Monday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that's constantly changing.
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Sep 29, 2026 · 8:20
Content creator Manny Marotta has gone viral in recent weeks for his X feed recounting the news of 25 years ago as if it's happening now. His minute-by-minute account of the…
Sep 28, 2026 · 7:24
The AI smart speaker market is getting crowded. This year, Amazon, which is a Marketplace underwriter, rolled out a large language model-powered version of its classic voice…
Sep 25, 2026 · 15:41
Meta's new Muse AI assistant is having a moment — and it's kind of adorable. Meta announced a slew of new integrations for its AI assistant at a company event this week,…
Sep 24, 2026 · 8:22
AI is the big item on the agenda this week as Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President Trump in Washington, D.C. The talks come after a firestorm of news that has…
Sep 23, 2026 · 9:46
The global beauty market is expected to hit almost $600 billion by 2030, according to a report by McKinsey & Company . And just like pretty much every industry, it's being…
Sep 22, 2026 · 8:51
Sure, you can put down your phone and go touch grass for free. But for those looking for a little help committing to a more disconnected lifestyle, there's a growing market of…
Sep 21, 2026 · 9:12
At this point we've probably all been a part of heated dinner conversations about AI. Rana el Kaliouby has them almost nightly at home. She's an AI scientist and investor who…
Sep 18, 2026 · 14:53
Congress is looking to rein in Flock cameras; plus, Apple has a new way to prove your iPhone photos are real. But first, it's been a wild week in AI. After the freakout over an…
Sep 17, 2026 · 4:45
More than 1 in 5 U.S. companies now use artificial intelligence in their daily operations, according to a recent analysis of federal data from Goldman Sachs. In theory AI offers…
Sep 16, 2026 · 10:34
AI leaders suddenly seem to agree on slowing down the AI race. Anthropic's Dario Amodei published an essay last weekend calling to "pace the frontier" — slow the development of…
Sep 15, 2026 · 7:33
The problem of AI alignment has become a hot topic. It’s raised questions, like how do we get AI to do what we want, and not what we don't want? For example, hacking another…
Sep 14, 2026 · 5:56
Our tax system was built around an economy where humans earn wages, companies employ workers, and both contribute to the public purse. So what happens if AI starts changing that…
Sep 11, 2026 · 10:57
An Anthropic researcher publicly resigned this week, warning on social media that artificial intelligence companies are “gambling with our lives.” It’s part of a growing chorus…
Sep 10, 2026 · 12:57
Nate Soares has been worried about artificial intelligence longer than almost anyone. He's the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of the…
Sep 9, 2026 · 9:06
Meta agreed to a settlement last month with 52 attorneys general in a landmark case over teen social media addiction. The company promised a number of restrictions for under…
Sep 8, 2026 · 10:17
Filmmaker Kenji Yamamoto got a gig working on Apple promotional videos a decade ago and went looking for temporary housing in the pricey Bay Area. What he found was an inside…
Sep 7, 2026 · 4:00
More Americans are leaving the labor force for a variety of reasons. The labor force participation rate — which measures the share of working-age Americans who either have a job…
Sep 4, 2026 · 14:50
Google survives yet another antitrust case without having to break up its business. Plus, New York City public schools announced a new policy this week banning the use of AI…
Sep 3, 2026 · 5:54
Even if artificial intelligence leads to a more prosperous future in the long run, most agree there will be a lot of disruption in the meantime. Marketplace’s senior…
Sep 2, 2026 · 4:12
The banking sector is figuring out how to navigate AI. And the stakes are high. The tech has raised red flags over potential bias, particularly when it comes to lending…
Sep 1, 2026 · 11:21
Amazon's popular brand of video-enabled smart home and security devices, Ring, is adding a new encryption system called TAKE — Throw Away the Key Encryption. It allows users to…
Aug 31, 2026 · 8:05
Immigration and Customs Enforcement may be responsible for collecting the DNA of nearly a million people in 2025. The genetic material is then sent to the FBI, where it can be…
Aug 28, 2026 · 11:58
Meta announced this week that it has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle a landmark trial over social media addiction. It also agreed to add stronger child-safety measures…
Aug 27, 2026 · 9:04
Old school film technology is having a moment this summer. Moviegoers have traveled far and wide to see Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in its intended IMAX 70 mm film format.…
Aug 26, 2026 · 8:41
When Meta Ray-Ban glasses were launched in 2021, they didn’t perform so well on the market. But in recent years, Meta has been partnering with fashion brands like Coperni and…
Aug 25, 2026 · 7:50
