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Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician working in a maternity ward in the 1840s. He noticed something disturbing: women giving birth in the ward staffed by doctors and medical students died from “childbed fever” at rates of 10-35%, while a nearby ward staffed by midwives had death rates under 4%. The key difference was that doctors were coming straight from performing autopsies to delivering babies, without washing their hands. They would dissect cadavers in the morning, then examine pregnant women in the afternoon with just a quick rinse. In 1847, Semmelweis instituted a policy requiring doctors to wash their hands with a chlorine solution between the autopsy room and the maternity ward. Death rates plummeted dramatically to around 1-2%. Great news, right? But instead of celebration, the medical community mocked Semmelweis for his claim that handwashing was worth the time and effort. He was driven out of the profession, and the childbed fever deaths went back up. It took more than 50 years after his discovery for handwashing to go mainstream in hospitals. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The case for cameras Right now, in early 2026, state legislatures across the country are trying to outlaw a proven treatment for traffic injuries and fatalities. Speed enforcement cameras are proven to reduce vehicle speeds and reduce crashes. According to the US Department of Transportations Proven Safety Countermeasures initiative, fixed speed cameras can cut crashes on urban principal arterials by up to 54% for all crashes and 47% for injury crashes. For obvious reasons, school zones are the first place communities tend to install safety cameras. Speeding near schools creates unacceptable risks for kids crossing streets or waiting at bus stops. Montgomery County, Marylands, automated speed enforcement program found that cameras reduced the likelihood of a crash involving a fatality or incapacitating injury by 19%, decreased the chance of drivers exceeding the limit by more than 10 mph by up to 59%, and fostered long-term changes in driver behavior that substantially lowered overall deaths and injuries. In New York City school zones, fixed cameras have reduced speeding by up to 63% during active enforcement hours. Many other case studies demonstrate similar outcomes. The bottom line is automated speed enforcement saves lives. Pre-installation surveys at some Virginia schools revealed a whopping 95% of drivers were blazing through school zones at 10+ mph during arrival and dismissal. Nearly every driver was risking the lives of young kids, including parents. In Fairfax County, the safety cameras at Key Middle School issued 7,429 citations from August 2024 to May 2025. But after the cameras had been in place for a while, average speeds fell from 33.1 mph to 27.8 mph. People need consequences for dangerous driving. Automated cameras deliver fair, unbiased enforcement where officers can’t patrol constantly, holding reckless drivers accountable in high-risk areas like school zones while freeing up police for other duties. Bills to ban But while automated enforcement is saving lives, politicians in multiple states are advancing bills to ban, restrict, or phase out speed cameras. Virginia: SB 297 (introduced January 13, 2026) repeals the authority for law-enforcement agencies to use photo speed monitoring devices. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation and remains under consideration in the 2026 Regular Session. Arizona: SCR 1004 (advanced through the Senate Appropriations, Transportation, and Technology Committee in mid-January 2026) aims to place a statewide ban on photo radar enforcement (including speed cameras) on the November 2026 ballot for voter decision. Georgia: HB 225 repeals all laws authorizing automated traffic enforcement safety devices (speed cameras) in school zones, with an effective date of July 1, 2028, to phase out existing contracts. Reintroduced in the 2025-2026 Regular Session (published January 13, 2026), it previously passed the House 129-37 in 2025 but stalled in the Senate. Texas: Building on the state’s existing prohibitions on most fixed speed and red-light cameras (banned statewide in 2019), recent efforts like HB 2810 (introduced in the 2025 session but died) sought to expand bans to include portable devices enforcing speed limits. Similar measures could resurface in the 90th Legislature starting January 2027, driven by complaints about distractions from flashes and potential safety risks in local deployments. Minnesota: Rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston) announced in late 2025 that he would author a bill to ban automated speed cameras statewide, to be introduced in the 2026 legislative session. This follows Rochester’s City Council narrowly approving a request for a speed camera pilot program, highlighting opposition amid concerns over enforcement fairness and local authority. Robust evidence from federal and local sources supports speed cameras as effective for slowing drivers and preventing crashesespecially in child-heavy school zones. Its a shame to see politicians working to dismantle them. Speed enforcement cameras save lives. The victims and survivors of traffic violence deserve better than the misguided bills that will directly lead to more life-altering crashes. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. 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E-Commerce
