Key Points

• AI continues to be a growth driver for big tech companies.

• Casual dining is suddenly taking share away from quick-service restaurants.

• Tariffs could have a broad effect across the economy.

• 10 stocks we like better than S&P 500 Index ›

Earnings season can give investors a glimpse into what's currently driving the market. With the bulk of the second-quarter earnings season in the rearview mirror -- more than 90% of S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) companies have already reported as of this writing -- three major themes should be on every investor's radar. Let's look at each.

Big tech and AI are still driving the market

The first big takeaway is that the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) is not cooling off. Megacap tech companies are still spending huge on this technology with their investments only expected to rise.

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Microsoft's quarter was a great example of this theme with the company seeing strength across its businesses, all driven by AI. Its cloud computing unit, Azure, led the way, but its enterprise software business also saw strong growth as adoption of its Microsoft 365 Copilot apps accelerated. Alphabet and Amazon's cloud businesses also saw robust growth, and and all three companies said demand outstripped capacity.

Meta Platforms was able to harness the power of AI to help drive strong ad revenue growth. The same was also true for Google's search business and Amazon's ad business.

Big tech companies continue to lean into AI infrastructure spending. Alphabet raised its yearly capital expenditure (capex) guidance by $10 billion to $85 billion, while Microsoft said it would spend heavily on servers and graphics processing units (GPUs) in its new fiscal year to try to meet growing demand.

This, not surprisingly, is leading to robust growth in the semiconductor space. Nvidia continues to be a standout, while Advanced Micro Devices also saw strong growth outside of China. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing saw a 44% increase in revenue as it remains the market leader in manufacturing advanced chips.

Right now, the impact of AI is real, and the biggest beneficiaries are the biggest companies in the tech space.

Consumers are pulling back on quick-service dining

There is an interesting dichotomy in the restaurant space right now. There was a clear pullback in quick-service dining in the U.S. during the second quarter, and it affected both fast-food and fast-casual chains.

The fast-food space was more of a mixed bag. Yum Brands saw its U.S. same-store sales (comps) sink 5% for the KFC and Pizza Hut brands, while its Taco Bell division saw a 4% increase. McDonald's U.S. comps were strong, rising 2.5%, as it leaned into value offerings.

However, other brands were weaker with Wendy's seeing a 3.6% decline in U.S. comps and a 7.1% decrease for Jack in the Box. Both Wendy's and McDonald's called out breakfast as being weak spots.

The usually more resilient fast-casual category struggled in the second quarter too. Chipotle Mexican Grill saw a surprising 4.0% decline in comps, while Cava Group's results came up well short of expectations. Sweetgreen's comps plunged 7.6%.

Surprisingly, though, casual restaurants were seeing robust results. Chili's, owned by Brinker International, led the way with comps up 23.7%, driven by strong traffic, positive mix, and price increases. Dine Equity reported 4.9% comps growth for its Applebee's chain, while Darden's Olive Garden saw comps increase 6.9%.

Right now, the economy appears to be weighing on lower-income consumers, who are shifting to value options as a result. This is an environment in which McDonald's has typically been able to shine compared to the competition.

More interesting, though, is the shift being seen between fast-casual and casual dining. With prices for fast-casual chains up quite a bit over the past few years, specialists in casual dining, led by Chili's, have been able to lean into value promotions and viral marketing to draw in younger customers. It's working and taking market share away from fast-casual stalwarts. This is an interesting dynamic to keep an eye on.

Image source: Getty Images

Tariffs are starting to bite across industries

The last big theme this earnings season is the growing drag from tariffs. One of the hardest-hit sectors was the auto industry. Both General Motors and Ford Motor Company absorbed huge tariff bills, although both were confident in their strategies to mitigate the impact.

Consumer staple companies are also feeling the effect. For example, Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive both flagged tariffs and rising costs as pressure points. That means these companies need to actively manage prices and cut costs just to keep operating margins in line.

Retailers added their own perspective. Walmart had a strong quarter, but management discussed how the impact of tariffs would start to flow through to consumers as it began replenishing more inventory.

What stands out is how broad the impact is becoming. It's not just automakers or niche industries; tariffs are affecting nearly all of them. The big question is: How much will tariffs hurt the consumer down the line, and could they drag the economy into a downturn?

