Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the needle today.
A Texas courtroom became a proving ground for artificial intelligence this year, and the results were decisive. Trial lawyer Mark Lanier used AI tools throughout the social media addiction case against Meta and Google, and he won. Lanier says he pays six figures annually for the technology, and credits it with fundamentally transforming how he prepares and argues complex litigation. That verdict carries real weight for Big Tech's legal exposure going forward.
Shifting to the auto sector, General Motors wrote off ten billion dollars on its Cruise robotaxi experiment before pulling the plug in two thousand twenty four, but the company isn't walking away from autonomous driving. GM is now threading that technology into personally owned vehicles, targeting eyes-off highway capability by two thousand twenty eight, starting with the Cadillac Escalade IQ. Its chief product officer argues the consumer and commercial autonomy roads ultimately converge.
And on the Social Security front, seniors are getting an early read on what their two thousand twenty seven cost-of-living adjustment may look like. The annual COLA is pegged to inflation data, and the latest signals suggest beneficiaries should temper expectations after the outsized adjustments seen in recent years. For millions of retirees on fixed income, even a modest shift in that number carries meaningful consequence.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
