Market Trends & Consumer Behaviour
Activist Cevian says capital plans make Swiss HQ ‘not viable’ for UBS Summary Activist investor Cevian has publicly criticised UBS’s capital plans, saying they render maintaining the bank’s Swiss headquarters ‘not viable’. The intervention ramps up pressure on UBS management and the board over strategy and capital allocation, and raises fresh questions about the future […]
The Fed: good questions, no answers Summary The Financial Times editorial argues that the Federal Reserve has posed tough, timely questions about inflation, growth and financial stability but has failed to provide clear answers or convincing guidance. That lack of clarity, the piece says, leaves markets and businesses guessing about the timing and scale of […]
Google Pushes Standards for Agentic AI Commerce With AP2 Summary Google has unveiled the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open specification designed to let AI agents make secure, auditable purchases across platforms. AP2 builds on Google’s earlier Agent2Agent (A2A) work and aligns with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to improve interoperability and context for agent-driven […]
The Predictability Principle: A New Lens for Measuring and Maximizing Enterprise Value Author style Punchy: Michel Koopman cuts to the chase — predictability isn’t boring, it’s a valuation engine. If you care about lasting value, this is worth your attention now. Summary The article argues that predictability — the ability to deliver steady, repeatable results […]
Cloud Economics in 2026: Five Financial Levers to Consider When Preparing Year-Ahead Budgets Summary Cloud costs have moved from a predictable line item to the second-largest expense after payroll for many tech businesses — and volatility is rising fast. AI workloads are a structural game-changer: unlike traditional software, AI costs scale linearly with usage, compressing […]
Opinion: Ukraine is becoming a global defence tech powerhouse Summary Ukraine’s full-scale war has reshaped its tech ecosystem, driving a rapid pivot towards defence-focused innovation. Battlefield conditions have served as the ultimate testbed, accelerating development and proving effectiveness under real combat stress. This has drawn international interest from partners, investors and allied states looking to […]
Here’s what Jimmy Kimmel said on his late-night show that got him pulled off the air Summary ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air indefinitely after a contentious monologue about the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and the public reaction to it. On Monday’s programme Kimmel criticised how some figures, including […]
Why High Performers Leave, and What CEOs Must Do to Keep Them Summary The article argues that a long-dead employment compact — loyalty for security and steady pay progression — has been replaced by a market-driven reality where bargaining power, not tenure, dictates rewards. Rising CEO pay and rent-seeking at the top have left many […]
The Acceleration of Voice AI: Where Customer Service Goes From Here Summary Voice AI for customer service has moved rapidly from simple IVR menus to human-like spoken interactions. The article — the first of a three-part series — outlines how recent advances in speech recognition, natural language generation, large language models and analytics are compounding […]
Europe’s AI boom is leaving femtech behind Summary Venture capital in Europe has heavily favoured AI, leaving femtech — innovation focused on women’s health — underfunded and overlooked. After a 2021 peak of €1.89bn globally, femtech investment plunged, and by 2023 European femtech captured only €164m of €8.3bn in healthtech funding. Many femtech startups have […]