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Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Colgate-Palmolive, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Cava Group, General Motors, and Sweetgreen and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short September 2025 $60 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on all things AI, follow Hayden Field. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

It all started with J.A.R.V.I.S. Yes, that J.A.R.V.I.S. The one from the Marvel movies.

Well, maybe it didn't start with Iron Man's AI assistant, but the fictional system definitely helped the concept of an AI agent along. Whenever I've interviewed AI industry folks about agentic AI, they often point to J.A.R.V.I.S. as an example of the ideal AI tool in many ways - one that knows what you nee …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Every platform wants to be the place you hang with friends — even Spotify as of this week — so it’s apparently time for TikTok to shore up its direct messaging feature! It told TechCrunch that over the next few weeks, all users should see voice messages and image sharing options arrive in their DMs.

(They won’t show up for accounts that can’t DM to begin with, of course — “Direct Messaging is only available to accounts 16 years and older which means these features are only available to those accounts,” TikTok spokesperson JaShel Jones clarifies to The Verge.)

I checked, and sure enough, I can send both, as well as videos up to one minute long (though that last has been possible for a while). Beware that if you hold down on the microphone button to start a recording, you’ll automatically send that recording as soon as you let go, so be sure to drag it up or left if you want a chance to cancel!

You’re limited to sending up to nine images (and videos) at a time, and both voice memos and videos can’t be more than a minute long.

Update, August 29th: Added TikTok clarification about who can DM and who cannot.

Within days of joining Meta, Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, had threatened to quit and return to his former employer, in a blow to Mark Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar push to build “personal superintelligence.”

Zhao went as far as to sign employment paperwork to go back to OpenAI. Shortly afterwards, according to four people familiar with the matter, he was given the title of Meta’s new “chief AI scientist.”

The incident underscores Zuckerberg’s turbulent effort to direct the most dramatic reorganisation of Meta’s senior leadership in the group’s 20-year history.

Read full article

Comments

• A drone company in Lithuania said it purposefully buys parts made in Ukraine.
• Granta Autonomy's CEO said some products have only been innovated in Ukraine.
• He said his company wants to help Ukraine but also be ready in case Russia attacks Europe.

A Lithuanian drone maker is eagerly turning to Ukraine for parts. Its CEO says the war has sparked battlefield innovations, that the Ukrainians are producing at scale, and that local sourcing is practical for his company's needs.

Gediminas Guoba, the CEO of Granta Autonomy, said some of his company's drone technology uses Ukrainian parts because they offer combat-tested capabilities. "They were adapted or they were invented on the battlefield and are available in Ukraine only," he explained to Business Insider.

Granta Autonomy isn't alone in working with Ukraine. A growing number of Western companies are starting to open production sites in Ukraine and working with the Ukrainian firms to learn.

But buying parts from Ukrainian manufacturers is less common.

Given the quickly changing battlefield and the fast-moving drone development race between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian companies are often at the forefront of new technology.

Guoba said Ukrainian firms "have experience and they have products which are needed now, not in a year or something." He said Ukrainian companies have access to the battlefields, "they have experience of what is going on there, so it really helps."

He said some of the parts he gets from Ukraine were invented or adapted specifically for the war and while versions of that technology may exist abroad, they aren't built in a way that meets the needs of modern drones and the challenges of modern warfare.

One example he gave was antenna masts, which connect drones to their operators. While this kind of technology has long existed, Guoba said most models were designed for larger systems, were hard to move, or didn't work well under tree cover — conditions where Ukrainian troops often operate to avoid detection by Russian drones.

He also pointed to explosion initiators made in Ukraine. Similar products exist elsewhere, he said, but they aren't designed for drones or produced at the scale Ukraine is now achieving.

Some Ukrainian-made military-grade components cannot legally be exported, so Granta assembles them inside Ukraine. Similar restrictions exist in Western countries too — meaning parts from, say, Germany, can also be hard to acquire.

Granta Autonomy moved some of its processes inside the country. Granta builds most of its drones abroad, but when they need Ukrainian-made parts, those drones are finished and integrated inside Ukraine — and then stay with Ukraine's forces.

Getting direct experience from Ukraine

Guoba said that he and his team regularly visit Ukraine because "there are really a lot of things we need to learn." He said he visits the battlefield himself "just to understand how it really works."

