Microsoft Chief Product Officer on the AI Shift
Aparna Chennapragada, Microsoft Chief Product Officer of Experiences and Devices, talks about the transformation of the world of work with AI and how productivity will be impacted by the new technology. She speaks with Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hyde live from the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco. (Source: Bloomberg)
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AI Safety: Beyond AI Hype To Hybrid Intelligence
Autonomous electric cars with artificial intelligence self driving on metropolis road, 3d rendering The artificial intelligence revolution has reached a critical inflection point. While CEOs rush to deploy AI agents and boast about automation gains, a sobering reality check is emerging from boardrooms worldwide: ChatGPT 4o has 61% hallucinations according to simple QA developed by OpenAI, and even the most advanced AI systems fail basic reliability tests with alarming frequency. In a recent OpEd Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, called for regulating AI arguing that voluntary safety measures are insufficient. Meanwhile, companies like Klarna — once poster children for AI-first customer service — are quietly reversing course on their AI agent-only approach, and rehiring human representatives. These aren't isolated incidents; they're the cusp of the iceberg signaling a fundamental misalignment between AI hype and AI reality. Today's AI safety landscape resembles a high-stakes experiment conducted without a safety net. Three competing governance models have emerged: the EU's risk-based regulatory approach, the US's innovation-first decentralized framework, and China's state-led centralized model. Yet none adequately addresses the core challenge facing business leaders: how to harness AI's transformative potential while managing its probabilistic unpredictability. The stakes couldn't be higher. Four out of five finance chiefs consider AI "mission-critical," while 71% of technology leaders don't trust their organizations to manage future AI risks effectively. This paradox — simultaneous dependence and distrust — creates a dangerous cognitive dissonance in corporate decision-making. AI hallucinations remain a persistent and worsening challenge in 2025, where artificial intelligence systems confidently generate false or misleading information that appears credible but lacks factual basis. Recent data reveals the scale of this problem: in just the first quarter of 2025, close to 13,000 AI-generated articles were removed from online platforms due to hallucinated content, while OpenAI's latest reasoning systems show hallucination rates reaching 33% for their o3 model and a staggering 48% for o4-mini when answering questions about public figures 48% error rate. The legal sector has been particularly affected, with more than 30 instances documented in May 2025 of lawyers using evidence that featured AI hallucinations. These fabrications span across domains, from journalism where ChatGPT falsely attributed 76% of quotes from popular journalism sites to healthcare where AI models might misdiagnose medical conditions. 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This approach acknowledges a fundamental truth that the autonomous AI evangelists ignore: AI without natural intelligence is like building a Porsche and giving it to people without a driver's license. The autonomous vehicle industry learned this lesson the hard way. After years of promising fully self-driving cars, manufacturers now integrate human oversight into every system. The most successful deployments combine AI's computational power with human judgment, creating resilient systems that gracefully handle edge cases and unexpected scenarios. LawZero is another initiative in this direction, which seeks to promote scientist AI as a safer, more secure alternative to many of the commercial AI systems being developed and released today. Scientist AI is non-agentic, meaning it doesn't have agency or work autonomously, but instead behaves in response to human input and goals. 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Ulike Hair Removal: A Look At The Brand's Most Advanced IPL Device
This article was created in partnership with Ulike to showcase its Air 10 IPL hair removal device. The Air 10 is designed with cutting-edge features to help you achieve smooth skin that lasts. Swimsuit season is here, and you might be considering ways to get rid of stubborn body hair. As an alternative to razors or at-home waxing kits, which have short-term results, Ulike hair removal devices use intense pulsed light (IPL) technology to target melanin in the hair follicles, putting them into a dormant state to hinder further growth. The brand's most advanced device—the lightweight Ulike Air 10—is built to deliver full-body hair reduction with results in as little as two weeks. Plus, its skin protection and cooling features help ensure safety and comfort with each session. Right now, you can save 26% on your purchase. Here's everything you need to know about the Ulike Air 10 so you can decide if it's right for you (make sure to refer to the brand's hair and skin tone chart to determine if IPL hair removal is a suitable option for you). Flashes: 300,000 | Light type: IPL | Power modes: 4 | FDA-cleared: Yes The Ulike Air 10 has a wide treatment surface and powerful dual lights to visibly reduce hair in just two weeks when you use it every other day. With the device's quick-flashing AutoGlide mode, you can tackle your legs, armpits, arms, bikini line, face and chest in around 10 minutes. Sapphire Ice Cooling technology helps the Air 10 maintain a 65-degree-Fahrenheit contact temperature to minimize burns, pain and irritation with use—even in sensitive regions. Plus, its SkinSensor automatically adapts the intensity of each flash to your skin tone, pausing in areas that are darker (and therefore absorb higher levels of energy) to ensure adequate protection. 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Forbes
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How Stablecoins Are Changing Global Finance
Stable Coin. Stablecoins Cryptocurrencies Stable Market Price Value Coin Currency. The U.S. Senate has taken a major step toward regulating stablecoins by advancing the GENIUS Act—a bill that could reshape the digital finance landscape. Still under discussion, the legislation proposes strict reserve and transparency rules for issuers and signals growing government interest in crypto oversight. Stablecoins are crypto tokens that are typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. They allow users to transact within blockchain ecosystems without the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies. Today, two clear leaders dominate the market. Yet, while Washington begins drafting policy, stablecoins have already found product-market fit in places far beyond Capitol Hill. The global use of stablecoins is growing steadily, regardless of whether the market is in a bull or bear phase. In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and among crypto-native startups, they've quietly emerged as a preferred tool for payments, payroll, and preserving value in unstable economies. So what does this bottom-up adoption mean for the future of global finance? Are stablecoins here to stay, or will they be replaced by Central Bank Digital Currencies? And if they are here to stay, how to ride this trend? According to DefiLlama, the current market capitalization of stablecoins is around $250 billion, which is still a small share of the global M2 money supply, approximately 1%. In other words, we're still early. To understand where the growth might come from, it's worth examining what stablecoins are used for—and why they've become so popular. Stablecoins market capitalization. The first is USDT (Tether), the largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Interestingly, Tether has also emerged as one of the most financially efficient companies in the world on a per-employee basis. According to a tweet published by Avichal Garg, co-founder of Electric Capital, the company generated an estimated $85.6 million in profit per employee in 2024: Profit per Employee (USD) vs. Company The second major player is USDC, issued by U.S.