Axios

Tired: talking about the price of oil. Wired: talking about Kevin Warsh.

• The new Federal Reserve chairman is the topic du jour among market analysts and investors trying to parse his every move — as well as his suit.

Why it matters: The direction of U.S. monetary policy is crucial to markets, which behave very differently based on whether investors believe interest rates are going up or down or will be holding steady.

Comcast on Monday announced that it would split its company into two publicly traded businesses through a tax-free spinoff of its media and entertainment assets, NBCUniversal and Sky.

Why it matters: It's hoping to create more shareholder value by separating its high-growth technology and connectivity business from its media business.

• Comcast's stock jumped 14% in pre-market trading.

CrowdStrike CTO Elia Zaitsev's message to CEOs and our boardrooms is blunt: Stop obsessing over which new AI model is scariest.

• The things we should fear most are lightning-fast attacks on the massive stack of vulnerabilities, new and old.

Why it matters: Bad actors can now exploit these security gaps in hours, and it's headed toward minutes. So a pile of unpatched old vulnerabilities is vastly easier to penetrate.

Get ready for a vigorous debate over taste: whether humans are truly superior at judging good from great, workable from wonderful.

Why it matters to YOU: You'll soon decide whether to trust your team — or AI trained on infinite design or aesthetic examples in similar areas.

The FDA just approved its first new active sunscreen ingredient in 20 years. Instead of using it, many Americans are tanmaxxing.

Why it matters: Even as SPF products now promise better coverage than ever, people are deliberately chasing tans. That's not only unsafe but also at odds with the culture's anti-aging skin care obsession.

More couples are redefining the "shotgun wedding" stereotype and are choosing to make it official and make a baby all at once.

The big picture: Americans are waiting longer to get married and have kids as they spend more time building careers and a financial cushion.

• Two milestones that have traditionally been viewed as distinct steps — marriage and then the baby carriage — are increasingly overlapping as biological timelines come into play.

CANNES, France — To deal with the rise of AI agents shopping on their sites and recoup value, brands have to negotiate deals, restructure their content and take risks — in a short amount of time.

Why it matters: AI companies are profiting from content and data they didn't pay for — intercepting audiences before they ever reach a publisher or brand — and brands need to act now before it's too late, The Atlantic publisher and chief revenue officer Alice McKown said.

• Publishers and brands are sitting on content and data that AI companies need — but only the ones willing to block and build new infrastructure will get paid for it, she added: "The value exceeds the risk, but only if you act before the window closes."

Axios' Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn moderated discussions with McKown and Ekta Chopra, chief technology and AI officer of Elf Beauty. The June 25 event was sponsored by Cheq.

What they're saying: The Atlantic has licensing deals with OpenAI, Particle and Parallel — but McKown said the real forefront is getting when AI agents access content on behalf of users, not just when humans subscribe directly.

• "You can crawl if you have a deal with us," McKown said. "The next thing is we're going to bounce everyone unless we feel" it's worth the security and other issues.
• The publication has 1.5 million paid subscribers, McKown said — and is "actively talking about" whether subscriptions could be sold on AI chat platforms.

How it works: Brands can't just repurpose their existing content for AI — the entire structure has to change, Chopra said. AI tools need full conversational context, not keywords, which means lots more content and a different format.

• The average search used to be five words. On ChatGPT, it's now 23, Chopra said. "I need a red lipstick" has become "I need a red lipstick for brown skin under $5 — I'm going to France."

• "If it's not in the right structure, it's not going to show up on an LLM," Chopra said.

Between the lines: The brands that move fastest will have a structural advantage — Elf already has three internal teams dedicated to agentic commerce, back-office AI operations and workforce restructuring, Chopra said.

• Roles are already changing, she added. Supply chain planners who once built complex models now need to think like data scientists.

Content from the sponsor's remarks:

In a View from the Top conversation, Cheq CEO Guy Tytunovich and chief revenue officer Rory Stern said AI agents represent a new type of customer.

• "Entity, identity, intent — that's what you need to decipher," Tytunovich said. "Is it a human or an agent? Is it the real person or someone pretending to be them? And what are they here to do?"

Volkswagen reportedly plans to lay off as many as 100,000 employees worldwide in a massive downsizing that illustrates how Chinese competition is reshaping the global automotive industry.

Why it matters: European automakers are faltering in China and on their home front as Chinese automakers like BYD deliver high-quality, low-cost electric vehicles.

General Intuition, an AI lab that uses gaming content for training, raised $320 million in Series A funding at a $2.3 billion post-money valuation and already is working on a Series B round.

Why it matters: The next phase of AI adoption and investment is expanding into the physical economy, according to a Goldman Sachs report shared exclusively with Axios.

Om Malik died on Wednesday, surrounded by family and friends, after a long heart health battle.

• This one hurts, even though we hadn't talked in quite a while. Maybe that's why it hurts a bit more.

Om was an early internet entrepreneur who soon became one of the nascent industry's leading journalists. He blogged. He reported. He founded a tech media company — serving as both inspiration and competition for many of us — before later becoming a venture capitalist.