Japan’s chief trade negotiator has defended a tariffs deal with the U.S., expressing respect for President Donald Trump and calling him a “tough negotiator.”Trade envoy Ryosei Akazawa noted that the pact setting on most Japanese exports to the U.S. at 15% was comparable to a deal between Washington and the European Union. Unlike the EU, Japan did not have to lower its tariffs on U.S. goods, he noted.Japan has also committed to investing $550 billion in U.S. projects.Trump initially set Japan’s tariff rate to increase by 25%.Critics in Japan had ridiculed Akazawa’s repeated trips to the U.S. to work toward a deal as a waste of taxpayer money, saying he should pitch a tent on the White House lawn.Akazawa said talks with his counterpart, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump and others in his administration were tense at first. By the time of his eighth trip, a rapport was established enabling the two sides to set an agreement by July.“President Trump was a tough negotiator, but I kept insisting, and he would listen graciously. I have all the respect for him,” he told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “It was a good round of negotiations.”“It goes without saying that, with any government negotiations, there will always be someone who says Japan lost out, no matter what,” Akazawa said.The double-digit tariffs Trump has imposed on imports from various nations were a bitter blow to Japan, a key U.S. ally in Asia. Tokyo especially objected to 25% tariffs Trump ordered for imports of steel and aluminum and automobiles.Japan’s economy depends heavily on exports. Shipments to the United States sank nearly 14% in August compared to a year earlier, the fifth straight month of declines, as auto exports were dented by the tariffs.U.S. tariffs on Japanese automobiles and auto parts are now set at 15%, way higher than the original 2.5%. Japanese automakers also produce many of the vehicles they sell in the U.S. in North America.The friction with the U.S. over tariffs was an added burden for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s administration. He is due to be replaced as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party later this week.The Liberal Democrats have ruled Japan almost continuously since the 1950s but they have lost their majority in the lower house, which chooses the prime minister, and will need coalition partners.Akazawa brushed off concerns the U.S. understanding of the deal may differ from Japan’s. He said whoever becomes a next prime minister, Japan has an established tradition of respecting agreements, especially those forged with a foreign country.
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
The United States has agreed to allow South Korean workers on short-term visas or a visa waiver program to help build industrial sites in America, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.The announcement came weeks after South Korea flew home more than 300 of its nationals who had been detained in a massive immigration raid at a battery factory being built on Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant campus near Savannah, Georgia.The roundup, along with U.S. video footage showing Korean workers shackled at the hands, ankles and waist, fueled public outrage and a sense of betrayal in South Korea a key U.S. ally that had pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments just weeks earlier in hopes of avoiding the Trump administration’s steepest tariffs.The incident also triggered pent-up frustrations in Seoul over Washington’s failure to act on its long-standing request to improve the visa system for skilled Korean workers, even as the United States presses its ally to expand industrial investments.South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visas or a visa waiver program called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, to send workers needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.After bilateral visa talks Tuesday in Washington, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said their American counterparts reaffirmed that South Korean companies can use B-1 short-term business visas or ESTAs to send workers to install, service and repair equipment needed for their projects in the United States. The statement was consistent with earlier remarks by South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, who, after traveling to Washington to negotiate the workers’ release, said that U.S. officials had agreed to allow them to return later to complete their work.South Korea has called for more fundamental steps, such as creating a new visa category to expand access for skilled workers. But U.S. officials at the Washington meeting said major changes would be difficult because of legislative constraints, according to a statement from the South Korean ministry.Most of the Korean workers detained in Georgia were employed by LG Energy Solution and its subcontractors and held ESTAs as well as other visas.LG said in a statement that it will “thoroughly prepare and work diligently to normalize the construction and operation of our factories in the United States.”
Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press
Several pharmaceutical companies have said they will sell drugs direct to patients in the U.S. and offered discounts following President Donald Trump’s calls to bring down drug prices and cut out “middlemen” like pharmacies, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday plans to launch a government-run website called TrumpRx.gov in early 2026, offering reduced prices for prescription drugs.
U.S. patients currently pay by far the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than in other developed nations. Trump sent letters to 17 major companies in July demanding they slash U.S. prescription drug prices.
Below is an overview of pharmaceutical companies which recently announced direct-to-consumer sales and price cuts in the U.S:
PFIZER
Pfizer and President Donald Trump said on Tuesday they had cut a deal in which the U.S.-based drugmaker agreed to lower prescription drug prices in the Medicaid programme to what it charges in other developed countries, in exchange for tariff relief.
