For years, retail investors were dismissed by some on Wall Street as “dumb money.”That typically referred to those prone to trading on hype, or chasing trends rather than company or industry fundamentals, or responding late to big market moves.That’s no longer the case. An analysis of where retail investors put their money last year shows they outperformed two of the most popular, professionally managed index funds, SPY and QQQ, whose goal is to mirror the performance of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, respectively.Retail investors accounted for $5.4 trillion in trading activity in 2025 across stocks and exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, according to Vanda, an independent data and research firm. That’s a nearly 47% increase from the previous year and the most going back to at least 2014.“I personally want to dispel the myth of retail being dumb money, because it’s not dumb money anymore,” said Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab, at an investor education event held in Anaheim, California, last November that drew around 800 of the financial services company’s clients.Many Americans have long invested in the stock market, although largely hands-off through managed funds in retirement plans, such as a 401(k). But over the last decade, the advent of mobile trading apps, zero-commission trading, stock market-focused communities on social media and online tools for education and research has helped usher in a new era of do-it-yourself trading in stocks, crypto and other investments.The COVID-19 lockdowns were an inflection point. A new crop of investors, many young newcomers using investing apps like Robinhood, helped drive the “meme stock” frenzy that catapulted the price of GameStop, AMC Entertainment and other stocks.Meme stocks aside, years of mostly uninterrupted, strong stock market gains provided an attractive backdrop for more people to take up investing. The benchmark S&P 500 has posted an annual loss only three times going back to 2015.By early last year, the number of people moving money from checking accounts to investment accounts reached its highest levels since 2021, according to a report by JPMorgan Chase. Some may have been younger Americans who couldn’t afford to buy a house and instead put the money in stocks, the report suggests.All told, money coming into the market from individual investors jumped about 50% from 2023 to early 2025, according to the report.“I would say they are considerably more important as a force in markets right now,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. “Markets used to be really dominated by institutional investors, but if you put enough ants together, they can move a very big log.”
Buying the dip
Frank Sabia from Encino, California, started dabbling in investing in 2018. Over the years, he’s leveled up his market and trading knowledge by joining private investor chat groups online or attending investing seminars like Schwab’s.“I learned a lot more about options strategies and charting and everything from there,” he said in an interview in November. “Now I’m independent. I just look for my own trades. I have my own strategy. I hunt on my own.”Sabia, a high school registrar, said he trades in cryptocurrencies and other assets, but that his “bread and butter” is options trading.That involves trading contracts to buy or sell a stock at a specific price before a specified date. This can be less costly upfront than buying stocks, but can also be riskier, because options expire and a small move in a stock’s price can translate into a big swing in the value of options contracts.Last April, Sabia opened a Roth IRA account and bought into the market as stocks tanked after President Donald Trump announced a sweeping set of tariffs that were more severe than investors expected. The announcement sent the S&P 500 into a two-day tailspin of more than 10%, the type of plunge not seen since the 2020 COVID crash.“I just bought the dip,” Sabia said.He was wasn’t alone. Retail investors seized on the market skid, buying more than $5 billion in stocks over the two days, according to Vanda.“In April, it was retail (investors) that bought the dip,” Mazzola said. “They were the ones that were willing to step in front. They saw the opportunity.”Retail investors also had one of their biggest buy-the-dip days of the year on Oct. 10, when the market dropped 2.7% after Trump threatened a “massive increase on tariffs” on China.
The AI trade and silver
Retail investors haven’t slowed down this year. Their trading activity hit an all-time high on a rolling monthly basis last month, according to J.P. Morgan. They were particularly active in the last week of January, coinciding with the S&P 500 climbing to an all-time high.Retail traders also had a hand in turbocharging the price of silver last month to record highs by buying a record amount of silver ETFs, according to data from Vanda.A recent analysis by Charles Schwab of trading and stock positions by its millions of retail investor clients found they were net buyers of stocks in January, with Microsoft, Netflix and Tesla among the most popular stock buys.
Some take on more risk
Many retail investors have gone beyond stocks or ETFs and into other investment vehicles. Options trading, which can expose them to higher risk, accounted for about $650 billion of retail investors’ trading last year and has been mostly rising steadily going back to at least 2019, according to Vanda.Noah Goodwin, a junior in high school in the L.A. suburb of Castaic, started options trading on Robinhood Markets early last year using in his mother’s custodial account. It paid off right away.He bought $148 worth of Nvidia options on Jan. 20, 2025, the same day shares of the tech giant plunged on news of AI advances by Chinese startup DeepSeek.Goodwin sold his options later that day.“I made a $200 profit. My very first trade!” Goodwin said in an interview in November.Not all his trades have gone his way. In July, he thought he could capitalize on market volatility caused by more uncertainty over tariffs, but he miscalculated.“I lost a lot of money, like probably like around $600 to $800,” he said. “So, a horrible month for me.”“For the most part, with only some exceptions, buying the dip has tended to be a very profitable tactic for many retail investors,” said Sosnick. But he cautioned that the strategy had led to retail investors making trading decisions without giving full consideration to the risks and rewards.“The risk to it is that for many of them it’s become sort of mechanical,” he said.
Balancing short-term and long-term trading
It’s not uncommon for retail investors to strike a balance between higher-risk moves and making trades to build out a long-term investment portfolio.Andy Hu, a financial analyst in Los Angeles who attended the Schwab event in November, said he had 50% of his investment portfolio in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, a popular fund that aims to track the performance of the S&P 500.For his short-term trades, he tends to buy micro-cap stocks, which are very small publicly traded companies that can see big swings in price because of small trading volume.The approach had his active trading account up by around 20% through the first 11 months of last year, he said.Hu stopped making trades toward the end of last year when a pullback in big tech companies helped drag the S&P 500 to a monthly loss in December, clouding sentiment on Wall Street.“I haven’t made a single trade in the last two months,” Hu said.
Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer
The American promise is one of equal opportunity, but in most of our communities today, access to the resources that enable prosperity are too far out of reach.
Thats because there is one unseen factor that influences who is able to thrive and who cannot: capital. The flow of capital into communities has a dramatic effect on which kind of people can open small businesses, buy homes, and generally participate in the American Dream.
Places that are already thriving are able to easily access capital. Banks see these neighborhoods as a safe bet and will readily support the opening of new businesses, construction of new homes, and mortgage lending. But those places that are strugglingand have been strugglingdo not receive the same treatment. These are the inner-city neighborhoods, the rural communities, and the suburban areas that have been abandoned.
There are some capital options for these under-resourced communities. Nonprofit and community banks offer concessionary loans, and government grants help fill gaps. For example, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helped drive $28.3 billion in federal grants to over 1,500 cities, according to the National League of Cities.
But this is not enough. We need a different way to think about capital to drive the prosperity that has been out of reach for too many for too long.
THE 3 TYPES OF CAPITAL
Decades of redlining, exclusionary lending, and the uneven distribution of government funds have created entrenched divisions in American communities. Despite legal reforms, barriers to capital still persist, including higher burdens for lending placed on marginalized groups, discrimination against those groups, and capital providers simply not showing up for these places. Over 12 million Americans live in a banking desert, with no bank close by. These deserts are rural and urban, but also overwhelmingly suburban: two thirds of banking deserts are in suburban areas.
Overcoming these barriers is not as simple as getting more money out to communities that need it. Communities need ways to not only absorb the capital, but use it. Offering money is not enough; the dollars must be combined with expertise and knowledge to help get it to the people who actually need it.
At Living Cities, we have identified three different types of capital that lead to prosperity:
1. Financial capital: Funds, credit, and investment needed to start businesses, buy homes, and generally support community growth. Systemic gaps in creditworthiness, collateral requirements, and bias in financing limit the spread of financial capital.
2. Social capital: Networks of trust, mentorship, and informal connections that open doors to opportunity.
Research shows social capital is strongly associated with upward mobility and improved economic outcomes, with limited networks leading to lower rates of entrepreneurship and employment. Not all communities have equal access. Decades of segregation and underinvestment have eroded social infrastructure in marginalized neighborhoods.
3. Knowledge capital: Information, skills, and know-how required to navigate business, government, and civic systems.
When you have financial capital, but lack knowledge of regulatory systems, market trends, and grant opportunities, the capital cant get to where it’s most needed and most effective. Knowledge capital is a multiplier: pairing capital with business training or legal literacy increases success rates for entrepreneurs.
THE CAPITAL EQUATION IN ACTION
Only when all three types of capital come together can the cycle of exclusion be broken. Offering only one isnt enough.
For example, small business programs that blend loans (financial), local business incubators (social), and technical training (knowledge) see higher success rates than those providing only cash infusions. Our Breaking Barriers to Business cohort is leveraging all three types of capital to create and execute projects that create jobs through hands-on small business assistance.
Cities should audit procurement, zoning, and economic development policies to identify the gaps in all types of capital access, not only financial capital. Any federal and philanthropic interventions should require grantees to demonstrate not only financial investment but strategies for bridging social and knowledge capital divides.
TOWARD INCLUSIVE GROWTH
Equitable capital flow is about more than headline numbers. Its about shifting the deeper patterns that determine who gets to build the future. By understanding and reshaping capital flows, cities can fire up new engines of shared prosperity.
Joe Scantlebury is president and CEO of Living Cities.
Authoritarian acolytes will tell you that, to be strong, a country must demonstrate force.
White House advisor Stephen Miller recently put that worldview plainly on CNN, arguing that the real worldis governed by strengthby forceby powera claim belied, as it were, by history.
America did not become a superpower primarily by proving it could dominate. It became a superpower by proving it could partner.
After World War II, the United States stood unrivaled militarily. Yet it did not rely on force alone to secure its position. Instead, it invested in rebuilding a shattered world. The Marshall Plan was not charityit was a strategy, linking economic recovery with political stability and turning war-torn nations into long-term allies. By helping others prosper, the U.S. increased its own security and economic future. That is soft power at work.
Dwight Eisenhower, a five-star general, advanced the idea that diplomacy is not the sole province of governments, and that when people know you, they are less likely to fear you. And when they trust you, they are more likely to collaborate with you. John F. Kennedy carried that logic forward with the Peace Corps. The program sent a clear signal that American power included service, partnership, and humility. In a Cold War offering competing models to aspire to, that mattered, and it continues to matter today.
THE ROLE OF SOFT POWER
Soft power was never intended to be solely a government project. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States again faced a pivotal choice: declare victory and walk away or support the hard work of transition. Out of that moment emerged citizen diplomacy initiatives like what later became Pyxera Globalformed at the behest of the George H.W. Bush White House that called for a Citizens Democracy Corps to mobilize private-sector volunteer expertise to help planned-economy societies build market economies and democratic institutions.
Alongside these efforts, agencies like USAID institutionalized development as a pillar of U.S. foreign policyinvesting for decades in health, education, food security, and economic growth as tools of stability and influence. That modelpublic purpose paired with private capabilityhas always been central to Americas soft power.
There are certainly many situations and geographies where U.S. engagement fell woefully short. Still, taken together, these efforts point to a simple conclusion: Americas influence has been strongest when it was most usefulnot most intimidating. Soft power was never a weaknessit was leverage.
