Agentic AI is helping organizations completely reimagine core banking processes and operations from the customer perspective, rather than simply making incremental improvements. Despite years of digitization, organizations capture less than one-third of the value expected from digital investments, according to McKinsey research . That's because most big companies begin with technological capabilities and bolt applications onto them, rather than starting with customer needs and working backward to technology solutions. Not prioritizing the customer can create fragmented solutions; disjointed customer experiences; and ultimately, failed transformations. Organizations that achieve outsized results from AI flip the script. They adopt a "customer-back engineering" mindset, putting customers at the heart of technology transformation.

No longer peripheral accessories, chargers today are more powerful, portable, and proactive. Consumers can look forward to rapid innovations in the coming years. The changes may be less perceptible than in smartphones, tablets, or wearables, but chargers have also been quietly reinvented over the last decade. At one time a bulky mix of tangled cables and connectors, slow to perform and prone to overheating, they're now smaller, safer, and faster, thanks to a slew of technological advances. These advances include a switch to gallium nitride (GaN), which has now usurped silicon as the preferred semiconductor, capable of handling higher voltages, faster switches, and more efficient conduction. Multi-port chargers, coupled with an industry-wide shift toward USB-C standardization, mean a single charger can handle multiple devices.

Successful AI implementation requires shifts in workplace culture as well as use cases that can scale across the enterprise. In finance departments that have long been defined by precision and control, AI has arrived less as a neatly managed upgrade than as a quiet insurgency. Employees are already using it while leadership races to impose structure, governance, and strategy after the fact. The result is a paradox: one of the most tightly regulated functions in the enterprise is now among the most experimentally transformed. What's emerging is a layered shift in how work gets done. From variance commentary and fraud detection to contract review and close narrative drafting, AI is embedding itself across workflows, particularly where unstructured data once slowed down everything.

Plus: Meta's embrace of AI is making employees miserable. Here's what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak Last week, eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship contracted a type of hantavirus transmitted by rats. But health experts stress that this situation is nothing like the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. The Andes virus is known to spread between people, and there are no specific antiviral treatments or vaccines. Yet transmission appears to require a specific form of contact that the cruise ship fostered. Here's what you need to know about the outbreak--and why experts believe it can be contained .

Musk v. Altman week 2: OpenAI fires back, and Shivon Zilis reveals that Musk tried to poach Sam Altman OpenAI president Greg Brockman said Elon Musk wanted the company to create a for-profit entity--and endured a public peek into his diary. OpenAI president Greg Brockman, foreground, exits the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California. In the second week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk's motivations for bringing the suit were under scrutiny. Last week, Musk took the stand, alleging that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into donating $38 million to the company. He claimed that they'd promised to maintain it as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity, only to later accept billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft and restructure the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. This week, Brockman fired back with his side of the story, arguing that Musk had actually pushed for OpenAI to create a for-profit arm and fought a bitter battle to have "absolute control" over it.

Tech advances not only made IVF safer and more effective; they fundamentally changed the way we think about our reproduction. Technology is changing the way we make babies. The pioneering work of the scientists who invented IVF led to the birth of the first "test tube baby" in 1978. We've come a long, long way since then. This week, I've been working on a piece about the cutting edge of IVF technologies and what's coming next. Think AI and robots and, potentially, gene-edited embryos.

Plus: After years of insults, Anthropic and SpaceX have teamed up. IVF has brought millions of babies into the world over the last four decades. But the process can still be slow, painful, and expensive--and far from guaranteed to work. Now, a wave of new technologies aims to change that. Researchers are using AI to identify promising sperm and embryos, developing robotic systems that could automate parts of the IVF process, and even exploring controversial genetic editing techniques designed to prevent inherited disease. The technologies could make IVF more effective and accessible.

Plug-in panels are getting popular--how do we make sure they're safe? Dozens of US states are considering legislation to allow people to install plug-in solar systems, often called balcony solar. These small arrays require little to no setup and could help cut emissions and power bills. Balcony solar is already popular in Europe, and proponents say that the systems could make solar power more accessible for more people in the US, including renters. As popularity rises, though, some experts caution that there are safety concerns with how balcony solar would work with existing electrical equipment in homes. Let's talk about what balcony solar is, why it's unique, and how new testing requirements could affect our progress toward deploying the technology in the US.

Plus: The Pentagon has struck sweeping AI deals for classified work. Week one of the Musk v. Altman trial: what it was like in the room Two of the most powerful figures in AI--Sam Altman and Elon Musk--are in the middle of a landmark legal showdown, with Musk alleging he was misled about OpenAI becoming a for-profit company. Our reporter Michelle Kim, who also happens to be a lawyer, has been in court each day, and has broken down the first week's key moments in her latest report . In a new Q&A, she also reveals what it was like in the room, the new details that have emerged about how Musk and OpenAI operate--and what we can expect from this week's proceedings. Find out what she's discovered so far, and if you want to keep up with MIT Technology Review's ongoing coverage of the Musk v. Altman trial, follow @techreview or @michelletomkim on X. Faster than many realize, AI is becoming the primary interface through which we form beliefs and participate in democratic self-governance. This shift could further strain already fragile institutions, but it could also help address problems like polarization and declining civic engagement.

Musk v. Altman week 1: Elon Musk says he was duped, warns AI could kill us all, and admits that xAI distills OpenAI's models Musk kept his cool, and OpenAI's lawyer bulldozed him with piercing questions about his motivations for suing the company. In the first week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk took the stand in a crisp black suit and tie and argued that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into bankrolling the company. Along the way, he warned that AI could destroy us all and sat through revelations that he had poached OpenAI employees for his own companies. He even confessed, to some audible gasps in the courtroom, that his own AI company, xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok, uses OpenAI's models to train its own. The federal courthouse in Oakland, California, was packed with armies of lawyers carrying boxes of exhibits, journalists typing away at their laptops, and a handful of concerned OpenAI employees. Outside, protesters lined the streets, carrying signs urging people to quit ChatGPT, boycott Tesla, or both.