You may remember this, if you are old enough: in 2002, search engine optimization (SEO) transformed from a technical curiosity into a full-blown industry. All of a sudden, agencies, consultants, and black-hat sorcerers emerged overnight, offering tricks and hacks to get brands onto the first page. Today, we stand at the dawn of the next wave: what some call Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) or simply AI Engine Optimisation (AIO). The logic is similar: get your brand seen, but the stakes are higher, the rules blurrier, and the risks far more structural.
Imagine a world where users no longer click search results but instead ask an AI assistant, in natural language, Whats the best CRM for a small-business startup? The answer appears instantly. No links, no pages, just a response. Brands that hope to matter must not only rank, but be mentioned, cited, trusted, and recommended before that user ever visits their site. This shift is real. Some articles call GEO about getting your brand noticed and accurately represented in AI-generated answers, talk about how it is rewriting the rules of online shopping, or advise brands that AEO is the future of SEO.
But herein lies the danger. If SEOs past is any teacher, were headed toward a new playground of snake-oil and shortcuts. Soon youll see GEO specialists, AI optimization gurus, and zero-click quantum marketing workshops popping up. Brands will chase algorithms that nobody fully understands, pay for tools that promise to place you inside the answer box, and invest in techniques whose mechanics are opaque even to those selling them.
I should know. Ive published daily for decades and licensed not under copyright, but copyleft (Creative Commons BY), open for anyone, including AI companies, to use, repurpose, or analyze. My reward? Im widely well-positioned in the AI assistant era because I kept my content open, clear, structured, and undisguised. I dont rely on tricks. My brand (in this case, my name) is simply known, cited, and relied upon. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other chatbots knew me very well the first time I asked them who I was or what my ideas were, back in 2022. That is the real lesson.
The perfect storm approaching
Here are the forces aligning:
AI assistants and answer engines now mediate discovery: traditional search traffic is already falling.
Brands recognize that ranking #1 isnt enough: they need to be the answer. AEO guides emphasize being the response.
Agencies and vendors sense new revenue streams: tools measuring AI brand visibility, dashboards tracking mentions in ChatGPT, promise access to this new ecosystem.
Algorithmic opacity means how youre mentioned matters. Is your brand cited because youre best, or because you paid? The mechanics are hidden.
The consequences of getting it wrong are real: you could invest heavily, only to find your brand absent in AI answers while competitors dominate mention space.
If history repeats, this could be the SEO disaster 2.0: an industry of quick fixes, questionable tactics, and brands locked into dependency on channels they dont control.
What brands should do instead
Heres the counter-advice: simple, logical, future-proof.
Create open, structured, authoritative content Dont lock your content behind barriers. Make sure its accessible, clearly written, and structured for machine readability (headings, bullet lists, schema where appropriate). Brands optimized for AI answers arent hiding or obfuscating; theyre enabling.
Ensure your brand is citable, not just linkable SEO taught us backlinks. GEO/AEO teaches us mentions: in articles, industry lists, data sets, authoritative partners, in places as open and accessible as possible. AI engines avor earned media over pure brand-owned content.
Avoid trick agencies chasing black-box signals If someone offers a GEO shortcut or AI answer box hack, ask: what is the mechanism, what transparency do you offer? The models are evolving. Youre betting on infrastructure you dont own if you rely on opaque tactics.
Combine SEO foundation with GEO awareness These are not separate marketing silos. Solid SEO still matters: fast site, good authority, clear content. But now you need to overlay a GEO mindset: how AI will interpret, summarize and cite your content before the user ever visits. Think of it as guaranteeing your brand enters the conversation.
Monitor and adapt, dont optimize once and forgetUnlike traditional search results, AI answers evolve. Models update, data sources shift, assistants adopt RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). Brands must treat visibility as a continuous feedback loop, not a one-time project.
A cautionary tale
Remember when brands bought bulk link-packages in 2010 thinking that would guarantee #1 Google ranking? Many saw a bump, then a crash when the algorithm changed. GEO could replicate that cycle: brand invests in AI visibility tools, sees short-lived gain, then is penalized or overshadowed as models adjust.