That history matters now. When the U.S. government pulls back from development, diplomacy, and partnership, the vacuum does not remain empty. Other forces are surely eager to fill it with transactional relationships, debt dependence, and authoritarian influence.
If Washington is narrowing its role now, the private sector faces a choice of its own. It can retreat inward, treating global instability as someone elses problem. Or it can recognize a simple truth: A stable world is a prerequisite for sustainable business. Soft power is not philanthropy. It is long-term risk management.
HOW BUSINESS CAN STEP INTO THE GAP
None of the following actions is a substitute for government. But they represent a sampling of ways that global business now has the opportunityand the capacityto step into the vacuum.
Normalize board service as leadershipnot a side project. Encouraging executives to serve on nonprofit and civic boards strengthens institutions at a time of severe resource constraints, when we need them to function well. It also builds empathy, governance skills, and real-world decision-making capacity, qualities companies claim to value in leaders.
Scale skills-based volunteering. Finance, compliance, cybersecurity, HR, and logistics are some of the skills that many public and nonprofit institutions cannot easily access. Deploying them fills a dire resource gap while meeting employee demand for purpose-driven work that uses real expertise.
Double down on supply-chain resilience as a form of stability. Diversifying suppliers, investing in transparency, and ensuring local equity reduce exposure to disruption and coercion. Resilient supply chains are not just good businessthey help anchor opportunity and stability in the places where companies operate.
Expand community-driven initiatives where companies operate. Corporate success cannot sustainably outpace community well-being. Health, nutrition, education pipelines, workforce training, and local economic development are not public relations gesturesthey are investments in human capital, social cohesion, and long-term operational continuity.
THE POWER OF PARTNERING
Taken together, and implemented at scale, these actions underscore a simple truth: strength is not only the ability to strikeit is the ability to attract, rebuild, and partner. And if Washington continues to pull back from soft power, global business can advance something new, durable, and worth trusting.
Deirdre White is the CEO of Pyxera Global.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E cruises down a London road choked with traffic, using its onboard AI system to avoid jaywalkers and cyclists, and navigate roadwork as it drives to its destination.The autonomous vehicle from British startup Wayve Technologies is on a test run ahead of the U.K. government’s robotaxi trials set to launch in the spring. Tech companies including U.S. company Waymo and China’s Baidu also plan to take part in the pilot program, making London the latest arena in the global robotaxi competition.While self-driving cabs aren’t new, London’s ancient road layout and busy streetscapes could pose special challenges for the technology.There’s also skepticism from London’s famed black cab drivers, who must pass a grueling training course known as “The Knowledge,” which requires memorizing hundreds of routes and takes years to complete. They’ve previously opposed technology that’s disrupted their industry, and protested the arrival of Uber.Self-driving taxis are “a solution looking for a problem,” said Steven McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, which represents black cabbies.He doubts that robotaxis would have any advantage on London’s road network, which is laid out in a convoluted spiderweb that dates back to Roman times unlike the grid layout in American cities like San Francisco and Phoenix where Waymo operates.The British capital is notorious for being one of the world’s most congested cities and its streets are already clogged with other modes of transport, including private cars, buses, motor scooters, bicycles and electric rental bikes.McNamara and many others have noted that robotaxis face another challenge from pedestrians crossing the streets. While jaywalking is illegal in the United States and many other countries, it’s not an offense in Britain.“It’s virtually impossible to drive anywhere (in London) without somebody walking in front of you,” McNamara said. In London, with a population of nearly 10 million, he wondered “how these cars are going to deal with those volumes of people?”The robotaxi companies say there’s room for the new technology.“I think Londoners are going to love autonomous driving. It’s going to be another choice alongside the Tube, cycling, walking, “said Wayve CEO Alex Kendall in a recent interview at the company’s workshop.Wayve is teaming up with Uber for the taxi trials, which are part of Britain’s move to adopt national regulations for self-driving vehicles. The nation is seeking to position itself as a world leader in the technology.Chinese tech company Baidu is also teaming up with Uber, as well as its ride-hailing rival Lyft, to operate its Apollo Go autonomous vehicle service in the London pilot.Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, will also take part and plans to launch a London passenger service by the third quarter of 2026, company representatives told reporters last month.Waymo officials sought to ease concerns that the company would suddenly flood London streets with robotaxis, noting that it has operated 1,000 total vehicles in San Francisco since going into full service in 2024.“We’re not here to replace anyone,” Waymo spokesman Ethan Teicher said. “We’re here to add another option for people who will choose to take black cabs or other modes of transportation when it suits them and choose to take Waymo, when it makes sense.”Waymo’s self-driving Jaguar I-Pace sedans have been spotted doing test runs around London. Wayve’s Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles have also been doing road tests with human backup drivers sitting behind the wheel, ready to intervene if needed.On a recent demo ride for The Associated Press, Wayve’s Ford steered automatically through a three-mile (five kilometer) loop in North London without any problems.Cruising down a straight and open stretch of road, the car maintained a steady pace of 19 miles (30 kilometers) per hour, a tick under the speed limit.A traffic light changed as the car approached, forcing it to brake firmly and lightly jolting the passengers forward the only moment that the driving was less than smooth.Kendall said Wayve takes a different approach from traditional self-driving technology. It doesn’t rely on “high definition” maps and “hand-coded” safety systems rules written by programmers anticipating every scenario.Instead, it uses an AI trained on millions of hours of data gathered by its cars to learn and understand how the world works.“This is the key thing for self-driving, because every time you drive on the road, you’re going to experience something different,” Kendall said. “You can’t rely on a self-driving car being told how to behave in every scenario it encounters.”He said Wayve is positioning itself as a technology company providing hardware and software that can be added to any vehicle to make it autonomous. It signed a deal with Nissan in December to build self-driving cars that will go on sale in Japan and North America by 2027.Kendall wouldn’t reveal any more specific details about the robotaxi service it will operate in collaboration with Uber, such as pricing.Waymo, which has its own app to hail rides, will have “competitive” prices and fares will be in line with the market, officials said last month, while adding that it is often able to “demand more premium pricing.”Experts say there’s a role for robotaxis in Britain, but it might be a niche one.They’re best poised to fill gaps in Britain’s public transport network, such as serving villages that have lost bus services connecting them to bigger towns and cities because of budget cuts, said Kevin Vincent, director of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Automotive Research at Coventry University.There will still be demand for human drivers, especially from out-of-town visitors and tourists, he said.If you find a “cab driver who knows the area, you can ask him questions. You feel confident and comfortable you’re going where you need to go,” which is a service that won’t be easily replaced in the short term, Vincent said.Self-driving taxis can’t replicate the human touch, said Frank O’Beirne, who has been driving black cabs for 14 years.For example, one of his recent fares was a pair of blind passengers going to touristy Leicester Square. He ended up parking at a cab rank and walking them across the street to their destination, a Chinese restaurant that turned out to be in the basement of a casino.“They would never have found that, ever, (on their own),” said O’Beirne. “There’s nothing like us. I can’t see the space where autonomous taxis can operate, really.”
Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer
For the last several years, enterprises have treated AI as something to test. A pilot here, a proof of concept there. That era is ending. According to new global DeepL research, a survey of 5,000 global executives on the impact of AI agents reshaping business, 69% expect AI agents to fundamentally change how their companies operate in 2026. Nearly half anticipate major transformation, while another quarter say that change is already underway.
This moment didnt arrive overnight. While 2025 was the year agentic AI moved from theory to application, enterprises are making the shift structural this year. Leaders are no longer asking whether AI works but rather deciding where AI agents belong inside their operating model. As tools mature and agentic systems become capable of coordinating work across functions, AI agents are unlocking new opportunitiesnot just automating tasks. By eliminating manual coordination, AI agents enable organizations to move faster and smarter, enabling the creativity, problem-solving depth, and judgment that turn velocity into measurable value.
Yet, when it comes to scaling agents and validating their investment, most organizations remain stuck in pilot mode. McKinsey reports that while 62% of companies are experimenting with agents, only 10% are scaling them across a single function, and just 32% of leaders report an impact on EBIT at the enterprise level. The gap between early adopters and those who hold out will widen in 2026not because of trial and error, but execution.
Three shifts will define this gaphow enterprises automate core operations, deploy AI for growth, and build the communication infrastructure agents require.
AUTOMATE THE CORE
AI agents are no longer confined to experimentation or pilots. Enterprises are deploying them into operational workflows like processing returns in customer service, investigating customer complaints, automating approvals and ticketing, supporting prospect and competitor research in sales and marketing, and optimizing working capital in finance. Whats changing is continuity. Instead of accelerating individual tasks, organizations are increasingly making agents responsible for managing handoffs between themreducing friction.
Looking at AI agent adoption more broadly, DeepLs research shows global executives cite proven ROI and efficiency (22%), workforce adaptability (18%), and enterprise readiness (18%) as the primary reasons they feel confident expanding agent deployment. Results, not optimism, are driving this shift.
At the same time, known barriers are beginning to soften. Cost (16%), workforce preparedness (13%), and technology maturity (12%) remain challenges, but enterprises are actively addressing them as they gain experience operating agents in production environments.
The real risk now is inaction. Organizations that fail to identify which workflows should be automated first keep valuable talent focused on low-leverage workwhile competitors redesign operations around intelligent systems. Customer service offers a clear example. Companies like Perk are deploying AI agents to take on routine operational work in customer support, while human agents focus on complex, relationship-driven scenarios.
As Tom Davis, senior director of operational excellence at Perk, notes: When weve got travelers stuck in airports, we want our humans focused on those momentsand in the background, a machine of AI handling the grunt work. That division allows human agents to focus on high-stakes relationship work while AI agents manage operational tasks at scale.
AI AS A GROWTH ENGINE
AI is no longer confined to cost reduction. Its becoming a driver of growth.
The broader AI landscape shows strong momentum: 67% of executives reported measurable impact from AI initiatives in 2025, and 52% expect AI to contribute more to company growth than any other technology in 2026.
Enterprises seeing the strongest returns are applying AI across revenue-generating functionscustomer service, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT supportrather than limiting it to back-office automation. The competitive advantage comes from scale and integration, not just isolated use cases.
But the real gain isnt just efficiencyits faster, higher-quality decision making. As b2ventures noted in their work with AI agents, the technology helps them make higher-quality investment decisions faster because agents excel at evaluating companies and surfacing insights that inform critical choices.
According to DeepLs research, leaders in the UK (80%), Germany (78%), and the U.S. (71%) are seeing measurable performance gains from AI initiatives. This underscores that execution and organizational readiness are just as important as access to technology when it comes to turning AI into a strategic advantage.
Ignoring AI in growth-critical areas is no longer conservative. Its a strategic risk, particularly in sectors where margins and customer expectations are shifting fast.
LANGUAGE AND VOICE AI
As AI agents move deeper into enterprise workflows, theyre changing how people interact with software itself. Instead of clicking through dashboards or submitting forms, employees increasingly instruct systems through natural language. In an agent-driven operating model, language becomes the primary user interface. This is the mechanism through which work gets done.
