AI-powered toys navigate safety concerns after early missteps

Manufacturers unveiled a new generation of AI-powered generative toys at the Consumer Electronics Show, but emphasized careful safety measures after early models produced inappropriate responses in testing. Toy makers at the Consumer Electronics Show highlighted efforts to improve AI in toys following troubling early reports of chatbots giving inappropriate answers to children’s questions. A recent…

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Enterprises are turning to AI to solve their efficiency problems, but is just a short-term fix?

Michael Kitces and Ben Henry-Moreland ask whether these long-term problems require a solution other than AI? JANUARY 21, 2026 By Ben Henry-Moreland and Michael Kitces As companies grow and merge over time, they accumulate technical debt. Technologies, capabilities, and processes that in a perfect world would be retooled and improved every time the company grows…

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AI bot swarms threaten to undermine democracy

A joint essay with Daniel Thilo Schroeder and Jonas R. Kunst, based on a new paper on swarms with 22 authors (including myself) who just published in Science. (A preprinted version is hereand you can see WIRED’s coverage here.) Automated bots spreading misinformation have been a problem since the early days of social media, and…

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Generative AI adoption trends around the world

Adoption of artificial intelligence is on the rise globally, but new data shows that some countries are significantly outperforming others, while the gap between advanced and developing countries has widened. The UAE and Singapore stand out, with more than 60% of the population in both countries using some type of generative AI tool in the…

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