This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how to sell a house amid 7% mortgage rates. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.0% )   $DJI ( ▼ 0.36% )   $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$IBM ( ▼ 0.24% )   $NFLX ( ▼ 1.64% )   $ANTHZZX ( ▼ 0.62% )   $OPEAZZX ( ▲ 0.32% )   $C ( ▼ 1.91% )   $JPM ( ▼ 3.42% )   $DB ( ▼ 1.8% )  

Check Out Our Emmy-Nominated NYC Innovates Show!

We’re usually pretty modest at Cheddar, as I’m sure you’re aware. But my colleague Chris Castellano scored an Emmy nod recently for this new “NYC Innovates” show, which includes profiles of genuinely interesting innovations in New York’s tech, finance, and business scene.

If the Emmy board loved it, my guess is, so will you!

The most recent episode was all about how the U.S. Open has been using AI to deliver an even more amazing experience for over 14 million tennis fans. Deep inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, servers are quietly processing every rally, delivering a high-tech digital spectacle. IBM $IBM ( ▼ 0.24% ) has turned every serve into a data feast, crunching roughly 4.6 million data points per match. As Monica Ellingson, lead of IBM’s sports and entertainment practice, explained, “We identified 21 individual physical components of a serve, seven racket positions, and this is about 15,000 data points on average for a single rally.”

By combining biomechanical efficiency with real-world shot effectiveness, AI calculates a precise "Serve Quality" metric in real time. Ever sat in the stands wishing you had a human encyclopedia beside you? Enter "Match Chat," an AI companion powered by IBM Watson. Ellingson describes it as such: "… you know that friend that knows everything about sports and... having them sitting next to you.” Only moderately less annoying, probably…

Need historical head-to-head records or instant video highlights? It delivers answers in seconds. Meanwhile, AI-curated "Live Updates" powers 80% of the app's home-screen content. Addressing the massive scale of modern fandom, Ellingson points out that "people are using the app not as a second screen but as a primary screen" because it offers deep court insights unavailable on traditional broadcasts.

Welcome to the new era of Grand Slam spectating, where data serves up the ultimate court-side seat!

Quote of the Day

Chatting With Barron's About the Fed Rate Hike

Wall Street just absorbed a quarter-point rate hike, and investors are coming to terms with a sobering reality: Inflation is proving stickier than we’d like. As Barron’s Senior Writer Megan Leonhardt told us, the policy move was triggered by the relentless duration of high prices. Inflation has hovered above the Fed’s 2 percent target for over five years. Leonhardt explains that, "Fed officials are very worried that the general public and investors are maybe perhaps starting to price that in themselves." A quarter-point bump "is not something that is going to completely implode the U.S. economy," but it signals that the central bank is desperately trying to speed up cooling before high expectations get permanently baked into consumer behavior, she said.

Megan suggests we should expect a longer hiking cycle than historical precedent might suggest. The Fed isn't just watching raw inflation metrics; they are dissecting what's driving them. As Megan stresses, "It's not so much that officials are only looking for... a couple of cooler inflation prints…. They're also looking at what's driving the inflation," whether it’s service sector demand or unexpected AI boom costs. Or, you know… wars. In Iran.

Meanwhile, everyday consumers are feeling the pinch far away from trading desks. "The prices at the pump are really just not helping things," Megan cautions, noting that lower- and middle-income households are burning through tax refund cushions and facing steep housing and utility bills. Ultimately, while Chair Kevin Warsh shored up crucial market trust by demonstrating that "Fed independence cannot really be understated," investors should buckle up.

Are AI Agents About To Change Workplaces?

If you think your resume is impressive, try competing with Kabir Nagrecha. He started college at age 13, earned a Ph.D. in AI systems by 20, built generative models at Netflix $NFLX ( ▼ 1.64% ) , and now serves as CEO of Tessera, an AI startup that recently raised $60 million. But Nagrecha isn't interested in tech hype for its own sake. For Nagrecha, corporate adoption of AI comes down to tangible bottom-line results: "Enterprises want to see dollars saved... AI is just the engine that can drive that." 

Having learned during his time at Netflix that "the plumbing doesn't matter, so to speak," he is urging executives to move past basic coding accelerators and focus on optimizing core supply chain and sales processes. We are rapidly transitioning from helpful AI co-pilots to full-blown "agentic labor." In this next evolutionary phase, AI shifts from a passive advisor to an active driver, flipping traditional workplace roles: "let AI drive the activity and let the humans be the validator," Kabir said.

Eventually, companies may drop human validation altogether. That means your next coworker could literally be an algorithm. Nagrecha warns that leaders must prepare for fascinating new organizational dynamics. "What do org charts look like with AI in the reporting chain?” Kabir asks. “If you need to get your expenses approved by an AI rather than a human... these questions are coming up fast."

Song of the Day: Tove Lo, ‘Source of Life’

Here’s a meditation on womanhood, biology, and the internal conflict surrounding potential motherhood, from Swedish pop singer Tove Lo. So, it’s just like this newsletter!

Trump Plans New ‘AI Force’ and ‘AI Czar’