That shift raises the stakes for fluency and accuracy. When language is the interface, a mistranslated prompt or misunderstood instruction doesnt just slow down communication; it can derail an entire workflow. For enterprises scaling agents across teams and regions, language precision becomes a requirement, not a nice-to-have.
This is reflected in enterprise priorities where 64% of companies plan to increase investment in language AI in 2026, while organizations expect adoption of real-time voice translation to rise to 54%. These investments arent standalone initiatives. They are foundational to making AI agents reliable, scalable, and effective.
EXECUTION, NOT EXPERIMENTATION
This year, the organizations experiencing the biggest impacts will stop experimenting with AI and start embedding AI agents into core operations and applying them across growth-critical functions. By turning AI into a strategic advantage, these companies will streamline operations, make better decisions, and unlock measurable business value. Those who delay will watch the gap grow as early adopters accelerate ahead.
Jarek Kutylowski is the CEO and founder of DeepL.
Before the holidays, Adam Conner began vibe coding. Like everyone else in the know, he was using Claude Code. Compared to popular chatbots, Anthropics advanced AI agent speaks the language of computers: code. Normally, you click buttons in browsers, open folders, and drag files. But you can also do so by codinginteracting with software by typing commands into a terminal, a text-based app.
Claude Code goes beyond such primitive tasks, though: an AI that can code can effectively do nearly anything on a computer.
We expected developers to use Claude Code for coding, but then something unexpected happened, an Anthropic spokesperson tells Fast Company. We started seeing the discovery arc where people would approach Claude Code to tackle a coding task, then have an ‘aha moment’ when they realized it could help with other tasks.
The result of that aha moment is a vibe coding phenomenon that lets developersand, crucially, non-developers such as Connerharness the AI agent to write code and create projects that could grow tomato plants, knit sweaters, and build fully fledged iOS apps in hours.
Conners vibe coding wasnt as dramatic as keeping living organisms alive, but no less impressive. He used it for his work: an AI labor market simulator, built from Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve data. It projects the potential impact that AI could have on the economy. (Headline: its pretty big.)
I got it running in a day, says Conner, whos also the vice president for technology policy at the Center of American Progress (CAP), a think-tank. It shows how this AI is more accessible and powerful. You can have limited programming experience, and still build something quickly.
But the real revelation, says Conner, came using Claude Code to form his own policy council: 21 AI agents with competing ideologies and political agendas. Within minutes, it had generated 24-page proposal papers, 12-page draft legislations, and hundreds of policy ideas.
You can now direct a small army of bots to do the tasks of humans relatively quickly, says Conner.
Its not yet the game changer that can fully automate someones job, but you can begin to see how AI could be transformational.
Were now in the fourth year of widely available generative AI tools. As adoption has ticked up23% of U.S. workers are now frequent AI users, nearly doubling year-over-yearso too have AI-related layoffs.
Despite many companies citing AI as the cause for layoffs, though, actual mass job displacement due to AI has yet to materialize. But the capabilities of Anthropics Claude Codeand in particular its advanced AI workplace tool, Claude Coworkcould change that.
The new knowledge worker
So far, generative AIs use case has been split fairly equally between work and personal needs, such as generating ideas, editing, and even companionship. In 2025, bots were more often leveraged for therapy, life coaching, and, increasingly, codingthe latter likely driven by the popularity of Claude Code: generating more than $1 billion in revenue, just six months after general availability, according to Anthropic.
On January 12, the San Francisco-headquartered company launched Claude Cowork. Its effectively a UI update to Code for the mass market. Whereas Code can only be utilized through a terminals command linethe barebones essence of human-to-computer interactionCowork adds the friendly, compliant chatbot layer to the Claude desktop app.
Currently, anyone with a $100-per-month Claude Max subscription can prompt the AI to complete nearly any computer-related task.
Compared to popular chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or the original Claude.ai, Cowork can, in theory, leverage users hard drivestheir digital livesin its working memory.
In practice, as a workplace tool, Cowork can organize haystacks of files into neat, delineated folders; turn screenshots of invoices into actionable spreadsheets; pull material from multiple websites, synthesized and analyzed in a single document; and even action slide comments.
In short, its a general AI assistant, built for knowledge work.
Its like having a junior researcher thats proactive, makes few mistakes, and solves problems before you realize there even was one, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London and Fast Company contributor whos written books about AI. Compared to other AI platforms, Cowork is smarter and more autonomous, he adds.
In contrast to how people typically use ChatGPToften for their personal lives, such as travel plans, self-therapy, or recipesAnthropics latest agent can be more entrusted with their work. I use Cowork to digest research: Upload this folder and create a review of these articles main points, then look online for everything Ive written on this topic. So you can give it multi-layered tasks and receive highly accurate outputs, says Chamorro-Premuzic.
These sorts of tasksbite-sized chunks of reading, researching, and writingare traditionally delegated to entry-level employees, says Conner. Its how knowledge workers judgment and expertise is honed on their gradual climb up the career ladder. If AI takes over some of those junior-level processes, it could pull the ladder up from them, he adds.
The risk is that the effectiveness of AI agents like Cowork, and their widespread adoption, could impact entry-level hiring, continues Conner. This has long-term consequences for the economy. And in some ways, its already impacted how many entry-level jobs are available right now; some data suggests a 35% plummet in entry-level openings in the U.S. since 2023.
Fewer junior roles eventually leads to fewer qualified candidates for mid-level and senior roles, Conner says. So, while short-term financial focus means some companies may want to adopt AI more and hire fewer junior folks, its possible we look back years from now and realize it hurt the talent pipeline.
