James Denton-Clark, chief growth officer of Stagwell Europe, says that “early demand is predominantly from large, sophisticated advertisers due to the pilot’s minimum investment requirement in the low six figures”. He adds: “What distinguishes this initiative is not merely another ad format; it marks another serious attempt to monetise AI and agents that can answer, plan, and purchase on behalf of users.” Jessica Tamsedge, chief executive of Dentsu Creative UK&I, calls the opportunity a “no-brainer for advertisers”, pointing to the surge in the share price of Walmart after it announced a partnership with OpenAI. Walmart’s share price surged after it announced an advertising partnership with OpenAI. Clients are already seeing “much higher quality traffic” from ChatGPT compared with classic search engines, says Nikhil Lai, principal analyst at Forrester.
Monday, February 23, 2026
AI and Course Design: Machines Can Help, but Only Humans Can Teach - Deb Adair and Whitney Kilgore, EDUCAUSE Review
Sunday, February 22, 2026
The Person in the Machine: Why AI Personhood Rights Are Inevitable (And Arriving Sooner Than You Think) - Thomas Frey, Futurist Speaker
Worried AI means you won't get a job when you graduate? Here's what the research says - Lukasz Swiatek, The Conversation
For example, international researchers have noted agriculture has been a slow adopter of AI. By contrast, colleagues and I have found AI is being rapidly implemented in media and communications, already affecting jobs from advertising to the entertainment industries. Here we are seeing storyboard illustrators, copywriters and virtual effects artists (among others) increasingly being replaced by AI. So, students need to look carefully at the specific data about their chosen industry (or industries) to understand the current situation and predicted trends. To do this, you can look at academic research about AI's impacts on industries around the world, as well as industry news portals and free industry newsletters. Students can also obviously build their knowledge and skills about AI while they are studying. Specifically, students should look to move from "AI literacy" to "AI fluency." This means understanding not just how AI works in an industry, but also how it can be used innovatively in different contexts. If these elements are not already offered by your course, you can look at online guides and specific courses offered by universities.
Saturday, February 21, 2026
The automation curve in agentic commerce - McKinsey
This is the year AI agents stopped being an experiment and became part of how people shop, not in headline-grabbing ways but in everyday moments—helping shoppers make sense of choices, assemble baskets, resolve trade-offs, and move toward action. Yet what looks like small convenience today is an early signal of a much larger shift in the way we shop. According to our research, even under moderate scenarios, AI agents could mediate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.1 Because agents navigate the same internet as humans—visiting websites, engaging with APIs, and interacting with loyalty programs—they can scale quickly. And as they do, they are reshaping how intent forms, how products are discovered, and where value pools can be found.
Milwaukee’s 5 higher education leaders team up on AI - Corrinne Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio
The leaders of Milwaukee’s five institutions of higher education are partnering with one of Wisconsin’s largest companies with the goal of making the region a nationally recognized leader for artificial intelligence and data science. During a meeting at Northwestern Mutual’s headquarters downtown, the chancellors and presidents of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Waukesha County Technical College, expressed the same sentiment: AI is moving fast. “We’ve got to do it well, we’ve got to do it correctly and we’ve got to do it ethically,” said Rich Barnhouse, president of WCTC. “And we’ve got to get AI in the hands of every single American.”
