We’re witnessing an unprecedented explosion in creative capability. Voice interfaces are removing barriers for billions who found keyboards cumbersome. AI image generators can mock up virtually any creative direction instantly. The technical constraints that once defined creative work are dissolving.
Yet this abundance creates a new challenge: when everything becomes possible, the possibilities overwhelm us. What then becomes most valuable is knowing whats worth making.
I predict that in 2026, the question “should we build this?” will matter more than “can we build this?”
The capability surplus
The AI conversation is all about capabilities. What you can make. How fast you can make it. What’s now possible.
But there’s a gap emerging between what we can create and what we should create. McKinsey’s November 2025 State of AI report reveals a telling paradox: 88% of organizations now use AI in at least one business function, yet only 39% report enterprise-level financial impact. Theyre capturing value in isolated use cases but struggling to translate that into long-term growth or improved profit margins.
The gap is knowing where to apply it and how to create a framework so that it can actually make an impact.
The skills everyone can hone in 2026
This shift creates genuine opportunity for every creator, professional, and anyone who cares about honing their craft while scaling their impact. When creative execution becomes universally available, three things become differentiators:
Starting with better questions: “How can we have the greatest impact? Which decisions should stay human? Where does automation create fragility?” These aren’t constraints. They’re the frameworks that prevent cognitive overload when everything is technically possible.
Developing taste through iteration: Just as calculators didn’t eliminate the need for mathematical understanding, AI doesn’t eliminate the need for creative foundations. But here’s what changes: the ability to rapidly iterate with AI actually accelerates taste development. You get more attempts, tighter feedback cycles, and faster learning. You build judgment by making more decisions, not fewer.
Knowing when to publish: When AI can generate countless variations instantly, pressing the button to share something with someone becomes the defining creative act. What you send, when you send it, who receives it. These decisions shape identity and message in ways that generation alone cannot.
What tools and platforms can enable now
If knowing what to make is the new skill, the tools that help us develop that skill won’t be just an obsequious yes-man. The most valuable AI tools won’t be those that simply execute your vision, but those that act as creative partners. I predict that tools will emerge that provide the right amount of friction to push your creative ideas.
The role of creative platforms will shift from providing capability to providing capability plus judgment scaffolding built into the product. This means:
Tools that challenge ideas rather than just execute them
Interfaces that know when to stay silent rather than interrupt constantly (fewer notifications, fewer decisions, fewer interruptions)
Features that help users understand why a choice works, not just that it does
The new creative spectrum
We’re moving toward multiple valid modes of creation: human-only, AI-only, AI + human (sometimes openly disclosed, sometimes invisible). Rather than one approach dominating, this spectrum will generate different types of work and different conversations about craft. We will see “not made with AI” declarations coexist with behind-the-scenes AI integration as standard practice.
This reflects an expansion of possibilities. More people will have access to creative tools than ever before. The question is whether they’ll develop the judgment to use them well.
What success looks like now
The optimistic case for 2026 isn’t that AI makes creativity effortless. It’s that AI makes creativity accessible, then rewards those who develop judgment within that access.
Billions of people now have access to professional-grade creative tools. Will we drown in celebrity deepfakes, or will we see an emerging class of contemporary artists? This depends on how well we build “judgment frameworks” into the AI tools we use and our ways of working. We need to use AI tools with discernment, but we also need to hold each other accountable to think deeply and think before we publish.
The most in-demand professionals will be those who can reframe messy questions, challenge false assumptions, and decide what not to optimize. Why? Because when everyone has access to the same generation tools, the baseline quality of output rises, but so does the volume of mediocre work that looks professional but lacks strategic intent.
We’re already seeing the consequences of capability without discernment: marketing campaigns that are technically polished but strategically incoherent, designs that follow trends without serving user needs, code that runs but creates technical debt.
Coca-Cola’s 2024 AI-generated holiday campaign was technically polished but felt “soulless” to audiences who expected the brand’s traditional warmth, while McDonald’s’ Netherlands’ AI holiday ad was pulld after just three days following intense backlash. And in code, GitClear’s 2024 analysis of 211 million lines found that copy-pasted code blocks increased eightfold, generating code that runs but creates the kind of technical debt that compounds into future headaches.
The winners in this new landscapeboth creators and platformswill be those who can cut through the noise. Who develop the human skill to know which problems are worth solving. Who understand that unlimited possibility doesn’t mean every possibility is valuable. The competitive advantage shifts from I can make this to I know this is worth making.
Businesses are acting fast to adopt agentic AIartificial intelligence systems that work without human guidancebut have been much slower to put governance in place to oversee them, a new survey shows. That mismatch is a major source of risk in AI adoption. In my view, its also a business opportunity.
Im a professor of management information systems at Drexel Universitys LeBow College of Business, which recently surveyed more than 500 data professionals through its Center for Applied AI and Business Analytics. We found that 41% of organizations are using agentic AI in their daily operations. These arent just pilot projects or one-off tests. Theyre part of regular workflows.
At the same time, governance is lagging. Only 27% of organizations say their governance frameworks are mature enough to monitor and manage these systems effectively.
In this context, governance is not about regulation or unnecessary rules. It means having policies and practices that let people clearly influence how autonomous systems work, including who is responsible for decisions, how behavior is checked, and when humans should get involved.
This mismatch can become a problem when autonomous systems act in real situations before anyone can intervene.
For example, during a recent power outage in San Francisco, autonomous robotaxis got stuck at intersections, blocking emergency vehicles and confusing other drivers. The situation showed that even when autonomous systems behave as designed, unexpected conditions can lead to undesirable outcomes.