Lior Pozin had an epiphany about AI infrastructure in early 2025. As CEO of AutoDS, an AI-powered e-commerce automation platform, he had pushed his team to deploy AI features quickly, betting that speed would define success. AutoDS was bootstrapped and eventually reached 1.8 million users, generated more than $1 billion in user revenue, and exited successfully to Fiverr. From its earliest days, the company was fast moving, the kind of place where speed was strategic and rapid implementation felt like the natural way to operate. But as Pozins team moved from pilots to production, they learned that speed alone was not enough. AI only delivers results when the right data foundations and ownership structures are in place. Without the right governance, data organization, and access, AI cant scale, Pozin tells Fast Company. Once we built that foundation, everything changed. AI stopped being a feature and became part of how we operate. That experience was not unique to AutoDS. In 2025, across several industries, companies quickly realized that deploying AI at scale required confronting uncomfortable truths about their infrastructure, their assumptions about what AI could do, and their willingness to solve unglamorous problems before chasing transformative ones. While the year began with big promises, it turned out to be less about breakthroughs and more about a reckoning with reality. The lessons that emerged reveal an industry growing up. Instead of building ever more powerful models or simply raising more capital, the industry is maturing by figuring out what actually works when the demos end and the real work begins. INFRASTRUCTURE FIRST, OR NOTHING ELSE MATTERS In early 2024, database company RavenDB explored building an AI assistant for its documentation in collaboration with Microsoft. The project ultimately fell apart. According to founder Oren Eini, the problem was not the AI model itself but everything surrounding it. Data had to move through multiple systems before reaching the model, and updates required manual intervention. The entire setup depended on fragile connections that could break at any moment. For a database company, the irony was hard to miss. The experience clarified something essential for the team: AI needed to be integrated far more deeply into the database itself to be reliable, predictable, and scalable. For Eini, it wasnt a setback so much as a signal that the surrounding architecture mattered as much as the model itself. That realization informed RavenDBs more recent work on AI agents in and capabilities built directly into the database layer, where models operate closer to the data they rely on and can behave more predictably in production environments. At AutoDS, that shift translated into a more deliberate approach. The team focused on building a shared data layer into its drop-shipping platform and clearer ownership around AI initiatives, which later enabled products like its AI-powered store builder to scale more reliably across the business. The shift required patience. Pozins team stopped chasing what looked impressive and started tracking what mattered: time saved, accuracy improved, and decisions accelerated. Success now means AI actually improves how we work, not just that were using it, Pozin notes. EFFICIENCY BEATS RAW POWER While much of the AI industry chased larger models and more compute in 2025, Oculeus, a software-for-telecom company with deep experience in AI, spent the year prioritizing efficiency. The team focused on designing and refining systems that deliver reliable performance without excessive computational overhead. That focus is central to how Oculeus applies AI in telecommunications, where its systems are used to detect fraud patterns and anomalous behavior in real time. In those environments, Arnd Baranowski, the companys CEO, explains that predictability matters more than novelty, because false positives and inconsistent outputs carry direct financial and operational risk. AI algorithms and technology, which go along with massive computation and energy consumption, are a misguided path, Baranowski adds. His critique extends beyond hardware, questioning the industrys embrace of nondeterministic systems that produce different outputs for the same input. Training must result in 100% deterministic responses. Otherwise, something is wrong. That stance runs counter to the excitement around large language models, which treat randomness as a feature. For Baranowski, the lesson of 2025 was simple: AI systems only earn trust when they behave consistently and can be relied on in real operating conditions. Eini also shares that view. At RavenDB, the goal wasnt building the smartest AI. It was building predictable AI that could handle routine tasks without drama. We dont necessarily want smart AI, Eini says. We want predictable AI. As compute costs remain high and energy consumption becomes a public concern, 2026 will favor companies that figured out how to do more with less over those still chasing the biggest possible models. TRUST DEMANDS BOUNDARIES In 2024, Air Canadas chatbot promised a customer a bereavement fare