He said his motivations are to help Ukraine and to help his country develop technology that may be needed against Russia. Lithuania, a NATO member, is closely monitoring the war in Ukraine as one of the many European countries worried that Russia could expand its aggression and trigger a NATO-wide conflict.

Guoba said going to the fight is "a completely different experience being or working here and just getting feedback from operators." The company only considers something a product if it's been battlefield-tested in Ukraine. "Until then, it's just like an idea; it's a prototype," he said.

His company supplies drones designed to work even when radio frequencies and GPS are jammed. He says that it has already delivered 1,000 of its GA-10FPV-AI quadcopters to Ukraine and signed contracts for nearly 4,000 more, along with more than 2,300 for Lithuania's military. Ukraine also deploys Granta's Hornet XR drone.

Many Western companies and defense officials see great value in having their products in Ukraine so they can be tested in combat. Luke Pollard, the UK's armed forces minister, said in May: "If you are a drone company and you do not have your kit on the front line in Ukraine, you might as well give up."

Many companies that have products in this fight receive valuable information directly from soldiers using their equipment, sometimes texting and FaceTiming with soldiers to get their feedback.

Ukrainian companies have knowledge

Ukraine's defense industry has boomed under the intense and unrelenting pressure of Russia's full-scale invasion, rapidly producing not just alternatives for the scarce Western systems it can't get enough of but also new technologies tailored to the war.

Troels Lund Poulsen, the defense minister of NATO ally Denmark, told Business Insider in February that he wants Danish defense companies to work with and learn from firms in Ukraine so that they can "get some of the lessons learned from the defense companies in Ukraine back to Danish defense companies."

"I think we have a lot to learn from Ukraine," he said.

Guoba said that knowledge is also key for Europe as it looks to reduce its reliance on China.

He said he sees it as his "duty" to have components developed for Europe "as close to our home as possible."

Within the West, as in Ukraine, there's an effort to avoid buying Chinese drones and parts. China dominates that market, but the risks in using a potential adversary's tech raise concerns. Ukraine relied heavily on Chinese drone technology early in the war, but it has been steadily working to decrease its dependence. Most drones are domestically produced, but some parts are still imported.

Guoba said there have been positive movement within Europe, such as in motor development, but "there are still limitations," at least for now.

• Major professional services firms are losing top talent to midsize firms and startups.
• BI spoke to industry analysts and interviewed three executives about why they chose to leave.
• More influence, a faster pace of work, and better promotion opportunities all play a part.

Climbing the ranks to reach partner at a Big Four firm has long been one of the corporate world's most coveted career paths — offering clout, money, and prestige.

For senior figures in consulting, leaving for a lesser-known firm or even a startup wasn't generally seen as a prudent move. Now, as AI shakes up the industry, a growing number of executives are rethinking.

Business Insider spoke to three former senior figures at top consulting firms who have left to join smaller businesses in what analyst James Ransome said was part of an "exodus" of talent from traditional consulting power players.

The leavers cited a faster pace, better promotion opportunities, and a greater feeling of influence in how their new firms worked as key reasons for making the switch.

Ransome, a partner and strategy consulting lead at Patrick Morgan, which specializes in senior partner hiring and industry analysis, told BI that the Big Four and MBB are losing senior talent to midsize firms and startups, which are benefiting from private equity investment and AI innovation.

At the same time, the Big Four is struggling with a tighter market and the need to innovate despite their traditionally slow, bureaucratic procedures.

Smaller firms like Alvarez & Marsal, Teneo, FTI Consulting, and Annex Partners are taking "really impressive individuals," in a way they wouldn't have been able to a few years ago, said Ransome.

Examples of high-profile Big Four departures are numerous. In 2024, FTI Consulting, a midsize firm, hired Jeff Wray and Brian Salsberg, the global leader and head of M&A, respectively, at EY-Parthenon, the firm's strategy consulting wing.

In April, Steve Varley, the former UK chair of EY, and Marissa Thomas, the former chief operating officer at PwC, joined forces and set up their own consulting startup, Unity Advisory.

Casey Foss, chief commercial officer at the midsize, private-equity-backed consultancy West Monroe, told BI that her firm had seen a 25% increase in inbound interest from professionals at the Big Four in the last year.

"What's notable is that this is a proactive interest, applicants reaching out to us, not just the result of our recruiting efforts," she said.

