Paradox

The present says prosperity. The trajectory says upheaval.

Author

Malcolm Frank, CEO
February 23, 2026

Paradox

Today’s business zeitgeist: Everything is fine, yet many are terrified.

Unemployment sits below its natural rate. Inflation is behaving. And the sectors some predict to be cratering under the weight of AI anxiety (e.g. enterprise software and services) are beating their quarterly numbers. These aren't failing firms; they’re delivering solid results that would normally bolster investor confidence.  And yet their stocks are getting hammered. The market is pricing in a future it can feel but can't yet measure: a Jobpocalypse, a SaaSpocalypse, pick your portmanteau of doom.

So why the disconnect? Why does fear drown out the data?

Because frontier models and associated applications of AI are getting mind-blowingly good, and doing so at a geometric rate that none of us can truly absorb. 

Consider what landed in just the past month. OpenClaw went from a weekend project to 140,000 GitHub stars and an OpenAI acquisition. Moltbook launched a social network exclusively for AI agents, drawing 1.6 million bot "users" in a week. Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 4.6, which sent shockwaves through multiple service industries. And China’s Spring Festival Gala showcased humanoid robots performing backflips and parkour, making last year’s clumsy dance look ancient. Which, in AI time, it was.

The clockspeed of AI has accelerated materially in the past few months. Huge innovations now land simultaneously, proof that AI is recursive, compounding beyond anyone's ability to fully track. Which raises the question that should keep every executive up at night: if this is where we are now, where will we be in twelve months?

Our collective instinct has moved from fascination to fear, with the recognition that this is suddenly moving too fast and is uncontrolled.  An entire generation of executives was trained to manage within a narrow band of predictable outcomes, yet that band just blew wide open. This is now a market, and a moment, where you cannot look away for a week.  

Thus, the paradox.  The present says prosperity. The trajectory says upheaval.

China’s dancing robots: how worried should we be?

The eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do.

State of IT jobs: AI sparks rapidly changing market for skills

Adapt or be left behind: As AI reshapes the workplace, companies pivot from mass layoffs to a high-stakes hunt for specialized talent.

Wall Street’s latest bet is on “HALO” companies with AI immunity

Call it the AI immunity trade, HALO, for “heavy assets, low obsolescence.”  Names like McDonalds, Exxon, and John Deere are suddenly popular. 

New AI models are losing their edge almost immediately

Competitors can now match state-of-the-art systems in weeks, raising fears about distillation and shrinking advantage.

Why EPAM systems sank this week

A pattern has emerged in Tech Services: leaders print good numbers and the stock falls.  EPAM falls 16% after earnings as future concerns over AI outweigh current performance.  

Half the AI agent market is one category. The rest is wide open

Anthropic’s new data shows software engineering dominates agentic AI. For founders, that’s not a warning. It’s a treasure map.

Tech giants commit billions to Indian AI as New Delhi pushes for superpower status

The great AI land grab: How a historic summit sparked a record-breaking infrastructure spending spree in India.

Meta and other tech firms put restrictions on use of OpenClaw over security fears

Security experts have urged people to be cautious with the viral agentic AI tool, known for being highly capable but also wildly unpredictable.

AI-powered Solution of the Week:
Compliance Assistant for Financial Advisors

Removes bottlenecks in financial advisory compliance by delivering an intelligent, automated review workflow that speeds up approvals, reduces regulatory risk, and keeps advisors compliant without slowing down client acquisition or marketing output.

The $200 billion agentic AI opportunity for tech service providers

As agentic AI moves from experimental pilots to enterprise-wide deployment, tech providers must trade legacy delivery models for autonomous systems to capture a massive new wave of value.

Google VP warns that two types of AI startups may not survive

As the dust starts to settle, two once-hot business models are looking more like cautionary tales: LLM wrappers and AI aggregators. 

Managing the new blend of human and virtual “co-workers”

Rewriting the rulebook: How CHROs are redefining talent management as humans and machines sync up.

Accenture tells senior staff to use AI tools or risk losing out on leadership promotions

Promotions at Accenture now require an "AI-first" mindset, with internal emails confirming that tool usage is now a key factor in talent discussions.

Sam Altman says companies are “AI washing” layoffs

That said, Altman is probably onto something here. According to Challenger, Gray about 55,000 layoffs in 2025 were attributed directly to AI. While that is a significant number of people out of work, it also accounted for less than 1% of job losses for the year. 

And one more thing…

The country that’s madly in love with AI

Who’s afraid of AI? Not South Korea.

Reply

or to participate.