Pfizer will invest $70 billion in research and development and domestic manufacturing and received a three-year grace period during which its products will not be subject to U.S. tariffs on pharmaceuticals, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said.
PhRMA
U.S. pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA said on Monday it would launch a new website, AmericasMedicines.com, next January to help patients buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers.
NOVO NORDISK
Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk said in August that it would offer its diabetes drug Ozempic for $499 per month to eligible cash-paying patients with type 2 diabetes in the U.S. via its own pharmacy, a tie-up with telehealth service GoodRx and other platforms.
It had announced earlier in April that it was working with telehealth firms Hims & Hers, Ro and LifeMD to sell Wegovy to cash-paying US customers.
ELI LILLY
Eli Lilly said in June it would ship the two highest doses of its popular weight-loss drug Zepbound to cash-paying customers on its website starting early August.
ASTRA ZENECA
AstraZeneca said on Friday it will sell its diabetes and asthma drugs direct to cash-paying U.S. patients at a discount of up to 70% off list prices.
SANOFI
French drugmaker Sanofi said on Friday it would offer a month’s supply of any of its insulin products for $35 to all patients in the U.S. with a valid prescription, regardless of insurance status.
ROCHE
Roche is considering selling its prescription medicines in the U.S. directly to consumers to bring costs down for patients, as part of talks with the U.S. government, CEO Thomas Schinecker said in July.
The model could appeal not only to the uninsured or under-insured, but also to insured patients comparing the cost of accessing drugs through insurers with cash prices, an industry source told Reuters.
ZEALAND PHARMA
Zealand Pharma is considering a direct-to-patient sales model as well as traditional insurer channels for the experimental weight-loss drug it is developing with Roche, its CEO told Reuters in September.
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB
U.S. pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb will cut prices to eligible U.S. patients for blood clot treatment Eliquis and plaque psoriasis drug Sotyktu, with the latter being offered at a more than 80% discount to the list price, it said in September.
WISP
Women’s telehealth provider Wisp said in September it expanded its weight-care offerings to include sale and doorstep delivery of Novo Nordisk’s and Eli Lilly’s popular drugs without the need for insurance.
It priced Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro at $598, $558, and $489 per month, respectively, with the cost also including consultation, monthly follow-ups, and direct-to-door delivery.
ABBVIE
AbbVie said on Monday it would launch its ovarian cancer drug Elahere in the UK at a list price matching that in the U.S. following Trump’s demands for drugmakers to offer the U.S. “most-favored-nation” pricing.
Javi West Larraaga and Emanuele Berro, Reuters
Its a familiar frustration: You miss your connection because of a delayed flight. The line at the customer assistance desk is 30 people deep. The airline app offers little help, and the call center puts you on hold for half an hour. Will you ever escape Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)?
Enter Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS) Assist, a new generative AI travel agent that helps customers with post-booking travel questions, changes, and disruptions. HTS assist was built by Hopper, the mobile-only travel-booking platform thats known for its intuitive, user-friendly interface and for predicting flight prices with near-flawless accuracy and pinging users when its time to book.
A few clicksmy trips and contact supportfrom Hoppers main page now opens an interface where travelers can talk to or text the AI assistant for help with things like rebooking missed connections and processing refunds for canceled trips.
HTS Assist is built to converse in natural languageits been trained on millions of real-world conversationsand is capable of communicating in 30 different languages. Hopper says it has taken a model-agnostic approach to creating HTS Assist, working with leading large language models and its own travel-specific training data.
Crucially, the chatbot is plugged directly into the complex travel tech stack of airline booking platforms, hotel reservation systems, car rental options, payments, and more, allowing other travel companies to offer customers their own version of the customer service chatbot.
[Image: Hopper Technology Solutions]
HTS Assist already lives inside a couple of partner platformsKorean credit card company Lotte Card and Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking (SMB)with more deals in the works, according to Hopper. These partnerships are handled by Hoppers B2B arm, Hopper Technology Solutions, or HTS, which currently powers the travel portals of Capital One, Uber, Lloyds, and others with personalized booking software. HTS is now responsible for 90% of Hoppers revenue.
This new agent could unlock even more.
A growing demand for shrinking customer service
Over the past few decades, the number of frontline service reps has steadily shrunk, even as passenger numbers climb. (American Airlines, for example, cut 8.2% of its customer service positions last year.) Automated phone trees and maddening chatbots have taken their place, infamous for endless loops and little transparency, leaving travelers stranded at the exact moment they need help most.
Travel is one of the most stressful, emotionally charged, and operationally complex industries, says Jo Lai, head of AI solutions and customer Experience at HTS. Unlike other consumer categories, when things go wrong in travel, peoples lives are immediately disrupted.