Coding the future
Cowork has already deeply impacted the economy, just over a month after launch.
p>On February 3, $300 billion was wiped from software and data stocks. It swiftly followed Anthropics release of plug-ins that can tailor Cowork to specific roles across sales, legal, financial analysis, and other industries. The worry is that if in-house lawyers can just use Cowork to do their work, they no longer need legal software, says Chamorro-Premuzic.
He believes Cowork is an incremental upgrade, rather than exponential. But the next iteration will likely come soon. On February 5, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6. It has four times the effective recall of Opus 4.5, its predecessor that made Claude Code go virallaunched just 73 days before.
The pace of release is accelerating (Sonnet 4.6, Anthropics free model, was released on February 17). Thats not just because of the AI raceClaude Code already writes 90% of its teams code. On December 27, its lead developer said all 40,000 lines of new code hed contributed in the past 30 days were written by the agentic tool. An autonomous, self-perpetuating feedback loop means the next upgrade is always imminent.
We’re going to see AI involved in improving and building itself more and more, says an Anthropic spokesperson. In the closer term, Claude Code helps people build faster, with fewer resources, and the result is innovation across entire industries. We’re in the early innings of what’s possible.
Claude Cowork isnt perfect. It requires oversight, particularly with high-stakes tasks. Like all AI, it can also make mistakesand given it can have access to personal files, apps, and tools, those errors can be more widespread than a chatbots text output. Its also not compliant first: conversation histories are stored locally, rather than within tightly regulated workflows.
However, mass adoption of advanced AI tools like Cowork will likely be inevitable. So will labor market displacementits only the extent thats unclear.
There are already signs that junior workers and college graduates are disproportionately affected by the onward march of AI. A November 2025 Stanford University study found a 16% relative decline in employment for early-career workers in occupations most exposed to the technology since 2022, such as software developers and customer service representatives.
Not all entry-level jobs will be decimated by AI. Companies will always want to hire the best talent, and train them over time to accumulate institutional knowledge, workplace culture, and project history in ways technology cant.
But there are concerns over how roles may be reshaped.
If knowledge work merely becomes entering and fine-tuning prompts, it risks workers automating themselves, hampering their development and soft skills. Generative AI can tell you what to say in giving critical feedback, but its not the same as having a hard conversation and learning from it, says Chamorro-Premuzic. It becomes judgment without experience.
The power of Claude Cowork means were one step closer to that future.
Its like seeing the Wright brothers fly for the first time, says Conner. You wouldnt have understood the concept of a Boeing 767 flying across the ocean, but youd have grasped the idea of aviation. With Claude Cowork, you can see the future more clearly, and how this technology will have a major impact.
Bourbon was once hailed as the poor mans drink. The spirit has since developed, however, from a mass-market American staple into a luxury class, and limited releases, higher prices, and brands vying for prestige have caused a crowded top tier.
Even though the premium field has widened, the very top of the market remains stubbornly narrow, according to whiskey expert Fred Minnick.
During a blind tasting of his top 100 American whiskeys of 2025, Minnick evaluated leading contenders anonymously. Even without labels, the rankings reflected the same hierarchy seen at retail and on the secondary market. The most scarce, high-status bottles still rose to the top, regardless of brand recognition.
George T. Stagg claimed the number one spot, followed by Sazerac Rye 18 Year at number two. Both are part of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, one of the most limited and consistently in-demand product lines in American spirits. Buffalo Trace, beyond its Antique Collection, also produces the popularand often hard to findEagle Rare, Blantons, Weller, and Pappy Van Winkle whiskey brands.
Minnicks ranking reinforced a key dynamic shaping the bourbon market. While dozens of producers now compete in the premium tier, demand continues to concentrate on a small set of legacy brands whose supply is structurally constrained by long aging cycles and finite inventory. Scarcity, not novelty, appears to be one of the most powerful differentiators at the top end.
That scarcity has also shaped customer expectations. People who are out buying bourbon want to buy something that feels fancy, Minnick said, whos next book, Bottom Shelf, comes out next month. Bourbon, which used to be the poor mans drink, is now like a fancy mans drink.
Those changing expectations are reflected not only in pricing and branding but in how elite bourbon is judged. Minnick noted that higher proof and longer finishonce defining markers of top-tier releasesno longer carry the same weight on their own. For the first time in my career, Im breaking protocol, he said. Im not rewarding the longer finish.
Instead, Minnick favored the bourbon that delivered what he described as a fuller, more immersive experience, one that absolutely drenches my tongue and completely encompasses my entire mouth.
While each bottle featured in Minnicks review is among the top American whiskeys, the most supply-constrained, prestige-driven brands still set the markets upper bound. And without labels, the qualities that signal luxury still held up under blind tasting.
Check out the top five bottles below, and watch the full video on YouTube:
George T. Stagg, Buffalo Trace Antique Collection
Sazerac Rye 18 Year, Buffalo Trace Antique Collection
Bombergers PFG
Brother Justus Founders Reserve American Single Malt
Heaven Hill 90th Anniversary
Leila Sheridan
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday is likely to be a test run of the message Republicans will give to voters in November’s elections for control of the House and the Senate.The president and his party appear vulnerable, with polls showing much of America distrusts how Trump has managed the government in his first year back in office. In addition, the Supreme Court last week struck down one of the chief levers of his economic and foreign policy by ruling he lacked the power to impose many of his sweeping tariffs.Though Trump is expected to focus on domestic issues, his intensifying threats about launching military strikes on Iran over its nuclear program cast a shadow over the address.Here are a few things to watch as Trump tries to make his case:
Economy and immigration are no longer strengths for Trump
Trump swept back into the White House on promises to bring down prices and restore order to immigration in America. But on both issues, public sentiment has turned against him.Only 39% of U.S. adults approve of his economic leadership and just 38% support him on immigration, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey. Those low numbers show the country is still fretting about the costs of groceries, housing and utilities, a problem compounded by Trump’s whipsawing use of tariffs. They also show how the public was disturbed by videos of violent clashes with protesters, including two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents.Since his party passed a massive tax cut bill last year, Trump has yet to unveil major new policy ideas on the economy. In recent speeches, he has largely offered the public reruns about his tax cuts, plans to reduce mortgage rates and a new government website for buying prescription drugs.The Supreme Court ruling against many of Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday and the president vowing to use other means to forge ahead with import taxes will only prolong the economic turmoil over trade and prices.“I think it makes it even more important that the speech really focus on the economy,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist.Conant said between the tariff ruling and a Commerce Department report on Friday that showed U.S. economic growth slowed in the final three months of last year, “the president needs to bolster his economic message.”