But the bigger risk is dependence. If your brand presence becomes entirely mediated by an ecosystem you dont control, say, a chatbot that places you in the answer box, you lose agency over your narrative. You become a commodity subject to the platforms rules.
The human-scale advantage
Heres the good news: you dont need a magic GEO hack. You just need authenticity, clarity, and openness. My own case (and many similar ones) prove it. I published each day, I licensed openly, I structured clearly: not for the algorithm, but for readers and machines alike.
Brands that follow the same logic will create meaningful content, make it accessible, make it citable, and will not only avoid the GEO trap: theyll thrive in the AI era. Because when models evolve, and when assistants interface with your content, the brands they cite first will be the ones built for trust, not tricks.
GEO, AEO, and AIO are the next frontier, but they dont require shortcuts. They require doing the fundamentals better. Avoid the hype, the sorcerers, the quick-fix vendors. Do whats been proven: publish well, open your content, let the engines (and your audience) do the rest.
Because the worst thing you can optimize for is the algorithm. The best thing you can optimize for is being known.
Toyota was quick to pump the brakes on a claim that President Donald Trump made this week regarding an alleged promise by the Japanese automaker to invest $10 billion in the U.S.
We didnt specifically say that well invest $10 billion over the next few years,” Toyota executive Hiroyuki Ueda told reporters on Wednesday during the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo, as first reported by Reuters.
While Ueda stressed that the automaker will continue to invest and create jobs in the U.S. over the next few years, it hasnt made any explicit promise of an investment of the magnitude Trump referencednor, in fact, of any particular amount.
The confusion, it seems, may stem from investments the worlds largest automaker made in U.S. auto plants during Trumps first administration, which ended in early 2021, and totaled roughly $10 billion, according to Ueda. The topic of investing in the U.S. also didnt come up when Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda spoke briefly with Trump at a U.S. Embassy event on Tuesday, Ueda said, according to Reuters.
GAME OF TELEPHONE
Where this supposed promise of an investment came from is a game of telephone of sorts.
On Tuesday, Trump referenced that $10 billion figure during a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington during his visit to Japanand said hed just heard about it from Japans newly elected prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.
I was just told by the prime minister that Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over the United States to the tune of over $10 billion, Trump said, before urging U.S. military members: Go out and buy a Toyota.
A spokesperson for Toyota USA didnt immediately respond to a request for comment from Fast Company. However, in a statement to The Hill, Toyota reiterated its commitment to investing in its U.S operations, without specifying an amount.
With nearly $50 billion already invested and 49,000 direct employees across the United States, this ongoing commitment strengthens our support for American manufacturing, supply chains, jobs, and customers, the statement to The Hill read. More details will follow soon.
Shares of Toyota fell nearly 0.8% on Wednesday.
Uber said Wednesday that the San Francisco Bay Area will be the first market for its specially built autonomous taxi, which is expected to launch in late 2026.
The San Francisco ride-hailing company said in July it was developing a robotaxi with the electric car company Lucid and the self-driving technology company Nuro Inc. The vehicle is exclusive to Uber but is based on the Lucid Gravity SUV.
Uber said Lucid recently delivered test vehicles to Nuro and said it plans to have 100 test vehicles on the road in the coming months.
Within six years, Uber plans to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid-based autonomous taxis in multiple locations. The vehicles will be available to riders through the Uber app.
Uber is working with multiple companies to speed the deployment of autonomous taxis.
On Tuesday, Uber said its also developing robotaxis with the tech company Nvidia and the automaker Stellantis. Uber said Tuesday that in 2028, Stellantis expects to start production of at least 5,000 vehicles powered by Nvidia software for autonomous taxi operations in the U.S.
And last week, Uber said it has begun offering autonomous taxi rides in Saudi Arabia as part of a partnership with WeRide, a Chinese autonomous tech company. Uber also works with WeRide in Abu Dhabi.
Autonomous taxis arent new, but as the worlds largest ride-hailing service, Ubers adoption of them is significant. Uber operates in 15,000 cities in more than 70 countries.
Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, has been testing autonomous taxis for years. Those taxis are currently available in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin. Waymo said earlier this month it plans to expand to London next year.