This raises a big question: When something goes wrong with AI, who is responsibleand who can intervene?
Why governance matters
When AI systems act on their own, responsibility no longer lies where organizations expect it. Decisions still happen, but ownership is harder to trace. For instance, in financial services, fraud detection systems increasingly act in real time to block suspicious activity before a human ever reviews the case. Customers often only find out when their card is declined.
So, what if your card is mistakenly declined by an AI system? In that situation, the problem isnt with the technology itselfits working as it was designedbut with accountability. Research on human-AI governance shows that problems happen when organizations dont clearly define how people and autonomous systems should work together. This lack of clarity makes it hard to know who is responsible and when they should step in.
Without governance designed for autonomy, small issues can quietly snowball. Oversight becomes sporadic and trust weakens, not because systems fail outright, but because people struggle to explain or stand behind what the systems do.
When humans enter the loop too late
In many organizations, humans are technically in the loop, but only after autonomous systems have already acted. People tend to get involved once a problem becomes visiblewhen a price looks wrong, a transaction is flagged, or a customer complains. By that point, the system has already been decided, and human review becomes corrective rather than supervisory.
Late intervention can limit the fallout from individual decisions, but it rarely clarifies who is accountable. Outcomes may be corrected, yet responsibility remains unclear.
Recent guidance shows that when authority is unclear, human oversight becomes informal and inconsistent. The problem is not human involvement, but timing. Without governance designed upfront, people act as a safety valve rather than as accountable decision-makers.
How governance determines who moves ahead
Agentic AI often brings fast, early results, especially when tasks are first automated. Our survey found that many companies see these early benefits. But as autonomous systems grow, organizations often add manual checks and approval steps to manage risk.
Over time, what was once simple slowly becomes more complicated. Decision-making slows down, work-arounds increase, and the benefits of automation fade. This happens not because the technology stops working, but because people never fully trust autonomous systems.
This slowdown doesnt have to happen. Our survey shows a clear difference: Many organizations see early gains from autonomous AI, but those with stronger governance are much more likely to turn those gains into long-term results, such as greater efficiency and revenue growth. The key difference isnt ambition or technical skills, but being prepared.
Good governance does not limit autonomy. It makes it workable by clarifying who owns decisions, how systems function is monitored, and when people should intervene. International guidance from the OECDthe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developmentemphasizes this point: Accountability and human oversight need to be designed into AI systems from the start, not added later.
Rather than slowing innovation, governance creates the confidence organizations need to extend autonomy instead of quietly pulling it back.
The next advantage is smarter governance
The next competitive advantage in AI will not come from faster adoption, but from smarter governance. As autonomous systems take on more responsibility, success will belong to organizations that clearly define ownership, oversight, and intervention from the start.
In the era of agentic AI, confidence will accrue to the organizations that govern best, not simply those that adopt first.
Murugan Anandarajan is a professor of decision sciences and management information systems at Drexel University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Let me set a scene for you: A manager at a tech company pings his team at 6:01 p.m., asking for a quick favor before morning?
The millennial responds instantly with Sure, give me a sec while texting their partner to warn they will be late for their kids game.
The Gen X employee gives a thumbs-up emoji and plans to do the work after the kids are asleep.
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The Gen Z parent has a different vibe altogether, responding, Im offline for day care pickup and will handle in the morning, then logging off.
Its a move that likely stuns most millennial and Gen X colleagues, but this is what happens when boundary-setting appears in a workplace built around people sacrificing their personal lives for the bottom line.
As Gen Zers become parents, they are shifting workplace expectations.
Why the Old Playbook Isnt Working
For generations, we have struggled in a culture that requires both intensive parenting and the always-available ideal worker. Is it any wonder that burnout has become a status symbol? Millennials and Gen X have tried to lean in, then had kids, and then hit a wallhard. The pandemic provided some relief by normalizing flexibility and paying more attention to the mental health crisis in this country. All of this had given rise to the first generation of truly anti-burnout parents.
They were raised on mantras like Do what you love and Find your passion, but student loan debt and massive layoffs killed that dream for most. So the pressure to find a dream job was replaced with landing a job with boundaries that enables them to have friends, hobbies, and relationships. Work is just part of a full life, as opposed to a defining characteristic. What they do has nothing to do with who they are. Its a stark contrast to Gen X, whose careers symbolized how hard they worked or how important they were in the cultural ecosystem.
While hustle culture turned exhaustion into a statement of how dedicated you are, Gen Z saw it as outright exploitation. Being busy is no longer a bragging right, and all-nighters arent a badge of honor. They dont buy into the notion that being overloaded signifies ambition.
This doesnt mean that Gen Z lacks ambition. They just reject the idea that ambition requires the erasure of self-care. They want promotions, not burnout. They want leadership, not a cutthroat or desperate ladder-climbing personality. They want financial stability, not status for appearances. The bottom line is Gen Z wants power; they just dont want to bleed for it.
What Gen Z Is Teaching the Rest of Us
Its a hard pill to swallow for boomers and Gen X, who have that we paid our dues energy. These boundaries can come off like entitlement, demanding, and unrealistic. But those older generations came of age when housing was cheaper, childcare was cheaper, college cost less, and a family could survive on a single income. That world doesnt exist anymore.
A shift could be good for everyone. Gen Z parents I have spoken with demand infrastructure changes, like paid leave, mental health coverage, flexibility, and pay transparency. They are proving that you dont have to white-knuckle your way to a promotion for it to count, and mental well-being is just as important as the bottom line.