Blame everything on Biden
The administration is trying to make the case that despite Trump’s rewiring of global trade and tax cuts, the economy is still struggling because of choices made in 2021 and 2022 by his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. But Trump is also seeking to take credit for positive signs in the current economy, such as recent stock market gains.“Watch the State of the Union. We’re going to be talking about the economy. We inherited a mess,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.Of course, Trump made the same kind of argument in his address to a joint session of Congress last year, invoking the Biden name 13 times.
Trump’s focus on foreign policy has yet to resonate politically
Despite Trump’s America First credo, his aggressive approach abroad over the past year has sparked concerns among some of his supporters about whether he should spend more time focusing on voters at home.Trump, who’s made it clear he covets a Nobel Peace Prize, is likely to use the speech to remind Americans of his attempts to try to broker peace accords in global conflicts.But in many respects, the president hasn’t been extending olive branches. Within the past year, his administration has launched strikes in Yemen, Nigeria and Iran, along with an ongoing campaign of lethal military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels near South America. Trump also shocked the world in January with a surprise raid to capture Venezuela’s then-leader, Nicolás Maduro, and floated the idea of using force to seize Greenland.In recent weeks, as he pressures Iran, Trump has bolstered the U.S. military’s presence in the Middle East. But he has yet to make a clear case to voters about what his actions overseas mean for their lives.He might even minimize foreign policy in his State of the Union despite his belief that it’s been a major success.“For as much as foreign policy has dominated his last year in office, this speech will mostly focus on the economy,” Conant predicted.Vice President JD Vance offered a similar prediction, saying in an interview Saturday on Fox News Channel that in the speech, “you’re going to hear a lot about the importance of bringing jobs back into our country, of reshoring manufacturing, of all these great factories that are being built.”He said Trump would also speak about lowering energy costs.
Trump has made the State of the Union his own
The State of the Union used to be about recapping accomplishments and seeking to unite the country, but it increasingly reflects divisions in society.“What you’re going to expect is some version of a campaign speech in which the Democrats are the villains, the Republicans he likes are the heroes, and he is the savior not only of the nation but of the globe,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania.Trump supporters might cherish the moment in 2020 when the president midspeech reunited a military family. He also bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host and author who died in 2021. But that moment turned off Democrats who saw Limbaugh as a destructive figure in political media.
Reaction in the room could matter as much as Trump’s words
Trump is delivering the speech, but his audience sitting in the House chamber has a big role, too. When Trump delivered his 2020 State of the Union, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi theatrically ripped up a copy of the speech afterward, overshadowing much of what Trump said.House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has said in a letter to colleagues “it is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” indicating some members might choose not to attend in protest to Trump. But there’s also the possibility of Democrats razzing Trump as Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, did in 2025, leading him to be removed from the chamber.If Trump in his speech lays out a fuller case for why he’s using other mechanisms in federal law to continue his tariffs, Conant said it’ll be interesting to see the reaction from lawmakers.“I think that any House Republicans that don’t applaud his tariffs are going to be featured prominently on the telecast,” he said.
State of the Unions have short shelf lives
While some presidential phrases endure, much of the rhetoric in State of the Unions is forgettable. And with Trump who’s known for veering off-script there’s a good chance a stray comment or a social media post could step on his message.Matt Latimer, a former Republican speechwriter for then-President George W. Bush, noted in an email that people hear the president talk all of the time, so the State of the Union has lost much of its luster.A State of the Union “only matters in moments when the country is undergoing a great trauma a war, an attack, a global crisis and a president and Congress want to speak in a (mostly) united voice to the country,” he said. “That’s not what we are experiencing now.”
Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price, Associated Press
Cheap tote bag collections everywhere just got an attachable clip-on upgrade.
Snatch is a shoulder strap system designed to attach and detach to fabric surfaces without damaging them. The clips are comprised of three pieces of hardwarea button, slotted loop, and fastenerand they can give thin-handled tote bags new life with a wider, sturdier shoulder strap in just a few steps, exemplifying a simple and solutions-oriented Occam’s razor approach to product design.
[Photo: CW&T]
To assemble, you place fabric over the button piece and thread it through the aluminum slotted loop. The fastener holds it all into place, and the strap is then attached onto a g-hook on the slotted loop.
[Image: CW&T]
The black strap has a 3M retro-reflective print on one side for nighttime visibility, and it’s woven as a single piece with openings every inch so it can be adjustable without requiring extra hardware.
“We wanted to avoid additional hardware or sewing,” says Taylor Levy, one half of CW&T, the Brooklyn art and design studio behind Snatch. “Tri-glide or other buckle hardware works well for adjustable shoulder straps, but all those require sewing. We wanted to keep things as simple as possible, so we opted for this mille-style webbing that lets you hook directly into any notch to adjust strap length.”