-regulated firm Circle. The company went public on June 5, under the ticker CRCL, with its stock surging over 200% on its first day of trading—pushing its market capitalization above $20 billion, according to Barron's. These two companies currently dominate the stablecoin space. Others worth mentioning include: • USDS (formerly DAI), which started as a decentralized stablecoin but has become only partially decentralized due to its large holdings of U.S. Treasuries and USDC. • USD1, a politically charged entrant tied to Donald Trump's network, which has generated some discomfort among Democratic lawmakers. Rep. Maxine Waters (D–Calif.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, voiced strong objections during a joint hearing on digital assets, stating: 'I object to this joint hearing because of the corruption of the President of the United States and his ownership of crypto and his oversight of all of the agencies.' Stablecoins are enjoying instant product-market fit: everyone needs access to crypto dollars — a version of the U.S. dollar that can be easily converted back to fiat, yet offers several advantages over traditional USD. While much of the attention on stablecoins focuses on regulation and market cap, their real momentum comes from how they're being used: The most obvious example of stablecoin usage is international payments. Sending U.S. dollars across borders with the traditional banking system typically involves SWIFT. Banks charge between $5 and $50 per transaction, often around $20, regardless of the transfer amount. That means sending $1,000 could cost users up to 2–5% in fees. In addition, the SWIFT transfers can take several business days to settle. Compared to transferring the same amount via stablecoins, even in the worst case, fees might only be a few dollars, and the transaction typically settles within minutes. That's at least 10 times cheaper and potentially 100 times faster. There's also another major benefit: users avoid capital controls, currency conversion hurdles, and heavy compliance bottlenecks, particularly relevant when sending money from or to countries with restrictive financial systems. The second use case — using stablecoins as a means of payment — is less advanced, largely due to regulatory inertia. Governments generally want citizens to transact in their local currencies, and stablecoins challenge that sovereignty. The lack of clarity discourages businesses from accepting them, especially given the lingering memory of Operation Choke Point, when certain industries were unofficially cut off from banking services. Despite the current U.S. administration's relatively crypto-friendly stance, the stablecoin bill GENIUS Act has yet to pass through Congress. This uncertainty keeps most merchants and payment providers on the sidelines. Once clear legislation is enacted, trust in stablecoins like USDT and USDC will likely surge. As for CBDCs, a concept that is often met with skepticism in the cryptocurrency community, the need for a government-backed digital dollar seems increasingly unnecessary. According to U.S. Treasury International Capital data, Tether's treasury holdings alone rival those of sovereign investors like Germany or Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Circle's portfolio is comparable to that of Thailand or Sweden. With such significant exposure to U.S. debt and growing political opposition to CBDCs—including campaign promises from Donald Trump to block their development—stablecoins may have already secured their place as the preferred digital dollar infrastructure in the United States. The third major use case—decentralized finance —is where stablecoins are already thriving. They serve as the foundational currency for DeFi applications, enabling lending, borrowing, swapping, yield farming, and more—all without centralized intermediaries. The functionality mirrors traditional finance but with key advantages: it's global, permissionless, and often more efficient. According to Dune Analytics data in the DeFi Report 2024–2025 , approximately 151 million wallet addresses interacted with DeFi protocols in 2024. While this figure likely includes duplicates, it provides a useful upper bound for estimating user activity. By comparison, World Bank data from 2021 shows that 4.6 to 4.9 billion people used traditional banking services globally. This also underscores the early stage of adoption of DeFi. But, once frameworks are established, DeFi usage could accelerate rapidly. Following these three cases, it's fair to say that stablecoins are here to stay. And this may only be the beginning: as crypto infrastructure intersects with artificial intelligence, stablecoins could enable AI agents to transact autonomously, unlocking programmable, real-time finance. So, how can investors position themselves to benefit from this trend? There are many ways, some of them look obvious, like buying CRCL as it has become a public company, or investing in Coinbase stocks (COIN), a company which is steadily growing its own layer two DeFi ecosystem. Some are more complicated, like finding companies to invest in that adopt stablecoins in their operations — for payments, payroll, or international transfers — and which are likely to scale faster than their peers, thanks to lower costs and global reach. Check Stripe, PayPal, and Deel as examples. On the decentralized side, assuming a favorable regulatory framework materializes, in a next way of adoption, DeFi applications could rapidly pull users away from traditional banks. In that case, there is significant upside in owning tokens or equity in platforms like Uniswap, Aave, or even Hyperliquid — all of which are well-positioned to become foundational players in the next generation of financial infrastructure. Derivative DEX trading volumes. But don't forget the risks to watch. Transformation won't come without resistance. The banking lobby remains one of the most powerful political forces in the world, and it's unlikely to welcome a shift toward 'magic internet money' without a fight. Regulatory headwinds, political gridlock, and coordinated opposition from legacy institutions are all real risks investors should keep in mind. But we know that fortune, at least in markets driven by emerging technologies, often favors the brave.