They are also rejecting the idea that parenting should not interfere with work. When childcare falls through, it impacts work, and they are not hiding it. Family life is a priority rather than a source of guilt. Instead of asking, How do I survive this? theyre asking, Why is the system built this way? That shift in mindset could potentially change everything.
The Future of Work
Its a profound rebellion: closing laptops at 6, taking time away without apology, refusing to live perpetually exhausted. So what happens when these workers start running departments, companies, or entire industries? Leadership styles soften and reviews focus less on face time and more on output. The ideal worker stops being the person who never logs off. And these changes wont just benefit new parents. Everyone wins when the culture stops worshipping burnout.
Perhaps the most ambitious thing we can do going forward isnt to work ourselves into the ground but rather to build a life worth protecting.
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For a generation, the smartest people I knew dreamed of moving to America.
They took uninspiring jobs, learned to wait through endless paperwork, and believed that one visa stamp could change their lives. That belief built an empire of talent that powered some of the worlds most iconic companies. And now, that same empire is dying, or at the very least, dreaming of moving elsewhere. Talent is now voting with its feet.
As someone born in the USSR, a few years before its collapse, who grew up in Kazakhstan and Russia and later lived in several different countries, I remember friends who spent five or six years working for EPAM, an outsourcing firm that became a bridge to something better. EPAMs real perk wasnt salary or prestige. What drew people to it was the promise of relocation. If you endured the dull projects long enough, youd earn your way to a U.S. office. That quiet deal between ambition and patience fueled a whole ecosystem. People didnt work for EPAM. They worked for the dream of getting out.
The same pattern was evident elsewhere. From Warsaw, Poland to Bangalore, India young engineers took mediocre jobs for one simple reason: making it to the United States. If you could make it there, your life would change. And if you were lucky, you could even stay forever. For decades, this desire was Americas greatest competitive advantage.
I moved to the U.S. in 2015 with my first startup. Our goal was to use the U.S. as a launchpad for global expansion. At the time, the prevailing view was that a companys HQ had to be in the United States. You would relocate your key employees there (highest salaries, best talent, and, for the U.S., the highest taxes) from your offices around the world. And the employees wanted this too, because it represented the American Dream.
That dream doesnt work anymore.
The price of the American dream
Today, Im witnessing with horror how the current administration is aiming to charge up to $100,000 for new petitions for H-1B visas. Consider that Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, Eric Yuan of Zoom, and even Elon Musk of X and SpaceX were at some point on an H-1B.
These rising figures will make it prohibitive for many startups to hire global talent. And even for those who manage to get through the system, the path keeps getting narrower. The waiting lists for permanent residency stretch on for years, and there are no guarantees anymore. I know brilliant graduates from India who studied at Harvard and work for peanuts just to keep a sponsor. They call it the treadmill. When the visa expires, so does the dream.
It used to be that a companys success was measured by how many jobs it created. A visa approved represented a job created, too. That job brought tax revenue, talent, and loyalty to the country. But now, that social contract is broken, and the message to global talent has changed from come build with us to prove you deserve to stay.
And the rest of the world has noticed.
Where talent is going instead
Countries like the UAE are now offering golden visas for founders, investors, and skilled professionals. Saudi Arabia is rolling out special residency programs for tech and creative workers. Singapores Tech.Pass makes it possible to relocate in weeks, not years. And for those who travel, Spain, Norway, and many others now have digital nomad visas.
At the top of the list is Chinas new K visa, which is aimed specifically at foreign scientists and innovators. It is a bold signal from Beijing that the country is now open to talented individuals from around the globe.
This has had an impact on my circle. Ive watched talented colleagues move to Dubai, UAE; Shenzhen, China; or Singapore and never look back. When you remove barriers, talent flows like water. America used to be the open floodgate. Now, it looks like a dam.
The U.K. is making the same mistake
The same story is beginning to unfold in the U.K. London could be the global capital of flexible work and innovation, but as the anti-immigration sentiment keeps rising, and the government keeps aiming to appease the hardliners, it could be repeating Americas mistake. Every time a government adds friction to who can stay or build there, the message to founders is simple: Take your innovation somewhere else. Talented individuals who move fast wont wait for paperwork, they will move wherever opportunity is easiest.
The real story is an innovation story
The irony is that this goes beyond immigration. In reality, it is an innovation story. When you lock out ambitious people, you export your own future. The next unicorns, the next breakthroughs, the next Silicon Valley wont emerge from a single place. Theyll emerge from a network, composed of founders in Dubai; engineers in Tbilisi, Georgia; designers in Bali, Indonesia; and investors on flights between Singapore and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The future of innovation is borderless because the best people already are.
Can talented individuals still believe in America?
I say this as someone who once believed deeply in the American Dream. It was the North Star for millions of us. You didnt have to be born into privilege because you could earn your way into it. But somewhere along the way, the belief that held it all together cracked.
It applies to Americans, too. Many of my U.S.-born friends are now leaving the country in search of the same freedom they once symbolized. The political division has made it even uncomfortable to live there, and as they search for new horizons, they amplify a talent drain that, when we least expect it, could leave the country in dire straits.
The truth is that Americas greatest strength was never an economic indicator despite its prominent standing. It was belief. The shared idea that if you worked hard enough, you could belong and have a good life. That belief built companies, cities, and entire industries.
But this belief is now breaking down under the pressure of two trends. The U.S. economy itself is going through a difficult period (marked by rising uncertainty, higher taxes, and tariffs) which naturally makes life harder for businesses.
