• Banking could be "redefined" by as much as 40% by 2030, a new report predicts.
• The report says AI will fundamentally reshape many aspects of what banks do.
• It was prepared by ThoughtLinks, led by veteran banking exec Sumeet Chabria.

A new report attempts to put hard numbers on a question hanging over every Wall Street corner office: just how much of banking work will AI actually change?

Artificial intelligence is on track to redefine 44% of the work done at banks by 2030, according to ThoughtLinks, an independent consulting firm.

ThoughtLinks — which is led by founder and CEO Sumeet Chabria, a former tech and operations COO at Bank of America and a Wall Street veteran — mapped nearly 5,000 individual banking "processes" to see which roles or units at banks will experience the most upheaval in their roles.

ThoughtLinks found that tech, engineering, and infrastructure—collectively considered one sector — would be most susceptible to transformation, with a projection of 55% of the work involved in that sector being redefined by 2030. It's a logical outcome, considering how many of the tasks in these fields are precisely the kinds that automation is best suited to handle.

Front office, client-facing sectors are hardly immune. Commercial banking could be redefined by as much as 49% by 2030, wealth management to the tune of 42%, and investment banking by as much as 33%, according to the report.

Wall Street banks are investing heavily to compete. JPMorgan has deployed a large language model suite to its 200,000 employees, while Goldman Sachs has rolled out its own ChatGPT-like sidekick, GS AI Assistant. Citigroup also last week announced a new leadership team to drive AI strategy for its nearly quarter-million workers worldwide.

It's important to note that these numbers do not reflect ThoughtLinks' predictions about how many jobs could be lost or created as a result of AI — rather, they look at how much of the work done by those who work in banks could be done differently thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence.

To assess how much each banking process could be redefined, ThoughtLinks developed a framework that maps what bank employees do to nearly 5,000 individual "processes." "'Redefined' reflects substantial AI-enabled, process-level change via automation, resequencing, elimination, or redesign," the firm wrote in its report.

In an interview, Chabria said that breaking finance jobs down to their most basic components would be critical to understanding how to retrain workers in the face of the AI revolution. "Clearly, you've got to keep the level of agility," he said, "because things are going to change."

Chabria shared three examples with Business Insider of how he anticipates sectors to respond to AI-driven changes. We got a look at snapshots for commercial banking, investment banking, and wealth management. Take a look at what's already transforming, what will be adapted by 2030, and the parts of the job that may stay mostly in the hands of humans for now.

Commercial banking: 49% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• First-generation banking advisor copilot services are now live, helping bankers obtain insights on clients, quickly summarize notes or files, draft basic memos, or flag policy exceptions.
• Some manual workflows — like creating spreadsheets, drafting emails, and navigating legacy systems — are being replaced. This reduces time doing manual work, as well as human error.
• Customers have access to virtual AI-enabled assistants on corporate banking systems that give them personalized insights and enable them to do routine transactions more quickly.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Client onboarding: GenAI will help guide client onboarding conversations and tailor explanations, while the next iteration of AI will likely be able to verify forms and assess risks.
• Banks will leverage AI to assess small business creditworthiness to expand credit access.
• Banks will use AI to adjust loan pricing, fee structures, and product terms based on clients' behavior, financial patterns, and market conditions.
• AI tools will help detect some breaches and generate internal alerts in real time, increasing security 24/7.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Large corporate lending will still require human credit judgment and board oversight.
• Banks will need to rely on legal, tax, risk, and structuring teams.

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Investment Banking: 33% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• Drafting documents like prospectuses or pitchbooks is being digitized. Generative AI tools can now pull in some market data, past deals, financial comps, and company-branded slides to build draft pitchbooks in minutes.
• Internal AI copilots are accelerating deal prep. Bankers can now use GPT-based tools to instantly summarize earnings calls, analyst reports, and client financials.
• Generative AI tools can now review documents, flag missing disclosures, and summarize new regulatory changes.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Banks will leverage AI to simulate investor demand or model pricing scenarios for equity and debt offerings. (Final allocation will remain human-led.)
• AI will help bankers test thousands of ways to structure a deal by adjusting debt, equity, pricing, and covenants to find the right balance for clients.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Final IPO and syndicate pricing will remain human-led. Setting the price for a new issuance will require banker judgment, market feel, and live investor feedback.
• Winning mandates and advising the C-suite will remain relationship-driven and led by humans, who will use AI to enhance their knowledge or judgment and land new mandates.

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Wealth Management: 42% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• AI copilots can now answer questions, generate meeting prep docs, and summarize client portfolios — in seconds.
• Financial planning is faster and becoming more scalable. Tools powered by generative AI can aid advisors in building personalized plans that simulate life events, goals, and risk tolerance without starting from scratch.
• Client reporting is now becoming personalized with custom commentary on investment performance, market moves, and risk tailored to each client's portfolio.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Tax management will become more automated and timely.
• AI will help tailor advice and investment strategies to reflect individual preferences, financial behavior, and goals.
• On the flip side, clients may use AI to manage their wealth in their own portfolio with smart triggers.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Client engagement and coaching will remain human. During market downturns or personal events, clients still want empathy, reassurance, and value judgment that only a trusted advisor can provide.

• Regulators will ensure that advisors remain responsible for advice, not AI.

  Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or SMS/Signal at 561-247-5758. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
  

The House Democratic leader is speaking out against President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, calling it an "all-out assault" on ordinary Americans.

As Iowans head to see Trump speak on Thursday, they'll also see a billboard condemning health care cuts included in the massive budget plan.

