Category: 3. Business

Michelle Weaver: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. We’re coming to you live from Morgan Stanley’s Global Consumer and Retail Conference in New York City, where we have more than 120 leading companies in attendance.

 

Today’s episode is the second part of our live discussion of the U.S. consumer and how AI is changing consumer companies. With me on stage, we have Arunima Sinha from the Global and U.S. Economics team, Simeon Guttman, our U.S. Hardlines, Broad Lines, and Food Retail Analyst, and Megan Clapp, U.S. Food Producers and Leisure Analyst.

 

It’s Friday, December 5th at 10am in New York.

 

So, Simeon, I want to start with you. You recently put out a piece assessing the AI race. Can you take us through how you’re assessing current AI implementation? And can you give us some real-world examples of what it looks like when a company significantly integrates AI into their business?

 

Simeon Gutman: Sure. So, the Consumer Discretionary and Staples teams went to each of their covered companies, and we started searching for what those companies have disclosed and communicated regarding their AI. In some cases, we used AI to do this search. But we created a search and created this universe of factors and different ways AI is being implemented. We didn’t have a framework until we had the entire universe of all of these AI use cases.

 

Once we did, then we were able to compartmentalize them. And the different groups; we came up with six groups that we were able to cluster. First, personalization and refined search; second, customer acquisition; third product innovation; fourth, labor productivity; fifth, supply chain and logistics. And lastly, inventory management. And using that framework, we were able to rank companies on a 1 to 10 scale.

 

Across – that was the implementation part – across three different dimensions: breadth, how widely the AI is deployed across those categories; the depth, the quality, which we did our best to be able to interpret. And then the last one was proprietary initiatives. So, that’s partnerships, could be with leading AI firms.

 

So that helped us differentiate the leaders with others, not necessarily laggards, but those who were ahead of in the race. In some cases, companies that have communicated more would naturally scream more, so there is some potential bias in that. But otherwise, the fact pattern was objective.

 

Walmart has full scale AI deployment. They’re integrated across their business. They’ve introduced GenAI tools. That’s like their Sparky shopping assistant. As well as integrated to in-store features. They talked about it. It’s been driving a 25 percent increase in average shopper spend. They’ve recently partnered with OpenAI to enable ChatGPT powered Search and Checkout, positioning where the company, where the customer is shopping.

 

They’re also layering on augmented reality for holiday shopping, computer vision for shelf monitoring. LLMs for inventory replenishment. Autonomous lifts, the list goes on and on. But it covers all the functional categories in our framework.

 

Michelle Weaver: And how about a couple examples of the ways companies are using these? Any interesting real world use cases you’ve seen so far?

 

Simeon Gutman: So, one of them was in marketing personalization, as well as in product cataloging. That was one of the more sided themes at this conference. So, it was good timing. So, the idea is when product is staged on a company’s website; I don’t think we all appreciate how much time and many hours and people and resources it takes to get the correct information, to get the right pictures and to show all the assortment – those type of functions AI is helping enable.

 

And it sounds like we’re on the cusp of a step change in personalization. It sounds like AI, machine learning or algorithm driven suggestions to consumers. We didn’t get practical use cases, but a lot of companies talked about the deployment of this into 2026, which sounds like it’s something to look forward to.

 

Michelle Weaver: And Megan, how would you describe AI adoption in your space in terms of innings and what kind of criteria are you using to assess the future for AI opportunity and potential?

 

Megan Clapp: Yeah, I would say; I’d characterize adoption in the Food and broader Staples space today is still relatively early innings. I think most companies are still standing up the data infrastructure, experimenting with various tools. We’re seeing companies pilot early use cases and start to talk about them, and that was evident in the work we did with the note that Simeon just talked about.

 

And so, the opportunity, I think, going ahead, lies in kind of what we see in terms of scaling those pilots to become more impactful. And for Staples broadly, and Food, you know, ties into this. I think, these companies start with an advantage and that they sit on a tremendous amount of high frequency consumption data. So, the data availability is quite large. The question now is, you know, can these large organizations move with speed and translate that data into action? And that’s something that we’re focused on when we think about feasibility.