At the same time, other countries have begun to compete with the U.S. on very concrete dimensions: the UAE as a place to live for high-net-wrth individuals; China as a source of technological innovation (and a place where businesses can grow by orders of magnitude); Portugal as a competitor to Florida, targeting retirees with savings; Spain as a digital nomad hub for those who value a calmer lifestyle; and the U.K., especially London, as a digital-nomad hub for those who thrive on intensity and movement.
The worlds best talent is no longer asking, “how do I get to America?” Instead, theyre looking at all of their optionscountries who are actively trying to woo them and will welcome their contributions with open arms.
It was mid-morning when Nadine Jones got the daycare call every working mother dreadsher son spiked a fever and needed to be picked up.
Jones, a senior associate at a big D.C. law firm, newly divorced with full custody of her 14-month-old son, knew what that call meant: her day was about to unravel.
At the daycare, another single mother pulled Jones aside.
Dont you have to work? she asked.
Yes, Jones replied.
Okay, this is what you do, the woman said, Tomorrow, just before you drop him off, youre gonna give him childrens Tylenol. Thats gonna bring his fever down and give you two or three hours at work. Then youll have another hour or two before they confirm its back up. Dont you need those five hours?
Jones did.
Working parents often scramble to stay employed while caring for their families. Cold and flu season can be especially brutal for caregivers, and this season weve had the highest number of cases in 30 years.
But cold and flu season isnt just making us sickit’s disproportionately pushing working mothers to make impossible choices: either compromise their childs care or face lasting career consequences, such as stalled advancement and burnout. Or, in Joness case, send her sick child to daycare, and risk infecting everyone elseall for the sake of a partial day at work.
The double load: breadwinner and on-call nurse
Working mothers are facing a twofold problem. First, sexism is deeply entrenched in society so they end up doing most of the caregiving. Second, many companies dont take kindly to employees using PTO, or dont provide enough for caregivers with children. The result is a double whammy that forces mothers like Jones to make impossible choices.
To the first point, women are doing the bulk of childcare. A study of 2,217 mothers by BabyCenter.com, a website with resources for parents, found that 82% handle the majority of childcare logistics. They are also twice as likely as fathers to take time off to care for a sick child.
Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey of 5,152 U.S. adults found even when a heterosexual woman earns as much or more than her husband, she does more at home. On average, these women spend two hours a week more on caregiving and 2.5 hours more on housework, while their husbands have 3.5 more hours a week for leisure activities.
Pews research also found that the majority of Americans say society values mens contributions at work more than their contributions at home, showing how gender bias is still a deeply entrenched part of our culture.
Stephanie Steele-Wren is a licensed psychologist who runs her own practice. Even though she and her husband make roughly the same income, his work schedule is less flexible, so she does most of the sick-day caretaking for their one-year-old daughter.
With a six-month waitlist for her practice, she does everything possible to avoid canceling patients, including once taking a client call from her car outside the hospital where her child was in surgery. The biggest emotional piece for me is feeling like I have to maintain my professionalism while Im just feeling so scattered and overwhelmed and overstimulated, she shares.
Caregiving vs. career growth
Many mothers also feel that caretaking responsibilities directly affects their career progression, with two out of three in the BabyCenter.com survey fearing they appear unprofessional and unreliable. The survey also found that 70% of moms pass up additional opportunities at work to avoid possible conflicts.
Steele-Wren knows this feeling well. Since having a child, Steele-Wren has scaled back her business. There are no days off with being a business owner and self-employed. And there are absolutely no days off with being a mom.
As a small business owner, taking time off to care for a sick child means lost income. But even caregivers with generous PTO banks often feel they cant actually use it. Companies may offer unlimited paid time off and family-friendly policies,” but often working mothers are penalized for using these benefits. This includes receiving poor reviews on their annual evaluations, not receiving promotions, or feeling pressure not to be perceived as a burden, shares Lacey Kaelani, CEO of Metaintro, a job search engine that runs on open-source data processing over 600 million jobs in near real time.
You can have policies on paper, adds employee-law attorney Pam Howland, but if the culture rewards attendance and productivity above all else, it doesnt really matter what the policy says.
In fact, in 2025, a record number of working mothers quit their jobs.
Joe Mull, a consultant who specializes in increasing employee commitent, points out that the paradigm of mothers like Nadine Jones worrying about taking time off points to a bad system. If your team can’t absorb someone stepping away for a day without that person having to work overtime to recover, your staffing model is broken, he says.
Managers are the first line of defense
Interpreting company policy often comes down to managers, who can be the difference between staying or leaving for moms with kids. Your entire corporate experience hinges on who your boss is, period. Thats it, especially for working mothers, says Nadine Jones.
Jones shares how in some of her most challenging years as a parent, she had a boss who created a safe environment to be vulnerable and to have a family that didnt always, you know, fall into line. She says the psychological safety and scheduling accommodations allowed her to do her best work for the organization while being present for her son.
Having an understanding boss can mean everything to a caregiver. Research even shows that a manager has more influence on an employee’s mental health than a therapist and that a compassionate manager creates more loyal employees.
However, few managers are getting this right. One study of over 3,700 parents (97% of whom were women) found that fewer than 4% of moms feel comfortable asking managers for what they need. Flexibility ranked among their top desires.
Many managers are promoted for performance, not people skills, notes Howland. Thats why its essential to train them to understand discretion, flexibility, and the human side of policy enforcement.
Turnover is expensive. Howland cautionsdo you really want to lose talent because managers were too stringent on PTO or sick-care policies?