By continuing to move toward a balanced energy policy that includes natural gas, Governor Kathy Hochul can define what Democratic leadership looks like in a second Trump term.

Gulf allies have relied on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to deter threats from Iran and its proxies.

Mark Zuckerberg — in an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar talent raid — has dramatically reset the market for blue-chip AI builders, and further complicated the government's ability to stack its own technology bench.

Why it matters: The Meta CEO is trying to lure talent from OpenAI and other tech companies with offers that can top $100 million in total compensation for the first year alone — beyond most star athletes' pay.

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Top-tier pay packages being offered by Meta for AI researchers can reach up to $300 million over four years, WIRED reports.

• A tech-news feed on X used a baseball card motif to portray an OpenAI researcher being "TRADED" to Meta.

The talent derby has sent compensation soaring across AI, as rivals scramble to keep top talent and entice others not to flirt with Meta and other suitors.

• It's partly a continuation of an ongoing recruiting war — OpenAI built its lab with the help of some massive comp packages.
• Zuckerberg unveiled his dream team this week as Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), after meeting personally with potential recruits at his homes in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.

The big picture: America has witnessed staggering valuations for startups. But never before have we seen company-valuation-sized salaries for people, rather than ideas or enterprises.

• That's injecting a new layer of drama and next-level economics for the biggest companies — many the size of nation-states — racing to win the AI wars.

Collateral damage: The U.S. government is already struggling to recruit top researchers and scientists. A remotely talented AI specialist can now assume that riches in the tens of millions are attainable. So why sacrifice to serve in government?

• China, by contrast, can command top talent to work on government projects. A front-page Wall Street Journal story on Wednesday, "China Is Quickly Eroding America's Lead in the Global AI Race," said AI models from Chinese companies, including DeepSeek and Alibaba, are becoming popular in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Zoom in: Zuckerberg's biggest single bet was investing $14 billion in Scale AI, and bringing co-founder Alex Wang to Meta as chief AI officer. Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman will lead Meta's work on AI products and applied research.

• Eleven other new AI star hires were listed in Zuckerberg's internal memo announcing Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Altman hit back at Zuckerberg's spree this week, telling OpenAI researchers in a Slack message that Meta "has gotten a few great people for sure, but on the whole, it is hard to overstate how much they didn't get their top people and had to go quite far down their list," WIRED reports.

• "I am proud of how mission-oriented our industry is as a whole; of course there will always be some mercenaries," Altman added. "Missionaries will beat mercenaries."

Between the lines: Tech investors tell us that until very recently, the revenue outlook for AI models was unclear, and there was a debate about the return on capital spending. Now it's apparent that leading AI companies will do hundreds of billions in revenue per year.

• OpenAI is enjoying rampaging growth: The company said last month that it has $10 billion in annual recurring revenue, just 2½ years after the launch of ChatGPT — up from $5.5 billion last year. OpenAI has projected for investors that, fueled by AI agents and other new products, sales could total as much as $125 billion in 2029 and $174 billion in 2030, according to documents seen by The Information.
• Anthropic — a rival AI company led by Dario Amodei, an OpenAI alumnus — has hit a pace of $4 billion in revenue annually, up almost four times from January, The Information reported this week.
• At those rates of growth, you can see what Zuckerberg is seeing — and why he's suddenly pouring massive spending into making sure Meta remains a dominant AI player.

The backstory: Zuckerberg is repeating a winning playbook. By 2012, he realized Facebook was behind on the mobile web. He famously redirected the entire company toward catching up.

• Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion and later WhatsApp for $16 billion — racing ahead in areas where others had innovated. But this time he's betting on individuals, rather than successful enterprises.

Reality check: Meta has spent a fortune on Llama, its large-language model (LLM), in an effort to develop a frontier model that can compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. In a splashy story about "The List" of AI geniuses Zuckerberg is courting, the Wall Street Journal said Meta's "laggard history in generative AI has made some recruits hesitant."

• Bubbles can burst. AI salaries and data-center costs won't be sustainable without the ultimate payoff being unimaginably huge. And the more these companies spend, the bigger that payoff needs to be. As uncovered by a survey Axios reported last month, many small businesses using AI aren't even paying for it.

The other side: Altman, noting that OpenAI has built "a culture that is good at repeatable innovation," said last month on a podcast hosted by Jack Altman, his younger brother, that Meta was making "giant offers to a lot of people on our team — like $100 million signing bonuses" and more than that in annual compensation.

• "We're set up such that if we succeed ... then everybody will do great financially," Sam Altman said. "[I]t's incentive-aligned with mission-first, and then economic rewards and everything else flowing from that."

The bottom line: The bidding war is the most public manifestation of the secret race among AI giants — all betting that the technology will bring trillions of dollars in productivity gains. For them, the timeline is the biggest question.

• Axios' Scott Rosenberg, Ben Berkowitz and Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

Go deeper ... "Behind the Curtain: An AI Marshall Plan."

The demise of a controversial proposal in Republicans' budget bill that blocked state-level regulation of artificial intelligence is fueling fresh pressure for federal action, advocates told Axios Wednesday.

Why it matters: Congress' reluctance to set national AI rules for privacy, safety and intellectual property rights has left states to forge ahead with their own rules.

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Driving the news: Some senators fought until the last minute to keep an industry-backed 10-year ban on state-level regulation in the budget bill.

• Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and some of his allies in the administration fought until the last minute to keep an industry-backed 10-year ban on state-level regulation in the budget bill. They failed — for now.
• "We hope that this unequivocal rebuke to the idea of saying that states can't regulate AI is a lot of political motivation for the folks who do want to regulate AI on Capitol Hill," said Eric Kashdan, Campaign Legal Center's senior legal counsel for federal advocacy.