Uber is partnering with Waymo on autonomous taxis in Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
U.S. stocks are rising toward more records on Wednesday as Wall Street waits to hear from the Federal Reserve in the afternoon about what it will do with interest rates.
The S&P 500 added 0.3% in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 231 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher. All three indexes are coming off their latest all-time high.
The bond market was also relatively steady as the countdown ticked to the announcement from the Fed. The widespread expectation is that it will announce the second cut of the year to its main interest rate in hopes of helping the slowing job market. More important will be whether the Fed gives hints about another cut to rates in December and beyond. Wall Street is banking on it.
In the meantime, the deluge continues of big U.S. companies reporting how much profit they made during the summer. The pressure is on to deliver growth because thats one way they can quiet criticism that their stock prices have shot too high in recent months.
Caterpillar rallied 12% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Joe Creed said Caterpillar saw resilient demand, as customers bought more equipment, even with a dynamic environment.
Teradyne soared 14.6% after the company, which makes automated test equipment and advanced robotics systems, likewise reported a stronger profit than analysts expected. CEO Greg Smith credited strength related to artificial-intelligence applications and said AI-related test demand remains robust.
Nvidia, meanwhile, was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 after rallying 4.4%. It became the first company valued at $5 trillion on Wall Street, just three months after the AI darling was the first to break through the $4 trillion barrier.
They helped offset a 42.6% plunge for Fiserv. The payments and financial technology company reported weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, slashed its profit forecast for the year and revamped its board of directors and leadership team. The stock is heading toward its worst day since it began trading in 1986.
Mondelez International fell 2.8%, even though it reported stronger results than analysts expected. The company, whose brands include Oreo cookies and Toblerone chocolate, has been dealing with record-high inflation for the cost of cocoa. It expects challenging conditions to continue in some markets, though it hopes that price increases are moderating for cocoa.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.
Tokyos Nikkei 225 jumped 2.2% to another record. Seouls Kospi rose 1.8% to its own all-time high after President Donald Trump met with South Koreas leader following his visit in Japan.
Stocks rose 0.7% in Shanghai ahead of a meeting between Trump and Chinas leader, Xi Jinping. The worlds two largest economies have been locked in an escalating trade war, with Washington imposing high tariffs and tightened technology controls and China retaliating with curbs on rare earth shipments, one of its key sources of leverage.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding at 3.99%, where it was late Tuesday.
It’s been coming down from nearly 4.80% early this year, a notable move for the bond market, as expectations have climbed for several cuts to rates by the Federal Reserve.
But the Fed has also warned that it may have to halt the cuts if inflation accelerates beyond its still-high level, because lower rates can worsen inflation.
Making an already tough course for Fed officials more difficult is the U.S. governments shutdown. That has delayed important updates on the economy that would normally help guide the Feds decision-making process.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Stewart McLaurin knew it was coming.An entire wing of the White House, a building he calls “the most special, important building on the planet,” was going to be replaced to make way for a ballroom that President Donald Trump wants to add to the building.But when McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, saw the first images of backhoes tearing into the East Wing, it still came as a bit of a shock.“When the reality of things happen, they strike us a little bit differently than the theory of things happening, so it was a bit of a jarring moment,” McLaurin told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.McLaurin, who has led the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for more than a decade, did not take a position on the changes. It’s not his job. “Ours is not to make happen, or to keep from happening but to document what does happen, what happens in this great home that we call the White House,” he said.But he said he sees a silver lining from the “jarring” images: they have piqued public interest in White House history.“What has happened since then is so amazing in that in the past two weeks, more people have been talking about White House history, focused on White House history, learning what is an East Wing, what is the West Wing what are these spaces in this building that we simply call the White House,” McLaurin said.