Hopper believes HTS Assists capabilities are uniquely suited to bridge the gap between customer demandhalf of travelers require some kind of servicing during their tripand rising expectations: travelers want instant, consistent resolutions across various platforms. The assistant can be scaled during peak surges without requiring an army of new hires, and it resolves issues with the same tools human agents use.
HTS Assist doesnt mind if its helping one person or 65,000, says Frederic Lalonde, Hopper founder and CEO. Its there for you immediately, and stores all of your information in one place.
According to Hopper, HTS Assist works four times as fast as traditional customer service channels. And cost savings for companies could be meaningful. Thanks to fewer backlogs, lower error rates, and less reliance on constantly hiring and retraining agents, Hopper estimates that airlines and travel providers could reduce service costs by up to 65%.
Assist could also drive ancillary revenue. If a passenger misses a flight, the agent will first comb through available benefits like meal or hotel vouchers. If those fall short, it offers hotel stays or car rentals that feel like natural extensions of the interaction. So far, 15% of AI agent conversations have led to ancillary sales.
Putting the assistant to the test
The travel industry is already awash in chatbots offering to help with everything from travel planning to booking. Tripadvisor has an AI assistant tailor-made for trip planning. Marriott is testing a personalized chatbot for its loyalty program members that can act as both a booking agent and concierge. Airlines of all stripes, meanwhile, have debuted chatbots, with varying degrees of success.
As they’re discovering, a good chatbot can solve problems and smooth travel hiccups. A bad one just makes things worse.
To get a sense of HTS Assist’s capabilities, Fast Company participated in a few live demos to test the system against common traveler frustrations: missed flights, refund requests, and alternative plans. Prompted by Lai, the virtual assistant worked fluidly through a casual back and forth.
The first demonstration was based on Hopper Technology Solutions flagship design for potential external partners. Playing the part of the rushed traveler, Lai interrupted HTS Assist (it recovered easily) and asked it to handle trickier tasks, like rerouting rental cars to different drop-off locations and syncing with friends travel plans.
The assistant also asked helpful questionsa manual or automatic car?that trimmed down options. The design interface, which shifted colors and communicated behind-the-scenes thinking with a trio of merging dots, was almost meditative.
We can also dial up or down the assistants formality and empathy level, says Lai, depending on a companys culture, branding, and voice.
A second set of self-led demos via Hoppers in-app chat and customer service phone line was a bit more clunky, and has yet to incorporate HTS Assists new design and feel (that will roll out in the coming days). The assistant couldnt upgrade a flight to business class, for example, without canceling and rebooking the flight altogether. It also couldnt add a day to a hotel reservation without also canceling and rebooking new dates.
Still, it was compellingit listed airline baggage fees associated ith our reservation, for example, and it had tips for going through security in Canada, the flights country of origin.
HTS Assist also cant replicate the sympathetic agent who ignores an overweight bag or lets you change seats free of charge (yet). But it is designed to escalate to a live agent when needed.
And while the technology is currently focused on post-booking fallouts rather than the travel planning journey, the ladder is certainly on the horizon. Were really excited about the AI commerce category and conversational commerce as a whole, says Lai.
For now, at least, you wont be stuck at EWR.
The U.S. federal government shut down one minute into October, bringing with it uncertainty about jobs and the economy.
The shutdown hasnt brought significant turmoil to the stock market as of yet. Most notably, futures have dropped but not significantly, with the Dow shrinking 0.41%, the S&P 500 down 0.45%, and the Nasdaq losing 0.50%, at the time of publishing.
Meanwhile, gold prices have skyrocketed in response to the shutdown, reaching an all-time high early Wednesday morning that neared $4,000.
Just after the days 12:01 a.m ET shutdown, spot gold reached over $3,894, while U.S. gold futures hit $3,922.
Both have since dropped slightly, but remained at significant highs at the time of publishing.
Gold prices have risen significantly this year amid increasing economic uncertainty and a weaker dollar. As of early Wednesday, they were up roughly 46% year to date.
Investors tend to gravitate toward so-called safe-haven assets during times of uncertainty. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were also up on Wednesday as the shutdown began.
How bad could depend on how long
Historically speaking, a typical government shutdown shouldnt have a lasting impact on the economy, experts point out.
Government shutdowns tend to be high profile though low-impact market events, according to a report last week from financial company Truist. 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.
However, Truist notes that this is barring a prolonged shutdown.
Most government shutdowns have gone on for less than a few days, though the most recent oneduring President Trump’s first term in officelasted from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019.
