Author: Editor

Automakers could see a financial tail wind that runs in the billions of dollars after the U.S. lowered fuel economy standards and stopped issuing fines for violations of those rules, according to an auto analyst.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in late September sharply reduced fuel economy targets for light-duty vehicles to an average of 34.9 miles per gallon by 2031. Under the previous rules the Biden administration finalized in 2024, the U.S. fleet was then expected to average 50.4 miles per gallon by the same time.That followed Congress voting last year to eliminate the fines automakers faced for failing…

Elon Musk said that SpaceX will pay users back if Grok’s AI agent makes a mistake while completing a purchase or leaks their card information.In a Thursday X post, Musk said the company “will make you whole” if Grok makes a financial mistake. He made the comment in response to an X user praising Grok for booking them a flight after being sent a photograph of their credit card.The user described the airline’s website as confusing and said Grok completed the transaction and delivered a booking confirmation.”This works well,” Musk wrote. “If Grok Bot makes a mistake with a purchase…

The stock market has spent much of 2026 being pushed around by two enormous forces: the Iran-war energy shock and the global AI buildout.Wednesday’s inflation report suggests the broader economy is being pulled along by those same drivers — to the detriment of the everyday consumer.The headline was a hotter-than-expected CPI reading. And the surprise wasn’t just energy. Both headline and core CPI beat forecasts. That double upside surprise makes it harder to write the report off as simply another bad month at the gas pump.Speaking of which, gasoline was once again a clear pain point, jumping 9.1% from August…

‘Twas the week of big bank earnings, and Wall Street had a new threat on its mind: rogue AI.Executives at the country’s largest financial institutions used their earnings calls to assure investors that they are doing everything in their power to fend off attacks from powerful, rogue AI models.Some were specific about the measures they were taking, like Bank of America’s CEO, Brian Moynihan.Moynihan said during a Wednesday earnings call and an interview with CNBC that the bank had rushed to shore up vulnerabilities in its codebases after the release of powerful AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos.The firm hired…

Leaders of big US companies say AI agents are starting to produce gains, yet few report that the technology is fundamentally reshaping their businesses.KPMG US released a survey on Thursday of 400 CEOs of major US-based companies. About four in 10 said AI agents had delivered significant improvements in efficiency or growth, while a similar share reported moderate effects in targeted uses. Yet only 9% described agents, which are designed to carry out tasks, as “transformational” for their organizations today.Tim Walsh, CEO and chair of KPMG US, told Business Insider that there’s a gap between using AI and the tricky…

Ashley Wallace returned to her job after six months of maternity leave and met a new coworker: Claude.Before her leave, Wallace used ChatGPT to answer questions and some basic automations for notetaking or recruiting in her role as head of talent at the AI language-learning app Praktika. “I came back thinking, oh, I’ll ease myself in,” she says. “It definitely isn’t the case in the landscape that I came back to.” During her absence, the company had ushered in Claude Cowork — and Wallace didn’t even know where to find the new system everyone was talking about on her computer.Add…

Bank of America is shoring up its defenses against powerful AI models.CEO Brian Moynihan told analysts in a Wednesday earnings call that the bank had hired 1,000 extra staff — external consultants — for what he called “Mythos remediation.”He expanded on that in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. He said the development of powerful AI models, such as Anthropic’s Mythos, had exposed certain software vulnerabilities within the bank’s code, which is used by both internal staff and external vendors.Mythos, a restricted AI model known for its ability to find and exploit software weaknesses, has been released in stages over…

Netflix is in a slump — and it’s not just because you can’t find a hot new show to watch.The streaming titan’s shares are down 42% in the last 12 months and have been nearly cut in half from their all-time high last summer. Netflix had its biggest round of layoffs in four years on Wednesday, cutting about 1,000 employees, roughly 6% of the company.So, what’s going wrong?Netflix’s viewership growth has slowed as free competitors like YouTube gain momentum, and initiatives like games and podcasts have yet to become breakout hits. Add in the company’s surprise bid for Warner Bros.,…

Bank of America has hired an army of external contractors to help it patch software vulnerabilities exposed by advanced artificial intelligence models including Anthropic’s Mythos, the bank’s CEO, Brian Moynihan, told CNBC on Wednesday.In an interview after the bank’s third-quarter earnings release, Moynihan said that earlier this year the company rushed to bolster a wide spectrum of its internal and vendor code using thousands of employees and outside personnel. “That risk is real risk, and that’s why when the frontier-type models came out. … A lot of us sat down and said, ‘How do we figure out how to get…

Merck CEO Rob Davis told CNBC on Wednesday that he expects the company’s breakthrough cancer vaccine with Moderna to get faster to manufacture over time. Shortening the current six-week timeline could potentially help the companies reach more patients.”We are going to drive for improvement, but right now the focus really is, let’s make sure we have the supply ready, we have the market ready to bring this important innovation to the market, and then we’ll talk about how do we accelerate,” he told CNBC in an exclusive interview. “But I do think over time you’re going to see that timeline shortened.”The…