For as much as we heard about AI in the past year, the top two best places to work in the U.S. are decidedly AI-free.
Crew Carwash, an Indianapolis-based chain of car washes with 55 locations in the Midwest, claimed the top spot on Glassdoors list of the best places to work in 2026. In-N-Out Burger, the beloved chain with 400-plus locations, also moved up one spot this year to rank as the second-best place to work in the U.S.
From there, however, tech and AI companies dominated nearly one-quarter of Glassdoors ranking of the top 100 companies with Nvidia claiming the third spot. But this industrys representation on the list has actually come down somewhat in recent years, a reflection of shifting dynamics at some of these companies.
“This is part of an ongoing trend where many tech employers are trimming some of the things that made the job so appealing over the last year,” Glassdoor chief economist Daniel Zhao told CBS News. “They are pushing harder and harder on efficiency and productivity.”
In addition to Nvidia, ServiceNow and EPAM Systems rounded out the top three companies on an inaugural list of the best tech and AI companies. These companies are redefining what tech-first means and theyve scaled rapidly without losing a human element to the workplace, according to a blog post.
UNCERTAINTY IN THE JOB MARKET
The past year has seen some new career trends emerge that reflect the uncertainty many workers are feeling latelyincluding so-called job hugging, or employees who sit tight in their roles, and Shrekking, when some workers opt to take jobs that are beneath their qualifications. In 2025, U.S. employers added only 584,000 new jobs, down from two million in 2024, making it the worst year for job growth since 2020 when the COVID pandemic rocked the economy.
Glassdoors annual ranking, now in its 18th year, honors those companies that its employees love working for based on feedback provided on the platform. It comes at a time when many employees are fed up with work, and overall U.S. employee engagement is at a decade low.
“Even amid the uncertainty of 2025, these standout employers have shown resilience, sustaining high levels of employee satisfaction and trust as they navigate change,” Owen Humphries, president at Glassdoor, said in a statement.
Bragging rights for those companies with 1,000 employees or more is based entirely on the anonymous reviews that employees posted on the site between October 2024 and October 2025, as theres no nomination process nor survey of employees.
FOCUS ON WORKPLACE CULTURE
While identifying those employers that are getting workplace culture right is inherent to the ranking, this years winners are maintaining high levels of trust and satisfaction among employees, even amid a shifting economic landscape, according to a blog post.
Even though they span vastly different industries, the top three employersCrew, In-N-Out, and Nvidiashare a common theme: Theyve operationalized cultural values, according to Glassdoor. The best workplaces in 2026 aren’t doing anything revolutionary. They’re doing the fundamentals exceptionally welland doing them consistently, even when it’s hard.
SHAKEUPS ON LIST
Each year, some employers fall off the list to make room for new companies to make their debuta cohort that included Alaska Airlines and Dutch Bros. this year. There were some other notable shakeups in this years ranking.
Bain, the top-ranked employer in 2025, fell to the No. 8 spot this year, marking the lowest-ever ranking for the perennial top-5-rated company. Other shakeups saw representation decline among San Francisco-area companies, with only 13 companies making this years list, down from 23 in 2025. Meanwhile, New York-area employers have been rising in employee satisfaction, gaining ground with 10 companies represented on the list, up from six last year.
HIRING ACTIVITY
In addition to charting such shifts in the industries and locations of the best employers, the annual list is intended to help job seekers navigate a competitive job market, according to Humphries. The number of weeks someone is unemployed has been creeping higher to more than 24 weeks, on average, as of December.
Combined, this years top 10 employersCrew Carwash, In-N-Out, Nvidia, Ryan, Keller Williams, Mars, ServiceNow, Bain, Houston Methodist, and EPAM Systemscurrently have more than 11,000 job postings active on Glassdoor.
These awards are intended to be a trusted guide for job seekers, Humphries said, by helping candidates connect with workplaces that reflect their values and career ambitions.
Below, Charles Knowles shares five key insights from his new book, Why We Drink Too Much: The Impact of Alcohol on Our Bodies and Culture.
