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ECB chief accuses policymakers of six years of inaction as export-dependent model becomes defunctView the full article

As startups race to keep up with advances in artificial intelligence, some of them seem to be borrowing from China’s exacting work culture—which normalized a 72-hour workweek, or a “996” schedule of working six days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. While the 996 parlance and laser focus on AI may be new, hustle culture has always been embedded in Silicon Valley to some degree. Some business leaders, perhaps most famously Elon Musk, have long demanded those hours from their employees: “There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week,” he once said of the “hardcore” work ethic promoted at his companies. Now that culture seems to be seeping into more and more workplaces, as young founders and tech workers try to capitalize on the rise of AI. The CEO of the $10 billion AI startup Cognition has talked openly about the intense work ethic expected at his company. “Cognition has an extreme performance culture, and we’re upfront about this in hiring so there are no surprises later,” he shared on X earlier this year. “We routinely are at the office through the weekend and do some of our best work late into the night. Many of us literally live where we work.” In this environment, Karri Saarinen—an early employee at Coinbase and the former principal designer at Airbnb—has sought to do things differently. Saarinen founded Linear, an AI-powered enterprise software company, in 2019. It was well before the pandemic, but Saarinen felt it was important to lean into remote work—not just because Linear was creating tools for companies to use remotely for project management and product development, but also because the founders did not want to get stuck in Silicon Valley for the foreseeable future. “We honestly asked ourselves: Do we want to do a company here for the next 10 or 20 years? And we decided no,” Saarinen says. Linear has raised $82 million this year—spiking its valuation to over a billion dollars. It boasts high-profile clients like OpenAI and Perplexity. And it’s done so without blindly embracing the hustle culture spouted by people like Musk. Avoiding unsustainable pace In spite of this success, Saarinen says he has tried to be deliberate in his approach to building Linear, rather than cave to the pressure so many companies seem to feel amid the rapid clip of AI innovation. (It likely also helps that Linear has been profitable for four years, per Saarinen.) The tone of corporate messaging on AI, both from tech giants and smaller startups, has been that the technology is moving fast—and their employees need to step up to meet the moment. In a memo earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy noted that the company was already using generative AI in nearly every part of the business, but that Amazon was “still at the relative beginning” and should move faster. “We’re going to keep pushing to operate like the world’s largest startup—customer-obsessed, inventive, fast-moving, lean, scrappy, and full of missionaries trying to build something better for customers and a business that outlasts us all,” he wrote. (Jassy also explicitly said AI adoption would necessitate job cuts, though he has denied the recent layoffs at Amazon were due to AI.) Other big tech companies have also tied AI strategy to breakneck speed and a potentially draining work culture. At Meta, senior leaders have called for employees to “go 5x faster” by using AI. “Our goal is simple yet audacious: Make Al a habit, not a novelty,” Metaverse VP Vishal Shah wrote in an internal message, per a 404 Media report. “This means prioritizing training and adoption for everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature—just like any other tool we rely on.” Shah added that “we expect 80% of Metaverse employees to have integrated AI into their daily work routines by the end of this year.” Meta has also invested billions of dollars in hiring—and poaching—top AI talent. Saarinen understands why companies feel like they need to move fast, but he argues the pace is likely not sustainable. “[This AI race] is not going to end after this year,” Saarinen says. “It will probably go for the next decade. So are you going to race that whole next decade?” As a founder, Saarinen says there can be an impulse to emulate other successful companies or keep up with your peers, regardless of what might be best for your own company. “I think a lot of this pressure is somewhat self-created,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s even real. Companies are so focused on what all the other companies are doing, so they’re trying to build the same things or catch up to everyone.” Taking time for test runs Linear has intentionally taken a slower approach to growing its ranks, in stark contrast to the companies offering huge sums of money to out-hire their competitors. The company has more or less doubled its headcount each year and now employs about 80 people. “At Coinbase, I was [maybe] the 12th person there,” Saarinen says. “And then in a year, there were like 60 people. Now most of the people around you are new and have been there a very short time. I think it can be useful, and it’s exciting [when] a company is growing fast. But there are a lot of situations where it gets quite chaotic, and the culture kind of suffers.” A core part of its hiring process is what the company calls a work trial. Once a candidate gets to the final stage of the interview process at Linear, they are invited to participate in a paid trial period—typically two to five days—where they are tasked with working on a real project alongside employees at the company. It’s a feature that adds friction to the hiring process, but helps the company understand whether someone will be a good fit. Sometimes it’s a differentiator that pushes a candidate to accept a job at Linear over other offers; in other instances, it has weeded out people who did not want to commit to a work trial. “The aim is trying to simulate the real working relationship as much as possible,” he says. “We can obviously see how the person gets things done, but also: What is their thinking style? What’s their communication style? For the candidate, I think it’s also a good way to know if they want to work in this company.” It can also help determine, for example, whether engineers are looking for a job where they are told what to do, or if they are interested in taking more ownership of their work, as is the norm at Linear. “People should have some life outside of work” The work trial and other atypical elements of Linear’s culture have helped attract people who are not interested in the endless grind of working at some of the hottest AI companies. Linear has had very little attrition, according to Saarinen, and the company usually tries to promote from within. Saarinen also firmly believes that the quality of work is compromised when you work people to the bone. “That quality piece that we value the most—we think that doesn’t happen if you just keep pushing people harder and harder,” he says. “People should have some life outside of work. They should get inspired by their life, and then hopefully that will kind of bleed into the work as well. If you just feel better, then I think the work you do is a little better.” He hopes that Linear might offer a counterexample to tech workers who are building companies in the AI space at this particular juncture. “I want to show other founders that you can also do things differently,” he says. “You don’t always have to do what everyone else is doing. I think that’s kind of what is happening in the market, that everyone is hearing this story: ‘Those guys work really hard, so I must do it as well.’” “And maybe it makes sense for you—or maybe it doesn’t.” View the full article

