Axios CEO Jim VandeHei previewed his lab-rat learnings in his weekly newsletter for CEOs, Axios C-Suite, and wrote this broader version for Axios AM:

I've spent the past year using AI obsessively — inputting copious amounts of personal and business data, turning myself into a lab rat for Axios and our readers.

• Why it matters: This experiment has shown me in unmistakable, hands-on ways the superhuman possibilities — and real-world limitations — hitting and awaiting us.

In short: AI is way better, more accurate and mind-expanding than most think. (Sorry, it's true.) But it's colliding with hard human realities, making it confusing, clunky and chaotic for lots of people in its current form.

How I did it: Over the past year, Axios aggressively tested AI (mainly OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code) across every layer of every department.

• We provided access and instruction to every employee. Most of my leadership team operates with chief-of-staff agents, and we're knee-deep in agent-to-agent prep.
• I personally use ChatGPT or Claude for one to two hours daily, usually in the early mornings, and control an AI personal operating system via my phone. That's connected to an always-on computer that runs several agents, including one that scans daily for CEO-relevant data and trends.
• I've dumped every medical record and blood test into it, and detailed my diet, workouts and supplements. It knows more about my health than my wife does!

So here are my takeaways:

1. It's way better than most think. I've spent the year with my head buried in this, while talking to the smartest people in tech, politics and business. AI is smarter than 95% of the people on 95% of topics, 95% of the time. Even for someone using it obsessively with real discipline, I'm still discovering it's way better than I thought possible. Its ability to think creatively and research deeply is extraordinary — if and only if you know how to use it.
2. It takes real work. You can't wing it. You need to work at it daily, so AI learns you — and you learn AI. That's when the magic happens. You have to feed it copious amounts of information and persistently tell it what works and what sucks. This feedback loop creates a new form of super-knowledge about you — and super-skills for you. Most people get unimpressive results and move on, assuming it's overhyped. Don't.
3. It's the smartest doctor I've met. I fed AI every medical record I have — MRIs, blood work, heart rate — and told it to be clinical and brutally honest. I've run most solutions past my doctor, and almost every time, he agrees. I still validate with physicians. But if I had to pick someone to diagnose something, I would turn to AI over human docs for anything complicated.
4. Short-term job losses are overhyped. A year ago, I assumed AI's story would be subtraction: automate ruthlessly, cut costs, shrink headcount. That's real. We've done it at Axios. But over the last three months, my view shifted. The bigger opportunity isn't efficiency. It's new business lines that were economically impossible before AI. We're exploring three new revenue-generating projects that simply weren't possible without AI. I now believe many specific jobs here will change, but that we'll end up hiring more people over time than I would've thought a year ago.
5. Business gains are overhyped, too — for now. As good as it is, AI hits internal walls when it comes to human use, security, connections to other systems and decisions about what data it can access inside companies. In most cases, it's simply not ready for deployment at scale. This problem is getting worse because agent-to-agent work is a mess. If AI transforms our business — and I think it will — agents need to work flawlessly with other agents. This is the unfolding frontier. My exec team has chief-of-staff agents, but we hit constant walls in determining what they can know, share and act on once the agents collaborate. This must be fixed before companies experience what I have at an individual level.
6. A new class of super-worker is born. Here's the best news: We're spotting rank-and-file workers daily whose brains are wired for AI. It's been easier than expected to spot them, then train them to be AI accelerators on their team or across the company. These people are not technologists. You don't need to be an AI savant or lab rat. But every person reading this should figure out ASAP how AI can augment their work. If your company does not have AI teaching, demand it.
7. It's affected my mind, mood and performance. I'm not a coder and rarely use AI for more than that hour or two per day, but these stories about people in Silicon Valley getting swept up in a manic AI fever — AI-pilled! — hit home for me. On the good side, I've jumped out of bed at 3 a.m. more than I care to admit, jazzed to test or explore a new idea. At 55, I've written and accomplished a lot more than any other time in my life. But you must train it to challenge and expand your thinking — not replace it. On the flip side, I find myself waking up after shorter bursts of sleep with more anxiety. Maybe it's coincidence, not causation. But I doubt it.

The bottom line: We're living history. For $20 a month, any of us can experiment with exceptionally advanced AI models. Be clear-eyed about the good, bad and ugly.

• Most importantly, be curious. Use it daily. Read about it regularly. Figure out what parts of you can be vastly improved with AI — and then do it.

📱 Watch a video of Mike quizzing Jim about his lab rat learnings (34 mins. ... Executive producer: Jimmy Shelton). ... Share this story.

• Tell us what you think: [email protected].

📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.

The Trump administration, fearing international travel could turn the World Cup into an Ebola superspreader, is pressuring Europe to dramatically step up infection prevention, sources tell Axios' Alex Isenstadt.

• Top Trump aides are frustrated with Europe's limited travel restrictions and want it to abandon the World Health Organization's Ebola playbook in favor of Washington's tighter rules, a senior official said.