Catch up quick: The Senate early Tuesday voted nearly unanimously to remove the proposed moratorium on state-level AI regulations from the budget bill.

• It would have prevented states that want certain government grants from enforcing legislation on AI regulation.
• "The reconciliation package was the best possibility for something this bad to get through," said Alix Fraser, the vice president of advocacy for Issue One.
• The House passed a version of the budget bill that included the state AI moratorium, but the Senate's version, which dropped it, now faces resistance from some House Republicans.

Friction point: President Trump's aides and advisers were split on the moratorium.

• While many have favored a light hand with AI to bolster U.S. efforts to keep ahead of China, others are concerned that the moratorium rules would also make it harder for states to regulate social media, particularly around protecting kids.
• Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon helped fuel opposition, the Wall Street Journal reported, and many in the MAGA movement still believe Big Tech has stifled conservative voices.
• "Bannon has never been a fan of this sort of techno utopia that a lot of Silicon Valley-ites desire, and the idea of a moratorium was antithetical to that approach," Fraser said.

Zoom out: More than 20 Democratic- and Republican-led states have passed AI regulation legislation.

• An April Pew study found the public is worried the government won't go far enough in regulating AI.
• Most Americans support a national AI standard and think a patchwork of state laws will make it harder for the U.S. to compete with China, according to a June Morning Consult and TechNet poll.
• "There's a huge public demand for AI to be regulated, a bipartisan demand for AI to be regulated," Kashdan said. "And not only will they give up on trying to start states from stepping up but they'll recognize that this means they really need to get their act together and pass federal AI regulations."

Yes, but: Congress has always had a hard time passing laws regulating tech, and the mood in Washington right now is favoring innovation over regulation

• Efforts to regulate AI at the federal level are unlikely to go as far as consumer protection measures in the states.

What's next: The battle over a moratorium is not over, said Chris MacKenzie, vice president of communications for Americans for Responsible Innovation.

• Advocates expect standalone legislation to try to preempt state AI laws.

Go deeper: GOP revolt delays House vote on Trump's "big, beautiful bill"

• "28 Years Later" introduces a cult leader inspired by Jimmy Savile, a BBC star outed as a prolific abuser.
• Chi Lewis-Parry, who played an infected Alpha in the film, called the character "masterful."
• "It's hard to come up with something original," he told BI.

Fans of "28 Years Later" were divided by the ending that introduces Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell), a cult leader who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jimmy Savile, the BBC presenter outed as a prolific sexual abuser after his death in 2011.

In an interview with Business Insider in June, the film's respective director and producer, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, confirmed that the character is based on Savile.

Chi Lewis-Parry, who plays Samson, a new, super-strong type of the infected called an Alpha, told BI that he thinks introducing Crystal was a bold decision but said "you have to test the boundaries."

Boyle has always challenged audiences with his films, including "28 Days Later" and "Trainspotting," a dark comedy about people in Glasgow addicted to heroin. In the world of "28 Years Later," the Rage Virus would have broken out before Savile's crimes could be unearthed. It seems likely the sequel, "The Bone Temple," will explore this further.

Lewis-Parry said: "It's hard to come up with something original" in the horror genre.

"Introducing that character is a different type of horror. It's taking real horror and sticking it in a fantasy horror scenario. I think that's masterful because you're not just relying on the jump scares and the stereotypical gore.

"You are kind of teasing the psyche of an audience with a real-life horror that has been discovered," he added. "For me, it's almost scarier because that really happened. Whatever you attach to that character is the fear element. I think it's brilliant, personally."

Boyle and Garland told BI how Crystal's scenes in "28 Years Later" set up the sequel. Garland said the bizarre cult leader taps into bigger themes of a "misremembered past" and "how selective memory is."

O'Connell will no doubt have a larger presence in the second film as Crystal, while Lewis-Parry will reprise his role as Samson.

BI previously reported how Lewis-Parry said he scared Boyle into casting him in the role during his audition.

Lewis-Parry teased that fans "might fall in love with Samson," but didn't reveal any plot points, adding: "it's magical when you watch something and know nothing about any surprises."

• Military officials and experts warn that air superiority may not be possible in modern warfare.
• Israel, however, was able to quickly achieve it against Iran.
• Iran, though capable, isn't bringing the same fight that a foe like Russia or China could.

Israel swiftly seized air superiority over parts of Iran during the latest fight, showing that it's still possible in modern, higher-end warfare to heavily dominate an enemy's skies.

But there's a risk in taking the wrong lesson from that win. Iran isn't Russia or China, and as the West readies for potential near-peer conflict, it really can't afford to forget that, officials and experts have cautioned.

Western military officials and warfare experts have repeatedly warned in recent years that achieving air superiority against those countries would be a daunting task.

Russia and China, especially the latter, boast sophisticated, integrated air defense networks with ground-based interceptors well supported by capable air forces, electronic warfare, and reliable space-based and airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Air superiority in a limited theater is not the same as breaking through a complex anti-access, area-denial setup.

Israel's victory in the air war over Iran shows that air superiority is "not impossible" in modern warfare, former Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist, explained. That said, he continued, a Western conflict with Russia or China would be "very different."

A victory in the air for Israel

Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran in bombing runs and eliminated dozens of Iranian air defense batteries.

Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said it "highlights what you can do with a modern air force against some, on paper, fairly impressive defenses."

Iran maintained a capable layered air defense network featuring domestic systems, foreign-supplied defenses, and some modernized older systems. Though only semi-integrated compared to fully networked air defenses, it presented an obstacle.

