Across industries, caution is rising. CEOs are slowing down major strategiesfrom hiring to investmentas uncertainty grows. The Business Roundtables CEO Outlook Index recently dropped to its lowest level since 2020, reflecting widespread hesitation amid global volatility.
Its understandable. When the path ahead is unclear, the instinct is to pause. To wait.
Companies, institutions, governments, and philanthropists alike are reassessing their strategies as volatility becomes the new norm. Most leaders are focused on the challenges closest to homein their industries, portfolios, and internal priorities. But the reality is: We dont live or work in silos. We live in a global market. And across every corner of that market, the signals are clear: growing caution, slower decision making, and heightened risk awareness.
At UNICEF USA, where I lead private sector fundraising, we are squarely in the middle of that tension. Were seeing these trends play out in real timein boardrooms, in proposal reviews, in budget meetings. As we work to meet escalating needs for children around the world, there is a slowdown. But this is also a moment that demands urgency and trust. It also demands innovation. And like many of our partners, were rethinking what it takes to deliver meaningful, sustained impact in a rapidly shifting landscape.
Hesitation is understandablebut costly
We hear it from donors and partners all the time: Were recalibrating. The global environment is unpredictable. Economic headwinds and geopolitical unrest have created a pause in decision making across industriesand philanthropy is no exception. Even committed supporters are questioning whether now is the time to lean in or wait for more clarity.
But heres the problem: While strategy resets may make sense at the institutional level, the needs on the ground arent pausing. For a child living through conflict in Sudan, a mother navigating floods in Bangladesh, or a newborn in Guatemala in need of basic care, delays have consequences. The cost of hesitation is measured in lives, in futures, in lost momentum.
At UNICEF, we cant stop in the face of uncertainty, and we dont. We double down. Its how we work. Because every delay risks compounding the damage.
We need to be clear-eyed about what happens if global investment slows. Weakening humanitarian and development funding doesnt just affect the children we serveit reverberates across markets and industries. Rising conflict, destabilized supply chains, currency volatility, and workforce readiness arent distant risks. Theyre business realities.
There is a moral imperative to act. But there is also a business imperative. If we want a more stable, equitable futurefor everyonewe must invest in the systems that create it.
Slowing our response now wont bring stability. It will deepen inequality and delay recovery.
Collaborate to meet the moment
One thing is clear: Delivering impact at scale requires collaboration. Weve always worked across governments, corporations, civil society, and communitiesbut in todays environment, the strength of those partnerships matters more than ever. Trust and alignment arent soft values; they are strategic necessities.
Were seeing powerful examples of what this can look like. Corporations that are embracing flexibility. Donors who are willing to have hard, honest conversations. Foundation leaders moving toward sustained, trust-based relationships that prioritize long-term outcomes over short-term metrics.
Through support of the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation (Lilly Foundation), we will be able to not only deliver results, but accelerate change. Its recent commitment to UNICEF USA is focused on delivering and strengthening maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health in low- and middle-income countries by expanding prevention and care of noncommunicable diseases. We work to build trust with regular progress updates that demonstrate tangible results on this shared objective.
Innovation with real stakes
Innovation means different things to different people. At UNICEF, its not about noveltyits about meeting the moment by improving how we work and how we deliver. In a world of rising complexity, innovation is how we adaptoperationally, strategically, and systemically.
Whether its working with OpenAI to use generative AI to improve education outcomes, to pilot financing models to increase climate resilience, or scaling health solutions across fragile systems, were focused on innovations that improve delivery and drive measurable outcomes. Not pilot projects for their own sake, but solutions that meet urgent needs and adapt to changing realities.
Progress is not theoreticalits measurable. Since 1990, the number of children under five dying from preventable causes has dropped by more than 60%. Thats proof that when the world acts with urgency and coordination, we can change the trajectory for an entire generation.
Progress is not theoreticalits also human. Imagine a five-year-old child you love. Maybe theyre starting school, asking endless questions, or learning to swim. Now imagine that same childfeverish and weak from something easily treatable. Youre holding them in your arms to comfort them. You know what they need. The medicine exists. The clean water exists. But you cant get it.
Thats the crushing reality facing millions of families every day. Not because we lack simple, affordable, and preventable solutionslike vaccines, treatments for diarrhea and pneumonia, or ready-to-use therapeutic food for severe acute malnutritionbut because access breaks down when systems are underfunded, fractured, or forgotten.