Charles is a Professor of Surgery at Queen Mary University of London and Chief Academic Officer at the Cleveland Clinic London. Qualifying as a doctor from the University of Cambridge, he continues to practice as a consultant colorectal surgeon. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and contributed to several major international surgical textbooks.
Whats the big idea?
Problematic drinking is not a problem of weak will or low moral integrity. Why drinking shifts from choice to compulsion for some and not others depends on many complex factors.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Charles himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Why do humans consume alcohol?
A necessary starting point to understanding why some humans drink too much is understanding why humans consume alcohol at all. Our hominid ancestors evolved to metabolize alcohol over 10 million years ago, pushed by the need to safely consume rotting fruit from the forest floor. We have been deliberately manufacturing alcohol for over 15,000 years, and today it remains our most popular drug, despite many well-acknowledged downsides. Why do we continue to drink it? We cant still claim this as a nutritional necessity.
The vervet monkey on the island of Saint Kitts in the Caribbean is one example of many animal species that consume alcohol, with individuals showing variable enthusiasm for doing so. This attests to a fundamental biological driver. It cannot simply come down to clever advertising, peer pressure, or the price being right at the liquor store.
The brain lies at the heart of this. If we ask most people, they will tell us that drinking alcohol makes them feel good and that they have fun drinking it. This is because alcohol is a primary reward; it can chemically alter the levels of certain neurotransmitters in our brains. The combined effects of alcohol on dopamine, but also on endorphins and GABA, lead to psychostimulatory and relaxant effects, in fact, mimicking the effects chemically of cocaine, opioids, and Valium. It is these positive effects of alcohol on the brain that are the fundamental basis of why we and other animals consume alcohol.
2. The drinking scales.
Although some people may find it hard to resist, ultimately, we consciously choose to drink. This is a cognitive process that takes information from our sensesthe time of day, where we are, who we are withand processes this information against what we know, using our ability to think intelligently before acting. The positive effects we get from drinking are based on alcohols psychostimulatory and relaxant effects. We then come to balance these pros against the common negative effects (hangover, cost, embarrassment, etc.). This balance of the pros and cons is what I call the drinking scales. Everyone has a slightly different balance depending on their positive and negative experiences of alcohol. And this balance changes throughout life with societal norms and values.
Everyone has a slightly different balance depending on their positive and negative experiences of alcohol.
If the drinking scales worked perfectly to provide a logic-based decision all the time, I wouldnt be writing this book. The problem is that all around us are people for whom the evident harm of drinking should have been sufficient years ago to outweigh any positives, but still they drink. In such people, we can think of the scales as being broken or bypassed. This happens because the brain is wired to allow it to happen. Survival programs deep in the old parts of our brain, based around the reward pathway and memory, promote behavior that once aided our survival in the jungle but which now leads to serious consequences rather than any useful purpose. This is the basis of addiction. The question then becomes: why does this happen to some people and not to others?
3. Problematic drinking is not defined by how much we consume.
Why cant he drink like a normal person? We hear this said. Many people see problematic drinking as a black-and-white issue. There are normal drinkers, and then those who have a problem. But there is quite a lot of gray. The term gray area drinking has now become popular in community groups. But what do we mean by this compared to medical terms like alcohol dependence or alcohol use disorder?
I would recommend that anyone reviewing their relationship with alcohol should look at what I call the three Cs: consumption, consequences, and control.
While long-term consumption level may have some important ramifications for health or finances, consequences and control are much more important angles for looking at the problem.
Consequences from alcohol range from common downsides (like a hangover) through to serious harms (car accidents, criminality) and chronic health problems affecting the body and brain.
Control, however, is perhaps the most important. After all, if we could control our consumption, we could just stop when consequences started occurring. And this brings us back to considering a spectrum where white might be neutrality, a take it or leave it approach to drinking, and black is dependence. But what then is gray?
I define gray area drinking as someone who relies on alcohol in a way that is making them concerned about the amount they consume and their ability to control it. And it brings in a new concept called alcohol reliance, a state of mind where consumption of alcohol has become a regular habit that is hard to give up, but has not yet led to the behaviors that define alcohol dependence.