Israel dismantled Iranian defenses over multiple engagements through extensive planning, detailed intelligence, and the employment of combat-proven airpower, specifically fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters built for penetration and suppression of enemy air defenses and fourth-generation F-15s and F-16s, which can also support that mission.

Important to Israel's success in the latest fight with Iran were the engagements last year that substantially weakened Iranian air defense capabilities, as well as Israel's skills in this mission. Failures and aircraft losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led it to reevaluate how it approached enemy air defenses, in many ways leading to the emergence of the kind of missions used against Iran.

Ed Arnold, a security expert at RUSI, said that Israel reporting no aircraft losses "was significant, and it just showed that, yeah, you can get air supremacy very quickly." The caveat there is that doing so requires the right tactics, weapons, and intelligence, but even then, it is not guaranteed.

Retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis, an airfare expert with a 35-year career in the Royal Air Force, told BI "the situation that everybody's been used to over the last 30 years is air supremacy," but when it comes to high-intensity war against a near-peer adverary, realistically, "those days are long gone."

Russia and China

Iran had air defenses, but not airpower. It's air force is largely made up of obsolete Western, Soviet, and Chinese aircraft. The ground-based surface-to-air missile batteries are more capable, but that's only one part of the defensive picture.

Curtis explained that Iran has "very little in the way of air defense aircraft, whereas of course Russia, and especially China, has stacks of them." Both Russia and China field fourth-generation-plus aircraft, as well as fifth-generation fighters.

China, in particular, has multiple fifth-gen fighters in various stages of development, and there are indications it's working on sixth-generation prototypes. By comparison, Iran's air force looks a lot like a plane museum.

But they also boast more advanced and more effective air defenses. Bronk said Russia's defenses are "better networked, more capable, more numerous, and more densely layered than Iran's." He said that if the West rolled back the SAM threat, it would likely be able to overcome Russia's air force, but China is a different story.

China has a complex integrated air defense network supported by ground-based air defenses, naval air defenses, and what Bronk characterized as "an increasingly very capable modern air force," among other capabilities. And China also has a "far greater and more sophisticated missile arsenal for striking bases" to hamstring an enemy's airpower. Additionally, it holds a strong economic position with an industrial base that is turning out high-end weapons.

China has also been tremendously increasing its number of interceptors without really expending any, unlike the US, which has been burning through interceptors in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Not all of China has the same protections, but breaking through defenses would likely represent a substantial challenge in a conflict, especially in something like a Taiwan contingency.

A conflict between the West and China could look like "a more traditional air war" — something not seen in a long time, Curtis said, explaining that air-to-air combat could make a comeback, with pilots again shooting down enemy planes. "In a peer-on-peer conflict, certainly with China, you would see a lot of that, because China has got a lot of air assets."

Future air battles

Achieving air superiority, as Israel did recently and as the US did in the Gulf War in the 1990s and in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, has been crucial to the Western way of war, often serving as a tool to enable ground maneuvers.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which failed to knock out Ukraine's air defenses, now far more robust than at the start of the war, has shown what a conflict looks like when it isn't achieved. Aircraft are shot out of the sky, and ground forces are locked in grinding slogs. Devastating long-range attacks are still possible, but quick victory is generally not.

It has resulted in some stark warnings for future warfare.

Speaking on air superiority, Gen. James Hecker, the commander of NATO's air command, warned last year that "it's not a given." He added that "if we can't get air superiority, we're going to be doing the fight that's going on in Russia and Ukraine right now."

Other military leaders have said that air superiority may only be achieved in short bursts. War is full of surprises, but evidence indicates that's a real possibility. Achieving

Curtis said air planners now have to focus on specific priorities, like protecting air bases, and figuring out how to achieve a "localized time-bound air superiority or air supremacy in support of a short-term mission or operation."

"It's a different mindset," he said.

The key in future wars will be to seize control of as much of the aerial battlespace as possible to do what's necessary in the moment, all while holding firm defensively, as Israel did against Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile strikes, experts said. That means maintaining a strong air force and strong air defenses.

"Nothing in Ukraine or Israel has shown that air superiority isn't needed in the future," Ryan shared. "I think they've both shown that having air superiority is an extraordinarily important part of warfare and remains so.

• Motherhood is challenging, especially when you have six kids.
• As my kids have grown, life hasn't gotten any easier. It's just different.
• I try to remind myself that parenting is supposed to be hard.

Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I'm already behind. Someone can't find their shoes, someone is fighting over who gets to sit in the front seat, and I'm pouring cereal into a cup because all the bowls are somehow in the dishwasher — again. And in the middle of the chaos, I catch myself thinking, "How am I still so bad at this?"

I've been a mom for nearly 20 years. I have six kids, ranging in age from a teenager down to a 1-year-old. I've homeschooled. I've worked. I've done it all with and without a support system. If experience came with a trophy, I'd probably have a shelf full of them. And yet, I still have days when I go to bed wondering if I was patient enough, present enough, or just enough.

Life doesn't get easier, it gets different

I'm in what I call the messy middle of motherhood. During this time kids aren't babies anymore, so people assume it must be easier. But it's not. It's just different.

The sleepless nights are traded for emotional exhaustion. You're no longer chasing toddlers — you're navigating curfews, attitudes, identity, and the constant tug-of-war between boundaries and independence.

Your kids you, but in ways that are harder to define. They need guidance, empathy, and snacks every 15 minutes. They need deep conversations late at night, even when you feel like you have nothing left. They need your strength when you're running on fumes.

And the whole time, you're expected to hold it all together with grace, with gratitude, and preferably without falling apart in the middle of the grocery store.