Whats at stake for all of us
This is a moment to lead with urgency. To move with clarity, not caution.
Because the choices we make todayacross philanthropy, business, and policywill determine what kind of world we live and work in tomorrow.
Michele Walsh is executive vice president and chief philanthropy officer at UNICEF USA.
Savvy marketing leaders recognize that AI is a powerful tool that can be used to reshape how teams operate. But even as AI tools rapidly improve, there are still limitations in todays technology that demand titration in how its used. The best marketers are those who understand how far to push the AI envelope within their business and market context.
And now is the time for marketing leaders to expand their existing skill set and develop their AI intuitionwhen to use it, when to lose itto make the most of AIs transformative power and deliver the best marketing work possible. By combining broad AI fluency through adoption with a willingness to remain agile as the technology matures, teams can thrive and make the best use of AI for the biggest impact. With that in mind, here are AI-related dos and donts every marketing leader should know.
AI as a research assistant, not a business strategist
If teams dont understand the context in which their business is operating, they wont be effective marketers. The best marketing leaders are absolute experts on their own companies, with knowledge of the details of their offerings, customers, competitors, and broad industry trends. When marketers understand their business this deeply, they can build programs that align with company priorities, connect with customers, and fuel their companys growth, making it easier to secure budget and executive buy-in.
Do use AI as a cheat sheet to stay on top of the market and competitors, and to improve business intelligence across departments, like finance and product. AI can analyze mountains of internal and external data and content it would otherwise be impossible to comb through, like companies annual reports, customer and competitor earnings, press releases, and newsletters. At Guild, my teams turn to AI for tasks such as market sizing, benchmarking against other marketing organizations for budgeting, and business planning and competitive analysis. AI can also be helpful with pricing research and gauging customer insights.
Dont expect AI to replace the nuanced understanding of a business’s priorities or its context. Ultimately, teams should create their own strategies, but using AI with business context will make those strategies better and more complete. AI cant read betweenthe lines or predict the futureonly meaningful conversations, deep curiosity, and astute understanding of one’s business can do that.
Use AI as a production designer, so creatives can shine
Campaign work in marketing can quickly become rote, tying designers and writers up with tasks that are far from strategic or highly creative. All variants of ad design or ad copy can be generated by AI. It can take a first pass at any blog content, social media graphics, or resizing assets for different platforms. Let AI bring ideas to life faster and more efficiently to free up creatives to focus on developing breakthrough campaign concepts and compelling brand stories.
Do use AI to rapidly prototype visuals, generate multiple design variations, and handle time-consuming production tasks. AI excels at replicating creative direction so take advantage and use in moments where multiple iterations are needed.
Dont rely on AI for creative inception or novel campaign ideas. This is where creatives shine. Use AI to handle the heavy lifting and transform the creative work into end product downstream so creative strategy and brand decisions are owned by creatives themselves.
Use AI to accelerate pointed insights
With AI, leaders can access an abundance of real-time data, turning marketing into a velocity engine for optimization and peak performance. The speed to insights around whats working and what isnt, along with the ability to move with agility, is where the real power of AI lies for marketing leaders. Whether thats analyzing customer data to spot engagement patterns, detailed segmentation in email open rates, or digging into a competitors recent launch, AI helps leaders get to the root of why this matters faster than ever before.
Do use AI to quickly analyze performance data, competitor portfolios, or deep segmentation analysis. Be specific and give AI the full context in your prompts. Instead of asking How did this campaign perform? try What is variance by audience segment in each of these ad headline click-through rates? This is a case where AI can be a game-changer when giving pointed insights.
Dont treat AI-generated insights as final answers. AI may be able to determine if certain creative elements performed well, but it cant determine if that approach aligns with your strategy and broader business objective. Just because AI quickly spots a pattern doesn’t mean it requires changing the work itself. Successful marketers will need to develop the skills to quickly decipher what insights matter and why.
The marketing leaders who will truly shine in the AI era will be those who master the art of balancing technology with their human instincts. In order to be successful, theyll need to leverage AIs power as it exists today, and be agile enough to adapt as the rate of improvement around that technology shifts. Today, that means letting AI handle much of the heavy liftingresearch, data analysis, creative production workto improve expertise and create leverage across the marketing organization. As AI technologies rapidly evolve and mature, the best leaders will dynamically change with it so that their organizations can deliver better, faster, and more novel results for the business.
