In August 2025, Wang Lei decided it was finally time to say goodbye to his electric vehicle. Wang, who is 39, had bought the car in 2016, when EVs still felt experimental in Beijing. It was a compact Chinese brand. The subsidies were good, and the salesman talked about “supporting domestic innovation.” At the time,…
From senior care to plumbing to schools, localized video storytelling shortens the ramp-up time to revenue and gives franchisees confidence from day one.
Automation has become a defining force in the customer experience. Between the chatbots that answer our questions and the recommendation systems that shape our choices, AI-driven tools are now embedded in nearly every interaction. But the latest wave of so-called “agentic AI”—systems that can plan, act, and adapt toward a defined goal—promises to push automation…
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The looming crackdown on AI companionship As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin.…