That’s a record total of 35 days. The Congressional Budget Office reported that it cut $3 billion in real GDP for the last quarter of 2018.
At the time, about 300,000 employees were furloughed, while another approximately 500,000 individuals had to work without pay. All federal workers received back pay once the shutdown was over. As Truist notes, this influx of payments should allow the GDP to recover on its own.
But this time around, the shutdown could bring permanent job loss, according to a memo viewed by Politico ahead of the shutdown.
Under Director Russ Vought, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed agencies to look at removing employees working on programs, projects, or activities that have another source of funding, will see their discretionary funding lapse on October 1, and dont align with Trumps priorities.
Pushback has been swift. On Tuesday, U.S. Representative James Walkinshaw, a Democrat from Virginia, called the OMBs order an illegal power grab in an MSNBC opinion piece.
The same day saw the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) sue the Trump administration for these mass firing threats.
The groups claim that the administration is misusing the shutdown process for partisan ends and violating the very laws that govern how shutdowns are supposed to function.
Washington is bracing for what could be a prolonged federal shutdown after lawmakers deadlocked and missed the deadline for funding the government.Republicans supported a short-term measure to fund the government generally at current levels through Nov. 21, but Democrats blocked it, insisting the measure address their concerns on health care. They want to reverse the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s mega-bill passed this summer and extend tax credits that make health insurance premiums more affordable for millions of people who purchase through the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.Republicans called the Democratic proposal a nonstarter that would cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.Neither side shows any signs of budging.Here’s what to know about the shutdown that began Wednesday:
What happens in the shutdown?
Now that a lapse in funding has occurred, the law requires agencies to furlough their “non-excepted” employees. Excepted employees, which include those who work to protect life and property, stay on the job but don’t get paid until after the shutdown ends.The White House Office of Management and Budget begins the process with instructions to agencies that a lapse in appropriations has occurred and they should initiate orderly shutdown activities. That memo went out Tuesday evening.The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed each day of the shutdown, with the total daily cost of their compensation at roughly $400 million.
What government work continues during a shutdown?
A great deal, actually.FBI investigators, CIA officers, air traffic controllers and agents operating airport checkpoints keep working. So do members of the Armed Forces.Those programs that rely on mandatory spending generally continue during a shutdown. Social Security payments still go out. Seniors relying on Medicare coverage can still see their doctors and health care providers can be reimbursed.Veteran health care also continues during a shutdown. Veterans Affairs medical centers and outpatient clinics will be open, and VA benefits will continue to be processed and delivered. Burials will continue at VA national cemeteries.
Will furloughed federal workers get paid?
Yes. In 2019, Congress passed a bill enshrining into law the requirement that furloughed employees get retroactive pay once operations resume.While they’ll eventually get paid, the furloughed workers and those who remain on the job may have to go without one or more of their regular paychecks, depending upon how long the shutdown lasts, creating financial stress for many families.Service members would also receive back pay for any missed paychecks once federal funding resumes.
Will I still get mail?
Yes. The U.S. Postal Service is unaffected by a government shutdown. It’s an independent entity funded through the sale of its products and services, not by tax dollars.
What closes during a shutdown?
All administrations get some leeway to choose which services to freeze and which to maintain in a shutdown.The first Trump administration worked to blunt the impact of what became the country’s longest partial shutdown in 2018 and 2019. But on Tuesday, Trump threatened the possibility of increasing the pain that comes with a shutdown.“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them,” Trump said of Democrats. “Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”Each federal agency develops its own shutdown plan. The plans outline which workers would stay on the job during a shutdown and which would be furloughed.In a provocative move, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened the mass firing of federal workers in a shutdown. An OMB memo said those programs that didn’t get funding through Trump’s mega-bill this summer would bear the brunt of a shutdown.Agencies should consider issuing reduction-in-force notices for those programs whose funding expires, that don’t have alternative funding sources and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities,” the memo said.That would be a much more aggressive step than in previous shutdowns, when furloughed federal workers returned to their jobs once the shutdown was over. A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, which would trigger another massive upheaval in a federal workforce that’s already faced major rounds of cuts due to efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency and elsewhere in Trump’s Republican administration.