 

I think we think about the opportunity for Food and Staples broadly as we’d put it into kind of two areas. One is what can they do on the top line? Marketing, innovation, R&D, kind of the lifeblood of CPG companies, and that’s where we’re seeing a lot of the early use cases. I think ultimately that will be the most important driver – driving top line, you know, tends to be the most important thing in most consumer companies.

 

But then on the other side, there are a lot of cost efforts, supply chain savings, labor productivity. Those are honestly a bit easier to quantify. And we’re seeing real tangible things come out of that. But overall I think the way we think about it is the large companies with scale and the ability to go after the opportunity because they have the scale and the balance sheet to do so – will be winners here, as well as the smaller, more nimble companies that, you know, can move a little bit faster. And so that’s how we’re thinking about the opportunity.

 

Michelle Weaver: Can you give us also just a couple examples of AI adoption that’s been successful that you’ve seen so far?

 

Megan Clapp: Yeah, so on the top line side, like I said, kind of marketing innovation, R&D. One quick example on the Food side. Hershey, for example, they’re using algorithms to reallocate advertising spend by zip code, based on the real time sell through. So, they can just be much more targeted and more efficient, honestly, with that advertising spend. I think from an innovation perspective too, these companies are able to identify on trend things faster and incorporate that and take the idea to shelf time down significantly.

 

And then on the cost side, you know, General Mills is a company is actually relatively, far ahead, I’d say, in the AI adoption curve in Staples broadly. And what they’ve done is deployed what they call digital twins across their network, and it has improved forecast accuracy. They’ve taken their historical productivity savings from 4 percent annually to 5 percent. That’s something that’s structural. So, seeing real tangible benefits that are showing up in the PNL. And so, I think broadly the theme is these companies are using AI to make faster, and more precise decisions.

 

And then I thought, I’d just mention on the leisure side, something that I felt was interesting that we learned from Shark Ninja yesterday at the conference is – when asked about the role of Agentic AI in future commerce, thinks it’ll be huge was how he described; the CEO described it. And what they’re doing actively right now is optimizing their D2C website for LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini. And his point was that what drives conversion on D2C today may not ultimately be what ranks on AI driven search.

 

But he said the expectation is that by Christmas of next year, commerce via these AI platforms will be meaningful; mentioned that OpenAI is already experimenting with curated product transactions. So, they’re really focused on optimizing their portfolio. He thinks brands will win; but you have got to get ahead of it as well.

 

Michelle Weaver: And that’s great that you just brought up Agentic commerce. We’ve heard about it quite a bit over the past couple of days, Simeon. And I know you recently put out a big piece on this theme.

 

Agentic commerce introduces a lot of possibility for incremental sales, but it also introduces the possibility for cannibalization. Where do you see this shaking out in your space? Are you really concerned about that cannibalization possibility?

 

Simeon Gutman: Yeah, so the larger debate is a little bit of sales cannibalization and a potential bit of retail media cannibalization. So, your first point is Agentic theoretically opens up a bigger e-commerce penetration and just more commerce. And once you go to more e-commerce, that could be beneficial for some of these companies.

 

We can also put the counter argument of when e-commerce came, direct-to-consumer type of selling could disintermediate the captive retailer sales again. Maybe, maybe not. Part of this answer is we created a framework to think about what retailers can protect themselves most from this. Two of them; two of the five I’s are infrastructure and inventory. So, the more that your inventory is forward position, the more infrastructure you have; the AI and the agent will still prioritize that retailer within that network. That business will likely not go elsewhere. And that’s our premise.

 

Now, retail media is a different can of worms. We don’t know what models are going to look like.

 

How this interaction will take place? We don’t know who controls the data. The transactions part of this conference is we were hearing, ‘Well, the retailers are going to control some of the data and the transaction.’ Will consumers feel comfortable giving personal information, credit card to agents? I’m sure at some point we’ll feel comfortable, but there are these inertia points and these are models that are getting worked out today.

 

There’s incentives for the hyperscalers to be part of this. There’s incentive for the retailers to be part of it. But we ultimately don’t know. What we do know is though forward position inventory is still going to win that agent’s business if you need to get merchandise quickly, efficiently. And if it’s a lot of merchandise at once. Think about the largest platforms that have been investing in long tail of product and speed to getting it to that consumer.