California promised consumers an easier way to protect their personal data. Since 2024, the Delete Act has required the state registration of data brokers — businesses that…
Aug 24, 2026 · 9:02
Anthropic recently announced it's adding watermarks to all text outputted by its chatbot Claude. But often, you don't need fancy detection software to know; you just need to look…
Aug 21, 2026 · 11:09
OpenAI is launching ChatGPT for Teens, which has new guardrails to steer conversations from sensitive topics like self-harm or sexual content. It’ll also include parental…
Aug 20, 2026 · 9:47
Most of the world’s internet traffic flows through underwater cables on the ocean floor. The wires are also responsible for some $10 trillion worth of financial transactions…
Aug 19, 2026 · 10:07
Water systems across a dozen states were targeted by cyberattacks in recent weeks. So far, the water has remained safe to drink, but the incidents have raised concerns about the…
Aug 18, 2026 · 7:31
More than 100 rockets took off into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast last year — a new record. And with more rockets taking flight each year, the availability of launch sites is…
Aug 17, 2026 · 7:34
Suno, an AI music company, wants to partner with independent artists by launching an incubator program called Suno Spark. This program will provide grants, marketing support and,…
Aug 14, 2026 · 12:43
Anthropic announced it's adding invisible watermarks to all text generated by its chatbot Claude. The AI startup is rolling out the policy globally as part of efforts to comply…
Aug 13, 2026 · 8:47
Generative AI models can produce enormous volumes of text, images and video in seconds. But without expert human instruction, the output is often generic. (You might say slop.) A…
Aug 12, 2026 · 9:41
This story includes discussion of suicide. Back in 2021, TikTok tweaked its algorithm in an effort to address dangerous filter bubbles — a sort of algorithmic spiral of…
Aug 11, 2026 · 8:11
Remember those grainy old baby monitors? So passé. Today, the modern nursery can be equipped with HD cameras and biometric sensors — all analyzed with artificial intelligence.…
Aug 10, 2026 · 7:57
Substack, the platform popular for online newsletters, recently launched an artificial intelligence detection feature powered by Pangram. The detector allows users to scan text…
Aug 7, 2026 · 12:33
Is your shirt-folding technique good enough to train a robot how to do it? Could MySpace be creeping back into our browsers? We get into all this on today’s “Marketplace Tech…
Aug 6, 2026 · 8:46
Let’s say you're chatting away with AI — perfect grammar, great vocabulary. Then, boom: a random word in another language! That's the topic for today's “Uncanny AI.” Those…
Aug 5, 2026 · 9:02
AI has already changed the legal field, bringing new efficiencies — along with some high-profile mistakes — to tasks like research and drafting contracts. But law professor…
Aug 4, 2026 · 6:38
Last month, President Xi Jinping spoke at an AI conference in Shanghai, China. There he promoted AI accessibility for the world, touting China’s adoption of open-weighted models.…
Aug 3, 2026 · 6:56
OpenAI released its first ChatGPT model in November of 2022 . Since then, companies across the U.S. have worked to integrate AI models into their workflows as quickly as…
Jul 31, 2026 · 13:21
Meta and Microsoft — as well as other tech titans — have been reporting quarterly earnings, and investors are looking at AI spending with a more skeptical eye. Plus, more than…
Jul 30, 2026 · 5:57
Shri Narayanan, professor of engineering, psychology and linguistics at the University of Southern California, teaches his students to privilege humans when using artificial…
Jul 29, 2026 · 12:41
The University of Southern California is aiming to integrate AI across its campus, thanks to a $200 million dollar gift from a venture capitalist. Gaurav Sukhatme is the newly…
Jul 28, 2026 · 4:14
The ocean is already one of the best climate solutions we’ve got. It absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that would otherwise contribute to global warming. But what if it…
Jul 27, 2026 · 6:44
A proliferation of AI apps that allow users to create sexualized images of real people have grown into a multi-million dollar industry. Social media platforms are serving as de…
Jul 24, 2026 · 13:32
OpenAI revealed this week that two of its advanced AI models escaped containment and hacked into the systems of AI company Hugging Face, which had the answers to the benchmarking…
Jul 23, 2026 · 8:15
A missing package can easily ruin a day, but chasing where that package went — or even a refund — is like following Odysseus on his treacherous journey. And in the age of AI…
Jul 22, 2026 · 7:06
Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino has been using chatbots pretty intensively the last couple years. And there are some details she’s shared about herself that chatbots seem to…
Jul 21, 2026 · 8:50
The Big Tech companies driving the AI boom are expected to spend more than $700 billion on data center infrastructure this year. To finance this spending spree, they're…