What agencies are planning
Health and Human Services will furlough about 41% of its staff out of nearly 80,000 employees, according to a contingency plan posted on its website.As part of that plan, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue to monitor disease outbreaks, while activities that will stop include research into health risks and ways to prevent illness.Meanwhile, research and patient care at the National Institutes of Health would be upended. Patients currently enrolled in studies at the research-only hospital nicknamed the “house of hope” will continue to receive care. Additional sick patients hoping for access to experimental therapies can’t enroll except in special circumstances, and no new studies will begin.At the Food and Drug Administration, its “ability to protect and promote public health and safety would be significantly impacted, with many activities delayed or paused.” For example, the agency would not accept new drug applications or medical device submissions that require payment of a user fee. National Park Service: As the shutdown neared, the National Park Service had not yet said whether it will close its more than 400 sites across the U.S. to visitors. Park officials said Tuesday afternoon that contingency plans were still being updated and would be posted to the service’s website.Many national parks including Yellowstone and Yosemite stayed open during a 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term. Limited staffing led to vandalism, gates being pried open and other problems including an off-roader mowing down one of the namesake trees at Joshua Tree National Park in California. Smithsonian Institution: In the event of a government shutdown, our museums, research centers, and the National Zoo will remain open through at least Monday, Oct. 6.
Impact on the economy
Phillip Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said a short shutdown doesn’t have a huge impact on the economy, especially since federal workers, by law, are paid retroactively. But “if a shutdown continues, then that can giverise to uncertainties about what is the role of government in our society, and what’s the financial impact on all the programs that the government funds.”“The impact is not immediate, but over time, there is a negative impact of a shutdown on the economy,” he added.Markets haven’t reacted strongly to past shutdowns, according to Goldman Sachs Research. At the close of the three prolonged shutdowns since the early 1990s, equity markets finished flat or up even after dipping initially.A governmentwide shutdown would directly reduce growth by around 0.15 percentage points for each week it lasted, or about 0.2 percentage points per week once private-sector effects were included, and growth would rise by the same cumulative amount in the quarter following reopening, writes Alec Phillips, chief U.S. political economist at Goldman Sachs.
Associated Press writer Ali Swenson, Fatima Hussein, Matthew Brown and Annie Ma contributed to this report.
Kevin Freking, Associated Press
The U.S. government has shut down.
Last night, Congress failed to pass a new funding bill that would have kept the federal government operating normally. However, at 12:01 a.m. today, the existing funding bill ceased to be in effect, and with no new one in place, large parts of the government are now shut down.
Fast Company has previously explored how the government shutdown will affect everyone, from Social Security recipients to travelers to federal workers. But the shutdown will also no doubt have an effect on the markets. And not just the stock markets.
The U.S. government shutdown appears to already be having an impact on cryptocurrency markets.
Heres how Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies are performing in the hours after the federal government shut its doorsand how cryptocurrencies reacted the last time there was a government shutdown.
The government is down, but crypto is up
The first thing to note about markets of all stripes today is that some are down and some are up. As of the time of this writing, futures of the three major stock market indexes in the United States are all downbut not by a staggering amount.
S&P futures are currently down by about 0.58%, Dow futures are down by about 0.52%, and Nasdaq futures are down by about 0.67%.
But those declines are opposite to how most major cryptocurrencies are performing. As of the time of this writing, nearly every major cryptocurrency is up by multiple percentages, including:
Bitcoin: Up 2.8% to $116,281
Ethereum: Up 2.8% to $4,283
XRP: Up 3.1% to $2.93
Other popular cryptocurrencies are also up as of the time of this writing, including Dogecoin, up 5.2%, and Solana, up 4.81%.
Why are crypto prices rising?
Many major cryptocurrencies began spiking around the time that the U.S. government officially entered its partial shutdown. But why?
Investors are likely seeking safe-haven assetsinvestments that are seen as safer bets than stocks or bonds when there is a wave of economic uncertaintyuncertainty that is often created by a government shutdown.
Historically, gold has been seen as the de facto safe-haven asset during uncertain economic times. But in recent years, as cryptocurrencies have become more mainstream, investors often see the digital assets as safe havens when political turmoil has the potential to upset traditional markets.
However, investors in crypto would be wise to act cautiously because while crypto currently seems to be benefiting from those seeking safe-haven assets, theres no guarantee that the digital assets will continue to riseor remain stablein the days and weeks ahead.
Indeed, the last time there was a government shutdown, Bitcoin lost value during the period that the U.S. government shut its doors.
Bitcoin lost value during the last shutdown
Prior to this government shutdown, the federal government last shut down during President Trumps first term. The U.S. government entered a partial shutdown between December 22, 2018, and January 25, 2019. This was the longest government shutdown on record.
And in the early days of the shutdown, Bitcoin appeared to receive a boost.
According to Yahoo Finance data, Bitcoin opened at $3,898 per coin on December 22, 2018. It closed the day above $4,014. Two days later, Bitcoin climbed to an intraday high of $4,271 on December 24.