The companies who get it right
There are a few companies who are managing to create a culture that allows working mothers to take time off for caregiving or designing systems that create less discrimination. For example, Vanguard, one of the worlds largest investment companies with more than 20,000 employees and at least 9,000 caregivers has an attrition rate of roughly 8%, about half the industry standard.
Kathryn Larkin, Vanguard’s Head of Global Benefits, says employees actually take advantage of their time-off benefits because they’ve seen those who have gone before them continue with great careers. And so when you see that in practice, you have the confidence that if that is me, I can take the leave and I won’t be punished . . . it’s culturally appropriate, it’s accepted, it’s encouraged.
Meanwhile, Workforce platform Deputy, which designs scheduling tools for shift-based workers, says sick season forces companies to rethink flexibility for roles that require coverage. Internally, Deputy emphasizes proactive manager planning and allows their workforce of around 400 global employees to take care of their loved ones, such as sick children.
Those insights have informed product features like real-time shift swaps and instant time-off requests intended to reduce worker stress, Deputys CEO Silvija Martincevic, tells Fast Company.
In their recent engagement survey, 94% of Deputys employees agreed with the statement, Im able to work in a way that works for me, citing flexible work hours and supportive management.
What working mothers can do
However, for mothers who arent at forward-thinking companies or dont have understanding managers, Mel Goodman, a career strategist for working moms and founder of WorkMom, a collective for working mothers, offers the following advice:
At work, she notes, many high-achieving moms tend to protect their teams outcomes at the expense of their personal boundaries. Its better to understand that sick days are not normal work days and should not be treated as such.
She informs caregivers that its better to communicate their availability windows rather than apologize for interruptions, to be upfront about slower response times, and to choose one or two meaningful outputs instead of tackling a full to-do list.
On the home front, clear communication also helps. Its best when parenting is framed as a shared responsibility, not as helping mom, Goodman says.
Instead of blaming partners for not helping enough, focus on making the invisible work visible, advises Goodman. Eve Rodskys Fair Play cards are a helpful tool for dividing household responsibilities.
Often, caretaking isnt a true 50/50 split, as one partners job may carry more economic or professional risk. Focus on equity instead. What matters is that the arrangement is intentional, agreed upon, and revisited over time, says Goodman.
At the end of the day, company policy can only go so far if a woman is in an unbalanced relationship. If one partner consistently resists stepping up, the issue is rarely logistics. It is usually a values conversation about respect, fairness, and whether both people truly believe that both careers and both well-being matter, adds Goodman.
Finally, she advises, on high-demand days, try to carve out moments for personal care too10 minutes of walking, exercising, or meditatingthat can reset the nervous system. And dont be afraid to cancel or simplify weekend plans as a recovery strategy, she says.
Even the most prepared caregivers can end up overwhelmed and exhausted this time of yearevidence that sick-child policies and flexible work practices are essential for real-life employees.
On the morning of January 24 in downtown Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed protester Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a local Veterans Affairs hospital. Just 2 miles away, on January 7, another ICE agent had shot and killed Nicole Renee Good, a mother. The deaths mark the first times during Donald Trumps second term that ICE agents have fired in anger and killed publicly verified U.S. citizens.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have so far said nothing on the matter. X CEO Elon Musk earlier tweeted that Renee Good had almost killed ICE agent Jonathan Ross before Ross shot and killed her on January 7.
On the same day as Pretti’s fatal shooting on Saturday, January 24, Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a VIP screening of the new (Amazon-funded) Melania Trump documentary at the White House. Cook was silent about the shooting until Tuesday evening, when he reportedly sent a memo to Apple employees calling for de-escalation and saying that hed talked to Trump about the issue.
Its become clear to many that Trumps ICE strategy is at least as much about intimidating citizens of blue cities as it is about removing illegal immigrants. The question is, and has always been: At what point will Trumps authoritarian urges become too much for the tech industry to stomach? UC San Diego political scientist and civil war expert Barbara F. Walter writes that historically, it is the business community that often heads off civil conflict by demanding a more stable and secure business environment.
Indeed, tech leaders are credited with having persuaded the Trump administration to cancel plans to move ICE agents into San Francisco last October.
AI leaders speak first
Among tech leaders, it’s the heads of the leading artificial intelligence companies that have said the most about Minneapolis.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has been influential among members of Congress and people within the Trump administration, says he spoke to the president about Minneapolis on Monday, following Pretti’s death on Saturday. He wrote a Slack message to employees saying he believes the ICE shootings have gone too far. He didnt make these comments publicly, however. The memo, in which Altman called Trump a very strong leader, was leaked (intentionally or otherwise) to The New York Times, which published it. (OpenAI president and cofounder Greg Brockman has become a major Trump donor as well.)
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei did speak out publicly. We need to defend our own democratic values at home, and some of the things Ive seen during the last few days concern me about that, he said in a Monday night interview with Tom Llamas on NBC Nightly News. He added that Anthropic doesnt currently have contracts with ICE and that the shootings dont make him more enthusiastic about working with the agency.
In his Slack memo, Altman spoke directly (if unclearly) to the issue of when OpenAI will, and will not, speak out on social and political issues. The company will not get blown around by changing fashions and will not make a lot of performative statements now about safety or politics, he wrote, but rather will engage with leaders and push for our values, and speak up clearly about it as needed.
Amodei and Altman may have spoken out before leaders of bigger tech companies did for any of several reasons. The research culture within AI companies has closer ties to the academic community, so researchers are perhaps more apt to speak out on moral or political issues. The competition for talent in AI is also fierce, so AI company leaders may be quick to respond, fearing the loss of valuable employees. Also, AI companies are eager to project an image of social responsibility, which might reinforce the idea that theyll be careful stewards of the technology theyre developing.