4. Bad genes.
It seems unfair. Why was I, of all my hard-drinking college buddies, singled out to develop alcohol dependence? This is what I call the why me question. Loss of control has very little to do with consumption. Although alcohol is clearly required, we dont actually drink our way to having a problem. It therefore poses the question of whether there is something biologically different between individuals, and this has been debated since alcoholism became studied as a disease in the 1930s.
Twin and adoption studies show that alcoholism has a heritability of about 50 percent, meaning that about half of the risk of developing dependence falls at the door of genetics. Studies of mice breeds show that tolerance to, stimulatory response from, and therefore preference for alcohol can be genetically conferred. In fact, you can genetically engineer mice that mimic several behaviors of dependence. We also know that people with intolerance for alcohol (such as Asian flushing, caused by specific gene variants in liver enzymes) very rarely develop alcohol problems because the experience of drinking is deeply unpleasant.
Twin and adoption studies show that alcoholism has a heritability of about 50 percent.
The sort of experiments performed in mice based on stimulation from alcohol can also be performed in humans. An example is the San Diego cohort study. Measured doses of alcohol were given to young adults who were alcohol nave, and the amount of stimulation they got from it was measured. Those who were more stimulated went on to have a higher risk of problems later in life. We can define humans who biologically find it fun to drink versus those that rapidly slump in the corner. The latter are relatively protected while the former are at greater risk of alcohol dependence.
But this doesnt mean there is a single bad gene variant. Alcohol related disorders are what we call complex diseases or traits. Theyre a mixture of nature and nurture, and the nature is a consequence of hundreds or thousands of subtle variations in our DNA spread across the two billion base pairs of our genome, and not just in the genes themselves. This means were looking for a needle in a haystack. In fact, one could say were looking for thousands of needles in a haystack, some of which look very much like hay.
The results of this exercise are disappointing at the current time. Most genes found overlap with major mental health disorders and ADHD. Some newer discoveries are in taste and in the way our brains rewire throughout life. We do find some genes associated in mice with increased stimulation related to GABA. However, overall, we are a long way off having predictive genetic testing.
5. Bad luck.
Despite the scientific fashion for all things genomic, how we turn out in lifeour success, happiness, hopes, and dreamsgenerally has very much to do with the environment we grow up in and the effects of human interactions on our psyche. What we are exposed to during childhood, especially during the critical period of attachment, plays into the sort of later diagnoses that come from a psychiatrist, such as anxiety and depression, but also important personality traits like self-esteem and our social fitness.
Many psychological traits create a double weighting on the pros side of the drinking scales. Alcohol doesnt just seem fun, it also provides relief by its relaxant and, if we drink enough, sedative effects. These dissociative properties can suppress negative feelings, thoughts, and memories; this is particularly true when suppressing the barrage of thoughts that comes with problems like ADHD and neurotic personality.
We may come to falsely associate these rewards with a survival advantage.
But there is another twist here which returns us to thinking about how the drinking scales can be bypassed or broken by the fundamental survival-biased wiring led from our reward pathway. Survival for our ancestors had a great deal to do with social fitness: how we relate to other humans for protection, reciprocal behavior such as hunting, and romantic desirability. If, when we are young, we find a profound solution to fear and social difficulties by using alcohol, we may come to falsely associate these rewards with a survival advantage.
Despite the illusion, our brain is still working from the ancestral jungle script. This is perhaps why disorders characterized by problems both of social interaction as well as negative thoughts are so strongly associated with alcohol dependence. Also, it may be no coincidence that the 15,000 years of deliberate alcohol manufacture quickly followed when humans started to live and cooperate in groups.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday it will appeal the November ruling in favor of Meta in its antitrust case against the social media giant.The FTC said it continues to allege that, for more than a decade, Meta Platforms Inc. has “illegally maintained a monopoly” in social networking through anticompetitive conduct “by buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp.”Meta had prevailed over the existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking.U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling on Nov. 18 after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May. His decision runs in sharp contrast to two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising, dealing regulatory blows to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled growth.In a statement, Meta said the court’s decision “to reject the FTC’s arguments is correct, and recognizes the fierce competition we face. We will remain focused on innovating and investing in America.”