Rebecca Biestman is chief marketing officer at Guild.
A new survey from neurodiversity advocacy and support nonprofit Understood suggests that the true percentage of neurodivergent adults may be higher than expected. So why is work still so rigid?
Good news: Vine might be coming back. Bad news: in AI form, courtesy of Elon Musk.
“We’re bringing back Vine, but in AI form,” Musk announced on X on Thursday. He did not elaborate further on his plans.
Were bringing back Vine, but in AI form— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 24, 2025
Reactions to the news were mixed. One X user commented: “Worst combination of words Ive ever seen.” Another added: No one wants this.
Worst combination of words Ive ever seen https://t.co/dwclaLM1dE— j aubrey (@jaubreyYT) July 24, 2025
Others, however, were more open to the idea. Could be interesting to see what AI comes up with and evolves into, one X user wrote.
Could be interesting to see what AI comes up with and evolves into.— Seth Pascale (@sethpascale) July 24, 2025
Before TikTok, there was Vine. At its peak, the app boasted 200 million active users and introduced the culture to classics like and they were roommates” and hurricane tortilla.”
Vine allowed users to upload only 6-second clips, laying the groundwork for TikToks current short-form dominance. It launched the careers of many of todays biggest influencers and originated several of TikToks most viral trends, including LeBron James and the ALS ice bucket challenge.
X acquired Vine from its founders in 2012 for $30 million, but shut it down just five years later, citing commercial viability. The Vine archive remained available for another two years until it was officially discontinued in 2019.
Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, has long been vocal about potentially reviving the platform. In 2022, he posted a poll: Bring back Vine? with almost 70% voting in favor. Even MrBeast replied: If you did that and actually competed with tik tok thatd be hilarious.
Bring back Vine?— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022
Musk posted the same poll again last year, once more receiving an overwhelmingly positive response. YouTuber-turned-professional boxer Jake Paul, who got his first six seconds of fame on Vine, commented: Do it Elon Ill help however I can and round up all the og viners.
Do it Elon Ill help however I can and round up all the og viners— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) April 17, 2024
In January, Musk confirmed that his team was “looking into it” at the same time TikTok was facing a potential ban in the United States.
But now that fans have heard his plans, they might be reconsidering. What “Vine, but in AI form” actually means is still unclear. Best case scenario: perhaps an AI-powered algorithm. Worst case: an endless scroll of AI-generated slop.
For now, Ill stick with classic Vine compilations on YouTube.
The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage eased this week, offering little relief for prospective homebuyers facing record-high home prices.
The long-term rate slipped to 6.74% from 6.75% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.78%.
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also eased. The average rate dropped to 5.87% from 5.92% last week. A year ago, it was 6.07%, Freddie Mac said.
Elevated mortgage rates have been weighing on the U.S. housing market, which has been in a sales slump going back to 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes, which sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years in 2024, have remained sluggish this year and slid last month to the slowest pace since last September. Sales of new single-family homes edged up 0.6% last month, but the sales pace for June and May have been the slowest since last October.
While there are more homes on the market than a year ago, rising home prices and stubbornly high mortgage rates have made homeownership financially untenable for many Americans. Elevated mortgage rates are also discouraging many homeowners from selling because they locked in mortgage rates when they were much lower.
The persistent risk of tariff-driven inflation, combined with a rising U.S. fiscal debt expected to grow further following the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill Act has helped establish a relatively high floor for interest rates, at least for now, said Jiayi Xu, an economist at Realtor.com.
Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserves interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors expectations for the economy and inflation.
The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.41% at midday Thursday, down from 4.40% late Wednesday, following the latest signals that the U.S. economy seems to be holding up OK despite all the pressures on it from tariffs and elsewhere.
Yields have moved higher for most of this month as traders bet that the Fed will hold its key short-term interest rate steady at its upcoming meeting next week, despite President Donald Trump demanding that the Fed to lower rates.
A less independent Fed could mean lower short-term rates, which influence the interest consumers pay on credit cards and auto loans, but it could have the opposite effect on the longer-term bond yields that influence the rates on home loans.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained relatively close to its high so far this year of just above 7%, set in mid-January. The 30-year rates low point this year was in early April when it briefly dipped to 6.62%.
Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain above 6% this year. Recent forecasts by Realtor.com and Fannie Mae project the average rate easing to around 6.4% by the end of this year.
Alex Veiga, AP business writer
Tear a tanktop in half today for Terry Bollea, the entertainer better known as Hulk Hogan, who has died at age 71.
Though he was a towering icon of the 1980s professional wrestling scene and seamlessly transitioned into celebreality TV in the aughts, Bolleas most lasting contribution to our culture may have been what he has done to digital publishing.
Bolleas star had diminished considerably by 2012, when blog-era media giant Gawker published a brief clip from a stealthily recorded sex tape of Hogan and Heather Clem, then-wife of Bolleas then-best friend, radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge. The clip was featured in a post by former Gawker editor in chief AJ Daulerio, a meditation on celebrity sex tapes. Just days after the sex tapes publication, Hogan sued for emotional distress and invasion of privacy. For its part, Gawker defended its inclusion of the clip by arguing that the footage was newsworthy, considering Hogan’s celebrity status and past comments on his sex life.
In March 2016, a Florida jury found in favor of Hogan, awarding him $115 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. The verdict ultimately bankrupted Gawker, hastening an end to digital medias freewheeling blog era. (The website was revived in 2021 under owner Bryan Goldberg, but shuttered again just two years later.)
Perhaps more shocking than the verdict itself, however, was the revelation of who paid for the lawsuit in the first place: Two months after the smoke cleared, Forbes reported that tech billionaire Peter Thiel had been bankrolling Bollea. The former Paypal Mafia member spent roughly $10 million on the lawsuit, apparently with the aim of destroying Gawker, as revenge for outing him as gay in a 2007 post.
Thiels involvement raised concerns that the victory over Gawker could become a playbook for extremely wealthy individuals to silence media outletsa First Amendment nightmare. The New Yorker, for instance, warned at the time that the verdict could pave the way for a war against the press.
And those concerns have since proven well-founded.
Within a year, the Gawker Effect, as coined by journalist Margaret Sullivan had cast a chilling pall over the media environment. Music reporter Jim DeRogatis said a number of publishers passed on his bombshell investigation into sexual abuse claims against singer R. Kelly, citing concerns over potential libel lawsuits. Reporter Kim Masters wrote in October 2017 about her difficulty trying to find an outlet who would touch her investigation into allegations that Amazon Studios executive Roy Price had made inappropriate sexual remarks. Even the weakest of legal claims, she recalled, triggered genuine fear among editors and lawyers, and Price eventually hired Charles Harder, the attorney who defended Bollea. (The investigations eventually ran in BuzzFeed and The Information, respectively.)
Many more blockbuster lawsuits against media outlets have followed in the years since. Blackwater Founder Erik Prince has sued The Intercept multiple times over its coverage of his activities; while the cases were dismissed, they successfully drained the publication of time and money (and effectively diminished their capacity to expend resources on further investigations). In 2020, right-wing provocateur group Project Veritas sued The New York Times for defamation, over publishing legal documents describing the groups deceptive practices, tying up the Times in court for years.
More recently, Elon Musks X filed a defamation lawsuit against the left-leaning Media Matters for America in 2023, claiming it manufactured images showing ads on X placed alongside neoNazi content on the platform, with the aim of driving advertisers away. The publication countersued in March, accusing Musk and X of bringing “abusive,” costly and meritless lawsuits to punish Media Matters for the crime of doing journalism. (Those suits are currently still winding their way through courts; in the meantime, the organization has laid off at least a dozen staffers, citing legal costs.)
And of course, suing news organizations has become a cornerstone of Donald Trumps strategic response for unflattering coverage. Just since last winter, he has sued ABC over George Stephanopouloss on-air claim that Trump has been found liable for raperather than the more accurate term sexual abusesettling for $15 million plus legal fees, he has successfully sued CBS for $16 million, alleging a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was unfairly edited, and just last week, he filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its parent company for a story linking him to Jeffrey Epstein. Any outlet that cant afford to defend itself in court now knows not to break any unflattering news about Trumpor any other public figure who might be backed by wealthy benefactors with an ax to grind.