Trump demolishes the East Wing
The general public became aware of the demolition work on Oct. 20 after photos of construction equipment ripping into the building began to circulate online, prompting an outcry from Democrats, preservationists and others.In a matter of days, the entire two-story East Wing the traditional base of operations for first ladies and their staffs was gone. The demolition included a covered walkway between the White House, the family movie theater and a garden dedicated to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.Trump had talked about building a ballroom for years, and pushed ahead with his vision when he returned to office in January. His proposal calls for a 90,000-square-foot structure, almost twice the size of the 55,000-square-foot White House itself and able to accommodate 1,000 people. The plan also includes building a more modern East Wing, officials have said.The Republican president ordered the demolition despite not yet having sign-off for the ballroom construction from the National Capital Planning Commission, one of several entities with a role in approving additions to federal buildings and property. The White House has yet to submit the ballroom plans for the commission’s review because it is closed during the government shutdown.Trump appointed loyalists to the planning commission in July. On Tuesday, he also fired the six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, a group of architectural experts that advises the federal government on historic preservation and public buildings. A new slate of members who are more aligned with Trump’s policies will be named, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions. The Washington Post was first to report the firings.
East Wing art and furnishings preserved
It was the job of the White House curator and their staff to carefully remove, catalog and store the art, the official portraits of former first ladies, and furnishings from the East Wing, McLaurin said.The White House Historical Association does not have a decision-making role in the construction. But it has been working with the White House to prepare for the changes.“We had known since late summer that the staff of the East Wing had moved out. I actually made my last visit on the last day of tours on August the 28th,” McLaurin said.Working with the curator and chief usher, the association used 3D scanning technology “so that every room, space, nook and cranny of the East Wing, whether it was molding or hinges or door knobs or whatever it was, was captured to the -nth degree” to be digitally recreated as an exhibit or to teach the history of that space, McLaurin said.A photographer also documented the building as it was being taken apart.It will be a while before any images are available, but McLaurin said items were found when flooring was pulled up and when wall coverings were pulled back that “no living person remembered were there. So those will be lessons in history.”
White House has grown over the years
Trump’s aides have responded to criticism of the demolition by arguing that other presidents have made changes to the White House, too. Trump has said the White House needs a bigger entertaining space.McLaurin said the building continues to evolve from what it looked like when it was built in 1792.“There is a need to modernize and to grow,” he said, noting that White House social secretaries for generations have chafed at the space limitations for entertaining. “But how it’s done and how it’s accomplished and what results is really the vision of the president who undertakes that project.”
What the White House Historical Association does
Jacqueline Kennedy created the historical association in 1961 to help preserve the museum quality of the interior of the White House and educate the public. It receives no government funding and raises money mostly through private donations and sales of retail merchandise.It is not the mission of the association to take a position on construction, McLaurin said. Its primary mandate is preserving the State Floor and some of the historic bedrooms upstairs in the private living quarters, and teaching the history of the White House, which is an accredited museum. The State Floor is made up of the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, the East Room and State Dining Room, the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer.“Ours is not to support or to not support,” McLaurin said. “Ours is to understand, to get the details.”Since the demolition, McLaurin said he has seen attendance spike at a free-of-charge educational center the association opened in September 2024 a block from the White House. “The People’s House: A White House Experience” is open seven days a week including during the current government shutdown.The educational center saw its busiest days the weekend of Oct. 17-19, with about 1,500 daily visitors, up from a previous average of 900, he said.
Darlene Superville, Associated Press
As Hurricane Melissa battered the Caribbean this week, social media became awash with AI-generated content that blurs the line between reality and fiction.
Described by CBS News as one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic, Melissa reached Category 5 intensity as it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday. CNN reports that it has already caused seven deaths in the northern Caribbean, and is the most powerful storm to hit the basin since 2019s Hurricane Dorian.
Amid a crisis, social media is flooded
Over the last few days, major social media platforms have been saturated with AI-generated videosdepicting a wide range of content supposedly related to the hurricane, from towering waves battering coastal towns to sharks gliding through floodwaters, destroyed airports, and an aerial view of the storms eye that reached over 17,000 views.
Much of this content was made possible by Sora 2OpenAIs new text-to-video appreleased less than a month ago, which allows users to generate lifelike videos simply by typing a description.
The app, free on iPhones, has proven to be as mesmerizing as it is disturbingquickly taking over social media feeds in the weeks since its release. But it’s also caused alarm among people who worry about its potential to spread misinformation.