Associated Press
After a brief sell-off in the run-up to Donald Trump’s speech to global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, markets are up, after the president backed off earlier claims and ruled out using force to acquire Greenland.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 451 points, or about 1%, and the S&P 500 was up 67 points, also about 1%, in midday trading at the time of this writing. The Nasdaq was up about 0.7%.
On the issue of acquiring Greenland, Trump said the following: We never asked for anything, and we never got anything . . . We probably wont get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable.”
“But I wont do that. Okay?” Trump continued. “Now everyones saying, Oh, good. Thats probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force. I dont have to use force. I dont want to use force. I wont use force.
Trump has threatened to impose anywhere from 10% to 25% tariffs on our longtime European allies (the U.K., Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland) over their opposition to his push for Greenland, which had previously triggered a sell-off of U.S. assets, Axios reported.
European nations own an estimated $8 trillion of U.S. bonds and equities.
The 10-year Treasury price turned higher and its yield turned lower following Trumps comments. The U.S. dollar index pared its decline with other currencies.
Although Trump backed off claims of U.S. military action in Greenland, he did double down on his plans to acquire Greenland, saying he was seeking immediate negotiations” to discuss the matter.
How can you win love and loyalty from your customers, your employees, your fansand even the people in your life? Taylor Swift answered this question perfectly with just one word: Overdeliver. Overdelivering will impress your customers, create loyal employees and fans, and make all your relationships stronger.
I wanted to overserve the fans in terms of the amount of songs that they were going to hear and how far I was going to push myself, she says in her new docuseries, The End of an Era. As you likely know, she made good on that plan. The Eras Tour show ran three-and-a-half hours, divided into 10 distinct eras covering different albums. Then she added another era partway through when she released The Tortured Poets Department. There were a few songs that changed every night, and guest appearances by other performers, such as Ed Sheeran. Oh, and an elaborate illusion where she dove into the stage.
After the tour, in an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, she explained her reasoning. I wanted to overdeliver. I really wanted to give people more than they expected, she said. It just really felt like something that I had to do. Because Im like, I know these tickets are going to be hard to get. I didnt know how hard they would be to get. (The show sold out everywhere, and many fans actually flew to different locations just so they could attend.)
Swift continued, People have lives and priorities. And if theyre going to dedicate any part of those lives to coming to this big show, to packing stadiums like this, I want to overdeliver on production, overdeliver on the length of it, the exertion, the kind of surprises theyre seeing. And really, Im endlessly proud of feeling like we achieved that.
Swift shows empathy for her fans
Swift was expressing a key element of emotional intelligence: empathy. She was looking at the situation from her fans point of view. Its rare to hear any big star say that their fans have priorities other than their next show or album. For Swift to acknowledge that Swifties have their own lives is highly refreshing. So is her awareness that its hard to get tickets to her shows, and her belief that she owes her audiences more because of it.
Even if you dont have millions of raving fans spending hundreds of dollars to come listen to you, overdelivering is a good practice and a good mindset. When you surprise people by giving them more than they expected, more than they asked for, or even more than they paid for, they will remember you. And they likely will come back.
Theres a growing community of Inc. readers who get a daily text from me with a micro-challenge, suggestion, or question. (Want to learn more? Heres some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many are entrepreneurs or business leaders who know how important it is to have repeat customers, loyal fans, and people who are steadfastly in their corner. Consistently overdelivering is a very effective way to make that happen.
Inc.
I’m a classic satisficer: I’m usually quick about making decisions and often fall back on the tried-and-true. Some people are optimizers, carefully analyzing almost every choice, whether it’s a new sofa or a cup of coffee.If you want to make decent, “good enough” choices about your financial plan and portfolio and get onto other things, what strategies should you employ? And what should you stop doing? Here are some strategies to embrace.