But then the gradual slide began. Over the course of the next month, Bitcoin steadily declined, and by January 25, 2019, it closed below $3,600.
If you go by Bitcoin’s closing prices of $4,014 on December 22, 2018, and below $3,600 on January 25, 2019, that means Bitcoin lost roughly 10% of its value during the last U.S. government shutdown.
Of course, this historic loss cannot be relied upon to predict what might happen to digital assets during the current federal government shutdown. However, what this history suggests is that asset prices can vary significantly in the later stages of a government shutdown compared to the early stages.
Every holiday season feels high stakes, but 2025 may be the most unforgiving yet. Consumer demand remains resilient, but retailers are facing a tangle of economic headwinds, from tariffs and supply chain volatility to rising ad costs and leaner teams. In an uncertain economy, the margin for error shrinks, and the cost of a slow site or a fragile storefront grows even steeper.
For years, retailers have measured holiday readiness by promotions, inventory planning, and staffing strategies. But theres a blind spot: performance readiness. How fast, resilient, and visible your digital storefront is when shoppers show up can determine whether you hit your holiday forecast or miss it by millions.
The challenge is that many e-commerce leaders still operate under assumptions that no longer hold true. These assumptions quietly undermine performance and cause retailers to stumble at the moment they most need to shine.
Assumption 1: Performance Is a Side Project
Retail leaders spend months calibrating promotional calendars, forecasting inventory swings, and allocating marketing budgets. Yet digital performance gets treated like an afterthought, or a box to be checked by IT. In reality, it is a revenue program. What happens in the first few hundred milliseconds of a visit sets the tone for everything that follows and has measurable consequences.
A faster, more resilient storefront doesnt just feel smoother. It directly drives higher conversion rates, greater cart completion, and improved ROI on every marketing dollar. Research shows that 63% of shoppers abandon a page that takes longer than four seconds to load, and shaving even one second off load time can lift mobile conversions by 3%. Thats not just a technical winits a financial one.
When ad costs are rising, supply chains are fragile, and budgets are tight, squeezing more value out of the traffic you already have is one of the most dependable levers retailers can pull. The companies that win in 2025 will be those that recognize speed and stability not as a side project but as a boardroom priority.
Assumption 2: Shoppers Are Only Human
This holiday season has a twist: not every shopper will be human. 2025 will be the first year of Cyborg Monday.
AI agents are already comparing prices, summarizing reviews, and recommending products. They do not get tired, they do not impulse-buy, and they have little patience for heavy pages or unstable components. Just as SEO reshaped how teams built for Google, the rise of AI answers and generative engine optimization (GEO) is pushing a new discipline that favors clean markup, predictable rendering, and fast pages so experiences are easy for humans and machines to understand.
Recently, I wanted to find a kid-friendly music player with streaming capabilities. I did not start with a traditional search engine. Instead, I asked an AI. In seconds it produced options, pulled in reviews, and linked to retailers. In that moment, the agent was the primary shopper.
Multiply that instinct across millions of households this holiday season, and you can see why 2025 will be different. Retailers arent just competing for human clicks anymore. Theyre competing for placement in AI-generated answers, shopping summaries, and bot-driven carts. Thats why performance readiness is about more than keeping the lights on. Its about ensuring your site is fast, resilient, and discoverable, whether the shopper is a person on a smartphone or an AI agent buying on their behalf.
Assumption 3: More Traffic Equals More Revenue
In uncertain economic times, the reflex is to double down on traffic acquisition. Retailers pour money into ads, believing more visitors will guarantee growth. But the assumption that volume alone drives revenue is increasingly flawed. When load times lag or pages break, additional visitors do not translate into additional sales. Instead, they magnify losses. Every click that doesnt convert represents wasted spend.
Buying more top-of-funnel only works if your experience converts reliably under pressure. Under peak load, third-party tools can stall or fail. Without orchestration, you pay for clicks that never become customers. The smarter bet is to extract more value from the traffic you already have by raising conversion, reducing abandonment, and protecting every paid visit with speed and stability.
The Imperative: Build for Speed and Agility
Recognizing flawed assumptions is only the beginning. Most teams dont lose sales because they lack a strategy; they lose them because theyre weighed down by fragility. Modern e-commerce storefronts are like orchestrasdozens of third-party vendors, from ratings and reviews to personalization engines, all playing at once. But under the heavy traffic of peak shopping season, many of those instruments stall, fall out of sync, or fail to load entirely.