This is supposed to be hard

But here's something I'm learning: Motherhood is only hard for the ones who are trying. If you didn't care so much, it would be easy.

You wouldn't overthink your decisions or question whether your child needs therapy or just a nap. You wouldn't stay up worrying, praying, googling symptoms, or wondering if you're doing any of it right.

That weight you're carrying? That doubt? That relentless voice in your head wondering if you're failing? It exists because you care.

And that matters more than we give ourselves credit for.

Because the truth is, there's no such thing as a perfect mom. There's just a present one. A mom who shows up. A mom who keeps trying. A mom who loves deeply, messes up often, and starts over again each morning.

I know I'm not alone

If you're feeling stretched thin, emotionally worn down, or like you're somehow still not doing enough — you're not alone. Even moms with big families and years of experience can feel like they're drowning in the demands of the everyday.

But here's the good news: you're not failing. You're in the thick of it. You're living out the most important (and often overlooked) part of motherhood, the in-between years. The not-so-cute, not-so-Instagramable, fiercely formative middle.

And one day, when the house is quieter and the shoes are where they're supposed to be, you'll look back and see that all your invisible work mattered. That even when it felt like too much, you were enough.

So if today was loud and messy and imperfect — same here. We're not failing. We're mothering. And that's more than enough.

• Southern cities dominate RentCafe's top 10 list for renters in the US.
• RentCafe analyzed housing affordability, local economies, and quality of life.
• The South claims 41 of the top 50 cities, highlighting cost of living advantages.

Go South, young man.

Well, if you're a renter, you might want to at least consider it.

According to a new analysis from research firm RentCafe, the 10 best cities in the US for renters are all in southern states, such as the Carolinas, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama.

To compile the list, RentCafe considered 20 metrics across three categories: housing affordability, the attractiveness of local economies, and quality of life.

From sources like the Census Bureau and Yardi Matrix, the firm looked at stats like local unemployment rates, average apartment square footage, income growth, how many apartments in the city are new, average commute times, and more.

"The South firmly establishes itself as the top region for renters in 2025, by claiming an impressive 41 of the 50 featured cities," wrote Adina Dragos in the report. "This growing interest is reflected in the region's consistently high rankings in key categories, like cost of living and housing and local economy, with nearly all leading cities securing spots within the top 30 for these criteria."

Below are the top 10 on RentCafe's list. Each city's national housing cost of living ranking, which had a 50% weighting in RentCafe's index, is included. The average apartment square footage and the share of new apartments in the city are also shown.

The condo market is seeing a much bigger downturn than the single-family one, with Florida at the epicenter of the slump.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown is deeply concerned about Max Verstappen's potential move from Red Bull to Mercedes.

• McKinsey's global managing partner said humor and vulnerability can help employees open up.
• Bob Sternfels said he likes to take walks with small groups and participate in fun traditions.
• Sternfels said McKinsey is also continuing to focus on professional development for its staff.

What does the head of McKinsey & Company, one of the world's most prestigious consulting firms, say is essential to leading high-performing teams?

Humor.

"A little levity — a joke at your own expense, a lighthearted moment — can go a long way toward building trust, breaking down barriers, and democratizing the team room," Bob Sternfels, McKinsey's global managing partner and chair of the firm's board of directors, told Business Insider in a an email last month.

Founded in 1926, McKinsey is approaching its 100th year in business. Sternfels, who was first elected by the firm's senior partners to lead it in 2021, said that while the firm might look and sound different than when it started, its mission and values have remained.

He was reelected for a second three-year term in 2024 and heads the firm's 40,000 employees around the globe, a 10% reduction from 18 months prior.

In addition to humor, one simple tool he uses to get employees to open up when he visits the firm's offices around the world is walking.

"I like to invite small groups of colleagues on walks whenever I visit one of our offices — it's a great way to get moving and hear what's really on people's minds," he said.

He also said he likes to join in on fun traditions that colleagues invite him to, like mochi-making in Tokyo, a hot wing challenge in Phoenix, and karaoke in Manila. Participating in these activities helps set a good tone before a town hall, he said, adding, "A little vulnerability on my part helps people open up."

Sternfels is leading McKinsey as the consulting industry faces disruption brought on by AI, and the global economy faces major changes.

A spokesperson for the firm said in May that AI was driving new levels of productivity and that it planned to hire thousands of new consultants this year.

Sternfels said he's drilling down on three main issues in 2025. ("If you know anything about McKinsey consultants, you'll know we rarely have a single answer," he wrote.) They are: distinctive impact with clients, unrivaled employee development, and staying global as a firm.

He said McKinsey was committed to professional development, noting Time magazine ranked it the "best company for future leaders" two years in a row.

"We're also not shying away from continuing to build a diverse meritocracy. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from — it only matters what you've got," he wrote.

As for what he sees as the biggest growth areas looking forward, he said many CEOs are trying to navigate shifting trade policy and supply chain issues, and that "building a musical around geopolitics" is essential for this moment.

Capturing the productivity gains of AI remains top of mind, and it's clear that just incorporating the technology won't be enough.

"Companies will have to really rewire their organizations to fully benefit," he said of AI.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at @kelseyv.21. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• "Love Island USA" is a game show about finding true love and testing that connection.
• Despite the premise of the show, most of the contestants have failed to make strong connections.
• They seem too preoccupied with perception, reflecting our culture of social media and surveillance.

If you want to understand how constantly carrying a camera in your pocket has affected the way we think, behave, and fall in love, watch "Love Island USA."