Eliminate ‘onesies’ and embrace simple building blocks
Step away from those individual stocks. Forget I bonds and laddered portfolios of individual Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. If you’re a satisficer, they’re not for you. Reduce your number of accounts and the holdings within them.A portfolio with fewer moving parts is easier to oversee and simpler to document in case your loved ones or a financial advisor needs to take the wheel. Moreover, Morningstar research indicates that investors tend to do a better job buying and holding broadly diversified investments than they do ones that are more focused.While they might not compel over some shorter time horizons, total-market index funds have been highly competitive with actively managed funds on a long-term basis, and they require little to no oversight. That means that satisficer portfolios should be heavy on total market index funds and even all-in-one investments like target-date funds. Satisficers should have as few accounts as possible, too.
Minimize other financial relationships
I’m part of a group chat with some delightful people who are keen to maximize their gains from credit cards and hotel loyalty programs. They’re always sharing tips on new card offers and swapping in and out of cards to score free travel.These people have traveled all over the world, and there’s something to be said for beating the banks at their own game. They’re also eager to take advantage of free financing programs when buying cars, furniture, and electronics. Why not let the bank float you a loan and invest the funds in the interim, particularly now that you can earn a decent return on your safe money?Yet as much as the math might argue for such strategies, managing multiple credit relationships requires time, energy, and discipline that most people don’t have to spare. For that reason, taking a minimalist approach to credit cards and other financial relationships is a good policy for most households, especially satisficing ones. My credit-card-optimizer friends might disagree, but I tend to think that a single, well-chosen credit card or two is plenty.
Automate everything you can
The data suggest that dollar-cost averaging is inferior to lump-sum investing. To which I say, “So what?” The fact is, most of us don’t have big lump sums lying around; we’re able to invest only as we earn money and save it.Making automatic investments addresses a number of financial pain points in a single shot. It eliminates any question marks about whether and when to invest. And if the target investment amounts are high enough and you increase them as you receive pay increases and bonuses, it also obviates the need to track expenses or budget in the traditional sense.
Pay for help if you need it
Here’s another way in which the satisficers may be willing to depart from the optimizers. Yes, paying for financial planning guidance costs money, maybe more than you think it should. (It’s not unusual for good-quality planners to charge $350-$500 an hour or more.)But if paying for professional financial help frees you up to do other things you enjoy more and it provides peace of mind with your decision-making, it can be money well spent. Moreover, a planner can help point out blind spots that even the most competent DIYers may have missed, while also serving as a valuable receptacle of financial information in case you’re unable to manage your own finances at some point. Finally, planners can leverage high-powered software that puts more precision behind decisions like whether to convert traditional IRAs to Roth.
This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.ChristineBenz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.Related Links
Worried About Inflation? What to Know Before Buying TIPS ETFshttps://www.morningstar.com/funds/worried-about-inflation-what-know-before-buying-tips-etfs-2
3 Big Changes for Retirement Planninghttps://www.morningstar.com/retirement/3-big-changes-retirement-planning-2026
Ask Your Advisor These Questions About How They Get Paidhttps://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/ask-your-advisor-these-questions-about-how-they-get-paid-2
Christine Benz of Morningstar
Warren Buffett’s successor appears to be considering his first significant move after taking over as CEO this month.Kraft Heinz warned investors Tuesday that Berkshire Hathaway may be interested in selling its 325 million shares in the name brand food giant that Buffett helped create back in 2015. The news came in a filing with stock market regulators.Buffett and the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital orchestrated the merger of Kraft and Heinz back then because they already owned Heinz and believed in the power of their brands. Now Greg Abel may be plotting a different course.Over the years since Buffett had come to realize that the company’s competitive moat around its brands wasn’t as strong as he thought as consumers have increasingly been willing to switch to store brands and move away from processed foods. Berkshire took a $3.76 billion writedown on its Kraft-Heinz stake last summer. Buffett said last fall that he was disappointed in Kraft Heinz’ plan to split the company in two, and Berkshire’s two representatives resigned from the Kraft board last spring.But still it was rare for Buffett to unload an acquisition during his six decades leading Berkshire even when he soured on a business’ prospects. Berkshire didn’t respond to questions Tuesday about the filing where Kraft Heinz disclosed that its largest shareholder “may offer to sell, from time to time, 325,442,152 shares.” Kraft Heinz shares fell nearly 4% to $22.85 after the announcement.There’s no sign Berkshire has started selling yet, but CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert wonders if this could be just the beginning of a comprehensive review of Berkshire’s varied holdings. In addition to its massive stock portfolio worth over $300 billion, Berkshire owns an assortment of insurers including Geico, several utilities, BNSF railroad and an eclectic mix of manufacturing and retail companies.