Earlier this week, communities around the world observed World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. It’s a day to honor those we’ve lost and recommit ourselves to preventing future tragedies. As someone who’s worked in the transportation industry for more than 25 years, I come at this topic as an insider. You may have heard the term “Vision Zero” in local political campaigns or public safety PSAs. Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all severe crashes. It’s not just a marketing campaign, it’s an approach to road safety that begins with this basic understanding: Severe crashes are preventable. The status quo believes the fantasy that traffic violence is inevitable. That there’s nothing we can do. The truth is, we can prevent severe crashes. Every day, another 100 families are grieving the loss of a loved one. Every day, thousands of families are dealing with medical bills, physical therapy, loss of work, loss of mobility. Vision Zero is the strategy to end this pain and suffering. It’s a wildly different approach from the status quo in two major ways: First, people make mistakes. A transportation system needs to be designed so that when people do make mistakes, it doesn’t result in a death or serious injury. Second, safety is multidisciplinary. People are influenced by more than just street design. In Richmond, 1 in 12 residents is dealing with a combination of substance abuse and mental health disorders. And then they get behind the wheel of a car. In other words, Vision Zero is a practical strategy to save lives that’s based on understanding human nature. So if we know how to fix this crisis, why isn’t culture changing? It’s because the average person needs to hear the personal stories about the victims of traffic violence. The power of emotion Any historian or psychologist will tell you that facts alone don’t move humans to action. Emotion moves us. It’s hard to admit, because on some level we all want to think of ourselves as rational and logical creatures. But it’s when we get emotionally attached to something that we take action. That might sound overwhelming, but let me give you an example of how culture changed just in my lifetime, and not at all based on logic. In a 10-year period, about 13 Americans died from peanut allergies. Each one of those cases was tragic. But in that same 10-year period, over 400,000 Americans were killed in traffic crashes. And that’s not even counting the millions injured. 13 deaths from a chemical reaction in the body versus 400,000 deaths from preventable crashes. An entire generation of kids was led to believe that peanuts might send one of their classmates to the hospital. The peanut became a boogeyman in neighborhoods across the country. Now you can’t get a bag of peanuts near a school, or a soccer game, or a birthday party, or even on some airplanes. In a very short period of time, America mobilized for a Peanut Vision Zero. Change is possible I’m telling you this not to mock people who have to be careful around nuts, but to tell you our culture is capable of radical change in a short period of time. So when it comes to road safety: We have the data explaining what’s causing tragedies. We have the engineering and enforcement solutions to prevent tragedies. We can change culture. We can stop the tragedies. Whatever your background, your economic status, your education level, your job status—you’re a human being who interacts with other human beings. Get people emotionally connected to the impacts of traffic violence. There are many ways you might choose to do that. Maybe it’s playing a short video at a PTA meeting of a heartbroken parent talking about their child who was lost in a preventable crash. Maybe it’s inviting a survivor who’s dealing with life-altering injuries to speak at a local forum. No severe crash is acceptable. If you truly believe that, you’ll drive carefully and you’ll be the person in your friend group who’s always pressing on others to drive carefully. We’ve seen culture change in small and large ways. We can do this together. We can reduce life-altering crashes down to zero. View the full article

