The CEO of the main pharmaceutical company trade group on Wednesday called for the next Food and Drug Administration commissioner to "calm the waters" and ensure stability as drug companies develop new treatments.
Why it matters: The FDA has faced a tumultuous several months leading up to commissioner Marty Makary's resignation Tuesday, with staff layoffs and top leaders heading out the door.
Anthropic is launching a new package for small businesses, betting that mom and pop shops, solo entrepreneurs and lean teams are the next big market for AI agents.
Why it matters: After spending years chasing enterprise contracts and consumer adoption, AI labs are now racing to win over small businesses — a challenging and largely untapped market defined by limited staffs and little time to experiment.
Nvidia wants its automated-driving technology to do for cars what Microsoft and Intel did for PCs: become an industry standard.
Why it matters: Nvidia's gone from designing graphics chips for video games to powering the AI boom — and now it wants to dominate self-driving cars, too.
Americans may be burdened by inflation, but they're still willing to buy cars, especially used ones, according to new research shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: While cost pressures persist, demand for vehicles remains resilient because of how essential they are to work and opportunity.
Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in business adoption for the first time in April, according to Ramp's latest AI Index.
Why it matters: As both companies race toward what could become some of the biggest IPOs in history, enterprise adoption — typically a larger revenue driver than customer usage — is a key metric for investors.
Amazon is making Alexa a more powerful shopping companion by folding its Rufus assistant into Alexa+.
Why it matters:AI shopping assistants are quickly moving from search boxes to software agents that can track prices, remember preferences, recommend products and eventually make purchases for consumers.
Semiconductors, or chips, are again turning out to be the It Girl of the global economy.
Why it matters: Chips are essential to the AI build-out, and that's driving a huge burst of demand, creating supply shortages, pushing up prices and creating an investment frenzy.
General Dynamics Information Technology and NightDragonhave teamed up and are on Wednesday making public their plans to accelerate U.S. government adoption of commercial and emerging tech.
Why it matters: Trump 2.0 is seeking new suppliers for the Pentagon and rewriting how the military does business.
Symbiotic relationships between traditional primes and smaller, venture-backed startups are emerging — and appear to be bearing fruit.
Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, fears the rising risk of unpopular AI and told us the solution might be a reorg of government and business. He offered two megapoints in a conversation Tuesday at OpenAI's new office in Washington:
The AI companies and government are so interdependent — the companies need light regs, contracts; government needs AI systems — that it might require a new public-private hybrid to manage them.
The AI companies could get crushed by bad politics if they don't find ways to share any wealth they create, much like Alaska shares oil & gas revenue with its residents. "People need to feel like they're gonna have a piece of this and participate in it," Lehane said. "You can't talk beyond people or above people. You need to talk with people and involve them in the conversation."
Business leadersand lawmakers are closely watching whether President Trump returns from Beijing with a splashy Chinese investment commitment.
Why it matters: Such a deal would go further than the agricultural and aircraft purchases that have so far anchored U.S.-China negotiations.
Trump has made big-dollar investment pledges a trademark of his second term, giving him numbers to tout back home, even as earlier commitments from the likes of Japan and Europe have yet to fully materialize.
Americans are spending more time at home, yet many have become strangers to their neighbors — especially young Americans, who are increasingly unlikely to socialize with those living feet away.
Why it matters: Without casual conversations with neighbors — who are often from other races, or have different religions and political ideologies — people risk becoming more isolated and more dependent on superficial, algorithm-driven digital communities.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's first turn on the witness stand Tuesday sharpened the central fight in Elon Musk's lawsuit: whether either man can be trusted to put AI safety ahead of money and control.
Why it matters: The testimony showed how hard it is for any AI leader to claim the moral high ground.
