. In February, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook to +1.1%. And at the start of the year in January, Zillows 12-month national home price forecast was +2.9%.
Why does Zillow keep downgrading its national home price outlook?
The rise in [active] listings is fueling softer price growth, as greater supply provides more options and more bargaining power for buyers, Zillow economists wrote in March. Potential buyers are opting to remain renters for longer as affordability challenges suppress demand for home purchases.
Essentially, Zillow thinks strained housing affordabilitycaused by U.S. home prices rising over 40% during the pandemic housing boom and mortgage rates spiking from 3% to 6% in 2022is weighing on price growth.
According to Zillows home price model, the listing site also believes that weakening and softening housing markets across the Sun Belt will weigh on nationally aggregated home prices this year.
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Among the 300 largest U.S. metro area housing markets, Zillow expects the strongest home price appreciation between March 2025 and March 2026 to occur in these 10 areas:
Atlantic City, NJ: 2.4%
Kingston, NY: 1.9%
Rochester, NY: 1.8%
Knoxville, TN: 1.7%
Torrington, CT : 1.6%
Bangor, ME: 1.5%
Syracuse, NY: 1.4%
Vineland, NJ: 1.4%
Concord, NH: 1.3%
Norwich, CT: 1.2%
In that same time frame, Zillow expects the weakest home price appreciation to occur in these 10 areas:
Houma, LA: -10.1%
Lake Charles, LA: -8.9%
New Orleans, LA: -7.6%
Lafayette, LA: -7.5%
Shreveport, LA: -7.0%
Alexandria, LA -7.0%
Beaumont, TX : -6.6%
Odessa, TX: -6.3%
Midland, TX: -5.7%
Monroe, LA: -5.5
Below is what the current year-over-year rate of home price growth looks like for single-family and condo home prices. Florida is currently the epicenter of housing market weakness right now.
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