Ofgem nudges up price cap after Labour election pledge to bring down household billsView the full article

Nasdaq and S&P 500 sink as fears reignite over AI valuationsView the full article

António Guterres notes talks could fail as a result of negotiating tacticsView the full article

“Your new boss didn’t even offer you a glass of water?” my mother had questioned me in disbelief. “After how many interviews? You should not take that job. I am telling you not to take that job.” I had received a call from a recruiter to interview with one of the biggest beauty brands in the world. This was my chance to catapult my career into a company that didn’t often have job openings at my level, but didn’t have the best Glassdoor reviews. And I didn’t have time to ask too many questions. The recruiter had given me 48 hours notice to come in and do interviews. I had shared with my mother I did close to a dozen in person interviews, 30 minutes each, back to back. During those interviews, no one ever offered me a glass of water. Not the recruiter who greeted me. Not the other individuals who interviewed me. And no, not my future boss. I remember that at some point I had to use the bathroom. My future boss seemed annoyed that I asked where the ladies’ room was. I scurried into the bathroom quickly, not wanting to be late for the next interview. This was one of the handful of times in my career I didn’t listen to my mother. The recruiter made me an offer the next day, and I accepted on the spot. I was desperate to work at this big beauty brand with a fancy title that I know so many other candidates were vying for. And my future boss indeed did go on to display many characteristics of a bad boss. Other than the “water test,” as I coined thanks to my mom, I have missed a number of other red flags during interview processes. Now, as I coach individuals who are looking for their next opportunity, here are three signs to watch out for that may indicate you are about to work for a bad boss: Doesn’t seem interested in interviewing you In that specific interview at a beauty company, I remember my future boss walking in late, with no apology, sitting down abruptly and firing off the first question. He was scrolling on this phone as I tried hard to be energetic to get his attention. After I was done with that answer, there was a long awkward pause, and then he stumbled, asked another question, and was staring out the window. For most of the interview, he was slouched away from me, fidgeting with a pen, and barely made eye contact. If your future boss is distracted or disengaged, without any explanation, this could be a telltale sign of what it’s like to work for them. But also could signal bigger issues brewing at the company. They may be overwhelmed by work and not capable of staying present in the conversation. They may be forced into hiring someone for their team. They may be disgruntled or disinterested in their work. Study their body language, and non verbal cues, as well as what they don’t say and what they do say. If they are unhappy, chances are this will impact how they manage you. Makes sarcastic comments about your resume or the company “Is Been-gali really a language? Or did you just make that up to sound impressive?” joked a potential future boss. This was in an interview I had a few years after I had worked at that big beauty brand. “Why don’t you say something? Like ‘Hi . . . my name is . . .’” In my additional information section on my resume, I listed I was fluent in Bengali. After what I thought was a pretty good interview, this potential future boss doubted if Bengali was even a language. He did it right at the end of the interview as I was about to walk out. I spotted this red flag, so when the recruiter called, I declined to go any further in the interview process. During the interview, watch for comments like these from a potential future boss, either about your resume or the company you are interviewing for: Making fun of activities in your additional information section: You volunteer at a non-profit? So are you one of those do-gooders? You have a black belt in karate? Can you show me some of those Mr. Miyagi moves? Dropping sarcastic comments about former companies on your resume I can’t believe you worked at that competitor. Their products suck. How did you get a job at that place? Aren’t they bankrupt? Sharing disparaging comments about the current company I hope they warned you that this place is a real mess. Well, we are hiring for a number of roles right now, tough times here. Watch for even an innocent joke, an offhanded comment or sarcastic remark. It may be a window into their leadership style or dysfunction occurring at the company. Takes Up Most of the Air Time Finally, I once was interviewing at a software company where the future potential boss would ask a question and go on to answer it himself. “Let’s talk about a time when you failed to lead a project. I remember once when I was…” After he talked and talked, I was able to squeeze in a quick response until he interrupted me again. He asked another question, and then another, and pretty much took up all the air time in the interview. I barely had time to share about my experiences. If you witness a future potential boss talking incessantly, answering their own questions, or interrupting you in an interview, this could be a sign they have some bad behaviors. If you do end up working for them, be prepared that they might talk more than they listen. They may ignore or dismiss your ideas. They may lecture you instead of coaching and collaborating. They may also be the type of boss who believes it’s my way or the high way, and makes decisions on their own without the team’s input. If you don’t see any of the red flags in an interview process, and end up working for a bad boss, don’t beat yourself up. Most future bosses should be on their best behavior, trying to court candidates during interviews. Finally, if you are actively looking for a new job, you may see some of these red flags and still choose to accept the job. For many of us, the reality of having bills to pay can outweigh any potential bad boss behavior. Spotting these red flags can help prepare you for what it might be like to work for this future boss, and at this future employer. View the full article