On Tuesday, the 26th (!!!) episode of season seven aired on Peacock, meaning the original cast members have been secluded in an open-air Fiji villa for about one month. Based on how the show typically progresses, by this time, there should be several strong connections between the islanders, couples for the viewers to root for and, eventually, to vote for as joint winners of a $100,000 cash prize.

Instead, a common refrain among viewers online is that, at this point, no one deserves the money. Calls for the producers to "cut the cameras" and "delete the whole cast" abound.

This season has made a negative impression for various reasons, chief among them being an apparent lack of sincerity. The islanders seem hyper-aware of their role as entertainers and competitors, much too preoccupied with how they're being perceived by an invisible audience to be truly honest and vulnerable with each other.

Can we blame them?

It's not only that cameras are pointed at the islanders from every angle, in every nook and cranny of the villa, during every minute of the day — it's that reality TV has reached the point where viable cast members are already accustomed to those exact conditions.

It's painfully clear that living in an age of constant surveillance has taken its toll on these twentysomethings. This season, the cast's ages have ranged from 21 (Vanna) to 29 (Zak), though most hover in the 23-27 range. Their lives have been defined by the advent and proliferation of smartphones; the rise of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok; and with these gadgets and platforms, a new kind of celebrity known as the "influencer." These days, some genre of content creator is one of the most commonly cited dream jobs for Gen Alpha kids.

Speaking as someone who came of age in a post-9/11 world, who happily forked over my personal data to Mark Zuckerberg when I had yet to hit puberty, my generation's expectation of privacy ceased to exist pretty quickly. But when a person grows up idolizing those who found fame by broadcasting their personal lives, the value of privacy is also lost.

Meanwhile, the expectation to perform is more intense than ever. Even beyond the villa, it feels like there are spectators everywhere we go — with the way social media trends leak into real life and how people have normalized filming strangers and themselves in the hopes of going viral.

Amaya Espinal is one of the few islanders not afraid to show real emotion

Inside the villa, this expectation is dialed up to maximum levels. With the exception of Amaya Espinal — who is so raw and sincere that her willingness to express emotion has been repeatedly mocked by her castmates — the Gen Zers on "Love Island" seem to be putting up a front because they probably are; it comes as naturally to them as posing for a photo or curating a dating app profile.

This inevitably makes it difficult for the islanders to forge genuine intimacy, especially in the fires of reality TV. As April Eldemire, a licensed marriage and family therapist, previously told Business Insider's Julia Pugachevsky, vulnerability and open communication are keys to a lasting relationship. "You have to go in with open eyes," she said.

However, this doesn't necessarily make the islanders "fake." It makes them products of an environment that billionaires and tech companies created — and a tragic mirror for the rest of us.

• Jeremiah Peoples taught himself how to code while in the military after dropping out of college.
• He got to leverage his new skills at an apprenticeship in the military but felt impostor syndrome.
• Peoples overcame his doubts and landed a job at Slack after his service.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeremiah Peoples, a 28-year-old staff developer advocate at Slack in Austin. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I work in software engineering as a staff developer advocate without a college degree. After my first semester in Butler University's computer science program, I dropped out and joined the military in May 2016.

While in the military, I taught myself how to code. In February 2020, I started a six-month temporary duty assignment, similar to an apprenticeship, to build satellite applications.

I was immediately reminded of how little I knew. After work, I felt terrible because I felt inadequate and thought they had made a mistake by hiring me.

I ended my enlistment in the military in May 2022 and started at Slack that same month. I've overcome that impostor syndrome.

My job in the military was as an intelligence analyst

I assessed dangers around the world in real time, trying to provide value that could be helpful to the US and military operations.

I enjoyed progressing in rank, the camaraderie, and the structure. In 2019, I volunteered to deploy to the Middle East, where I worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, in a war zone.

While in the Middle East, I realized this wasn't how I wanted to spend the best years of my life.

I needed a change

I started to make a plan and research other careers on YouTube. I saw a few creators who became software engineers without going to college.

I reverse-engineered what they did. I decided to study their videos, essentially do what they did, and hopefully try to achieve the same success.

I started with learning Python from a book, but after a month of working with it, I realized it wasn't the type of coding I wanted to do. I switched from learning Python to JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through an online course that I bought.

Learning to code was tough but really exciting

After my 12-hour shifts, there wasn't much to do besides work out or study. I studied every single day for three hours. I was having a good time and making progress.

I blended my background as an intelligence analyst with my ability to write code, which is how I started working on some technical coding projects in my intelligence job.

After that, I used it to land my temporary duty assignment with Section 31, an Air Force unit in Southern California tasked with creating applications for the Space Force. I was simultaneously an intelligence analyst and a software engineer.

My doubt lasted for over half of the apprenticeship

The feeling of doubt lasted for around three and a half months. It eventually clicked for me that I wasn't supposed to get it that quickly.

I grew up playing sports, and I thought of learning to code as learning sports. I had only been learning to code for about a year, and I was working alongside people who had been working in the industry for longer.

I had to realize that's OK. They're not expecting me to be a professional coder, but they want me to learn and grow. That's when I finally started to turn a corner and realize that I need to increase my reps, study, and practice like I would a sport.

Having a mentor really helped me

When I got a mentor, he streamlined everything I learned, helped me apply it, and told me what I didn't need to learn. Finding a mentor I was comfortable with and someone who had already achieved success where I wanted to achieve success was probably the most important part of my learning.

When I returned home from Iraq, I had two mentors. One was in the Air Force, a senior engineer in my squadron, and I just attached myself to him and asked him so many questions. He was so patient with me. I had another mentor who was a civilian.

I have some mentors now at Slack who are able to challenge me and help me grow.