A shrinking market with fewer rewards

At professional services firms, partners are responsible for bringing in new business. But following COVID, demand for consulting services has dropped, making it harder for them to sell their services.

Compounding the pressure is the fact that firms spent big on top talent during the pandemic, causing "oversaturation" and more competition in the upper levels, Ransome said.

The slowdown in growth hit hiring and raised promotion criteria, which meant leaders weren't getting the kind of compensation they expected from prestigious institutions, Ransome told BI.

Some started to look elsewhere, either to pursue something more profitable or because they faced voluntary or involuntary redundancy, as seen at PwC in 2024.

Meanwhile, private equity investment in the market is enhancing the appeal of smaller competitors and enabling them to afford top talent.

"Choice has increased pretty dramatically over the last few years in the consulting market," and the new compensation and ownership models were making it "very difficult for them not to be interested," said Ransome.

Sri Sripada left an 18-year career as a managing director at Accenture to join West Monroe's operations excellence practice in 2024.

"The employee ownership model, combined with private equity backing, gives all of us real 'skin' in the game," Sripada said.

A front-row seat to the next wave of innovation

The rapid change that AI is creating in the consulting industry — affecting both services and the business model — is pushing senior leaders to seek new opportunities.

Many want a front-row seat to the next wave of innovation, but feel bogged down in the bureaucracy of legacy firms, Ransome told BI.

"The Big Four are massive; it takes lots of time to get decisions made, and other firms may be able to just do it in a couple of seconds," he said.

Smaller firms are agile, able to tailor their business model, have no audit constraints, and "don't need 20-plus consultants to be able to deliver the work," he added.

Gert De Geyter, a former AI lead at Deloitte US, left the Big Four firm in July to join an AI-powered consulting startup called Teragonia. De Geyter said that alongside two other leaders, he'd built and scaled Deloitte's AI department, but was at an inflection point in his career when Teragonia reached out.

He said he could have moved to Deloitte's client side, where the next step would have been to try to make a partner. But Teragonia's offer of building out another AI team in a startup caught his attention.

"I like that startups can move faster in the ever-changing AI market. That was something that excited me, and that's in the end what made me take on this role," he told BI.

Leaders leaving for "more innovative, less bureaucratic options in the market is a tale as old as time," said Tom Rodenhauser, managing director of industry research firm Kennedy Intelligence.

But the combination of scale, visibility, and AI's transformative potential has made the current wave of departures far more striking, he said.

When people move from consulting firms to true AI companies, they are placing their "bets on who's going to be the real winner here," Rodenhauser said.

Chasing ambition

Beyond AI, younger partners and rising leaders are questioning whether it is worth waiting decades for influence in a Big Four hierarchy.

"There are views in the Big Four that some partners are just being carried," and coast by on the big client accounts to generate revenue, Ransome said.

High performers are realizing they could earn more at a smaller firm like Alvarez & Marsal, PBA, or Teneo, and the trajectory to partner is six, seven, eight years rather than potentially 20 years in a Big Four, he said.

Nargis Yunis told BI that after she made a partner at EY in 2019, she quickly realized that "in a practice as mature" as the firm, she was "at the bottom of another ladder." Her access to opportunities was restricted, she said.

In 2021, she joined Forvis Mazars and is now head of asset management, a role she estimated would have taken her at least a decade to reach at EY.

"The new role gave me a personal sense of satisfaction that I was actually making a difference," she said. "I've been able to build something that I would never have been able to build, with a culture that I couldn't influence as much if I were still at the Big Four."

While satisfying work and progression are important, so is financial compensation. While none of the leaders BI spoke to would share specifics, De Geyter said his move to Teragonia had been a "good step" in terms of compensation. He noted that had he become a partner at Deloitte, his salary would also have increased.

Yunis said that the "opportunity was more valuable" than salary considerations when she left EY. She added that pursuing experience over money will "contribute to earning more in the future."

Can major firms retain talent?

On one hand, this trend is an opportunity for big firms to slim down, which Ransome said could be positive, but the next few years will be the "biting point." If they can't adapt to the new landscape, they'll keep losing market share, he said.

When asked about its senior talent strategy, EY told BI that it offers "vast opportunities for career development and experiences."

"EY partners work with the world's leading organizations on their most complex challenges — at a global scale that few can rival," the firm said, adding that it continues to hire top talent directly into its partnership.