They also may have less to lose. OpenAI and Anthropic are not public companies, so they dont have to consider stockholder consensus when their leaders speak out about political issues. They are also smaller than firms like Google or Apple, and they dont rely as much on federal government contracts for revenuenot yet, anyway.
Listening to tech workers
The backlash against the fatal shootings of Good and Pretti started not with tech executives, but with employees. Several big-name researchers within AI companies denounced the ICE killings on X. Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah, former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, and Microsoft chief scientific officer Eric Horvitz were among those who spoke out. Other researchers, including OpenAIs Michael Schade and theoretical computer scientist Boaz Barak, a member of OpenAIs technical staff, endorsed or shared the tweets. Tech super-investors Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, and Paul Graham also condemned the murders and demanded accountability. (Business Insider has a fuller list.)
They join a small number of tech workers who have gone public to pressure tech leaders. More than 800 of them signed an open letter, organized by a group called ICEOut.tech, that called for tech CEOs to demand that the Trump administration remove ICE agents from U.S. cities and to cancel their companies contracts with the agency. The signatories include names from some of the biggest tech and AI companies, including Apple, Google, Salesforce, Uber, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Big Techs alliance with Trump is paying dividends
Only a half decade ago, during the first Trump term, tech companies spoke out loudly against the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and then introduced broad new diversity policies and programs. Now that many of techs most influential leaderspeople like Musk and venture capitalists David Sacks and Marc Andreessenhave turned so enthusiastically pro-Trump, the tech industry has taken the approach of flattering, appeasing, and bankrolling Trump in his second term. A unified response to the recent events in Minnesota seems impossible.
What changed? I doubt that the majority of tech industry has radically changed its political stripes on social issues like race and policing. Whats changed is AI. After the appearance of ChatGPT in 2022, tech leaders could very likely see the broad transition that AI might bring, and the massive and expensive infrastructure build-out that would be needed to support it. (Big Tech, AI, and cloud companies are now betting hundreds of billions of dollars on building new data centers to run AI models.)
So tech leaders ecided to get behind the candidate most likely to enable it rather than regulate it. That was Trump, and they did so knowing that a lot of odious social policy would likely come with the deal. Big Tech leaders funded Trumps inauguration and his new White House ballroom. They visited him at Mar-a-Lago and at the White House to advise him on trade and tech policy. Some vigorously defended his policies on social media. And some took roles in his administration (Sacks became Trumps AI and crypto czar and Musk led DOGE, for example).
And Trump has delivered. His administrationunder the influence of people like Sacks, Musk, and Andreessenhas made it a top priority to keep the federal government out of the way of the AI infrastructure build-out. The Trump administration has stifled any chance of any meaningful AI regulation (which most Americans favor) in Congress and has even attempted to preempt states from doing so. It has canceled federal investigations into tech companies and attempted to clear away red tape at the state and local levels that might slow data center builds.
But the tech industrys alliance with the MAGA crowd has never faced a threat as serious as the one emerging from Minneapolis.
Wondering how the eager tech enablers of this regime, including some of my former VC friends and partners, are rationalizing this atrocity, former Andreessen Horowitz partner John OFarrell posted on X. Just the latest in a year of horrors. Is all the crypto and AI money in the world really worth this?
Rank-and-file tech workers may not be as ready to swallow their moral scruples as top management is. Theyre becoming more sensitized to Trumps ICE strategy and its consequences on the ground across the country. Every additional act of violence by ICE against American citizens could agitate workers exponentially more and further pressure company leaders to respond in meaningful ways. If Trump persists, tech companies may eventually have to choose between their alliance with Trump and the loyalty of their own employees.
An inclusive economy is no longer a moral aspiration or a side project. Business leaders must understand that without inclusion, we cannot create a resilient, growing economy that delivers sustainable returns for all.
In places where inclusion is part of the infrastructure of their economysupply chains, procurement processes, capital access, or business ownershippeople thrive. Inclusive economies create more resilience by expanding the base of potential business owners who can build, own, innovate, and hire. They allow more opportunities for homeownership and investing in the longevity of communities. As our economy becomes increasingly stratified and volatile, we need as much resiliency as we can get.
At Living Cities, our work with mayors, financial institutions, philanthropy, and community partners shows that places and companies that prioritize inclusion and equity reduce long-term risk, deepen trust, and create or identify new economic opportunities. Those that ignore the benefits of economic inclusion have capital, talent, and residents move elsewhere.
INCLUSION PROOF POINTS IN CITIES
Consider Memphis, where Black residents are a majority of the population but historically own only a fraction of local businesses. City and local partners supported the creation of Contractors University, a cohort model that equips small firmsmany led by entrepreneurs of colorto bid on and win city contracts. Within months, participating firms converted training into new contracts and rising revenues. Contractors University was able to take one of the largest barriers to business successaccessing procurement dollarsand turned it into a growth platform.
In Miami, inclusive capital has become part of the citys resilience strategy. Local leaders were able to preserve affordable space for dozens of small, often new American immigrant-owned businesses through partnerships with community organizations and investors to acquire commercial property in a cultural district. By partnering with local civic leaders, the City of Miami preserves both a burgeoning commercial corridor and future revenue streams.
In Austin, cultural incubators and entrepreneurial training programs are translating modest seed grants into new firms, jobs, and community wealthbecause they have been able to offer the targeted support that entrepreneurs have been missing for generations to unlock growth opportunities and sustainable businesses.