There's not a single thing I would do differently

I'm extremely grateful and blessed to be in the position I'm in today.

In the Space Force apprenticeship, I did pair programming, which means you sit with another engineer and go back and forth. One writes the technical test, and the other writes the code to make that test pass.

Every time I heard a phrase that I didn't know in a meeting or saw a line of code that I didn't understand, I made note of it. Then, for 30 minutes every single day, I would talk to my mentor and just try to get better.

If you're feeling impostor syndrome, look in the mirror and tell yourself that the people who hired you are smart people, and they hired you for a reason.

As a staff developer advocate now, it's my job to know how to create custom applications in Slack and then teach them to all of our customers around the world with content via on-site workshops, presentations, keynotes, and virtual content.

In 2020, I started a YouTube channel

I documented my process and created content about software engineering. When I was separating from the Air Force in 2022, I put out a little teaser video on Twitter saying that I was open to work. That post went pretty viral, and I got messages about job opportunities at Google, Amazon, and Slack, where I ended up.

I don't have impostor syndrome anymore because I understand what it is. The only way to get through it is by being confident in your abilities.

I'm now confident in my abilities and what I can offer my employer and my community.

Did you land a job without a college degree? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• America's Frontier Fund is raising up to $315 million for its first fund, per a pitch deck viewed by BI.
• The fund will invest $175 million in government loans and $140 million in private capital in national security startups.
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel have invested in the firm's nonprofit foundation.

A national security-focused VC fund, America's Frontier Fund, is raising a large new fund, capitalizing on the sector's support as the Trump administration rallies behind defense tech.

The firm is raising up to $315 million for its first fund, called the Frontier Fund, according to a pitch deck viewed by Business Insider. In early 2023, the target for the fund was $500 million, per an SEC filing.

The fund will consist of $140 million of private capital from limited partners and $175 million of government loans, according to the deck. The fundraise hasn't closed yet, and the terms of the deal could change. Part of the funding will come through the Small Business Investment Company Critical Technology Initiative, a program launched by the Defense Department and the Small Business Administration to grow private investment in biotech, quantum science, advanced materials, AI, space, and more.

A spokesperson for the venture firm declined to comment on the fundraise.

America's Frontier Fund will receive government-guaranteed loans, matching private investments up to $175 million. The firm will repay the loan with interest over a ten-year period, according to Washington Business Journal, which first reported the fund's government loans in 2024. The fund has also raised $100 million from the state of New Mexico, Bloomberg reported in 2023. The private capital raise has not been previously reported.

The Frontier Fund will give the Arlington, Va.-based firm fresh cash to back startups building frontier technologies — advanced manufacturing, compute solutions, energy, and other highly technical fields — that support American economic and geopolitical influence. America's Frontier Fund recently invested in Venus Aerospace, which makes hypersonic engine technology, and Foundation Alloy, a metal production startup.

$315 million is large for a first fund; market downturn, delayed initial public offerings, and more have hampered venture firm's capacity to raise large sums of money from limited partners. In 2024, 121 US-based venture capital firms raised funds for the first time, notching $5.7 billion in commitments. That year, the average size of a US-based firm's first fund was just under $41 million, over $270 million smaller than the Frontier Fund, according to data firm Pitchbook.

Investments in the defense tech space have surged up to $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, compared with $200 million the same period last year, according to Pitchbook.

The firm also invests out of its Roadrunner Venture Studios, which backs pre-seed and seed stage startups building frontier tech primarily in New Mexico. Silicon Valley heavyweights like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel have invested in the firm's separate nonprofit arm, the America's Frontier Fund Foundation, an initiative to support US technological competitiveness, like partnering with the Austin Community College District on expanding its advanced manufacturing program.

Gilman Louie, the CEO of America's Frontier Fund, previously cofounded and ran In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded investment firm. Cofounder and managing partner Jordan Blashek formerly worked at Schmidt Futures, Eric Schmidt's family office, now Schmidt Sciences, a philanthropic organization that funds research in AI, advanced computing, biotech, climate, and other industries.

• Bild AI analyzes blueprints to streamline preconstruction processes.
• The five-month-old startup raised a $3.1 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures.
• Bild estimates material costs and will eventually streamline permitting, its cofounder told BI.

A Columbia grad who was one of Google's youngest engineers and a serial entrepreneur who built hundreds of homes starting at age 16 have their sights set on disrupting the construction industry with AI.

Roop Pal and Puneet Sukhija launched construction startup Bild AI in February and on Xday announced a $3.1 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Mission Street Capital, Ryan Sutton-Gee, and Ooshma Garg.

Bild uses AI to read blueprints and estimate the materials and costs associated with a project. This is currently a timely and error-prone process done by hand, Pal said.

The company, which consists of just Pal and Sukhija, will use its seed to hire engineers aggressively in order to expand its technology, Pal told BI.

The duo came up with the idea for Bild at a Hack for Social Impact event in San Francisco, and were accepted into Y Combinator within days of meeting.

"I was really mostly keen on the issue of affordable housing," Pal, who also previously worked at Waymo, told BI. "There's an opportunity to apply my knowledge in computer vision and AI to really make an impact."

The startup's early clients are material suppliers in the framing, flooring, and door businesses, predominantly for multifamily residences. The company makes money by charging subscription fees.

By cutting down on presconstruction costs, Pal said Bild could also spell savings for renters. "If you have elastic housing markets," he said, "this cost passes through and people save on rent."

Material analysis is just the first layer of Bild's vision, as it incorporates new sub-trades — such as windows and roofing — one by one.