Jul 20, 2026 · 8:06
As top AI firms race to develop a “superintelligent” agent — one that surpasses human cognition — are they prioritizing safety guardrails along the way? Not according to the…
Jul 17, 2026 · 11:57
Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the AI startup stole trade secrets. The iPhone maker claimed that former Apple employees were asked to bring proprietary…
Jul 16, 2026 · 11:13
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are suing Meta for $1.4 trillion, claiming the social media giant designed Facebook and Instagram to…
Jul 15, 2026 · 8:48
Netflix may be the undisputed king of streaming, but it's facing a new challenge: "the sophomore slump." Internal data reported by Bloomberg show audiences dropping off…
Jul 14, 2026 · 9:02
Last month, comedians Harris Alterman and Dave Ross posted a series of advertisements for made-up tech companies around the New York City subway system. The ads are fake, but…
Jul 13, 2026 · 4:02
Mitigating climate change likely requires not only lowering emissions, but removing existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And while the Trump administration has cut many…
Jul 10, 2026 · 9:54
OpenAI is rolling out its most advanced GPT-5.6 model after delaying the release for testing with the government. But the White House denied that the review was mandatory. What’s…
Jul 9, 2026 · 8:28
In the post-9/11 years, the U.S. military has adhered to the “golden hour” rule: Wounded troops should be evacuated to higher-level care within 60 minutes. But as the new…
Jul 8, 2026 · 11:56
We're still unpacking the slew of consequential Supreme Court decisions that came down at the end of the term last week. Among them was a 6-3 ruling on digital data privacy. In…
Jul 7, 2026 · 5:06
Both OpenAI and Anthropic are planning to go public, each pushing a valuation of $1 trillion as of their latest funding rounds. But even before these mega-IPOs send a tsunami of…
Jul 6, 2026 · 9:06
During last year’s massive wildfires in Los Angeles, concerned residents and firefighters went to one app to get up to date information: Watch Duty. Now, the app covers all 50…
Jul 3, 2026 · 4:08
Many scientists believe we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction brought on by factors like climate change, deforestation, fishing and hunting. The Texas-based company…
Jul 2, 2026 · 8:03
AI is the buzzy tech of the moment. It's made plenty of money not only for companies but the cities and states where investment is pouring in. Illinois and specifically Chicago…
Jul 1, 2026 · 11:12
Who is using AI? And what are they using it for? Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has been trying to answer these questions to better understand how AI is reshaping the…
Jun 30, 2026 · 7:15
The resemblance to an actual dog is loose but the quadrupedal robot dogs known as “Spot” from Boston Dynamics do have four legs. They're often used to do reconnaissance in…
Jun 29, 2026 · 7:12
There’s a longstanding nursing shortage in the U.S. that's only expected to get worse. Some hospitals have experimented with robotic nursing assistants to lighten the load, like…
Jun 26, 2026 · 11:40
SpaceX stock prices fell back to earth this week after they skyrocketed in the wake of the IPO a couple weeks ago. Plus, why a Google AI subsidiary is investing in the film…
Jun 25, 2026 · 7:00
We here at Marketplace love indicators that give us insights into which direction the economy is moving. But AI is evolving fast and it can be hard for the data — and the people…
Jun 24, 2026 · 13:03
Big Tech is looking for land to build its AI data centers. HBCUs are looking for new funding after federal cuts. And partnerships between them, like one announced by Fisk…
Jun 23, 2026 · 14:04
In late May, Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas . His first papal encyclical is an appeal for a more human-centered approach to artificial intelligence. Joining him at the…
Jun 22, 2026 · 3:53
Nurses have a tough job. AI tools promise to take care of some of the more mundane and repetitive tasks that eat up so much time and, by extension, money in healthcare. But often…
Jun 19, 2026 · 13:40
Meta responded to plummeting morale this week with a pledge to do better with company snacks. Plus, the new AI augmented reality smart glasses everyone's talking about, and not…
Jun 18, 2026 · 7:34
AI has ushered in a golden age for scams. There are the deepfake kidnapping calls, the vibecoded ecommerce websites and one of the latest, according to a recent article in the…
Jun 17, 2026 · 10:44
Last week, the Trump Administration ordered Anthropic to cut off access to its most advanced AI models — Mythos 5 and the pared-down public version, Fable 5 — from foreign…
Jun 16, 2026 · 5:29
Demand for power is growing thanks to the rapid expansion of data center infrastructure across the U.S. But as utility bills continue to rise, states and grid operators are…
Jun 15, 2026 · 5:12
On today’s episode, Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino walks us through how AI is making it harder to break into the cybersecurity sector.