“My sense is that Greg Abel’s leadership style may be a departure from Buffett’s, and this sale, if completed, would represent a shift in corporate mindset,” Seifert said. “Berkshire under Buffett typically only made acquisitions- not divestitures. It’s not inconceivable, in our view, that Abel may likely assess every Berkshire subsidiary and decide to jettison those that do not meet his internal hurdles.”Of course Abel already knows many of Berkshire’s companies well because he has been managing all of the non-insurance companies since 2018. But he only became CEO on Jan. 1. Buffett remains chairman, but investors are watching closely for any changes Abel might make at the venerable conglomerate.Investor Chris Ballard, who is managing director at Check Capital, said “selling Kraft is probably the most low-hanging fruit for Greg. We personally wouldn’t be sad to see the holding go.”But of course it would be bard for Berkshire to unload all of its shares on the public market because it is such a large stake, so Ballard said he wonders if there could be a large prospective buyer in the wings.But Buffett said last fall that Berkshire wouldn’t accept a block bid for its shares unless the same offer was made to all Kraft Heinz shareholders.
Josh Funk, AP Business Writer
President Donald Trump arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, after a minor electrical issue aboard Air Force One had forced a return to Washington to switch aircraft.Shortly after he landed in Zurich, his Marine One helicopter took him to the site of the international gathering. The White House said arriving late wouldn’t push back his scheduled address at the forum in the Swiss Alpswhere his ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could tear relations with European allies and overshadow his original plan to use his appearance at the gathering of global elites to address affordability issues back home.Trump’s speech is set to focus on domestic policy. But it may touch on Greenland as well as the U.S. military operation that led to the recent ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.On Thursday, Trump plans to more heavily lean into foreign policy, including discussing hemispheric domination by Washington, and the “Board of Peace” he’s creating to oversee the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas.That’s according to a White House official who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that haven’t been made public. Trump will also have around five bilateral meetings with foreign leaders, though further details weren’t provided.
Tariff threat looms large
Trump comes to the international forum at Davos on the heels of threatening steep U.S. import taxes on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate a transfer of the semi-autonomous territorya concession the European leaders indicated they are not willing to make.Trump said the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June, rates that would be high enough to increase costs and slow growth, potentially hurting Trump’s efforts to tamp down the high cost of living.The president in a text message that circulated among European officials this week also linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. In the message, he told Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Stre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”In the midst of an unusual stretch of testing the United States’ relations with longtime allies, it seems uncertain what might transpire during Trump’s two days in Switzerland.On Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Davos panel he and Trump, a Republican, planned to deliver a stark message: “Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy,” he said.“This will be an interesting trip,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday evening for his flight to Davos. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but you are well represented.”In fact, his trip to Davos got off to a difficult start. There was a small electrical problem on Air Force One, leading the crew to turn around the plane about 30 minutes into the flight out of an abundance of caution. That pushed the president’s arrival in Switzerland back hours.Wall Street wobbled on Tuesday as investors weighed Trump’s new tariff threats and escalating tensions with European allies. The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, its biggest drop since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.8%. The Nasdaq composite slumped 2.4%.“It’s clear that we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances, both from the security and defense point of view, and economic point of view,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in his address to the forum. Macron made no direct mention of Trump but urged fellow leaders to reject acceptance of “the law of the strongest.”Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffs, the bloc’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.” She pointedly suggested that Trump’s new tariff threat could also undercut a U.S.-EU trade framework reached this summer that the Trump administration worked hard to to seal.“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July,” von der Leyen said in Davos. “And in politics as in business a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”