 

Michelle Weaver: And Arunima, I want to bring this back to the macro as well. As AI adoption starts to ramp the labor market then starts to get called into question. Is this going to be automation or is it going to be augmentation as you see a ramp in AI adoption?

 

So how are your expectations for AI being factored into your forecast and what are you expecting there?

 

Arunima Sinha: There are two ways that we think about just sort of AI spending mattering for our growth forecasts. One part is literally the spend, the investment in the data centers and the chips and so on. And then the other is just the rise in productivity. So, does the labor or does the human capital become more productive?

 

And if we sum both of those things together, we think that over 2026 – [20]27, they add anywhere between 40-45 basis points to growth. And just to put things in perspective, our GDP growth estimate for the end of this year in 2026 is 1.8 percent. For 2027, it’s 2.0 percent. So, it’s an important part of that process.

 

In terms of the labor market itself, the work that you have led, as well as the work that we’ve been doing – which is this question about adoption at the macro level, that’s still fairly low. We look at the census data that tracks larger companies or mid-size companies on a monthly basis to say, ‘How much did you use AI tools in the last couple of weeks.’ And that’s been slowly increasing, but it’s still sort of in the mid-teens in terms of how many companies have been using as a percentage.

 

And so, we think that adoption should continue to increase. And as that does, for now, we think it is going to be a compliment to labor. Although there are some cohorts within sort of demographic cohorts in terms of ages that are probably going to be disproportionately impacted, but we don’t think that that’s a sort of near term 2026 story.

 

Michelle Weaver:  Well, thank you all for joining us and please follow Thoughts on the Market wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

Thank you to our panel participants for this engaging discussion and to our live and podcast audiences. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

 

 

From shopping to applying for jobs to getting advice, artificial intelligence is transforming the way people live. No matter if you see it as a positive or negative, it’s here to stay. AI presents several golden opportunities for Americans to improve their financial futures. Here are four ways AI can give you an edge.

Check Out: The ChatGPT Grocery Shopping Hack That Saves Retirees $100 or More per Month

Read Next: 6 Safe Accounts Proven To Grow Your Money Up To 13x Faster

Around the globe, more and more people are worrying that AI will affect their employment. Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, agrees in part and believes AI will reshape every job he can think of. While he does admit Walmart will use more AI chatbots in areas like supply chain tracking and customer service, this doesn’t mean it will replace every employee.

McMillon believes workers who adapt to AI tools will be more productive and valuable to employers. Early reports indicate that companies that have replaced employees with AI have experienced problems, with frequent mistakes and inconsistencies from the tech. Learning how to pair AI with soft skills like communication and critical thinking can make you an asset to any company.

Find Out: I’m a Self-Made Millionaire: 6 Ways I Use ChatGPT To Make a Lot of Money

When it comes to budgeting, AI tools can handle many tedious tasks, such as filling in and categorizing your transactions. The AI can then provide insights showing where your money is going and how you can make better use of what you have. You can even enter your financial goals, such as building up an emergency fund or getting out of credit card debt, and AI can find the best strategy for you and keep you on track to reach them.

Financially successful people and experts alike agree that making wise investment decisions is the key to unlocking lasting wealth. In the past, you’d need time, patience and good instincts to think a few steps ahead of the market. Using AI can simplify the process and produce quick insights to aid in your decision-making. Advanced AI algorithms can quickly analyze data sets to forecast how markets will react to news and events in real time. It can also improve your portfolio management and automate trades.

One specific type of AI you can use to improve your investing strategy is robo-advisors. These ask you questions to understand your long-term goals, risk tolerance and timeline to aid your decision-making. While robo-advisors charge fees, unlike popular free AI chatbots, they can offer much better advice and cost much less than hiring a professional financial advisor.

One of the people briefed on the deal said that the share price under discussion is higher than $400 apiece, which would value SpaceX at between $750 billion and $800 billion, though the details could change. 

