TheChek News Flow

Focus on retailers and suppliers set to benefit from the wave of demand, not the Big Tech players.

Global smart-glasses shipments more than quadrupled to 8.7 million units in 2025; Meta holds over 85% of the market.

Apple, Google, and Samsung are set to launch AI-equipped eyewear, but privacy concerns and mass adoption remain hurdles.

Suppliers like Qualcomm and EssilorLuxottica, and retailers such as Warby Parker, are poised to benefit from smart glasses growth.

Smart glasses could be the next big consumer hardware category, and everyone wants to cash in. Investors looking to play the trend should focus on retailers and suppliers set to benefit from the wave of demand.

The landscape has been transformed since the failure of Google Glass, the search company’s early foray into smart glasses that was axed in 2015. Improvements in design and the rise of artificial intelligence have led to huge advances. The vision of enthusiasts like Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is that AI-equipped glasses could eventually replace the smartphone as the primary consumer device.

“[Smart glasses] can see what you can see and hear what you can hear, and you can have a conversation with it, like you’re talking to a person,” Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s chief financial officer, says. “It’s perfectly suited to have an agentic AI experience.”

Meta Sets the Pace

Meta has taken an early lead with its Ray-Ban-branded eyewear. According to Omdia, global shipments of smart glasses reached 8.7 million units in 2025, more than quadrupling year over year. Meta holds more than 85% of the market. Shipments are expected to reach 15 million this year.

Meta is seeking to cement its lead. On Tuesday, the company said it was expanding its range of smart glasses with two lines aimed at wearers of prescription lenses.

Apple, Google, and Samsung are all expected to launch AI-equipped eyewear soon. But smart glasses will need to scale significantly to make a meaningful contribution for major tech companies. Revenue for Meta’s Reality Labs segment, which includes wearables, was $2.21 billion in 2025, up from $2.15 billion in 2024—a relatively small contribution. Meta doesn’t disclose smart-glasses revenue separately.

Some Wall Street analysts think certain Big Tech brands are better set up for success than their rivals. J.P. Morgan’s Samik Chatterjee estimates Apple could ship 50 million pairs of smart glasses by the end of the decade, worth more than $15 billion in revenue.

Some companies could benefit sooner. EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s manufacturing partner and the owner of Ray-Ban, has already been a major beneficiary. The group hit record highs in late 2025 on rising sales of smart glasses and a reported $3.5 billion investment from Meta. With a market cap of just over $100 billion, EssilorLuxottica has joined the ranks of Europe’s 30 largest public companies.

However, EssilorLuxottica shares have pulled back sharply since last year amid concerns about competition from Apple and Alphabet’s Google. And market share is not the only headwind—there is no guarantee smart glasses will achieve mass adoption or navigate global regulations.

Privacy is the immediate hurdle. Meta and EssilorLuxottica face a lawsuit in the U.S. seeking class-action status over concerns that data collection from smart glasses violates users’ privacy. The claim alleges video captured on the devices is routed to contractors in Africa for AI training purposes, citing whistle-blower complaints.

Meta and EssilorLuxottica didn’t respond to requests for comment. Meta has previously said media stays on a user’s device unless they choose to share it with the company, and that it filters content to protect privacy.

Smart Shopping

New entrants will have to overcome such challenges. In the U.S., Warby Parker is the eyewear partner for Alphabet’s Google. Its stock jumped when the partnership was announced, alongside a $75 million investment from Google.

Warby Parker’s partnerships with Google and Samsung could allow it to double its market share in smart glasses compared with traditional eyewear, according to Stifel analyst Peter McGoldrick. He has a $25 target price and a Hold rating on shares trading near $21, and forecasts sales of about 700,000 pairs by 2030. He noted stronger adoption could push that as high as four million pairs.

Eyewear retailer National Vision is another potential winner. The company plans to roll out Meta smart glasses to all its stores by the end of the second quarter. By 2030, it could generate around 10% of sales and an even larger share of earnings from smart glasses, according to UBS analyst Michael Lasser, who has a Buy rating and a $42 target price. National Vision shares trade near $26 and have more than doubled in the past year as the company focuses on premium products.