Performance readiness in 2025 means more than checking a Lighthouse score. It means building agility into the stack itself:
Continuous optimization, not one-time fixes. Performance isnt static. Codebases evolve, vendors push updates, and new scripts pile up. Optimization must be ongoing.
Real-time resilience under load. Peak traffic reveals fragility. Stress-testing and load resilience need to be continuous capabilities, not seasonal exercises.
Orchestrate third parties and dont blindly trust them. Every vendor integration affects performance. Leaders must demand visibility and orchestration across the stack.
Tie visibility to revenue. Technical scores are helpful, but what matters is the financial translation: how many sales are lost or gained through performance.
The Bottom Line
Holiday pressure is coming. You cant control tariffs, shipping costs, or consumer sentiment. You can control what happens when shoppers or their agents hit your site.
The first Cyborg Monday will not reward those with the loudest promotions or the biggest ad budgets. It will reward those who have built fast, resilient, bot-friendly storefronts. In this new era of e-commerce, milliseconds wont just decide whether you win or lose a customer. They will decide whether you appear in the consideration set at all.
Miklu Silvanto, Ouras chief design officer, says incorporating advanced computing power into a tiny ring is a major challenge. It’s just as challenging to make a ring that people will actually want to wear around the clock. So Silvanto, an industrial design veteran who has worked at Apple and Bang & Olufsen, must also think of himself as a jewelry designer.
“A ring is such an intimate object,” he says. “You might wear it alongside your wedding ring. You need to think comfort, and beauty, and fashion.”
On October 1, Oura launches a new collection of ceramic rings that are more fashion-forward than its previous ones, which resemble metallic wedding bands. Since ceramic takes well to color, the new rings come in an array of hues, including petal pink, tide green, cloud white, and midnight blue. The company has also developed a new charging system that will allow wearers to switch between rings seamlessly, without losing any data.
[Image: Oura]
These new rings cost $499, while the metallic versions are priced between $350 and $500 depending on the finish. Users must also pay $70 annually to use the app that presents their health data, analysis, and advice. Given how expensive this product is, the idea of switching rings based on your outfit of the day may be an affordable reality to only a small, wealthy slice of the population, epitomized by some of the most famous Oura wearersMark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian, Prince Harry, and Gwyneth Paltrow, to name a few.
Still, the rings are resonating with consumers around the world. Oura sold 2.5 million rings last year, making up half of its total sales since 2015. And the company expects to generate $1 billion in sales this year, making it one of the biggest players in the wearable technology industry. After its $825 million Series E round, its now valued at $11 billion.
[Photo: Oura]
The Tiniest Computer
For a designer like Silvanto, working on a smart ring involves incorporating as much technology as possible into the tiniest of products. When Oura launched a decade ago as a Kickstarter project, its first ring was much chunkier and could monitor only sleep and daily activity.
[Image: Oura]
Since then, the Oura’s designers have managed to make the ring smaller. Both the metal rings and the new ceramic ones are roughly 8 millimeters wide, 2 millimeters thick, and weigh between 5 and 8 grams depending on the size. And the rings are able to track around 50 biometrics. To do this, they use several sensors, including an infrared LED that measures blood oxygen levels, green and infrared PPG (photoplethysmogram) sensors that track heart rate, a digital thermometer that measures body temperature, and a sensitive accelerometer that tracks movement.
Oura has benefited from broader changes in the technology industry that has been working toward miniaturization. (This is similar to what has been happening at, say, Dyson, which is incorporating more and more powerful motors into smaller hairdryers and vacuums.)
[Photo: Oura]
Silvanto says Oura has focused on incorporating this tech into a design that is as comfortable and beautiful as possible. The new rings are made from zirconia ceramic, which is significantly harder and more durable than the ceramic used for vases and dishware. The rings are shaped and then fired in a kiln, which chemically transforms them into the harder material. (In fact, it is so hard that it can scuff softer metals.)
Silvanto stresses the appeal of the materials ability to take on colors. The four hues in the new collection are glossy and vibrant. If Oura’s metallic rings look like simple wedding bands, these ceramic rings evoke the color of gemstones. It’s jewelry that allows users to express their tastes and aesthetic preferences.
[Photo: Oura]
Oura ring as fashion object
Now that Oura is framing its rings as fashion objects, it wanted to ensure users were able to easily swap them on a daily basis to go with their various styles or moods. Silvanto says creating a system that would allow users to change rings while keeping all their data intact wasn’t simple. Data is stored in the ring itself, in the app, and in the cloud. “When a user switches between rings, all of this data needs to be synchronized to ensure that the tracking would be accurate,” he says. (This new data-synching capability is live on iOS apps today and will be available on Android starting October 10.)