Retail sales down for the month in indication of fragile state of the economyView the full article

The reputation of one of America’s leading economists is in tatters since the emergence of emails to Jeffrey EpsteinView the full article

Plus, the (late) jobs reportView the full article

Meeting marks the first in-person meeting between the US president and New York City’s mayor-elect View the full article

The UK’s experiment in eating the rich while shrinking the state has left everyone worse offView the full article

US officials told organisers that President’s attendance in January depended on programme View the full article

Today’s eye-popping valuations are based on the assumption that LLMs are the only game in town View the full article

Magic circle legal firm also shifts work to lower-cost hubs in Poland and IndiaView the full article

Major retailers are selling tuna from fisheries where crews say they are exploited and abusedView the full article

Federal Reserve Gov. Stephen Miran reiterated his view that monetary policy has become more restrictive than economists think, but expressed increased urgency that the central bank take strong corrective action. View the full article

Proposed deal would limit size of Ukrainian forces and calls on Kyiv to withdraw troops from eastern DonetskView the full article

Ukrainian officials say President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is being pressed to agree to terms negotiated by the US and RussiaView the full article

Executives are no longer measured by the weight of their title but by the scale of what they create, especially in an era reshaped by AI. The most effective leaders now marry vision with execution, using technology as a co-pilot to accelerate outcomes while keeping human judgment at the center. Strategy isn’t declared anymore; it’s built in real time, constantly iterating and leveraging AI to turn ideas into outcomes faster than ever. The builder CEO is a visionary who architects systems, coaches teams, and removes obstacles through hands-on involvement. Here’s how executives with a builder leadership style are involved with the day-to-day work and unite teams around a shared mission. FROM VISION-SETTER TO VELOCITY ARCHITECT The builder mindset thrives where growth, technology, and disruption collide. Customers demand speed, relevance, and trust simultaneously. Meeting those demands requires leaders who are adaptive, accountable, and relentlessly driven by outcomes. Builders shorten decision loops by being present where the work happens: sprint reviews, demos, and product trade-offs. Their involvement clarifies priorities, reduces friction, and ensures strategy is lived at every level, not left on a slide deck. Stability still matters, but speed is the differentiator. Builders create systems that allow rapid testing without recklessness: guardrails, rollback plans, and clear accountabilities. They collapse silos by taking ownership of the P&L, customer outcomes, and cross-functional metrics. Marketing, product, operations, and sales work as one team because builders demand it. Builders flatten hierarchies and empower autonomy, but with accountability. Teams know exactly which calls they can make, which require escalation, and how success is measured. When a feature underperforms, the team doesn’t wait for a quarterly review. They assess metrics, test hypotheses, and implement fixes in days, not weeks. This rhythm of experimentation and fast learning ensures companies adapt in real time to customers and markets. The builder is always asking, “What can we test now?” and “What can we improve today?” BUILDERS IN AN AI-FIRST WORLD The builder archetype matters most in an AI-driven commerce environment. AI is the co-pilot bringing precision and scale, while human oversight preserves trust. Executives who design for measurement, keep human judgment where it counts, and integrate AI thoughtfully create enduring advantage. The best builders set a single customer outcome as the north star, participate directly in product reviews, require every experiment to have guardrails, and assign clear ownership for cross-functional work. They standardize where possible but keep space for human judgment where it drives value. AI, in their hands, is not a replacement but an amplifier, removing repetitive work so teams can focus on judgment, creativity, and engagement. This balance accelerates both growth and employee buy-in. THE HUMAN CORE OF BUILDING Builders aren’t flawless. Over-involvement can slip into micromanagement, while too much autonomy without boundaries breeds chaos. The remedy is clarity: metrics, cadence, and transparent ownership. Most importantly, builders lead with humanity. They celebrate wins, fail fast, and then mine failures for lessons, and ensure every team member understands the impact of their work. They know speed without trust is brittle, and systems without people are hollow. The modern C-suite is no longer judged by how many strategies it produces but by the outcomes it builds and the speed with which it learns. In an era defined by complexity and constant change, the builder mindset is the defining quality of leadership. The leaders who shape the next decade will be those with builder DNA. Elizabeth Buchanan is chief commercial officer of Rokt. View the full article