Trump will talk about housing
Trump, ahead of the address, said he planned on using his Davos appearance to talk about making housing more attainable and other affordability issues that are top priorities for Americans.But Trump’s Greenland tariff threat could disrupt the U.S. economy if it blows up the trade truce reached last year between the U.S. and the EU, said Scott Lincicome, a tariff critic and vice president on economic issues at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.“Significantly undermining investors’ confidence in the U.S. economy in the longer term would likely increase interest rates and thus make homes less affordable,” Lincicome said.Trump also on Tuesday warned Europe against retaliatory action for the coming new tariffs.“Anything they do with us, I’ll just meet it,” Trump said on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.” “All I have to do is meet it, and it’s going to go ricocheting backward.”Davos a forum known for its appeal to the global elite is an odd backdrop for a speech on affordability. But White House officials have promoted it as a moment for Trump to try to rekindle populist support back in the U.S., where many voters who backed him in 2024 view affordability as a major problem. About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of living, according to the latest survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.U.S. home sales are at a 30-year low with rising prices and elevated mortgage rates keeping many prospective buyers out of the market. So far, Trump has announced plans to buy $200 billion in mortgage securities to help lower interest rates on home loans, and has called for a ban on large financial companies buying houses.
Promoting the ‘Board of Peace’
There are more than 60 other heads of state attending the forum. On Thursday, Trump plans to have an event to talk about the Board of Peace, meant to oversee the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and possibly take on a broader mandate, potentially rivaling the United Nations.The White House official said around 30 are expected to join the board after invites were sent to about 50 countries late last week.Fewer than 10 leaders have accepted invitations to join the group so far, including a handful of leaders considered to be anti-democratic authoritarians. Several of America’s main European partners have declined or been noncommittal, including Britain, France and Germany.Trump on Tuesday told reporters that his peace board “might” eventually make the U.N. obsolete but insisted he wants to see the international body stick around.“I believe you got to let the U.N. continue, because the potential is so great,” Trump said.
Michelle L. Price contributed from Washington.
Josh Boak, Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani, Associated Press
In October, gold hit a significant milestone, reaching $4,000 an ounce for the first time. Less than four months later, the precious metal is well on its way to $4,900 an ounce in an astonishing push that shows no signs of stopping.
Late Tuesday, January 20, gold hit a new record high of $4,800 an ounce, and by Wednesday morning, it rose to over $4,880 an ounceup more than 12% year-to-date (YTD) and up about 76% over the last 12 months.
A report from the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) predicts gold could trade anywhere between $3,450 and $7,150 an ounce in 2026. Analysts surveyed by the LBMA predict wildly different figures, with Robin Bhar of RBMC forecasting an average of $4,000 per ounce, and Julia Du of the ICBC Standard Bank predicting an average of $6,050 per ounce.
Silver has also continued its surge right alongside gold. The precious metal surpassed $95 per ounce for the first time on Tuesday. It has fluttered ever since, dropping within $2 less an ounce, before reaching above $95 again and again. Silvers new record-high figure is up about 34% YTD, and up more than 201% over the last year.
In the LBMA report, Du took an equally bullish stance on silver, forecasting an average of $125 per ounce, while Bart Melek of TD Securities predicted an average of $44.25 per ounce.
Why do gold and silver continue to rise?
Gold and silver are seen as safe-haven assets at a time of intense geopolitical uncertainty. This week has seen President Donald Trump continue his push to take Greenland by whatever means necessary.
Today, he is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos to further his demands, and push back against European leaders who oppose them.
Over the weekend, Trump threatened tariffs of up to 25% on eight European countries, including the United Kingdom and Denmark.
