WARC (June 13)
“Alphabet, Amazon and Meta dominate the advertising market outside China: they’re set to account for 54.7% of that total in 2025 – equivalent to $524.4bn – rising to 56.2% in 2026. The introduction of AI stands to disrupt some ad revenue models, particularly in search, but Google’s dominance of that market will likely persist in the near term,” according to WARC’s Global Ad Forecast Q2 2025.
Tags: $524.4bn, 2025, 2026, Ad revenue, Advertising market, AI, Alphabet, Amazon, China, Disrupt, Dominance, Dominate, Global Ad Forecast, Google, Market, Meta, Persist
Washington Post (May 14)
Plastic production is estimated to create roughly 5% “of all greenhouse gas emissions… more than all shipping or the entire airline industry.” But that estimate only “accounts for gases released when companies drill for oil and gas, transport it to refineries, turn it into plastic and mold it into products.” It ignores factors such as “how microplastics in the ocean and soil disrupt the natural cycles that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and cool the planet.” Though “scientists have long known that making plastic warms the planet,” plastic may ultimately “be heating the Earth even more than we realized.”
Tags: 5%, Airline industry, Atmosphere, CO2, Disrupt, Drill, Gas, GHG emissions, Microplastics, Mold, Natural cycles, Ocean, Oil, Plastic, Production, Products, Refineries, Scientists, Shipping, Soil, Transport
Seeking Alpha (October 28)
“Benchmark crude oil futures fell Monday in their largest one-day decline in more than two years after Israel’s weekend strikes on Iran avoided energy facilities and ease worries of a wider war that could disrupt global supplies… Analysts said the lack of strikes on oil or nuclear facilities leaves the door open for both sides to de-escalate the conflict.”
Tags: Analysts, Benchmark, Crude oil, De-escalate, Decline, Disrupt, Energy facilities, Futures, Iran, Israel, Nuclear, Oil, Strikes, Wider war
Institutional Investor (March 20)
Across sectors companies are tripping “over themselves to incorporate generative artificial intelligence into their operations. Not to be left out, investment managers too are crowing about their adoption of generative AI, typically in the form of large language models (LLMs).” This, however, “is a complex and expensive project with considerable investment and business risks and ethical considerations.” There should be less concern on “how these models might disrupt the investment management industry” and more focus on building “a methodology to assess the processes and procedures implemented by managers to ensure the ongoing utility and reliability of their LLMs.”
Tags: Adoption, AI, Assess, Complex, Disrupt, Ethical considerations, Expensive, Generative, Investment managers, LLMs, Methodology, Risks, Sectors
Washington Post (May 2)
“As generative artificial intelligence becomes eerily lifelike and gives rise to chatbots that can draft letters, write computer code or create songs, experts have warned about its ability to put people out of jobs. A Goldman Sachs report in late March said generative AI could significantly disrupt the global economy and subject 300 million jobs, particularly white-collar ones, to automation.”
Tags: AI, Automation, Chatbots, Computer code, Disrupt, Experts, Generative, Global economy, Goldman Sachs, Jobs, Lifelike, People, Songs, White collar
Institutional Investor (September 23)
“The pushback against environmental, social, and governance investing by red state politicians isn’t yet slowing down many asset managers’ expansions into strategies that have been among the most popular in recent years.” There is “no doubt the anti-ESG movement is gaining traction and could disrupt the industry,” but it’s still “business as usual” for “many global managers targeting investors in the U.S.”
Tags: Anti-ESG movement, Asset managers, Disrupt, Environmental, Governance, Investing, Investors, Politicians, Popular, Pushback, Red state, Social, Strategies, Targeting, Traction
New York Times (January 16)
China’s zero-tolerance COVID policy has been “highly effective, but the extreme transmissibility of the Omicron variant poses the biggest test yet,” and threatens to disrupt supply chains. “The potential for setbacks comes just as many companies had hoped they were about to see some easing of the bottlenecks that have clogged global supply chains since the pandemic began.”
Tags: Bottlenecks, China, Clogged, Covid, Disrupt, Effective, Omicron, Supply chains, Transmissibility, Variant, Zero tolerance
The Guardian (August 13)
“Forget doom-laden headlines, the dollar has not gone into terminal decline.” In fact, the dollar’s resiliency has been upheld even though “Donald Trump’s administration has done more than any in living memory to disrupt US trade” and has transformed the nation into an unreliable alliance partner. And yet, “the currency’s international role has not diminished significantly.” The simple truth is “there is no alternative. The euro is not an alternative…. Nor is the yuan a viable alternative.”
Tags: Alliance partner, Alternative, Currency, Decline, Diminished, Disrupt, Dollar, Doom, euro, Resiliency, Trade, Trump, U.S., Unreliable, Yuan
New York Times (March 29)
The Covid-19 crisis has awakened “a sleeping giant” in China. “How the ruling Communist Party manages the coming months will help shape how hundreds of millions of young people see its authoritarian political bargain for decades to come.” The “generational awakening… could match the defining effects of World War II” and it “could disrupt the social stability on which the Communist Party depends.”
Tags: Authoritarian, Awakened, CCP, China, COVID-19, Crisis, Disrupt, Sleeping giant, Social stability, WWII, Young
Bloomberg (December 9)
Hong Kong is facing the “‘worst ever,” as layoffs and store closures multiply. “More than 5,600 retail jobs could be lost and thousands of stores shut down over the next six months, as pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong continue to disrupt sales during the crucial festive period.”
Tags: Disrupt, Hong Kong, Layoffs, Pro-democracy, Protests, Retail jobs, Sales, Store closures, Worst ever