Whether Bollea would approve of all this or notand udging by his professed admiration for Trump, he certainly mightthe dire current state of U.S. media is his true legacy.Whatcha gonna do when Hulkamania runs wild on YOU? he used to ask wrestling opponents. Nearly a decade after Bolleas lawsuit destroyed Gawker, newsrooms across the country are still grappling with that question.
President Trump has mocked Stephen Colbert’s cancellation and even sued 60 Minutes. Still, the writers of South Park don’t seem too worried about potentially becoming his next target.
After skipping the 2024 election season, Comedy Central’s long-running animated show is back on air for its 27th season, just in time to cover President Trump’s second term in office.
While the serieswhose creators just closed a $1.5 billion streaming dealhas not shied away from mocking pop culture and political figures in the past (previous iterations of Trump as president include Mr. Garrison, a schoolteacher who later runs for president against Hillary Clinton and wins), the creators are directly targeting the current president this season, going so far as using his real face in place of their traditional animated renderings.
In a short 22 minutes, the episode touched on some of the most controversial recent events in the past few weeks, including tariffs on Canada, the Jeffrey Epstein case, the Paramount-Skydance merger, and CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show. To top it off, a scene of the naked president features a small penis (albeit a cartoon one), twisting the knife even more.
Comedy Central, the cable TV channel on which the series airs, is owned by Paramount Global.
Real-life faces are back
Skipping a caricaturized version of the president, South Park opted to use a real image of Trump, cut open like a marionette when speaking, although the artistic choice is famously not new.
In the past, the show has opted for real-life-picture cutouts of certain celebrities and public figuresincluding some infamous ones. The series website describes such portrayals as “more of a personal decision” from the show’s creators.
According to fan roundups collected online, the celebrities and public figures who have been featured with their real-life cutouts include Ben Affleck, Tony Danza, Christina Aguilera, Jeffrey Dahmer, Gene Siskel, Princess Diana, Adolf Hitler, Walter Matthau, Allen Ginsberg, Tiny Tim, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., Mao Zedong, Michael Landon, Jerry Garcia, Saddam Hussein, Mel Gibson, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, and now, notably, Donald Trump.
In addition to bringing back the marionette-like real-life cutout, the show also revived its in-bed-with-Satan trope. Trump is pictured undressing before climbing into bed with the Devil, an apparent ode to the show’s 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which featured Saddam Hussein in a similar situation.
[Image: Comedy Central]
Not everyone is happy about the episode
While many users on social media have praised South Parks season debut, those in support of the president seem less content with the episode.
“South Park has gone woke. They must go broke,” reads a typical response on X.
As expected, the current administration is also not delighted with the show’s creative direction. Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, told Entertainment Weekly that the “show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”
Trump has yet to directly respond to the episode.
Hasbro Inc (NASDAQ:HAS), the brand responsible for iconic games like Monopoly, Jenga, Magic: The Gathering, saw its shares tick upwards over 3% in pretrading on Wednesday. The uptick came just after the company reported its second quarter earnings of $1.30 per share for the second quarter, beating the analyst expectations of $0.78 per share.And, despite a 1% year-over-year decrease, Hasbro’s adjusted revenue was posted at $980.8 million, also beating analysts $874.66 million projection.While sales have been notably down for toy and gaming companies, Hasbro has managed to offset some of the volatility due to financial strains and tariffs. While tariffs represent a headwind for the business, we are compensating for these costs through a combination of cost reductions, rebalancing our marketing spend, diversifying our supplier mix and implementing some targeted pricing actions,” Hasbros CEO, Chris Cocks, said on the companys earnings call, per CNBC.The brand is also clearly leaning into its digital games, most notably, Monopoly Go! The game, which launched in 2023, has quickly become the most popular digital board game. It contributed $44 million in the second quarter.But the biggest driver of Hasbro’s recent earnings has been Magic:The Gathering. That’s thanks to a recently released Magic set: Final Fantasy Universes Beyond Expansion. The set dropped in June and almost instantly shattered records, earning $200 million in one day to become the fastest-selling expansion in Magic history.The Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment of Hasbro, which encompasses both Magic games and Monopoly Go!, saw overall revenue increase 16% year-over-year.Last year, Cocks spoke to the popularity of digital games and what it meant for the brand. “As we look at the business of play, it’s clear that digital is here to stay and a bigger factor than ever in how successful toy and game companies will grow and strengthen their brands,” Cocks said, noting that the brand was years ahead of its competitors.