The implied message: Any Ebola outbreak in the U.S. would be Europe's fault.

• The World Cup kicks off Thursday with a record 48 teams and 104 matches in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
• The State Department estimates the tournament will draw 5 million to 7 million international visitors to the U.S. — including players, staff and fans from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak is centered.

🔬 Zoom in: The State Department last week sent European countries an extraordinary request calling for travel restrictions from Central Africa, where the outbreak began.

• Keep reading.

Paramount has held preliminary conversations with several candidates for a business-side counterpart to CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, two sources familiar with the network's inner workings tell Sara Fischer and me.

Why it matters: The search implies that if Paramount Skydance's deal with Warner Bros. Discovery goes through, Weiss would oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN. Her potential counterpart would manage business operations across both.

• One source told us: "The Paramount brass loves Bari Weiss. She has the full confidence of [chairman and CEO] David Ellison, who believes Bari has done a fantastic job as editor in chief. Bari has been involved with identifying people she would partner with on the business side."

🔎 Paramount leadership is eyeing several top news executives for the role and has started reaching out to candidates, Axios has confirmed.

• Names under consideration include NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde, CNN Worldwide CEO Mark Thompson and former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim.
• Paramount also considered Ben Sherwood, the Daily Beast's CEO and former ABC News president, and David Rhodes, former CBS News president and current Sky News executive chairman, according to a source familiar with the search.

Keep reading.

Axios' Zachary Basu writes from L.A.:

California's plodding, weekslong tally of mail-in ballots has become Exhibit A in President Trump's campaign to delegitimize the November midterms.

• Why it matters: Glacial vote-counting in the nation's most populous state has produced a familiar, flammable ritual: Late mail piles up, officials plead for patience, and early Republican leads slowly vanish.

🔎 Zoom in: Spencer Pratt, the reality TV star running a viral campaign for L.A. mayor, has become MAGA's latest election martyr after five days of mail-ballot counting erased his grip on second place — and his spot in November's runoff.

• City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who was 8 points behind Pratt in early returns on election night, has dominated the late mail vote and clinched the second runoff spot against Mayor Karen Bass.

Between the lines: Pratt's campaign primed the right to believe L.A. was ready for a political earthquake.

• In reality, the baseline math never changed: Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 3-to-1 in L.A. County, and Trump's toxic national brand overwhelmed Pratt's effort to run as a local insurgent.
• But to MAGA audiences sold on Pratt's online momentum and strong election-night position, Raman's late surge looked and felt like a mathematical impossibility.

👀 What we're watching: The local blowup over the L.A. mayor's race is serving as a tactical dry run for a much larger federal offensive against California and other blue states' election infrastructure.

• Keep reading.

OpenAI said yesterday it has confidentially filed draft IPO paperwork, giving itself the option to access public markets, Axios' Madison Mills writes.

• Why it matters: The race is on between Anthropic and OpenAI to go public and tap investors for tens of billions of dollars.

OpenAI hasn't decided on timing, adding that "it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company."

• Keep reading.

Axios' Ina Fried, who has covered Apple for nearly 30 years, writes from the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino:

Apple is finally delivering the conversational and context-aware AI it promised two years ago. Its rivals have already moved on to agents.

• Why it matters: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other AI companies are pushing beyond chatbots toward agentic tools that can write code, search complex file structures, use apps and handle workplace tasks.

Keep reading ... Watch it in action.

🏭 Meta is investing $115 million in a training program for workers in skilled trades, with a big promise for graduates: a guaranteed job, Axios' Madison Mills writes.

• The company's new America's Workforce Academy is free for participants and aims to address the shortage of skilled trade workers, including fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians and more. Go deeper.

During the national anthem before last night's NBA Finals Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, President Trump stood between his granddaughter, golfer Kai Trump, and James Dolan, CEO of Madison Square Garden and owner of the New York Knicks.

• Standing with them from right: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
• Chants of "U-S-A!" greeted Trump, but he was booed when he was shown on the jumbotron during "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The San Antonio Spurs trumped the Knicks, 115-111. Knicks lead series, 2-1.

• As today's N.Y. Post back cover puts it: "BROOM TO BUST."

🗳️ Scoop: The super PAC backing Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy in his bid for Ohio governor is launching a massive $25 million summer ad blitz in a red-state race Republicans once expected to win comfortably.

• Read the story.

America's 250th birthday celebrations are being billed as can't-miss events that will bring the whole country together — but many D.C. residents are straight up dreading them, Axios D.C.'s Mimi Montgomery writes.

• Why it matters: Washingtonians have to live among everything that accompanies a lineup of this magnitude: Road closures, intense security, huge crowds and off-limits areas.

🏎️ Mapped above: Downtown D.C. is full of events this summer, including celebrations for America's 250th on top of a World Cup watch zone and more.

• The IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix will be the final big tourist draw, for a 1.7-mile race through the National Mall on Aug. 22–23.

Keep reading.