🌏 AI goes shopping

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Tensions down, forecast up. Goldman Sachs analysts say the probability of a recession is shrinking as the trade war between the U.S. and China cools.

American express route. President Donald Trump’s $5 million “Trump Card,” which he says will fast-track U.S. citizenship and offer permanent resident status, has gone live.

Grounded in controversy. Boeing has found itself under scrutiny after a fatal Air India crash on Thursday morning involved one of the company’s 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft.

Caught red-handed? Tesla is suing a former engineer in its robotics department, alleging that the ex-employee stole designs for the Optimus robots’ best-in-class hands.

Not in the game plan. GameStop’s stock tanked almost 23% at one point on Thursday as investors indicated they weren’t on board with the company’s plans to stockpile Bitcoin.

Amazon wants shelf control. Per an internal memo, it’s bringing Whole Foods more closely under its purview to cut out duplicate efforts with a corporate reorganization.

App-arel suggestions are coming

The mall is dead. Long live the algorithm.

Remember when shopping meant going to a mall, trying things on under fluorescent lights, and pretending you might “circle back” on that top? How quaint. In the AI-powered future of retail, your closet won’t just be a closet — it’ll be a searchable database, a digital moodboard, and a semi-judgmental best friend rolled into one.

Now, two startups, Phia and New Gen, are rewriting retail for the generation that treats its search bar like a stylist.

Phia’s browser extension works behind the scenes, scanning 40,000-plus sites for better deals, secondhand finds, and “I can’t believe that’s under $200” moments. New Gen, meanwhile, is building for the AI-first shopper who doesn’t just browse — they query. It’s reimagining storefronts for the future of shopping with a pitch for AI-native retail domains where clean data meets curated vibes, so when you type “perfect bike shorts under $100,” the answers are instant, tailored, and algorithmically confident.

This isn’t just tech for tech’s sake. Gen Z shoppers expect speed, personalization, sustainability, and vibes. They don’t browse; they brief. And they’re turning shopping from an activity into an interface. Zoom out and the trend is obvious: Shopping is shifting from slow scroll to smart assist.

Retail isn’t dying — it’s just debugging itself. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on the next upgrade to your wardrobe: AI.

Bond voyage

Once the exclusive obsession of bond traders and guys who voluntarily read CBO reports, U.S. Treasury auctions may have found an unlikely second act: financial thriller. On Wednesday, the government sold $39 billion worth of 10-year bonds. Thursday? Another $22 billion in 30-year paper. And while the sales went off without a hitch, everyone’s asking the same thing: What happens when the bidders stop bidding?

These auctions are normally sleepy affairs. But with the U.S. deficit swelling, interest payments ballooning, and Trump floating another round of tax cuts, even a routine bond sale now feels like a stress test for the country’s fiscal reputation. If buyers start pulling back, yields could spike, markets could wobble, and confidence in Uncle Sam’s credit card could start to fray.

This week’s auctions weren’t panic-worthy, but nerves are showing.

Thirty-year yields are creeping back toward 5%, a level investors treat like a cursed mile marker. One wrong move and suddenly the world’s most boring financial instrument becomes the spark for global market jitters. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, Japan’s bond market is already cracking. Poorly received auctions there have sent yields on 30- and 40-year debt soaring to multi-decade highs — triggering big paper losses for insurance giants and forcing Tokyo to consider buying back its own bonds just to keep things under control.

The U.S. isn’t Japan (yet). But if Treasury auctions keep flirting with chaos, we might all be learning a lot more about fixed income than we ever planned. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on how a sleepy market got loud real fast.

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