Still, the fact that Magic games remain popular shows that community is equally as important as digital entertainment.That sense of community is something other gaming companies seem acutely aware of, too. Mattel’s VP and global head of games Ray Adler recently told Fast Company about the brand’s newly introduced Uno Social Club a gaming and nightlife experience. Gen Z already loves Uno, Adler said. Theyve been playing it online, at parties, everywhere. What they dont always have are opportunities to connect in the real world. So we asked: What if game night could be a whole experience?Hasbro’s stock was down 1.1% in afternoon trading Wednesday, but the brand raised its full-year guidance for 2025. It now expects mid-single-digit revenue, and predicts earnings between $1.17 billion and $1.2 billion.
In June, Apple previewed the iPhones next operating system, iOS 26. Without a doubt, the headline feature of iOS 26 (yes, the iPhones OS has a new number system) is its complete design overhaul, known as Liquid Glass. The new design introduces a transparent look to iOS, utilizing animations to replicate the way light and other objects refract through glass.
Liquid Glass is an ambitious overhaul for the iPhones operating system, but its not the only change coming to iOS 26 when it ships to the public this fall. The new operating system is packed with some truly useful new features that will make using your iPhone better than ever. And, if youre interested in trying out those new features before iOS 26s official September launch date, now you can, thanks to the availability of the iOS 26 Public Beta, which Apple released this week.
How to get the iOS 26 Public Beta on your phone right now
The great news is that anyone can sign up to be a public beta tester for iOS 26. Once you do this, youll be able to install the iOS 26 public beta on your iPhone, provided you have a compatible model, which is the iPhone 11 and later.
To sign up for the public beta, go to beta.apple.com. Once youve signed up, open the Settings app on your iPhone and from there tap General, then Software Updates. Tap Public Beta, and select the iOS 26 public beta from the list presented to you. Now, tap the back button, and on the Software Update screen, youll see you can now update to the iOS 26 public beta by tapping the blue Update Now button.
Once your iPhone restarts, itll have the iOS 26 public beta running on it. Now. you can check out some of the operating systems best new features.
Onscreen Awareness Visual Intelligence
Visual Intelligence is Apples name for iOSs ability to identify something by looking at it. This feature is powered by Apple Intelligence, and in the current iOS 18, is only usable via the Camera. In other words, Visual Intelligence can interpret things your camera sees in the real world, but not things on your iPhones actual screen.
Onscreen Awareness for Visual Intelligence in iOS 26 changes that. Now, your iPhone can use Apple Intelligence to recognize what’s happening on its screen and take action based on that on-screen awareness.
For example, if you take a screenshot of a social media feed that shows a celebrity chilling at a cafe, you can tap their sweater and ask Visual Intelligence to show you where you can buy a similar one. Or, if someone posts the details of an event in a text message or social channel, you can simply take a screenshot of the details and have Visual Intelligence add the event to your calendar for you.
Hold Assist for phone calls
The Phone app in iOS 26 is getting its first major redesign in more than a decade, and, as mentioned before, it may just make you want to use your phone to make phone calls again.
Coming to the Phone app in iOS 26 is a redesigned layout that puts all your call history, contacts, and voicemails in one place; call screening, which forces a caller to identify themselves before the iPhone will let the call go through; and Live Translation, which can translate the spoken words of a caller who does not speak the same language as you.
But perhaps the best new Phone feature in iOS 26 is the ability to have the iPhone wait on hold for you. Now, you can simply tap the Hold button whenever you are put on hold, and the iPhone will continue holding your place in line, notifying you only when you reach the front.
Customized Messages backgrounds and polls
Apples popular Messages app is getting several updates in iOS 26. The first is, like much of iOS 26, cosmetic, but welcome nonetheless. Now in Messages, youll be able to set a customized background image for each chat you are in. Yesno more seeing those blue chat bubbles against a white wall. You can now set a color or image you prefer, adding some flair to each chat.
A second great feature of Messages in iOS 26 is the ability to create polls within a message thread. Polls can help streamline planning when you are asking a group chat what day works best for everyone to meet up. Now, instead of waiting for everyone to type in their reply, members of the chat can just select with a tap from the poll options you specify.