While the new ceramic designs are a significant launch for Oura, Silvanto says his team is already focused on dreaming up the companys next-gen rings. As sensor technology continues to shrink, rings will become even thinner. And the team will continue to work on making them as stylish and fashin-forward as possible. “The best ring is one that people actually want to wear,” Silvanto says. “And to do that, you need to think beyond technology and about culture.”
Peloton is pushing off with a new strategy for making workouts personal and more useful.
The at-home fitness company today unveiled a turnaround strategy that it says will overhaul and improve its offerings by relying on AI-powered features.
The companys ultimate goal? Leveraging technology to increase personalization and create a more sticky workout experience and prevent churn, create communities between members that will bind them to the program.
The new strategy comes after a rocky few years for the company.
Peloton went public in 2019 at a price of $27 per share, but is now trading at $9 after incorrectly predicting demand for its products after a COVID-19-fueled surge drove the price to a height of $167.42 in January 2021. In an August earnings call, CEO Peter Sternan Apple Fitness+ cofounder who joined Peloton in Januaaryannounced a 6% workforce reduction.
On the same calll, the company posted a fourth-quarter profit and signaled it would adjust prices to offset the impact of extra costs associated with tariffs. Some of those price adjustments were announced today; the companys All-Access Membership from $44 to $49.99 and App+ Membership from $24 to $28.99, and App One Membership from $12.99 to $15.99 effective this month.
With todays announcement, the company is banking on AI-powered workout advice, personalization, and more community-focused content that will restore its usership (and stock price) back to its pandemic height.
AI Integration
Pelotons newest features involve AI integration to personalize users experiences. Today, the company launched Peloton IQ, an AI and computer vision system available on its new product models to provide personalized guidance and class recommendations for members, based on movement tracking via built-in cameras, class history, and fitness level.
To power Peloton IQ, the company built its own large language model (LLM) using the data its collected over time. “We’re not using off the shelf LLMs, Pelotons Chief Product Officer Nick Caldwell says. No else on the planet has the ability to do the sort of movement tracking that you’re going to see in our products. For some aspects of the product the company is using other LLMs like Metas Llama.
To match the companys new AI capabilities, Peloton also unveiled new base and premium equipment. Its new bikes, treadmills, and rowing machines have built-in cameras that track users movements and offer them real-time feedback on their form during strength workouts. The cameras can also track weight-lifting reps and suggest different weights for each exercise. The new equipment also has swiveling screens to make cross-training in view of the camera easier.
Getting Personal
The upgraded software also includes a workout generator which comes up with personalized workout plans based on a users goals (like getting stronger or losing weight), and a self-paced strength setting that lets members take on-demand classes at their own pace while they receive live feedback from Peloton IQ. The equipment can be integrated with fitness trackers including products from Apple, Fitbit, and Garmin.
Once Pelotons products have registered a users goals, workout history, and data, the app can even rate classes for them. For example, a member might see a harder than your usual tag next to a class while they are browsing.
At the end of the class we can look at how you performed and we can give you insights, says Jen Kotter, Pelotons chief content officer. Every week we roll that up into a report that is meant to directly affect the actions that you take on our platform.
To prepare for the launch, the company has already banked 2,000 instructor-led classes that can track usersall available on the platform starting today.
Custom workouts for more people
As Peloton uses AI to expand its personalization capabilities, its also unveiling tailored content for different groups of users, including one that has been the target of a growing focus from companies: people in menopause.
In 2024 the market for menopause-related products and services was worth approximately $17.79 billion. By 2030, that number is projected to reach around $24.35 billion. Today the company announced a partnership with Respin Health, which provides coaching, community support, andproducts geared towards women in menopause.
The programming, set to launch October 6, will feature curated classes designed to relieve certain menopause symptoms, and will let women join a dedicated digital community on the Peloton app. Kotter says its an example of Peloton listening to what its ridersand instructorswant from it.
[Menopause] started to be a big conversation for a lot of members who had been with us for many years, she says. They didn’t like the way they were feeling, and they honestly didn’t know what kind of workouts would help them and they didn’t want to lose traction.
The company is also launching other dedicated content collections to help groups including those with runners knees or tennis elbows, new moms, and office workers. In tandem, Peloton is doubling down on digital teams in the app, letting users join them based on various affinities or hobbies to encourage each other, all in the hopes of getting them to stay.
Ultimately, we want to be able to have a one-to-one relationship with each one of those 6 million [members],” Caldwell says.