WHAT BUSINESS LEADERS CAN DO DIFFERENTLY IN 2026
The question for business leaders and investors is no longer whether to support an inclusive economy, but how quickly to align their own practices and policies with what is already working. Three shifts can help leaders tap into the benefits of an inclusive economy:
Redesign how capital moves. Replace audit underwriting and investment criteria with bias-adjusted frameworks that recognize the positive records of entrepreneurs and neighborhoods long labeled high-risk. Coupled with innovative credit productssuch as first-loss capital, guarantees, and flexible lines of creditchanging the preconception of what makes a risky investment can lead to an expanded deal pipeline and more opportunities.
Treat procurement as a growth engine. Moving beyond diversity pledges toward codified inclusive procurement standards that make it easier for local and small firms to become ongoing vendors. This means simplifying contracting processes, offering technical assistance, and publishing clear inclusion metrics tied to executive performance and cost savings from more resilient local supply chains.
Invest in ownership, not just access. Support models that keep wealth rooted locallycooperatives, employee ownership transitions, and community land trustsby aligning corporate philanthropy, impact investing, and civic partnerships around shared-ownership pathways. In St. Paul, for example, a down-payment assistance program has invested in families who lost homes through the execution of the Federal Highway Act, stabilizing neighborhoods and the local economy.
A MANDATE FOR THE NEXT ECONOMY
The past year has been turbulent, from federal shutdowns to rising costs to contracting labor markets that strain both households and balance sheets. Yet we know the path forward: Cities are proving that local economies which expand the concept of who can be full participants are more productive, predictable, and investable.
In 2026, neutrality is not a safe middle ground. Choosing not to prioritize inclusivity and resilience is, in effect, choosing to operate inside an outdated standard for risk, talent, and growth. Business leaders who want to bring about the next era of American prosperity should spend 2026 re-committing to inclusion as a core economic strategy.
Joe Scantlebury is the CEO at Living Cities.
Meta’s fourth-quarter results jumped past Wall Street’s expectations thanks to solid advertising revenue, sending shares sharply higher in after-hours trading Wednesday.
The company earned $22.77 billion, or $8.88 per share, in the October-December quarter. That’s up 9% from $20.84 billion, or $8.02 per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue grew 24% to $59.89 billion from $48.39 billion.
Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $8.21 per share on revenue of $58.5 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.
Once again, Meta surpassed analysts earnings expectations for the quarter, cementing its position as one of the worlds most dominant media companies,” said Debra Aho Williamson, chief analyst at Sonata Insights. “Its strong performance provides a solid foundation to continue its massive investments into AI. If there were any signs of revenue shortfall, investors would look at the capital expenditures more negatively.
Meta’s expenses, which the company already warned will be significantly higher this year, grew 40% to $35.15 billion.
For the current quarter, Meta is forecasting revenue in the range of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion. That’s above analysts’ forecast of $51.4 billion. For 2026, Meta is forecasting expenses in the range of $162 billion to $169 billion, driven by infrastructure costs and employee compensation, particularly for the artificial intelligence (AI) experts it’s been hiring at eye-popping pay levels.
Meta had 78,865 employees at the end of the year, an increase of 6% from a year earlier.
Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company (Nasdaq: META) rose $73.15, or 10.9%, to $741.88 in after-hours trading.
By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
For years, the customer experience playbook has been treated like a technology problem. Add another tool. Deploy another bot. Automate another workflow. And yet here we are, heading into 2026 with customer satisfaction in freefall. Forresters 2025 CX Index shows scores hitting a new low for the fourth consecutive year.
This isnt a failure of ambition or innovation. Its a failure of how we define success.
Leaders have been optimizing for activity instead of outcomes. In the rush to scale digital engagement, many organizations fell into a bit of a containment trap, measuring success by how many customer interactions never reach a human. On paper, it looks efficient. In reality, its often a false economy.
If a customer gets stuck in a bot loop or a bot that cant answer a straightforward question predictably, you havent saved money. Youve lost trust. And very often, youve lost the customer.
Its clear that customer experience (CX) needs a reset. Not more experimentation or hype, but more precision. Based on what were seeing across industries, four trends will define whether companies finally break out of the CX recession, or get left behind.
1. CX isnt delivering (because were measuring the wrong things)
Despite massive investment, CX outcomes are stalling. The reason is simple: Most organizations are optimizing for the wrong metrics.
Containment, deflection, and average handle time tell you how efficiently you move customers away. They tell you very little about whether you actually solved a problem, built loyalty, or created value.
The companies that rise to the top are shifting to a hybrid model that treats AI and humans as complementary assets. AI agents handle what theyre best at: instant answers, routine transactions, and scale. Humans step in where judgment, empathy, and nuance matter.
The metric shift is critical. High-performing teams measure value creation, not just cost avoidance. Personalization, resolution quality, and revenue impact matter far more than whether a conversation stayed contained, because they create value on both sides of the exchange: Customers get answers that actually move them forward, and brands earn trust, loyalty, and measurable growth. In fact, Gartners data shows that buyers have a 1.8 times greater likelihood of paying a premium, and they are 3.7 times more likely to buy more than they planned, if they feel that experience has been personalized.
The future of CX isnt about replacing people. Its about freeing them to do their best work.
2. 2026 is the year of predictable AI
Over the past two years, generative AI moved from novelty to necessity. In 2026, the conversation changes again, from capability to control.
Unpredictable AI is expensive. Hallucinations, broken flows, and inefficient token usage quietly drain budgets and introduce brand and compliance risk. Thats why predictability has become the most important word in the boardroom.
