🔮Smarter than your average crystal ball

👋 Welcome! Today, we’re covering a range of topics from Apple’s new announcements from WWDC 2025 to our newly upgraded crystal ball — AI. Get ready for a full spectrum of insights that will keep you informed and engaged!

Apple tiptoes into AI at WWDC – Apple previewed incremental AI advancements at WWDC, such as live message translation and image identification in iOS 26, while major Siri enhancements remain delayed, raising concerns over its competitive stance.

Nvidia powers up UK's AI ambitions – Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized during London Tech Week that the UK urgently needs a substantial boost in computing power to remain competitive globally in AI, signaling heightened strategic investments ahead.

Huawei admits AI chip lag, plots comeback – Huawei’s CEO acknowledged the company’s AI chips trail Western rivals by roughly one generation but highlighted efforts to narrow the gap through cluster computing and strategic technology enhancements.

Creator-journalism is the new newsroom – Liz Kelly Nelson’s Project C and others are pioneering a new wave of journalism — authentic, niche, and creator-led. This emerging model is pulling younger audiences away from legacy outlets and reshaping how news is gathered, delivered, and trusted.

Trade drama? Aon hiring says “Bring it on” – Insurance giant Aon says global tariff uncertainty and inflation are actually fueling demand for risk advisors. The company sees an opportunity to grow—and possibly hire more—in this chaotic climate.

Italy’s “No-Show” vote leaves workers hanging – Voter turnout in Italy fell so low that referendums to expand job protections and citizenship rights automatically failed. Labor groups hoped for stronger rights, but apathy may have won the day.

Warner Bros hits ‘Split’ on streaming – Warner Bros Discovery will spin off its streaming and studio business into a separate company. The move, cheered by investors, reflects an effort to unlock value in an evolving media landscape.

Wall Street confidence creeps up – U.S. stocks inched higher: the S&P 500 up by 0.1%, Nasdaq by 0.3%, and Dow flat. Market optimism was driven by renewed U.S.–China talks and strong tech earnings, while bond yields dipped, easing inflation expectations.

Oil prices bid up amid trade hopes – Oil prices rose modestly amid hopes the U.S.–China trade talks might ease export frictions. Traders remain wary, but even small moves hint at optimism in global growth demand.

VC dollars chase Brazil & beyond – Global investors are warming up to Latin America, with Brazil and Mexico gaining momentum as VC hotbeds. With U.S. markets uncertain, Latin America offers fresh startup energy and growing bond appeal for risk-tolerant capital.

Battery startup charges $15.6M – Mitra Chem, a U.S.-based battery materials startup, has pulled in $15.6M of a planned $50M raise to boost domestic battery production. It’s part of a broader effort to localize EV supply chains.

Qualcomm’s $2.4B chip-chat with Alphawave – Qualcomm is acquiring UK-based semiconductor firm Alphawave in a massive $2.4 billion all-cash deal, significantly bolstering its AI chip capabilities in data centers and advanced networking.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly relied upon to predict complex events, from storms to stock movements. Companies and governments are deploying AI-powered models to improve forecasting speed and accuracy—but recent misfires reveal the technology's fragile edges.

In California, Southern California Edison’s AI-based wildfire forecasting dramatically underperformed. The system underestimated the size of January’s Eaton Canyon fire by tenfold, predicting 1,000 acres instead of the 14,000 that actually burned. Analysts attribute this to the model’s limited eight‑hour horizon and poor handling of urban landscapes, revealing a troubling overconfidence in AI systems during emergencies. (Reuters).

Yet AI shows promise in other arenas. Hedge funds and trading platforms are increasingly adopting machine learning systems to spot short-term arbitrage opportunities. However, experts caution that financial markets often resist deterministic modeling, and AI can overfit patterns or miss sudden black-swan events. Recent back testing failures show that while AI tools can augment portfolio analysis, they’re not yet autonomous trading prophets.

The forecasting debate also extends to general prediction tasks. Despite AI's capabilities, human “superforecasters” consistently outperform models on complex, real-world scenarios. A recent review underscored that AI still struggles with logical consistency, quantitative reasoning, and nuance—though it's improving gradually.

So who should we trust—algorithms or humans? Proponents argue AI boosts our ability to process massive datasets and detect weak signals across domains. Critics counter that overreliance can result in blind spots and disaster when models fail to account for unpredictable variables. True resilience may lie in combining AI's speed with human expertise.

Actionable Insights:

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78 %

Share of organizations now integrating AI into core operations, up from 55 % two years ago.

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