The company’s latest tender offer was discussed by its board of directors on Thursday at SpaceX’s Starbase hub in Texas. If confirmed, it would make SpaceX once again the world’s most valuable closely held company, vaulting past the previous record of $500 billion that ChatGPT owner OpenAI set in October. Play Video

Preliminary scenarios included per-share prices that would have pushed SpaceX’s value at roughly $560 billion or higher, the people said. The details of the deal could change before it closes, a third person said. 

A representative for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The latest figure would be a substantial increase from the $212 a share set in July, when the company raised money and sold shares at a valuation of $400 billion.

The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, earlier reported that a deal would value SpaceX at $800 billion.

News of SpaceX’s valuation sent shares of EchoStar Corp., a satellite TV and wireless company, up as much as 18%. Last month, Echostar had agreed to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX for $2.6 billion, adding to an earlier agreement to sell about $17 billion in wireless spectrum to Musk’s company.

Subscribe Now: The Business of Space newsletter covers NASA, key industry events and trends.

The world’s most prolific rocket launcher, SpaceX dominates the space industry with its Falcon 9 rocket that launches satellites and people to orbit.

SpaceX is also the industry leader in providing internet services from low-Earth orbit through Starlink, a system of more than 9,000 satellites that is far ahead of competitors including Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Leo.

SpaceX executives have repeatedly floated the idea of spinning off SpaceX’s Starlink business into a separate, publicly traded company — a concept President Gwynne Shotwell first suggested in 2020. 

However, Musk cast doubt on the prospect publicly over the years and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said in 2024 that a Starlink IPO would be something that would take place more likely “in the years to come.”

The Information, citing people familiar with the discussions, separately reported on Friday that SpaceX has told investors and financial institution representatives that it is aiming for an initial public offering for the entire company in the second half of next year.

A so-called tender or secondary offering, through which employees and some early shareholders can sell shares, provides investors in closely held companies such as SpaceX a way to generate liquidity.

SpaceX is working to develop its new Starship vehicle, advertised as the most powerful rocket ever developed to loft huge numbers of Starlink satellites as well as carry cargo and people to moon and, eventually, Mars.

(Bloomberg) — The stock market crept higher, but stopped short of records Friday, as traders refrained from making big bets ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cut decision next week. Treasuries notched their worst week since June.

The S&P 500 notched small gains and remains within a whisker of October’s all-time high. The Nasdaq 100 advanced 1% this week while the Russell 2000 gauge of smaller companies pulled back from Thursday’s closing record. Treasuries extended losses with the yield on the 10-year climbing roughly four basis points to 4.14%.

A dated reading of the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge did little to shift Wall Street’s expectations of a rate cut on Wednesday with swaps bets pointing to further easing into 2026.

Subscribe to the Stock Movers Podcast on Apple, Spotify and other Podcast Platforms.

The core personal consumption expenditures price index, a measure that excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% in September, inline with economists expectations for a third-straight 0.2% increase in the Fed’s favored core index. That would keep the year-over-year figure hovering a little below 3%, a sign that inflationary pressures are stable, yet sticky.

“Overall, the data was consistent with another 25 basis point Fed cut next week, but it doesn’t suggest any urgency for the Fed to accelerate the pace of cuts in 2026,” said BMO’s Ian Lyngen.

A December rate cut is a not given for every Fed watcher. BlackRock CIO of Global Fixed Income Rick Rieder told Bloomberg Television before the data that he is expecting some dissents and disagreement at the next meeting.

Meanwhile, sentiment toward technology stocks got a boost after Nvidia Corp. partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. reported strong sales. Moore Threads Technology Co., a leading Chinese AI chipmaker, jumped 425% in its Shanghai trading debut. Shares of Netflix Inc. slid after agreeing to a tie-up with Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

In a sign that institutional appetite for the world’s largest cryptocurrency remains subdued, BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) recorded its longest streak of weekly withdrawals since debuting in January 2024.

Investors pulled more than $2.7 billion from the exchange-traded fund over the five weeks to Nov. 28, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. With an additional $113 million of redemptions on Thursday, the ETF is now on pace for a sixth straight week of net outflows. A drop in Bitcoin deepened, falling below $90,000 on Friday.