IT development has been around for more than 60 years and it has undergone radical transformations from the emergence of the first programming languages and OS development to the internet boom and the current AI era. Although programming tools and approaches are constantly changing, one thing remains constant: Only those developers who can adapt and master new knowledge and skills survive. I’m the chief software officer of a 70-strong team that designs a predictive maintenance system (PdM): A solution based on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and AI. Without continuous growth, our developers cannot remain competitive. The same is true in nearly every industry; when individuals stop working on their skills, a company can lose its edge. Here’s a look at how we have created a system where professional development is an integral part of the work and how we help developers avoid and overcome stagnation. MUST EVERYONE GROW? Every team has specialists who prefer routine work, and to some extent teams need those people who do well in a position that does not require growth. But for a project to develop steadily, I believe such experts should not exceed 20% of the team. If their share is higher, other developers will eventually start to emulate their passive colleagues. Optimally, the majority—about 80%—should be actively developing and improving their expertise. Not everyone in the 80% needs to generate new ideas. The driver-to-performer ratio depends on the company’s development stage. A start-up needs 80% drivers because they’re the ones who forge ahead. Conversely, in mature companies, sustainable quality leads require constant hard-skill honing rather than a fountain of ideas. DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SMALL ACTIONS Encouraging developers to advance their skills can start small. For example, one underrated tool is having a person write tests to check their code, which is mandatory for everyone on our team, including senior specialists. Many teams use code reviews more often than writing tests. But when a developer writes a test, they may find that their method or function is too cumbersome, with many exceptions and dependencies, and it’s almost impossible to test it entirely. As a result, they begin redesigning their code and look for solutions to improve its logic. They study additional materials, such as technical blogs and best-practice guides, and consult with colleagues to deepen their expertise. However, tests have limitations. Once a person learns patterns, writes tests quickly and confidently, growth stops and routine begins. This tempts developers to automate their work. CASE-BY-CASE APPROACH There are many reasons why professionals pause in their development. They may be satisfied with their position/skills, bored, or facing challenging external circumstances. For example, most of our developers are Ukrainian, and our work has been affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has been a great stress to everyone. Team members have responded differently—approximately 30% lost their motivation to do anything, and another 30% have taken a deep dive into their development. One strong junior immersed himself so deeply in his studies that in just six months, he mastered senior level theory. The rest simply adapted and returned to their usual pace. After 10+ years in tech management, I realized that everyone has different motivations for advancing their skills. Your task is not to pressure them but to understand what is holding them back and what incentivizes them. Some practices that I’ve found helpful when developers stagnate are: Provide new context. Offer the developer an opportunity to work on another project or change domains. A new environment presents new challenges, requires adaptation, and learning. Present challenges. Give the developer a task that requires creative thinking and independent research. Don’t provide an answer. This will let them take initiative and responsibility for the result. Encourage learning. If a person seeks development opportunities provide them with resources. For example, compensate for conference or workshop participation. Adjust expectations. Sometimes a person is satisfied with their expertise. In this case, it’s important to agree: If the developer doesn’t want growth, they don’t seek promotion. Each specialist must have their own development plan. We draw it up twice a year, based on in-depth assessment. We set goals that meet the company’s expectations and the developer’s interests. THE COMPANY’S SYSTEMATIC APPROACH In my experience, developers often stop focusing on advancing their skills when they are overloaded. After intense work, they no longer have the energy to learn. Learning by working is our main principle. We believe developers can improve their skills through hands-on experience, so we integrate this approach into employee development plans. Daily: Giving them a short technical digest and work with code through tests and reviews. Two-week sprints: Each sprint includes two to three days when a developer can try a new approach, technology, etc. Once a month: Internal clubs— sessions in each department lasting one hour to 90 minutes where they can share experiences, run practical workshops, and exchange best practices. Once every three to six months: Three-hour sessions with external speakers, advanced training. FINAL THOUGHTS I’m convinced that development begins with dialogue. You should understand what motivates a person. I also believe that there are no wrong decisions—only different points of view. Developers shouldn’t be afraid to disagree because critical thinking and constructive discussion always help team growth. Illia Smoliienko is the chief software officer for Waites. View the full article

