Welcome. Today’s briefing analyzes a volatile start to the week where geopolitical ambition is directly impacting market stability. From the Arctic to AI infrastructure, the rules of engagement are shifting rapidly. Market Sentiment: Pessimistic. Global markets are retreating as the threat of a new transatlantic trade war overshadows earnings, with gold and silver hitting record highs as investors seek safe havens (Bloomberg). The Digest 1. Geopolitics: The 'Greenland' Trade War Risk Transatlantic tensions have spiked following President Trump's threat to impose a 10% tariff on eight European nations—including France, Germany, and the UK—over their opposition to his Greenland acquisition plans. The EU is currently preparing retaliatory tariffs on €93 billion ($108 billion) of US goods and is pausing the ratification of existing trade deals (Bloomberg, Morning Brew). Strategic Implication: Supply chain leaders must immediately model a 10% cos...
Why 2026 is the year we stopped treating AI like a magic button and started treating it like a teammate.
We Tried to Automate Everything. It Didn’t Work. Do you remember the promise? We were told we could just type a prompt, walk away, and the AI would build the app, write the report, and run the company. Well, Anthropic just released their January 2026 Economic Index , and it turns out we tried that... and we didn't like the results. The trend has officially flipped. We are done with "Automation." We are back to "Collaboration." ❖ The Leadership Anthropic is run by the Amodei siblings (Dario and Daniela). They are the "Safety First" folks of the AI world. While others move fast and break things, they move deliberately to make sure the AI actually does what you want it to do. The "Quality Over Quantity" Shift For a long time, tech companies only cared about "Volume"—how many chats, how many words. This report changes the game. Anthropic introduced "Economic Primitives," which is just a nerdy way of asking: ...