As its blueprint-reading technology becomes more sophisticated, it will ultimately be used in the permitting process, Pal said, to catch compliance issues and cut down on the costly and bureaucratic back-and-forth for residential and non-residential projects alike.

"If you reduce 1% of the cost of a hospital, that's another hospital that we have budget to build," he said. "It can really make a big difference broadly."

In addition to Bild, AI is also infiltrating other aspects of the construction industry, with firms like Shawmut and Suffolk relying on the technology to shore up worker safety.

• Zyn owner Philip Morris International US has launched a patriotic ad blitz.
• PMI wants Americans to know more about its corporate brand.
• The push comes as Zyn has soared in popularity.

The owner of buzzy nicotine pouch brand Zyn is taking over the upper deckys of several national newspapers and websites this Independence Day weekend with a patriotic push.

Sales of Zyn have soared in the past two years. The flavored nicotine pouches, placed between either the lower ("lower decky") or upper ("upper decky") lip and gum, are beloved by TikTokers and the conservative manosphere alike.

Zyn's popularity has propelled parent company Philip Morris International's stock to all-time highs. But few Americans know a great deal about Zyn's corporate owner and its US operations.

So, PMI's US division is running an ad campaign titled "Invested in America" across newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn, YouTube, digital news sites including Business Insider, and selected connected TV channels.

PMI said it's hoping to reach "key opinion leaders" as it reintroduces its corporate US brand to America. It wants to raise awareness that Zyn, which was acquired by PMI from Swedish Match in 2022, is manufactured in the US, from its Kentucky facility. PMI also wants its target audience to know that the company's corporate headquarters is located in Stamford, Connecticut, and that it employs around 2,500 people nationwide.

Marian Salzman, PMI's vice president of corporate development in the US, told Business Insider that she and the company's US CEO, Stacey Kennedy, embarked on a listening tour around the US in the fall of 2023, which ultimately culminated in the "Invested in America" campaign. They found commonality around people "wanting a strong and proud America," Salzman said.

Salzman added that the campaign's ambition is to spark greater recognition of PMI's investments in healthier alternatives to smoking and its investments in US communities through job creation and charitable projects.

Patriotic campaigns follow a trend, but also carry a risk

PMI's flag-waving campaign launches in "Made in the USA" month, as designated by the Federal Trade Commission. Amid a global tariff war and President Donald Trump's push to boost domestic manufacturing, brands such as Ford and American Giant have recently shifted their US advertising to proudly promote their American roots. (Some big brands have also sought to play down their Americanness in their marketing overseas.)

PMI will need to tread carefully, said Marcus Collins, a clinical professor of marketing at the University of Michigan.

PMI's heritage is as a tobacco company — with a somewhat confusing corporate history. PMI separated from Altria Group in 2008. PMI still distributes cigarette brands like Marlboro and Chesterfield overseas, while Altria Group sells cigarette brands, including Marlboro, in the US, under the Philip Morris USA subsidiary.

PMI is attempting to shift more of its global business to smoke-free products. But while generally accepted as safer than smoking, nicotine products can still pose health risks, and there are concerns among public health advocates about the appeal of products like vapes and pouches to teens. (The majority of PMI's US sales are from non-combustible products, though it operates a cigar business it acquired in the Swedish Match deal.)

Collins said patriotism in America can carry many different meanings — from MAGA, to resistance, to the idea of capitalism at all costs, to name a few — and that brands need to be intentional about which of these groups they are targeting.

"I think the idea of, let's just grab on to Americanism and let people make their own judgment call or framing about what we mean when we say 'America' or 'patriotism' leaves you open to so much scrutiny for a brand whose products are already controversial," Collins said.

Salzman said the company's aim for the "Invested in America" campaign is to "spark an intelligent dialogue around change." She added that the company follows a strict marketing code, focusing its advertising only on adults who are of the legal age to use nicotine.

"We know that there's going to be naysayers, we know that there's going to be those who challenge this," Salzman said. "We'd really like to stay out of the political debate, and we'd really like this to be a communal debate about, if you won't quit, change."

• The AI talent wars are intensifying as companies like Meta offer salaries in the mid-six figures.
• Federal filings reveal Meta's wage ranges for researchers, engineers, and other workers.
• The highest-paid research engineer at Meta makes up to $440,000 in base salary.

Meta may be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lure top AI talent from rivals. But how much is it paying its broader workforce of software engineers, product managers, and UX researchers?

Thanks to data from federal filings, we now have a window into the company's salary ranges during a heated moment in Silicon Valley's talent wars.

Software engineers at Meta can make up to $480,000. Machine learning roles go as high as $440,000. Even product designers and researchers routinely top $200,000.

The numbers come from filings that companies must submit to the Department of Labor when hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, which allows them to bring in 85,000 specialized workers annually through a lottery system. Because tech companies typically guard their compensation details closely, these government-mandated disclosures provide a peek into actual pay scales.

The numbers reflect only annual salaries, excluding the stock options, signing bonuses, and other perks that can often double or triple total compensation packages.

The data comes amid intense competition for AI talent in Silicon Valley. Meta is reportedly offering some AI researchers compensation packages worth up to $300 million over four years as it builds out a new Superintelligence lab.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

The frenzy extends beyond tech giants. Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is paying technical staff base salaries of up to $500,000 before the company has launched a single product, Business Insider reported earlier this week.

The battle has gotten personal. After Meta lured away seven OpenAI researchers, including Trapit Bansal, co-creator of the company's o1 reasoning model, OpenAI's chief research officer, Mark Chen, said in an internal memo that it felt like "someone has broken into our home."

Here's what Meta is paying across key roles, based on H-1B filings from the first quarter of 2025.