discount that didnt exist. The airline was held liable. The case crystallized a problem that became unavoidable in 2025: AI agents cant be trusted the way employees can. Eini frames it bluntly. A bank teller is bound by policies and consequences. An AI agent isnt. I like to think about them as employees who I know are susceptible to bribes, he says. Its crucial to consciously set boundaries for their actions and actively implement protective measures. Those boundaries took practical form. At AutoDS, Pozin created a dedicated team to verify AI outputs and ensure the system received accurate source data. At RavenDB, the team developed and implemented chain-of-approval processes and clear limits on what AI agents could access or promise. The lesson extends beyond technical safeguards. AI agents exist in a gray zone between tool and actor. They respond to instructions but lack judgment. They execute tasks, but cant weigh the consequences. That reality requires new frameworks for accountability that dont assume good training guarantees good behavior. Organizations thriving in 2026 will treat AI deployment as a trust problem first. That means transparency about capabilities and limits, clear expectations for users, and systems designed to fail safely when things go wrong. SMALL FIXES BEAT MOONSHOTS The years biggest AI narratives centered on autonomous vehicles, artificial general intelligence (AGI)which AI scientist Yann LeCun thinks is an illusionand models replacing entire professions. But companies making actual progress focused elsewhere: solving small, annoying problems at scale. The biggest changes will come from fixing many small problems, not from one big, all-knowing AI, Eini says. Quantity has a quality of its own, and removing many small frictions leads to a much faster pace overall. RavenDB empowered regular team members to build AI features in days rather than waiting for top engineers to approve and execute. AutoDS measured success by whether AI made employees faster and more efficient, not by how many AI projects were running. The results were individually modest but collectively transformative. A year earlier, companies chased AI for its own sake, deploying pilots that looked impressive in demos but never scaled. In 2025, the focus shifted to measurable impact. Eini compares it to how we today make water potable for drinking, a practice so ordinary now that no one thinks about it. In the same sense that ATMs or self-checkout services havent fundamentally changed the entire world, but have made our lives measurably better, I think well see a lot of that, he tells me. The sheer quantity of changes will have a transformative effect. PREPARATION MATTERS MORE THAN REACTION Steve Brierley wasnt building AI in 2025. As CEO of quantum computing company Riverlane, he was watching how unprepared industries were when ChatGPT arrived. The AI boom exposed how unready many industries were when tools like ChatGPT suddenly entered the mainstream, forcing companies to scramble around regulation, scalability, data readiness, and consolidation, and a widening workforce and skills gap, Brierley says. His takeaway: understand emerging technologies early enough to anticipate challenges rather than react to crises. Quantum computing will arrive sooner than many expect, and it wont be a marginal improvement. AI excels at analyzing and generating insights from data, while quantum computing will enable the creation of new kinds of data altogether, Brierley says. Together, they will unlock far greater exploration, discovery, and innovation than technology could achieve on its own. Gilles Thonet, deputy secretary-general at the International Electrotechnical Commission, saw the same dynamic in regulation. As AI laws took effect in 2025, companies struggled to translate legal requirements into operational reality. International standards are essential to fostering trust in this transformative technology, Thonet says. WHAT COMES NEXT The lessons from 2025 point toward an AI future grounded in operational reality rather than hype. Companies leading that shift built infrastructure, set boundaries, and solved real problems instead of chasing headlines. But new challenges are emerging. Sheetal Mehta, global head of cybersecurity services at NTT Data, warns that AI capabilities driving productivity gains are being weaponized. Agentic AIs speed and ability to learn and make decisions autonomously can also be used by cybercriminals, exposing enterprises to new attack surfaces and unexpected security vulnerabilities, Mehta says. That means 2026 will require better safeguards, not just better systems. Organizations will need to treat AI security, governance, and ethics as foundational, not optional. Pozin captures that shift rather poignantly. The next phase of AI is AI that lives with us, learns us daily, and delivers exactly what we need, just in time. It wont feel like a tool anymore. Itll feel like a teammate that truly gets you, he says. Eini puts it even more simply: Moving beyond the initial awe to become a transparent tool that simply gets things done. Not AGI. Not full automation. Just AI that works reliably, scales predictably, and solves problems without creating new ones. For an industry that spent years chasing moonshots, that might be the most ambitious goal of all.