Its as if deepfakes got a publicist and a distribution deal, Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, a former trust and safety manager at TikTok, told NPR earlier this month. “It’s an amplification of something that has been scary for a while, but now it has a whole new platform.
As it turns out, its now becoming increasingly harder to trust what you see on screen.
Turning a catastrophe into clickbait
The proliferation of misleading content regarding natural disasters poses a real threat, well beyond the trivial AI-generated slop that typically clogs social feeds.
This storm is a huge storm that will likely cause catastrophic damage, and fake content undermines the seriousness of the message from the government to be prepared, Amy McGovern, a University of Oklahoma meteorology professor, told the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In a report on Monday, AFP said it identified numerous AI-generated clipsmany, but not all, marked with OpenAIs Sora watermarkspreading across social media feeds. The videos ranged from dramatic newscasts and scenes of severe flooding to fabricated human suffering.
Other videos seemed to show localsoften speaking with exaggerated Jamaican accents that reinforced stereotypespartying, boating, jet skiing, swimming, or otherwise downplaying the severity of what forecasters have warned could be the islands most violent storm on record.
After AFP flagged the clips, TikTok reportedly removed over two dozen videos and multiple accounts sharing them.
Reached for comment, TikTok told Fast Company that its community guidelines require AI-generated or heavily edited content depicting realistic people or events to be labeled. It said unlabeled content may be removed, restricted, or relabeled. The platform prohibits material that “misleads on matters of public importance or harms individuals,” even if labeled.
In Jamaica, users seeking updates on Hurricane Melissa are encouraged to consult official sources, including the Jamaica Information Service and TikToks event guides.
Similar content appeared on Facebook and Instagram, despite Metas policies requiring labels for AI-generated videos.
OpenAI and Meta did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts worry that AI-generated content can overshadow critical safety warnings. Jamaicas information minister, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, urged the public to rely on official sources, according to AFP.
The risks extend far beyond natural disasters
In the Sora era, anyone can generate nearly any scene imaginable with a single prompt, but experts have long raised concerns about generative AI and misinformation.
For instance, studies indicate that warning labels alone may not suffice to combat AI-generated falsehoods and can sometimes have unintended effects on users perception of credibility.
Aaron Rodericks, head of trust and safety at Bluesky, noted in an interview with NPR that the public is unprepared for such a collapse between reality and fabrication.
In a polarized world, it is easy to create fabricated evidence targeting identity groups or individuals, or to conduct large-scale scams. What once existed as a rumorlike a fabricated story about an immigrant or politiciancan now be turned into seemingly credible video proof, Rodericks said.
And this is only the beginning
OpenAI’s Sora 2 app, where many of these recent clips surfaced, is just the newest player in the expanding world of increasingly powerful video creation tools.
This year alone has brought a wave of AI-driven innovations across platforms.
As of May, users could chat with AI personas on Instagram, and TikToks AI Alive tool enabled still images to be turned into videos with a single command. By September, Meta introduced its new Vibes app, featuring a TikTok-style AI-generated feed.
Together, they signal a new race to shape the future of the internet.
The United States and South Korea advanced trade talks on Wednesday, addressing details of $350 billion that would be invested in the American economy, after negotiations and ceremonies that included the presentation of a gold medal and crown to President Donald Trump.Both were gifts from the country’s president, Lee Jae Myung, who dialed up the flattery while Washington and Seoul worked to nail down financial promises during the last stop of Trump’s Asia trip.Although both sides said progress has been made Trump said things were “pretty much finalized” no agreement has been signed yet. The framework includes gradual investments, cooperation on shipbuilding and the lowering of Trump’s tariffs on South Korea’s automobile exports, according to Kim Yong-beom, Lee’s chief of staff for policy. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The announcement came after a day of adulation for the visiting American president from his hosts. There was a special lunch menu featuring U.S.-raised beef and a gold-adorned brownie. A band played Trump’s campaign anthem of “Y.M.C.A.” when he stepped off Air Force One. Lee told him that “you are indeed making America great again.”Trump can be mercurial and demanding, but he has a soft spot for pomp and circumstance. He was particularly impressed by a choreographed display of colorful flags as he walked along the red carpet.“That was some spectacle, and some beautiful scene,” Trump told Lee during their meeting. “It was so perfect, so flawlessly done.”Earlier in the day, Trump even softened his rhetoric on international trade, which he normally describes in predatory terms where someone is always trying to rip off the United States.“The best deals are deals that work for everybody,” he said during a business forum.