Some are already looking at what they can do to manage talent. Some firms are leaning into nearshore and offshore capabilities, and others — like EY and PwC — are starting to consider becoming more regionally led rather than country by country, which could provide more opportunities to attract strong talent, said Ransome.

The key is to utilize AI, upskill internally, and develop an effective talent strategy to still attract significant high-performing individuals at those senior levels, he said.

"But it's easier said than done; it's in the DNA of those businesses and how they operate. How do you keep the DNA but still be attractive to the talent that maybe want something a bit more entrepreneurial?"

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• Entry-level job trends for college grads reflect broader economic shifts over the last 15 years.
• Millennials took retail jobs post-recession; Gen Z leaned toward tech and healthcare.
• The shifting entry-level job market shows the rise of healthcare and the decline of retail.

The kids just don't work like they used to — and it might tell us a lot about how the economy is changing.

Over the last 15 years, the job market for younger workers has changed dramatically in some aspects — and, in others, remained remarkably static. But the changing roles younger workers have taken mirror some of the biggest shifts in the economy — and, as the entry-level job market faces its own contractions, might show what could come next.

To analyze how entry-level hiring and roles have changed, Business Insider looked at occupational data from 2010, 2019, and 2023 for Americans ages 18 to 27 who are employed, not in school, and have a bachelor's degree or higher.

For 2023, that age range encompasses Gen Zers in the workforce, while in 2019 it captured both younger Gen Z and millennials and showed what young grads in their 20s were doing during the last labor market peak before the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from 2010 reflects millennials at around the same life stage as Gen Z in 2023.

This chart shows how the top ten jobs held by college grads in our target age range have changed over those three time periods.

The data shows how larger-scale economic trends shaped the occupations that college-educated younger workers were landing in. For millennials, it was all about retail job and waitressing in the wake of the Great Recession; pre-pandemic Gen Z and millennials gravitated toward tech.

Today's Gen Z is still holding onto tech but also opening the door toward the growing fields of the future, like healthcare. This shows how the first few roles that college graduates hold can predict some of the underlying economic trends of different eras.

In 2010, for instance, retail salesperson was the fourth most popular occupation among younger workers; around 2.6% of all younger workers were retail salespeople. But that share and rank faltered over the coming years, likely due to the rise of online retailers like Amazon and the in-person retail apocalypse that's left malls desolate and the industry shedding over a million jobs from 2009 to 2019. Another occupation that saw a fall-off was accountants and auditors — right now, the US is dealing with a looming accountant shortage.

The data also reflects the fast ascendancy of the Big Tech era. Software developers skyrocketed from being the ninth most popular occupation to the third most by 2019, and maintained that rank in 2023. About 3.8% of young grads were software developers in 2019, rising to 4.1% in 2023. It's no secret that Big Tech, and especially software development roles, have become increasingly attractive to college-educated young workers. That's borne out in the data, which shows the hiring to back up that interest.

The allure of Big Tech may be fading more recently, however. The most recent 2023 data comes from the end of the zero-interest rate policy era. During the great post-2020 hiring swing, it was essentially free for companies to borrow and spend on lavish perks and high salaries, especially in tech. Over the last few years, that's crumbled and then some. The entry-level job market has been on its own twisting journey this year, as junior hiring has pulled back and advances in technology — especially AI — have made some tech starter roles redundant or nonexistent. Indeed, the next round of Gen Z workers is already souring on tech.

Looking to the future of work, an aging population needs more nurses, and Gen Z is answering the call. In 2010, just around 3.4% of millennial workers were registered nurses; comparatively, the share of Gen Zers who were registered nurses in 2023 was around 4.8%. Healthcare roles are already increasingly appealing to Gen Z, and it's a sector that's only growing — and bringing lucrative opportunities with it.

Are you a younger worker who's experienced some of these job trends? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

Dyson is holding a Labor Day sale right now, with discounts on a bunch of products. The well-reviewed 360 Vis Nav robot vacuum is available for just $500, which is a discount of 50 percent. That's a seriously great deal and the lowest price we've seen for this product.

The Vis Nav made our list of the best robot vacuums, primarily based on the unit's superior suction power. This thing can pull up dirt like a beast. We said it had the strongest suction power of any robovac we've tested and easily took out pet fur from a carpeted floor. We also noted in our official review that the power here was on par with Dyson's stick vacuums.