What Bloomberg Strategists say…

There are two things stand in the way of a year-end rally — and both are on display today. One is the third downdraft in crypto prices in the last two weeks, which has sent Bitcoin back below $90,000. Such a pullback served to dampen risk sentiment on two previous occasions in November.

—Edward Harrison, Macro Strategist, Markets Live

For the full analysis, click here.

WTI crude steadied around $60 a barrel. Gold erased earlier gains.

Corporate News

SpaceX is preparing to sell insider shares in a transaction that would value Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker at a valuation higher than OpenAI’s record-setting $500 billion, people familiar with the matter said. SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to acquire DigitalBridge Group Inc., a private equity firm that invests in assets such as data centers, to take advantage of an AI-driven boom in digital infrastructure. Netflix Inc. agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. in a historic combination, joining the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s oldest and most revered studios. Moore Threads Technology Co., a leading Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaker, soared as much as 502% in its Shanghai debut after raising 8 billion yuan ($1.13 billion) in an IPO. Nvidia Corp. would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday in a bid to codify existing US restrictions on exports of advanced semiconductors to the Chinese market. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% as of 4:03 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.4% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% The MSCI World Index was little changed Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2% The euro was little changed at $1.1645 The British pound was little changed at $1.3335 The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 155.30 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 3% to $89,405.75 Ether fell 2.9% to $3,033.32 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.14% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 2.80% Britain’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to 4.48% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.8% to $60.12 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.2% to $4,200.69 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Andre Janse van Vuuren, Levin Stamm, Neil Campling and Sidhartha Shukla.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators on Friday fined X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, 120 million euros ($140 million) for breaches of the bloc’s digital regulations, in a move that risks rekindling tensions with Washington over free speech.

The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two years ago into X under the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act, also known as the DSA.

It’s the first time that the EU has issued a so-called non-compliance decision since rolling out the DSA. The sweeping rulebook requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting European users and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines.

READ MORE: France will investigate Musk’s Grok after AI chatbot posted Holocaust denial claims

The Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said it was punishing X because of three different breaches of the DSA’s transparency requirements. The decision could rile President Donald Trump, whose administration has lashed out at digital regulations, complained that Brussels was targeting U.S. tech companies and vowed to retaliate.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on his X account that the Commission’s fine was akin to an attack on the American people. Musk later agreed with Rubio’s sentiment.

“The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” Rubio wrote. “The days of censoring Americans online are over.”

Vice President JD Vance, posting on X ahead of the decision, accused the Commission of seeking to fine X “for not engaging in censorship.”

“The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” he wrote.

Officials denied the rules were intended to muzzle Big Tech companies. The Commission is “not targeting anyone, not targeting any company, not targeting any jurisdictions based on their color or their country of origin,” spokesman Thomas Regnier told a regular briefing in Brussels. “Absolutely not. This is based on a process, democratic process.”

X did not respond immediately to an email request for comment.

EU regulators had already outlined their accusations in mid-2024 when they released preliminary findings of their investigation into X.

Regulators said X’s blue checkmarks broke the rules because on “deceptive design practices” and could expose users to scams and manipulation.

Before Musk acquired X, when it was previously known as Twitter, the checkmarks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts, such as Beyonce, Pope Francis, writer Neil Gaiman and rapper Lil Nas X.

After he bought it in 2022, the site started issuing the badges to anyone who wanted to pay $8 per month.

That means X does not meaningfully verify who’s behind the account, “making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,” the Commission said in its announcement.

X also fell short of the transparency requirements for its ad database, regulators said.

Platforms in the EU are required to provide a database of all the digital advertisements they have carried, with details such as who paid for them and the intended audience, to help researches detect scams, fake ads and coordinated influence campaigns. But X’s database, the Commission said, is undermined by design features and access barriers such as “excessive delays in processing.”

Regulators also said X also puts up “unnecessary barriers” for researchers trying to access public data, which stymies research into systemic risks that European users face.

“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects users,” Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a prepared statement.

The Commission also wrapped up a separate DSA case Friday involving TikTok’s ad database after the video-sharing platform promised to make changes to ensure full transparency.

AP Writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.