Washington and Seoul have been working on a trade deal
Trump was visiting while South Korea is hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the historical city of Gyeongju. He previously stopped in Japan, where he bonded with the new prime minister, and Malaysia, where he attended a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.The Republican president has been trying to tie up trade deals along the way, eager to show that his confrontational approach of tariffs is paying dividends for Americans who are uneasy about the job market and watching a federal government shutdown extend into its fifth week.However, South Korea has been particularly tough to crack, with the sticking point being Trump’s demand for $350 billion of direct investment in the U.S.Korean officials say putting up cash could destabilize their own economy, and they’d rather offer loans and loan guarantees instead. The country would also need a swap line to manage the flow of its currency into the U.S.Trump, after meeting with Lee, said “we made our deal pretty much finalized.” He did not provide any details.Oh Hyunjoo, a deputy national security director for South Korea, told reporters earlier in the week that the negotiations have been proceeding “a little bit more slowly” than expected.“We haven’t yet been able to reach an agreement on matters such as the structure of investments, their formats and how the profits will be distributed,” she said Monday.It’s a contrast from Trump’s experience in Japan, where the government has worked to deliver the $550 billion in investments it promised as part of an earlier trade agreement. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in specific commitments during a dinner with business leaders in Tokyo.For now, South Korea is stuck with a 25% tariff on automobiles, putting automakers such as Hyundai and Kia at a disadvantage against Japanese and European competitors, which face 15%.Lee, speaking at the business forum before Trump arrived, warned against trade barriers.“At a time when protectionism and nationalism are on the rise and nations focus on their immediate survival, words like ‘cooperation,’ ‘coexistence’ and ‘inclusive growth’ may sound hollow,” he said. “Yet, paradoxically, it is in times of crisis like this that APEC’s role as a platform for solidarity shines brighter.”
Trump and Lee swap praise despite disagreements
Lee took office in June and had a warm meeting with Trump at the White House in August, when he praised Oval Office renovations and suggested building a Trump Tower in North Korea.He took a similar approach when Trump visited on Wednesday. The gold medal presented to Trump represents the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, the country’s highest honor, and Trump is the first U.S. president to receive it.Trump said “it’s as beautiful as it can possibly be” and “I’d like to wear it right now.”Next was a replica of a royal crown from the Silla Kingdom, which existed from 57 B.C. to 935 A.D. The original crown was found in a tomb in Gyeongju, the kingdom’s capital.Besides trade disagreements, there have been other points of tension between Washington and Seoul this year. More than 300 South Koreans were detained during a U.S. immigration raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia in September, sparking a sense of outrage and betrayal.Lee said at the time companies would likely hesitate to make future investments unless the visa system was improved.“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies,” he said.Asked Monday about the immigration raid, Trump said, “I was opposed to getting them out,” and he said an improved visa system would make it easier for companies to bring in skilled workers.
Trump-Xi meeting is expected Thursday
While in South Korea, Trump is also expected to hold a closely watched meeting on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Washington and Beijing have clashed over trade, but both sides have indicated that they’re willing to dial down tensions.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that he expects to lower tariffs targeting China over the flow of fentanyl ingredients.“They’ll be doing what they can do,” he said. Trump added that “China is going to be working with me.”Trump sounded resigned to the idea that he wouldn’t get to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on this trip. The president previously floated the possibility of extending his stay in South Korea, but on Wednesday said “the schedule was very tight.”North Korea has so far dismissed overtures from Washington and Seoul, saying it won’t resume diplomacy with the United States unless Washington drops its demand for the North’s denuclearization. North Korea said Wednesday it fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, in the latest display of its growing military capabilities as Trump visits South Korea.Trump brushed off the weapons test, saying “he’s been launching missiles for decades, riht?”The two leaders met during Trump’s first term, although their conversations did not produce any agreements about North Korea’s nuclear program.
Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim contributed from Seoul, South Korea, and Josh Boak contributed from Tokyo.
Chris Megerian, Associated Press
Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia that the billionaire seeks to position as a rival to Wikipedia.Writing on social media, Musk said that Grokipedia.com is “now live” and its goal is the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”Musk has previously criticized Wikipedia for being filled with “propaganda” and called for people to stop donating to the site, which is run by a nonprofit. In September he announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI was working on Grokipedia.The Grokipedia site has a minimalist appearance with little beyond a search bar where users can type in queries. It states that it has 885,279 articles. Wikipedia, meanwhile, says it has more than 7 million articles in English.Like Wikipedia, users can search for articles on various topics such as Taylor Swift, the baseball World Series, or Buckingham Palace.While Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteers, it’s unclear how exactly Grokipedia articles are put together. Reports suggest the site is powered by the same xAI model that underpins Musk’s Grok chatbot, but some articles are seemingly adapted from Wikipedia.The San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement Tuesday that it is “still in the process of understanding how Grokipedia works.”As a huge trove of well-constructed sentences with little restriction on how it’s used, Wikipedia has been a key source used to train AI chatbots, including Grok’s rivals ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.“This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist,” said the Wikimedia Foundation.Wikipedia for months has been a target of the political right. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress launched an investigation in August of alleged “manipulation efforts” in Wikipedia’s editing process that they said could inject bias and undermine neutral points of view on its platform and the AI systems that rely on it.Wikipedia encourages its volunteer editors to cite nearly every sentence or paragraph with a primary source, and sentences not verified can be challenged and removed. Some of Grokipedia’s entries are thinly sourced, such as an entry on the Chola Dynasty of southern India that has three linked sources, compared to Wikipedia’s that has 113 linked sources plus dozens of referenced books.Grokipedia’s entry on Wikipedia accuses the site of having “systemic ideological biases particularly a left-leaning slant in coverage of political figures and topics.”The Wikimedia Foundation said in its statement Tuesday: “Unlike newer projects, Wikipedia’s strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, rigorous volunteer oversight, and a strong culture of continuous improvement. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, written to inform billions of readers without promoting a particular point of view.”
Associated Press
Rumor has it that Palantir Technologies is poised for a stock split.
An analyst for RBC Capital Markets recently polled investors, who reportedly indicated a desire for the software company to make such a move.
Retail investors are also largely focused on the potential for a stock split, and although this topic decreased quarter over quarter, it remains the most relevant topic, analyst Rishi Jaluria stated, according to Investors Business Daily.
He continued: With Palantir’s $6 billion cash balance, we think retail investors may be starting to become frustrated by the company’s lack of willingness to return capital to shareholders given no apparent interest in pursuing M&A opportunities.
Splitting the stock would give current shareholders more shares, while allowing new investors in at a lower entry price.
While stock splits do not intrinsically change the company’s value, they sometimes generate excitement around a stock among investors who see the new price as being more accessible.
Last year saw stock splits from a number of high-profile companies, including Walmart, Chipotle, and Nvidia.
Is Palantir planning to split its stock?
Palantir has made no indication that it will pursue a stock split. If it did, the decision would be a first for the company, whose valuation and stock price have skyrocketed this year.
In 2025 alone, its grown over 150%, while the past 12 months have seen it rise more than 321%.
Fast Company has reached out to Palantir for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
Many people believe that Palantirs stock is significantly overvalued. Investment firms and analysts have stated that, despite the companys high earnings, its still inflated.
Take Augusts second-quarter earnings report, which saw a 48% growth in revenue year-over-year to $1 billion. Immediately following it, Palantirs stock was trading at 100 times its revenue, Morningstar reported at the time.
Palantirs current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is around 630. By contrast, tech giants like Meta, Apple, and Amazon all have price-to-earnings ratios of under 40, according to Google Finance data.
Palantir will report its third-quarter earnings next Monday, November 3.
Disclosure: Joe Mansueto, Morningstars founder, owns Fast Company.