Right now, too many physicians and patients are trapped in a fragmented system. Information existsbut rarely in a form thats usable or easily actionable. Too often, lab results arrive as scanned images. Medication histories show up late or unreadable. Critical details hide in pages no one has time to sift through.
What clinicians feel in those moments is not just inconvenienceits strain. Theyre carrying the weight of navigating a complexity that shouldnt sit on their shoulders in the first place. Many expect artificial intelligence (AI) to solve the problem but while it can be an important part of the solution, AI is only as smart as the data it feeds on and only as effective as the structure that enables it. When information is incomplete, inconsistent, or locked in silos, even the most advanced tools struggle to deliver meaningful insight.
AI plays an important rolebut not by fixing fragmented data on its own. The work of organizing, connecting, and interpreting healthcare information still belongs to people and the systems they build. Where AI helps is after that foundation is in place: by bringing the right information forward at the right time, reducing the effort it takes to find what matters, and supporting better decisions in the moment of care. The next era of healthcare innovation wont be driven by larger AI models. It will be driven by how well we prepare the information they rely on.
The benefits of AI
AI is already helping clinicians reclaim time. It drafts documentation, supports communication, and reduces administrative burden reducing the pressures that drive burnout.
A nationwide survey of more than 500 physicians and administrators conducted by athenaInstitute for its AI on the Frontlines of Care report found that 64% of clinicians said documentation-related AI reduces their workload, and nearly half identified time saved as AIs most important benefit. What stands out is how often clinicians describe these savings in terms of what they get back: the ability to be present with their patients.
Less administrative pressure doesnt just lighten their workloadit changes how they show up in the exam room. Thats powerful.
But these gains reveal a deeper truth: AI performs best when the information around it is complete, consistent, and interpretable. For too many medical practices across the nation, thats the exception, not the rule.
AI only works when the data works
Clinicians consistently report difficulty accessing what they need when they need it, according to athenaInstitutes research. Nearly half say they encounter inconsistent formats or information that is simply hard to locate. Only 2% report having timely, comprehensive visibility across systems.
This disconnect has real consequences. AI cannot flag early signs that a patients condition is worsening if key information is missing. It cant prevent duplicative testing when records dont follow patients across medical settings. It cant strengthen clinical reasoning when the underlying information contradicts itself.
AI is a force multiplier, but it can only magnify what already exists. If the data is fragmented, the insight will be fragmented too.
This is why interoperability matters to every one of us, whether we realize it or not. For clinicians, its the difference between piecing together bits of information or having a clear picture of their patients. For patients, its the difference between reciting the same information repeatedly or speaking face-to-face with your physician, with no distractions.
AI adoption grows when it reduces friction in the workflows clinicians struggle with most: documentation, intake, communication, scheduling, and claims. Trust grows when AI is transparent, monitored, and clinically grounded. Safety grows when interoperability and standardization serve as the backbone of clarity.
Four shifts that will shape the future
The organizations that unlock AIs full value will be the ones that build the strongest data foundation. Leading organizations will take four actions.
1. Curate, not accumulate. Clinicians dont need more data. They need meaningful data that supports their ability to treat patients.
2. Standardize to simplify. Predictable structure in the dataformats, fields and definitionsreduces friction and cognitive load.
3. Make intelligence portable. Patients move. Their information should move with themintact, interpretable, and ready to support the next moment of care.
4. Support intuitive interpretation. The best AI surfaces what matters, explains why, and reinforcesnot replacesclinician judgment.
When these elements come together, AI stops functioning as a series of disconnected tools and starts acting as a true intelligence partnerone that provides clarity instead of noise.
Healthcare has never lacked dedication, intelligence, or compassion. What it has lacked is claritythe ability to see the full picture when it matters most. AI can help deliver that clarity, but only when its built on a system that speaks a common language. If we invest in connected, usable data today, we wont just make healthcare more efficient. Well make it more human. And thats the kind of progress and innovation patients, clinicians, and communities deserve.
Stacy Simpson is chief marketing officer at athenahealth and co-chair of athenaInstitute.