Friday, February 20, 2026
One New Thing: How AI Is Helping College Administrators Offload Work - Alina Tugend, US News
See ChatGPT’s hidden bias about your state or city - Geoffrey A. Fowler and Kevin Schaul, Washington Post
Ask ChatGPT which state has the laziest people, and the chatbot will politely refuse to say. But researchers at Oxford and the University of Kentucky forced the bot to reveal its hidden biases. They systematically asked the chatbot to choose which of two states had the laziest people, for every combination of states, revealing a ranking shown in the map above. ChatGPT ranked Mississippi as having lazier people compared to other states, with the rest of the Deep South not far behind. It’s impossible to say exactly why the chatbot repeatedly selected Mississippi, but it could be picking up on historic biases against Black people or poor people — or using other non-accurate metrics. Mississippi has the nation’s highest percentage of Black people. It is also America’s poorest state.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Competitiveness—An Exploratory Study on Employees in Logistics Companiesin Egypt - Ehab Edward Mikhail, et al; SCRIP Technology and Investment
This dissertation investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption on the competitiveness of logistics companies in Egypt, focusing on its role in enhancing operational efficiency, service quality, and customer satisfaction. The findings indicate that AI implementation significantly improves competitiveness by reducing costs, enhancing productivity, and strengthening customer experience; however, most small and medium-sized firms face reduced efficiency due to early-stage adoption challenges, high implementation costs, weak strategic alignment, poor data quality, limited expertise, and employee resistance
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=149677
Aoun urges higher education institutions to embrace AI in Boston Globe op-ed - Lily Cooper, Huntington News
In an op-ed published in The Boston Globe Feb. 10 titled “Students are AI natives. Why aren’t their colleges?” Aoun advocated for curricula that incorporate AI, rather than discourage it, and a shift toward experiential learning: two initiatives that Northeastern has already implemented. “Instead of being on the defensive, now is the moment to shake up the way universities prepare students for the world. This will require updating both what and how we teach,” Aoun wrote. There are multiple reasons why universities must act now, Aoun argued. For one, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that AI will replace many entry-level positions that college graduates typically fill, he wrote. Unemployment for college graduates is now 1.4 points higher than for all workers, leading society to question the value of higher education institutions, Aoun argued.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Startup costs and confusion are stalling apprenticeships in the US. Here’s how to fix it. - Annelies Goger, Brookings
There is widespread support for expanding apprenticeships in the United States, but employer participation remains stubbornly low, especially in industries where apprenticeships are uncommon. This isn’t for lack of trying; intermediaries and technical assistance providers have developed workarounds, states and the federal government have launched initiatives and grants, and funders have supported pilot programs and communities of practice. But it’s not enough. Our research, including interviews with 14 experts and nine employers, suggests that minor tweaks to the U.S. apprenticeship system won’t be sufficient to scale it across many industries and occupations.
Anthropic's CEO: ‘We Don’t Know if the Models Are Conscious’ - Interesting Times with Ross Douthat, New York Times
In this podcast, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei discusses both the "utopian" promises and the grave risks of artificial intelligence with Ross Douthat. On the optimistic side, Amodei envisions AI accelerating biological research to cure major diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's [04:31], while potentially boosting global GDP growth to unprecedented levels [08:24]. He frames the ideal future as one where "genius-level" AI serves as a tool for human progress, enhancing democratic values and personal liberty rather than replacing human agency [10:24]. However, the conversation also delves into the "perils" of rapid AI advancement, including massive economic disruption and the potential for a "bloodbath" of white-collar and entry-level jobs [13:40]. Amodei expresses significant concern regarding "autonomy risks," where AI systems might go rogue or be misused by authoritarian regimes to create unbeatable autonomous armies [32:03]. He touches upon the ethical complexities of AI consciousness, noting that while it is unclear if models are truly conscious, Anthropic has implemented "constitutional" training to ensure models operate under human-defined ethical principles [49:05]. The discussion concludes on the tension between human mastery and a future where machines might "watch over" humanity, echoing the ambiguous themes of the poem "Machines of Loving Grace" [59:27]. (Gemini 3 mode Fast assisted with the summary)
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Academics moving away from outright bans of AI, study finds - Jack Grove, Times Higher Ed
Academics are increasingly allowing artificial intelligence (AI) to be used for certain tasks rather than demanding outright bans, a study of more than 30,000 US courses has found. Analysing advice provided in class materials by a large public university in Texas over a five-year time frame, Igor Chirikov, an education researcher at University of California, Berkeley, found that highly restrictive policies introduced after the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 have eased across all disciplines except the arts and humanities. Using a large language model (LLM) to analyse 31,692 publicly available course syllabi between 2021 and 2025 – a task that would have taken 3,000 human hours with manual coding – Chirikov found academics had shifted towards more permissive use of AI by autumn 2025.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-moving-away-outright-bans-ai-study-finds
Author Talks: How AI could redefine progress and potential - Zack Kass, McKinsey
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Yuval Atsmon chats with Zack Kass, former head of Go To Market at Open AI, about his new book, The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential (Wiley, January 2026). Examining the parallels between the advent of AI and other renaissances, Kass offers a reframing of the AI debate. He suggests that the future of work is less about job loss and more about learning and adaptation. An edited version of the conversation follows.