The unit includes a stellar obstacle avoidance system, with cameras and LED lights to help the vacuum navigate around furniture. During our testing we found it to be nearly flawless, as it only crashed into a chair leg a couple of times. Also, we never received any alerts that the robot got stuck somewhere while working.

The bin here is on the larger side, but there's no self-emptying base. This is also not a hybrid unit. It's a vacuum and not a mop. This made it tough to recommend the unit at $1,000, despite the fantastic suction, but $500 makes it a whole lot easier.

The Dyson V15s Detect Submarine is also down to $800 as part of this sale, which is a discount of $200. This cordless stick vacuum features a HEPA filtration system and advanced wet-cleaning capabilities. It's a great tool for cleaning both carpets and hard floors.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

WhatsApp just introduced an AI-powered writing assistant, in case you need help with a text or whatever. The AI provides suggestions in various styles, like professional, funny or supportive. Once generated, the user can continue editing the message if required.

All you have to do is look for the new pencil icon in a 1:1 conversation or a group chat. The AI will handle the rest. It's rolling out now, but only in English and to users in the US. The company says it hopes "to bring it to other languages and countries later this year."

The obvious question here is regarding privacy. WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, but AI queries are typically sent to a cloud data center somewhere. Luckily, the company has built this feature on top of Meta's pre-existing Private Processing technology.

This allows users to use Meta AI without anyone else ever reading the message or any suggested re-writes. This works similarly to Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which also integrates with AI without sending all data to the cloud. Meta says the tech preserves "WhatsApp’s core privacy promise, ensuring no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages."

With the privacy angle out of the way, that leaves the feature itself. Just about every platform out there has some kind of AI writing assistant at this point, so we aren't sure what makes this one special. Also, is there even a benefit to using this type of thing in the context of a quick back-and-forth text conversation? I see the use for long-form writing projects but not so much here, but maybe that's just me. 

A new month is almost upon us, which means Sony is about to drop some fresh games that all PlayStation Plus members can keep in their collection as long as they maintain a subscription. There are some real standouts for September, including the iconic Stardew Valley and the long-awaited sequel Psychonauts 2.

Stardew Valley is one of the most beloved farming/life sims of all time. You grow stuff, romance villagers and, of course, battle enemies in an enormous mine. It's an absolute time sink, but one with so much charm that you likely won't mind. It even has couch co-op now.

Psychonauts 2 is a sequel that was released a full 16 years after the original. It's a critically-acclaimed platforming adventure that's heavy on style. The missions are quirky and the power-ups are super fun. This one is definitely worth your time.

Finally, there's a gem called Viewfinder. This is an awesome camera-based puzzle game that's one-part M.C. Escher and one-part Pokémon Snap. The design aesthetic here is utterly charming and the gameplay is both familiar and unique.

All of these titles will be available on September 2. That's the good news. The bad news? Some games are going away on September 1. Subscribers have until that date to download Lies of P, Day Z and My Hero One’s Justice 2 to their game library.

South Korean lawmakers have banned smartphones and other smart devices in elementary and middle school classrooms, The New York Times reports. The law goes into effect in 2026.

The legislation only outlaws these devices during class hours and there are no stipulations regarding punishment for violators. The law does, however, give principals and teachers the power to stop students from carrying or using a phone on school grounds. Additionally, students are able to use smart devices during emergencies and for educational purposes as outlined in the legislation.

Most schools in South Korea already place restrictions on smartphone use in classrooms, under various guidelines put in place in 2023. The new bill, passed through the country’s National Assembly, makes them illegal nationwide.

A 2024 government survey found that nearly a quarter of the country's population could not control how long ​they used smartphones, despite “negative effects on their physical, psychological and social life.” This figure rose all the way to 43 percent with children and teens.

The law does have its opponents, with detractors releasing a statement stating that the ruling is "directly infringing upon students’ basic constitutional rights, such as freedom of communication and rights to keep privacy and seek happiness."

South Korea isn't the only country to make this kind of move. France, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and China, among others, have all placed various levels of restriction on smartphone use at school.

America has also followed suit, though on a state-by-state level. All told, 14 states have strict restrictions in place regarding smartphone use during school hours. These states include New York, Florida, Virginia and South Carolina.