Jun 12, 2026 · 12:42
The White House is not giving up its push to preempt states from passing their own AI laws, something it tried and failed to accomplish last year. We'll get into it on today's…
Jun 11, 2026 · 9:54
Should you learn prompt engineering, or maybe a physical trade? There's almost no skill that AI won't eventually surpass, according to neuroscientist Vivienne Ming. In her new…
Jun 10, 2026 · 4:14
Earth keeps getting hotter. And despite some efforts to slow planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, they're still rising, leaving a lot of people hungry for alternative climate…
Jun 9, 2026 · 10:43
File this under the definition of irony: last month, The New York Times reported that a high-profile new book, "The Future of Truth: How AI reshapes reality," includes several…
Jun 8, 2026 · 7:18
Enforcement of the Take It Down Act began last month. If tech firms don’t comply and take down non-consensual intimate images — AI-generated or not — within 48 hours of being…
Jun 5, 2026 · 12:49
SpaceX is targeting a $1.77 trillion valuation, but some analysts think it's worth half that. Plus, Florida sues OpenAI — the first state to take legal action against an AI…
Jun 4, 2026 · 19:24
When a store offers different shoppers different prices depending on factors like the weather, the time of day, and what the store knows about each buyer, it’s called dynamic…
Jun 3, 2026 · 7:30
If you have a debt, you may get a call, a letter or a text prodding you to pay it back. Now, that call could come from an AI agent. The AI debt collection market is expected to…
Jun 2, 2026 · 8:52
There is growing demand for time with GPUs, the chips that power artificial intelligence. AI companies need those chips in order to keep their models up and running. And to do…
Jun 1, 2026 · 4:02
The price of oil has gone up significantly since late February, when the US invaded Iran. And when oil prices see a crazy rise, it makes other sources of energy look more…
May 29, 2026 · 11:41
This week, rideshare drivers in Massachusetts unionize; plus, Robinhood lets AI agents trade on behalf its customers. But first, there’ve been hints for a while that Anthropic,…
May 28, 2026 · 5:37
Like the name suggests, plug-in solar panels can be plugged into an electrical outlet just like you would your toaster. But instead of using electricity, they send power back to…
May 27, 2026 · 8:06
Public backlash to content generated by artificial intelligence has pushed brands to reconsider how AI is used in their marketing. Some companies are swerving away from AI and…
May 26, 2026 · 7:34
Peptides are short chains of amino acids. GLP-1 weight loss drugs are peptides. Insulin is one, too. And there are thousands of others. Now, people are seeking out peptides in…
May 25, 2026 · 6:42
The wildfire risk mitigation company Technosylva helps utilities, insurers and government agencies predict where and when a fire could spark. It uses historical weather data to…
May 22, 2026 · 10:26
On this week’s Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review, we take a look at how college graduates do not wanna hear about AI. Plus, what we all learned from the Musk v. Open AI…
May 21, 2026 · 4:36
Anthropic’s newest AI model, Mythos, is so good, the company says, at uncovering security vulnerabilities that it's too dangerous to release to the public. Anthropic shared a…
May 20, 2026 · 6:29
Earlier this month, a group called ShinyHunters took responsibility for a hack on the education platform Canvas, which is used for coursework at colleges. In a letter posted…
May 19, 2026 · 8:19
As of mid-2025, about a third of newly published websites were generated by artificial intelligence. That’s a massive increase from just three years before when the number…
May 18, 2026 · 6:40
Hydropower is one of the oldest forms of energy creation, and uses the flow of rushing water to create electricity. The province of Québec, Canada, has historically had an…
May 15, 2026 · 11:21
This week, WhatsApp is offering private chats with its AI. Plus, Princeton will now hold supervised exams after a rise in AI-fueled cheating. But first, Google’s self-driving car…
May 14, 2026 · 11:40
Voice cloning is the use of artificial intelligence to generate a clone of a real person’s voice, imitating the sound, when they pause and what words they typically emphasize.…
May 13, 2026 · 6:40
In order to write her new book “I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI To Do ‘Almost’ Everything," journalist Joanna Stern decided to invite artificial intelligence into every aspect…
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