Tech companies are approaching terminal velocity on capex, which will surpass a $500 billion annual run-rate in early 2026. Apple is out of position on AI; CEO Tim Cook has signalled a willingness to consider M&A yet also faces acute political strain in the US

Despite revenues surpassing $2 trillion in 2025, tech is in a fragile transition as most cloud growth is still not driven by gen AI—tariffs, uneven compute build-out and US economic impacts may deliver a bumpy landing in quarters ahead

European tech sovereignty is a mounting political issue, as the continent fights the White House on its regulatory red lines. The financial and cultural impacts of Europe’s lack of tech champions remain intractable

Enormous AI capacity unlocked by 2026, combined with investor pressure for returns, is stimulating a rapid escalation in AI products that could spawn an AI ‘super app’ ecosystem that supplants the world of search and links

There is no turning back: Google is transforming search and YouTube while OpenAI and Perplexity launch AI browsers to capture user attention. OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent moves it further from Microsoft, who is yet to finalise their long-term relationship

Meta may pivot to a closed AI model without an ‘anchor tenant’—feeding Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to revolutionise advertising. Meta is positioning new AI supercharged hardware in the consumer space designed to eclipse the smartphone

Podcast reach and share continue to grow, albeit slowly, aided by need-state differentiation and increasingly online, on-demand media habits.

The ad market remains small with the long tail of podcasts difficult to monetise, but an industry move into video—on both YouTube and Spotify—offers substantial reach and monetisation opportunities.

Publishers and broadcasters see podcasts as an essential brand extension enabling greater reach, whilst successful podcast networks have tapped into more relaxed, commercial formats.