Key Points

• Cronos kept rallying today thanks to excitement surrounding a new SPAC merger connected to Trump Media.

• Crypto.com, which created the Cronos token, is merging with Yorkville Acquisition.

• The combination of Crypto.com and Yorkville Acquisition will become Trump Media Group CRO -- a company with a crypto treasury strategy centered around Cronos.

• 10 stocks we like better than Cronos ›

Cronos (CRYPTO: CRO) is recording another day of explosive gains this Thursday. The cryptocurrency's token price was up 30.1% over the past 24 hours as of 6:15 p.m. ET. Over the same period, Bitcoin was up 1%, and Ethereum was flat.

Cronos is a cryptocurrency launched and maintained by Crypto.com, a crypto website and trading exchange platform. The token has seen massive gains recently following news of an expanded partnership with Trump Media and news that the company connected to President Donald Trump is making moves to launch a new cryptocurrency treasury. As of this writing, the token is up 131% over the last week of trading.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Image source: Getty Images.

Cronos keeps soaring thanks to the Trump deal

On Tuesday, Trump Media announced that it had entered into a partnership with Yorkville Acquisition Corp. that will create a large new cryptocurrency treasury company. Yorkville Acquisition is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and will be merging with Crypto.com to create Trump Media Group CRO -- a new publicly traded company built around crypto holdings.

The new company will purchase roughly $1 billion worth of the Cronos token, and investors have been bidding up the coin in response to the news. At the time of the announcement, a $1 billion position represented a roughly 19% stake in Cronos.

What's next for Cronos?

In addition to its $1 billion Cronos treasury, Trump Media Group CRO will have $200 million in cash and $220 million cash-in mandatory exercise warrants as well as a credit offering worth up to $5 billion from one of Yorkville's affiliates.

Trump Media is poised to own a majority stake in Trump Media Group CRO upon the completion of the SPAC merger. While the Cronos token seems to be attracting some powerful new allies, it remains to be seen if the cryptocurrency will be able to sustain bullish momentum or lose steam if its fundamentals are unable to support recent gains.

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Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Autodesk(NASDAQ:ADSK) reported second quarter fiscal 2026 results on August 28, 2025, exceeding guidance across revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, billings, and free cash flow, and subsequently raised full-year guidance for fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 31, 2026). Total revenue (GAAP) grew 17% year-over-year, non-GAAP operating margin reached 39% (up 140 basis points YoY), free cash flow reached $451 million, and share repurchases totaled $709 million year-to-date; management provided updated targets on long-term margin and capital allocation, including full-year billings guidance of $7.355 billion to $7.445 billion, and articulated concrete progress on cloud, AI, and go-to-market strategic initiatives.

Operating margin guidance for 2029 underscores model scalability

Autodesk implemented a cost discipline and restructuring plan at the beginning of the year. Optimization in sales and marketing contributed to operating leverage. The new transaction model is expected to increase operating margin drag in fiscal 2027, with management targeting long-term expansion through controllable efficiency levers despite non-linear progress.

"Assuming no material change in the external environment, we expect reported non-GAAP operating margin to be 41% in fiscal 2029, or about 45% on an underlying basis, which excludes the mechanical impact of the new transaction model as it fully scales next year. This would represent a reported and underlying improvement of approximately 500 basis points and approximately 900 basis points, respectively, since we started to scale the new transaction model at the start of 2024."
-- Janesh Moorjani, CFO

Long-term profit expansion will be driven predominantly by improved sales and marketing efficiency and inherent operating leverage, positioning Autodesk for substantially higher margin structure as temporary transition headwinds subside.

Strategic capital allocation prioritizes organic innovation and targeted M&A

Autodesk repurchased 2.5 million shares year-to-date for $709 million, and increased fiscal 2026 share buyback targets to $1.2 billion–$1.3 billion. Management confirmed excess free cash flow dedicated to capital returns after funding product and AI initiatives, while clarifying the scale and focus of M&A activity.

