With AI presenting a looming entry-level job crisis, and more tools available than ever to make a quick buck on your phone, Gen Z is becoming America's "get rich quick" generation.

Why it matters: The American dream is no longer defined by years of hard work paying off with a home and job security. It's now about hope for a big break after taking bigger risks.

Driving the news: The S&P 500 just crossed 7,000 for the first time, proving retail investors right, one day after consumer sentiment hit the lowest level in over a decade.

• The stock market is not the economy, but right now, it acts as a hedge for retail investors who feel bad about the macro picture.

Zoom in: There's a boom in popularity for various ways to make money fast.

• Online betting is skyrocketing and it's not just about sports anymore, with platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket allowing consumers to place bets on everything from current events to weather patterns.
• Retail investing is soaring as young people see the stock market as another form of income, a bet that has paid off for them amid the AI-driven rally.
• Influencer is now the top profession that Gen Z says it aspires to, with over half of Gen Z and millennials in a survey saying they would choose a social media career over any other profession, per Morning Consult.
• Billionaire creators like MrBeast is also inspiring younger generations to try to build massive wealth by building big followings on social media.

The big picture: In a world where AI can take your job, a pandemic can disrupt your future, home ownership is now the most expensive it has ever been, and the return on investment in a college education is increasingly murky, betting no longer seems like a risk. It seems like a necessary hedge against volatility.

Reality check: The creator economy, still in its nascent days, is failing to spread the wealth. Most of the top earners across platforms like YouTube, Spotify and TikTok are concentrated in a smaller set of high-performers.

What to watch: Whether the new "get rich quick" methods actually pan out.

• The stock market could stop rallying, bets could go wrong, and influencing hasn't been the most stable or lucrative career path.

The bottom line: For young people, the risks are worth the reward, especially as they see a world ahead of them without much choice for other avenues of building wealth.

ServiceNow is deepening its existing partnership with Anthropic, further integrating Claude models from the AI startup to power its own offerings, according to a company memo reviewed by Axios.

Why it matters: A recent funding target valued Anthropic at $350 billion in part due to these kinds of deals. Businesses want access to its AI technology, which puts the Claude-maker further ahead in the AI race.

Driving the news: Claude will power the ServiceNow Build Agent, the company's AI tool for building applications and workflows, letting both professional and nontechnical workers create software faster and more efficiently using plain language.

What they're saying: Claude's coding capabilities are "definitely the market leading," Amit Zavery, chief product officer at ServiceNow, tells Axios.

• ServiceNow is embedding Claude further into its AI platform, positioning it as a "trusted" AI layer that operates within enterprise rules around security, compliance and monitoring.
• Claude's domain expertise will also help ServiceNow target customers in specific sectors, including in life sciences and health care, Zavery adds.
• Anthropic was also willing to "work with us" and work "together to solve problems versus just adopting a product," he says, though customers will still be able to choose from other models to power their workflows.

Follow the money: ServiceNow had been considered a market darling, rallying over 190% from the end of 2022 to the end of 2024. Its revenue skyrocketed amid surging demand for automated corporate workflows.

• The rally came to a halt as investor sentiment on software stocks overall took a huge hit throughout 2025. Wall Street developed a consensus view that AI could replace most software.

Reality check: Partnerships with the likes of Anthropic may help ServiceNow brand itself as part of the AI wave rather than as a victim of it.

• "There will always be disruption with any technology shift," Zavery says.
• "But the market segments we are in, what problems we are solving, AI is a very good enabler," he adds. "That's why you see a lot of these vendors and partners like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, others want to partner with us, and customers see…a joint capability."
• ServiceNow referred to itself as an "AI control tower" in the release about the Anthropic partnership reviewed by Axios.

The big picture: Wall Street entered 2026 wanting evidence that AI can make workflows more efficient. In other words, can AI make or save you money?

• ServiceNow has rolled out Claude internally to 29,000 employees, saying early results show a 95% drop in prep time for sales.

What to watch: Companies achieve better results when AI is "woven into the whole range of things workers do every day," rather than treated as an add-on tool, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said in a statement on the partnership.

• In a world where AI is embedded as a peer rather than an afterthought, who rakes in the most partnerships, and the most money?

Wall Street is all about international stocks, as global indexes and even funds that exclude U.S. stocks are outperforming American stocks.

• The chart above shows the Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund ETF beating the S&P 500 index so far this month.

Why it matters: Investors are rotating holdings outside of the U.S. amid more policy volatility from Washington, unclear longer-term interest rate levels, and fears of an AI bubble.