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In France, civil servants will ditch Zoom and Teams for a homegrown video conference system. Soldiers in Austria are using open source office software to write reports after the military dropped Microsoft Office. Bureaucrats in a German state have also turned to free software for their administrative work. Around Europe, governments and institutions are seeking to reduce their use of digital services from U.S. Big Tech companies and turning to domestic or free alternatives. The push for digital sovereignty is gaining attention as the Trump administration strikes an increasingly belligerent posture toward the continent, highlighted by recent tensions over Greenland that intensified fears that Silicon Valley giants could be compelled to cut off access. Concerns about data privacy and worries that Europe is not doing enough to keep up with the United States and Chinese tech leadership are also fueling the drive. The French government referenced some of these concerns when it announced last week that 2.5 million civil servants would stop using video conference tools from U.S. providers including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and GoTo Meeting by 2027 and switch to Visio, a homegrown service. The objective is to put an end to the use of non-European solutions, to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool, the announcement said. We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors, David Amiel, a civil service minister, said in a press release. Microsoft said it continues to partner closely with the government in France and respect the importance of security, privacy, and digital trust for public institutions. The company said it is focused on providing customers with greater choice, stronger data protection, and resilient cloud services ensuring data stays in Europe, under European law, with robust security and privacy protections. Zoom, Webex and GoTo Meeting did not respond to requests for comment. French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing digital sovereignty for years. But theres now a lot more political momentum behind this idea now that we need to de-risk from U.S. tech, Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at the Eurasia Group. It feels kind of like theres a real zeitgeist shift, Reiners said It was a hot topic at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of global political and business elites last month in Davos, Switzerland. The European Commission’s official for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, told an audience that Europe’s reliance on others can be weaponized against us. Thats why its so important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to very critical fields of our economy or society, she said, without naming countries or companies. A decisive moment came last year when the Trump administration sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor after the tribunal, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally of President Donald Trump. The sanctions led Microsoft to cancel Khan’s ICC email, a move that was first reported by The Associated Press and sparked fears of a kill switch that Big Tech companies can use to turn off service at will. Microsoft maintains it kept in touch with the ICC throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services. At no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC. Microsoft President Brad Smith has repeatedly sought to strengthen trans-Atlantic ties, the company’s press office said, and pointed to an interview he did last month with CNN in Davos in which he said that jobs, trade and investment. as well as security, would be affected by a rift over Greenland. Europe is the American tech sectors biggest market after the United States itself. It all depends on trust. Trust requires dialogue, Smith said. Other incidents have added to the movement. There’s a growing sense that repeated EU efforts to rein in tech giants such as Google with blockbuster antitrust fines and sweeping digital rule books haven’t done much to curb their dominance. Billionaire Elon Musk is also a factor. Officials worry about relying on his Starlink satellite internet system for communications in Ukraine. Washington and Brussels wrangled for years over data transfer agreements, triggered by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowdens revelations of U.S. cyber-snooping. With online services now mainly hosted in the cloud through data centers, Europeans fear that their data is vulnerable. U.S. cloud providers have responded by setting up so-called sovereign cloud operations, with data centers located in European countries, owned by European entities and with physical and remote access only for staff who are European Union residents. The idea is that only Europeans can take decisions so that they cant be coerced by the U.S., Reiners said. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein last year migrated 44,000 employee inboxes from Microsoft to an open source email program. It also switched from Microsoft’s SharePoint file sharing system to Nextcloud, an open source platform, and is even considering replacing Windows with Linux and telephones and videoconferencing with open source systems. We want to become independent of large tech companies and ensure digital sovereignty, Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter said in an October announcement. The French city of Lyon said last year that it’s deploying free office software to replace Microsoft. Denmarks government and the cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus have also been trying out open-source software. We must never make ourselves so dependent on so few that we can no longer act freely, Digital Minister Caroline Stage Olsen wrote on LinkedIn last year. Too much public digital infrastructure is currently tied up with very few foreign suppliers. The Austrian military said it has also switched to LibreOffice, a software package with word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs that mirrors Microsoft 365’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Document Foundation, a nonprofit based in Germany that’s behind LibreOffice, said the military’s switch reflects a growing demand for independence from single vendors. Reports also said the military was concerned that Microsoft was moving file storage online to the cloud the standard version of LibreOffice is not cloud-based. Some Italian cities and regions adopted the software years ago, said Italo Vignoli, a spokesman for he Document Foundation. Back then, the appeal was not needing to pay for software licenses. Now, it’s the main reason is to avoid being locked into a proprietary system. At first, it was: we will save money and by the way, we will get freedom, Vignoli said. Today it is: we will be free and by the way, we will also save some money. Kelvin Chan AP business writer Associated Press writer Molly Quell contributed to this report.
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