"First and foremost, Saket, you know, we invest organically in the business to drive our strategy around AI and all the things related to our product strategy. The second thing we look to do is we look at M&A as the next option, and we look at it for tech tuck-in reasons, really things that accelerate our existing roadmap and move us forward. And we look at it through the lens of targeted acquisitions that extend our adjacency strategy, things like construction operations. These kinds of acquisitions tend to be in the hundreds of thousands to the billions of dollars range, not in the tens of billions of dollars range. The other thing, of course, we're doing is as we have excess capital, above and beyond those needs, we are accelerating the deployment of that to shareholders via stock buybacks that move beyond offsetting dilution and accelerate and reduce the share count."
-- Andrew Anagnost, CEO

This disciplined approach keeps capital allocation flexible but focused, with limited appetite for large-scale transformative deals and a clear preference for extending competitive strengths in core adjacencies through smaller acquisitions and buybacks.

AI and platform investments accelerate product adoption and differentiation

AI-powered features such as Fusion’s Sketch Auto Constraint have achieved an acceptance rate of more than 60%, with over 1.2 million dimensions delivered since launch in 2025, demonstrating measurable productivity gains among commercial users. Data model and API adoption is rising among large and mid-market customers, with foundation models and adaptive AI engines under development across 2D/3D workflows.

"For more than a decade, Autodesk, Inc. has been at the forefront of innovation. In BIM, SaaS, generative design, and now in generative AI. We have been building industry-specific foundation models and products capable of understanding and reasoning about 2D and 3D geometry, design and make data, complex structures, and even physical behavior. For example, last year, we introduced Project Bernini. A generative AI model for 3D, as part of a broader initiative to create professional-grade foundation models that will disrupt long-standing technology paradigms and redefine what we mean by software, platforms, and products. By combining our own spatial and physical reasoning with deep industry-specific knowledge, Autodesk AI will move beyond traditional, deterministic, and rule-based parametric CAD kernels to deliver adaptive and context-aware AI-driven CAD engines."
-- Andrew Anagnost, CEO

Rapid integration of AI across flagship platforms strengthens Autodesk’s long-term competitive moat, improves value proposition for enterprise accounts, and attracts third-party partnership opportunities.

Looking Ahead

Management raised full-year guidance, projecting billings of $7.355 billion to $7.445 billion, revenue of $7.025 billion to $7.075 billion, non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 37% (or 40% on an underlying basis), and free cash flow of $2.2 billion to $2.275 billion for fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 31, 2026). Autodesk reiterated its expectation of a 41% reported non-GAAP operating margin for fiscal 2029 (45% underlying), along with continued elevated capital return via $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion in share repurchases. No material change was made to macroeconomic or policy risk assumptions embedded in the guidance; additional details on long-term strategy and AI initiatives will be provided at Autodesk University in September and Investor Day on October 7.

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This article was created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Autodesk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

American Airlines Group (NASDAQ: AAL), an airline company, closed at $13.25, up $0.12 (0.91%). Trading volume reached 66.47 million shares versus a 3-month average of 62.1 million. The stock remains within its 52-week range of $8.50 to $19.10.

Broader equities advanced. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) finished at 6,501.86, up 20.46 points (0.32%), while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) ended at 21,705.16, gaining 115.02 points (0.53%).

Airline peers outperformed. Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE: DAL) closed at $61.97, up $0.71 (1.16%). Alaska Air Group Inc (NYSE: ALK) ended at $63.18, rising $1.35 (2.17%).

Today's move came on the heels of a recent downgrade by Raymond James Financial (NYSE: RJF) to "Market Perform" from "Outperform." The firm cited valuation, reiterated a $14 price target, and highlighted a relatively stronger view of Alaska Air.

American Airlines is rolling out its most extensive winter schedule to Mexico, expanding flights to resorts such as Cancún and Los Cabos—a strategy aimed at boosting international traffic. Meanwhile, the broader sector awaits a forthcoming ICAO decision on raising the pilot retirement age from 65 to 67, a proposal backed by IATA to address pilot shortages—though it faces union resistance.

Investors will be watching traffic trends, international route execution, and next quarter’s earnings for fresh momentum.

Market data sourced from Google Finance and Yahoo! Finance on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025.

Should you invest $1,000 in American Airlines Group right now?

Before you buy stock in American Airlines Group, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and American Airlines Group wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $659,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,113,120!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,068% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 185% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of August 25, 2025

Daily Stock News has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. This article was generated with GPT-5, OpenAI's large-scale language generation model and has been reviewed by The Motley Fool's AI quality control systems. The Motley Fool recommends Alaska Air Group and Delta Air Lines. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.