How did you get to this article? Maybe you opened a link in an email, or you navigated from the Fast Company home page. Perhaps you Googled “agentic AI” and this figured in the results. The point is, you almost certainly clicked, scrolled, tapped, or typed your way here, because that’s the digital grammar that shapes nearly every online experience. But that 30-year-old paradigm is about to change. Agentic AI is ripping up the rulebook, by creating a new layer of intelligent, autonomous mediation between us and the digital world. Personal shopping agents will handle routine purchases, while in the workplace, agents will automate workflows and streamline procurement. Investors are excited, of course. Earlier this year, more than half of the Y Combinator startups chosen for its accelerator program were working in agentic, while the three biggest Q1 acquisitions in the AI sector involved companies building agentic enterprise technologies. This is because agents are about to transform how work gets done, how businesses operate, and how systems interact. And nowhere are the consequences more profound than in e-commerce. CLICKLESS COMMERCE Today, e-commerce success depends on online visibility, with search driving half of website traffic and fuelling the $75 billion search engine optimization (SEO) industry. But agentic AI upends the traditional business model. For agents, displays and brand content are less important. Merchants must focus on making product data machine-legible—accurate, structured, and accessible—because machines won’t browse sites. They’ll connect directly to sales platforms and databases via APIs, creating a parallel e-commerce track that serves agents rather than human shoppers. Building out that machine track will be a critical job for merchants, fintechs, software companies, and financial institutions. For merchants, an early task is compiling and structuring data in a way that’s visible and relevant to agents. Another is creating seamless connections between merchant systems and agent systems. The good news is that the connective tissue is already here. New protocols—model context, agent-to-agent, and agentic payments—now enable agents to connect, communicate, and transact autonomously. MARKETING TO MACHINES: A NEW INDUSTRY For retailers, one question looms: How do I market to machines? As SEO evolves for human audiences, new disciplines are emerging to optimize digital environments for AI agents. Agent engine optimization helps make digital spaces easier for agents to understand and use. Agent interaction design focuses on how they communicate with platforms, APIs, and other agents to get things done for users. These areas connect with generative engine optimization, which improves content so AI systems can better generate recommendations and make decisions. Taken together, they signal a new ecosystem—one that will create fresh roles, unlock new value streams, and redefine how businesses compete in an AI-driven economy. Another way of attracting machine buyers is to reward them. This is the agentic version of e-commerce’s affiliate system, where publishers, partners, and influencers are paid a commission for driving sales. There’s feverish speculation as to how an attribution mechanism may work, and who will get paid. There are plenty of challenges too—not least verifying agents’ identities, knowing with confidence which agent influenced the sale, and preventing fake agents from gaming the system. But the opportunities are apparent. The affiliate market is predicted to double in size by 2030, even without agents. FACE THE HEADWINDS Certain issues will require regulatory clarity. Agentic referral will have to be transparent, for example, to ensure fair competition. Then there’s the matter of trust. We’ll need confidence in the agents and the ecosystems they operate in. Giving an autonomous bot spending authority is a big commitment, but getting it right is key to scaling agentic commerce. Ensuring agents can operate across different payment systems, platforms, and legal jurisdictions will also pose technical and regulatory challenges. That said, we’re about to experience the biggest transformation in e-commerce since it began. This promises to be an era of great innovation—a time to build new tools, new ecosystems, and new ways of creating value. Agentic commerce isn’t just a tech shift; it’s a reimagining of how we buy, sell, and connect in a digital world. Ken Moore is chief innovation officer at Mastercard. View the full article

PM likely to green light project despite concerns about Beijing’s efforts to spy on BritainView the full article

Link is latest revelation in a years-long probe into Smart and TGR, which move money for criminals and sanctioned individualsView the full article

Households are pessimistic about their own spending and the country’s economic outlookView the full article