The next phase of AI adoption requires an assurance layera system that continuously tests, validates, and verifies AI behavior before it ever reaches a customer. This de-risks innovation, but just as importantly, it creates the engine for continuous improvement. It provides the framework to constantly learn from interactions, refine accuracy, and reduce the cost of every conversation, turning AI from a “science experiment” into an operational efficiency engine that gets smarter over time.
The most advanced organizations are using adversarial simulation to stress-test AI against edge cases, confusion, and hostile inputs. They break their systems before customers can. The result is confidence that allows leaders to deploy AI in high-value, high-risk use cases like payments, healthcare, and financial services.
Predictable AI doesnt just reduce risk. It unlocks ROI and drives value creation.
3. The CX budget crunch is an opportunity
CX leaders arent struggling because budgets disappeared. Theyre struggling because scrutiny increased.
In 2026, no one is funding nice-to-have initiatives. Every dollar must tie directly to financial outcomes. CX leaders need to stop selling soft metrics and start telling a before-and-after story showcasing what changed, by how much, and why it matters to the business.
The most effective teams reposition CX not as a cost center, but as an efficiency engine. They run focused pilots, prove results quickly, and use hard data to unlock broader deployment.
When you can demonstrate measurable improvements in resolution rates, conversion, or operational efficiency in 90 days, the budget conversation changes. CX stops being discretionary. It becomes essential.
4. Marketers must catch up with consumers expectations
The biggest growth shift of 2026 isnt happening in the contact center. Its happening at the top of the funnel.
Traditional lead generation is breaking down. Buyers dont want forms. They want answers, on their terms, in the moment of intent. Conversational AI enables a concierge model that replaces gated funnels with real-time, personalized dialogue.
The economics are compelling. A self-service interaction costs pennies. A live agent interaction can cost dollars. But when done right, conversational AI delivers a low-cost interaction that feels premium and high touch.
More importantly, it respects the customers time. And in 2026, that can be the ultimate differentiator.
PRECISION IS THE NEW SCALE
The lesson early in 2026 is simple: Scaling without precision is noise. Precision without scale is irrelevant. The best companies will master both.
That means measurable CX, predictable AI, disciplined investment, and conversations that meet people exactly where they are.
We dont need more technology. We need better outcomes.
And if we get that right, 2026 wont just be the year CX recovers, but the year it finally delivers.
John Sabino is CEO of LivePerson.
Trump is facing a rare bipartisan backlash after a group of federal agents shot and killed protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, but tech industry leaders once some of Trumps fiercest critics are sitting this one out.
Prettis killing, depicted clearly in multiple angles of bystander video, has galvanized even apolitical corners of the internet and united voices from opposite sides of the political spectrum. The fatal shooting took place less than three weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she attempted to drive away from an encounter with federal agents in the city.
In an internal letter posted to Apple employees and reported by Bloomberg, CEO Tim Cook addressed the situation unfolding in Minneapolis, but stopped far short of criticizing the president or his aggressive immigration policies, which have left two people at protests in the city dead within the span of three weeks.
Cook described himself as heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, adding that he had a good conversation with the president on the issue and appreciated Trumps openness to talking about it.
This is a time for deescalation, Cook said. I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where theyre from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for.
Cooks statement echoes Trumps own language. The president told Fox News on Tuesday that he planned to de-escalate a little bit in Minnesota.
The letter is not likely to please Apple workers who are furious that Cook attended a glitzy screening of the new Amazon-sponsored documentary about First Lady Melania Trump at the White House hours after Prettis death. Attendees were treated to popcorn in Melania-branded buckets, white cake pops, black-and-white macarons, a cereal box featuring the films poster and white sugar cookies with Melania written in black frosting, according to Yahoo News.
Cook and techs other big players are all-in on the second Trump administration. Silicon Valley CEOs attended the presidents inauguration and even donated to build Trumps deeply controversial $300 million ballroom a project that misled the public and resulted in the total demolition of the White Houses historic East Wing.
By standing behind the president, Cook and others likely hope to cultivate a comfortable regulatory environment for their businesses while staving off other Trump-issued punishments, like targeted tariffs. Some of the richest, most powerful men in the world once checked Trumps power, but theyve enthusiastically abandoned that role during his second term.
Trumps misinformation machine distorts the facts
Silicon Valley leaders may be firmly behind Trump, but Americans are increasingly unsettled by the administrations immigration policies. More than half of those polled earlier this month believe that ICEs enforcement actions are making cities less safe and fresh polling over the weekend revealed that nearly 60% of Americans believe that ICE has gone too far.
In spite growing public anger and video evidence to the contrary, Trump officials scrambled to distort the facts of Prettis death over the weekend.
Homeland Security Kristi Noem misleadingly claimed that Pretti attacked officers while brandishing his gun a falsehood plainly contradicted by video evidence. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller went even further, describing Pretti as an assassin who tried to murder federal agents, a claim that Vice President JD Vance and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino doubled down on.
Other Trump officials asserted that Pretti broke the law by carrying a concealed weapon to a protest, but the Minneapolis police verified that he held a gun license and was behaving lawfully.
You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want, FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News over the weekend. President Trump himself also said that Pretti he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun, rankling Second Amendment advocates and many of his own supporters.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy called Prettis killing incredibly disturbing, adding that DHSs credibility is in question. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation, Cassidy said on X. We can trust the American people with the truth. The NRA echoed calls for an investigation, criticizing public officials who demonized Americans for lawfully carrying weapons.