[Photo: CW&T]
The product typifies CW&T’s approach to product design: clean, minimal, and useful. The idea for the Snatch came during a trip when Che-Wei Wang, the agency’s other designer, started thinking about ways to easily and non-destructively attach a strap to a bag or fabric. He considered how when outdoors, fabric can be wrapped around a rock with a knot tied around it and the rock distributes the load to hang a tarp.
“Snatch works using the same principle,” Levy says.
The device affords a wider, adjustable shoulder strap, making any tote bag personalizable. Additionally, it gives tote bags tracking device compatibility, as the button in the clip was designed to hold an AirTag inside. Snatch retails for $52 and comes with two clips, one strap, and a free tote.
[Image: CW&T]
But it’s not just for tote bags. CW&T says the device should be thought of as “an interface for attaching anything to fabric” with versatile uses, like making a backpack or attaching a pouch to a shirt, or used to hang a tarp or hammock outdoors.
For cute tote bags with uncomfortable or inconvenient handles, though, Snatch makes it possible to finally and more comfortably put them back into rotation.
If youre in the Northeast, theres a good chance youll be hunkering down inside for a few days as a major snowstorm batters the East Coast.
And if you have a flight to catch, well, theres a high probability that it might not be taking off at all. Due to the blizzard, which is forecast to bring up to two feet of snow in some areas, thousands of flights have already been canceled or delayed.
Heres what you need to know if you have a flight to catch.
Thousands of flights have already been canceled due to the snowstorm
As of the time of this writing, 5,348 flights within, into, or out of the United States today have already been canceled, according to data compiled by the flight tracking platform FlightAware. Additionally, another 703 flights have been delayed.
The number of todays cancellations already outpaces yesterday, when 3,436 cancellations within, into, or out of the United States took place.
It is highly likely that as the day continues onand the storm continues along its paththat more flights will be canceled or delayed.
And the majority of those cancellations and delays can be blamed on the winter storm that is bearing down across the Northeast.
As NBC News reports, the storm has already resulted in more than 200,000 people losing power across the impacted area, which stretches from Maryland to Maine. In total, blizzard warnings currently cover 41 million people.
School closures have already been announced across major cities like Boston and New York, the latter of which has a travel ban in place until later today. In New York, officials said todays blizzard could be one of the citys 10 worst over the past 150 years.
Major airlines issue travel alerts for dozens of airports
Americas three largest airlines have issued travel alerts for flights scheduled to depart from or land into dozens of airports. The airlines, which include American, Delta, and United, say the travel alerts are in place from yesterday, February 22, 2026, until Wednesday, February 25, 2026. Those airports include:
American Airlines
American has issued travel alerts for the following airports due to the winter storm:
Baltimore, Maryland (BWI)
Boston, Massachusetts (BOS)
Hampton / Newport News, Virginia (PHF)
Hartford, Connecticut (BDL)
New York Kennedy, New York (JFK)
New York LaGuardia, New York (LGA)
Newark, New Jersey (EWR)
Norfolk, Virginia (ORF)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PHL)
Providence, Rhode Island (PVD)
Richmond, Virginia (RIC)
Salisbury / Ocean City, Maryland (SBY)
Washington Dulles, Washington D.C. (IAD)
Washington Reagan, Washington D.C. (DCA)
White Plains / Westchester County, New York (HPN)
Worcester, Massachusetts (ORH)
Delta Air Lines
Delta has issued travel alerts for the following airports due to the winter storm:
Albany, NY (ALB)
Allentown, PA (ABE)
Baltimore, MD (BWI)
Bangor, ME (BGR)
Boston, MA (BOS)
Charleston, WV (CRW)
Charlottesville, VA (CHO)
Cleveland, OH (CLE)
Elmira, NY (ELM)
Harrisburg, PA (MDT)
Hartford, CT (BDL)
Ithaca, NY (ITH)
New York, NY (JFK)
New York, NY (LGA)
Newark, NJ (EWR)
Norfolk, VA (ORF)
Philadelphia, PA (PHL)
Portland, ME (PWM)
Providence, RI (PVD)
Richmond, VA (RIC)
South Bend, IN (SBN)
Washington, DC (DCA)
Washington, DC (IAD)
White Plains, NY (HPN)
Worcester, MA (ORH)
United Airlines
United has issued travel alerts for the following airports due to the winter storm:
Allentown, PA, US (ABE)
Albany, NY, US (ALB)
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA, US (AVP)
Hartford, CT, US (BDL)
Boston, MA, US (BOS)
Baltimore, MD, US (BWI)
Washington, DC, US (DCA)
Newark, NJ/New York, NY, US (EWR)
Washington, DC, US (IAD)
New York, NY, US (JFK)
New York, NY, US (LGA)
Manchester, NH, US (MHT)
Norfolk, VA, US (ORF)
Philadelphia, PA, US (PHL)
Providence, RI, US (PVD)
Portland, ME, US (PWM)
Richmond, VA, US (RIC)
What should I do if I have a flight scheduled for the next few days?
Before you head to the airport, you should monitor for any announcements about your flight. The easiest way to do this is to check your airlines app to see whether your flight is on time, delayed, or canceled.
You can also enter your flight information on the airline’s website to get the latest updates for your journey.
What are my options if my flight is delayed or canceled?
If your flight is delayed or canceled, you should check with your airline about alternate travel options.
Some airlines are also allowing affected passengers to reschedule their flights. United, for example, is allowing passengers with original travel dates between February 22 and February 25, 2026, at select airports to change their flights without incurring change fees or fare differences, under certain conditions and limitations.
If your flight is delayed or canceledor you just dont want to travel during the stormits best to call your airline to ask what your travel options are.