Passport storag
iOS 26 is also adding a few great features for travelers. The first is the ability to store your U.S. passport on your iPhone in the Wallet app. With your passport stored on your iPhone, you can use it to prove your identity at select TSA checkpoints. The stored passport can also be used to verify your age in third-party apps. Best of all, the stored U.S. passport is Real ID compliant.
However, before anyone gets too excited about this feature, keep in mind that if you are traveling internationally, youll still need to bring your actual physical passport with you. As noted by MacRumors, your stored digital passport cannot be used for border crossings. Still, if you are just traveling domestically within the United States, this new feature is a great way to ensure that you always have some identity on youprovided you have your iPhone.
Real-time flight information on your lock screen
A second great travel-related feature Apple is adding to iOS 26 is Live Activities, for flights for which you have your boarding pass stored in the Wallet app. Now these flights will show real-time updates on a widget on your iPhones home screen, including the flights progress, its arrival gate information, and more.
Whats even better is that you can share this real-time information with someone else, such as a person on the ground who is picking you up when your flight arrives.
Its no secret companies are collecting data while consumers browse their sites. But some companies are doing more with the info than trying improve products or marketing efforts: They are adjusting prices for individual customers based on their personal data.
This practice, known as surveillance pricing, has become more common in recent years, with more companies embracing artificial intelligence as a tool to make real-time price changes for individual customers. However, a new bill aims to stop these companies in their tracks.
Representative Greg Casar introduced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act of 2025 on July 23. While some statessuch as California, Colorado, Georgia, and Illinoishave proposed similar bans, Casars bill is the first at the federal level.
Giant corporations should not be allowed to jack up your prices or lower your wages using data they got spying on you, Casar said in a statement. Whether you know it or not, you may already be getting ripped off by corporations using your personal data to charge you more. This problem is only going to get worse, and Congress should act before this becomes a full blown crisis.
How surveillance pricing works
Companies engaging in surveillance pricing use customer data taken from the cookiestext files containing dataor tracking pixels that continue to follow you after leaving their website, providing information on your online activity, preferences, location, and device. This data can then be analyzed by AI programs to help the companies determine a personalized price for their products or services.
The ban would impact the pricing systems of numerous retailers that reportedly engage in the practice, from retailers that increase prices for pickup orders when you are close to a store, to rideshare apps that charge more when your phone battery is low. Similarly, Delta Airlines recently came under fire for plans to expand their use of AI-driven pricing.
We’ve seen things like people’s browsing history, device type, battery, location, and more, inform pricing that focuses on how much that individual might be willing to pay for somethingpreying on desperation rather than using fair market pricing, Ben Winters, director of AI and data privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, told Fast Company. (The Consumer Federation of America is one of several consumer-interest organizations and advocacy groups that have endorsed the proposed bill, according to a statement by Casars office.)
One of the benefits of the bill, Winters says, is that it would draw clear lines in the sand prohibiting the use of AI systems to apply data-driven pricing on consumers, and provide customers harmed by this practice the right to sue the company behind the AI-driven prices.
Too few bills focused on AI and data abuse have this key feature, Winters says. It’s one of many reasons we support the bill.”
The Federal Trade Commission would be the entity responsible for enforcing the ban against surveillance pricing, which would be treated as a violation of two existing FTC acts regarding unfair or deceptive acts or practices and unfair methods of competition, according to the proposed bill.
Surveillance pricing may be more common than you think
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into surveillance pricing, hoping learn more about how companies were using personal data to change prices. The initial results, released in January, found that retailers were using everything from demographic and location information, to mouse movements and abandoned online shopping carts, to match prices to consumers.
Retailers frequently use peoples personal information to set targeted, tailored prices for goods and servicesfrom a person’s location and demographics, down to their mouse movements on a webpage, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement earlier this year.
The new legislation would not impact higher prices that result from reasonable costs the business takes on to serve different customers, or lower prices from discounts for teachers, veterans, seniors, students, or rewards program members. Lawmakers and advocates that support the bill suggest the ban could make a big difference for consumers struggling to find fair prices amid rising prices and economic uncertainty.
The ability to compare prices, to rely on consistent prices, and to know why a price is being chargedthis is what gives us the power to know if we are getting a fair deal,” Nidhi Hegde, executive director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement. “Surveillance pricing destroys the social contract of the marketplace.”