Counting Chips

Two large-cap companies already generating revenue from optical hardware are chip companies Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries. Qualcomm aims for more than $2 billion in revenue from extended-reality devices, including smart glasses, by 2029. CFO Palkhiwala told Barron’s the company is “well ahead” of that target, although the stock has fallen 23% over the past 12 months amid concerns about the company’s core smartphone market.

“Qualcomm is the most important merchant supplier because it already sits at the center of Meta’s smart glasses effort and has the broadest commercial wearable/extended reality platform,” said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities.

While Qualcomm provides the central processor—the brain behind smart specs— GlobalFoundries makes components for displays and radio signals. Its display technology will be key as the market shifts toward glasses with built-in screens.

GlobalFoundries’ senior vice president of end markets, Faisal Saleem, envisions a world where 10% of glasses wearers adopt smart versions, meaning 300 million customers replacing pairs every two years.

“This is over a billion dollars’ worth of opportunity for all the foundries combined,” Saleem says. “I think we have a really good shot at being the dominant player for this particular category.”

Power and Intellectual Property

Batteries are another key component. Nasdaq-traded Enovix, a specialist in high-energy-density, silicon-anode batteries, is one U.S. player to watch. Benchmark Research analyst Mickey Legg has a Buy rating and a $25 target price. Struggles in the smartphone market have pushed shares down more than 30% over the past year to around $5, but smart glasses offer potential for a turnaround.

“Smart eyewear remains a nascent market with no clear incumbent, offering Enovix an opportunity to establish early leadership,” Legg wrote.

A more speculative bet is augmented-reality hardware specialist Vuzix. While its product revenue is negligible by Big Tech standards and it has a market cap of just $200 million, it claims more than 450 patents and patents pending, along with intellectual-property licenses across optics, head-mounted displays, and wearables.

“Augmented reality could end up looking a lot like the royalty layer in smartphones, where a small set of IP owners extract value from a much larger hardware ecosystem,” Boloor said.

The shift from niche to mainstream appears under way for smart glasses. The entry of Apple and Google should add momentum and spur innovation around privacy and cost. Picking a winner may be difficult, but backing the suppliers and retailers enabling the ecosystem could be the smarter way to play the smart glasses revolution.

Who Needs Las Vegas When You Have a Casino in Your Pocket?

Las Vegas is hoping that rapid growth in high-tech businesses and logistics will offset its stagnant gaming industry.

Las Vegas visitation dropped 7.5% in 2025, the sharpest annual decline since 1970, with Canadian visitors down nearly a quarter.

Las Vegas is diversifying beyond gaming, developing into a hub for logistics, high-tech start-ups, and expanding its healthcare sector.

Following Reno’s successful diversification into tech and manufacturing, Las Vegas aims to integrate new industries alongside enduring gaming.

LAS VEGAS—Sin City isn’t luring enough sinners.

Visitations have been declining. Real estate prices are falling. The metro area’s 5.2% unemployment rate is nearly a percentage point higher than it is nationally. But you don’t need those statistics to know that all is not right in Las Vegas.

Outside, the pulsing Saturday night crowds on the Strip dwindle fast. By midweek, many pedestrians sport convention badges, showcasing one of the city’s few tourism bright spots. On one block, an older man hands out fliers for an adult entertainment venue while another sits on an overturned bucket, takeaway food containers arranged like plastic soldiers at his swollen feet. The Bellagio fountains draw crowds, but elsewhere sidewalks have only sporadic foot traffic.

In the cavernous casinos, shop windows reflect on empty corridors, luxury goods sparkle unseen under spotlights. It feels like a party at the mall that ended hours before.

The reasons for the city’s woes are many—competition, inflation, geopolitics—and many Vegas casino stocks have underperformed the S&P 500

in recent years. At first glance, it seems like Vegas could be headed for a fate worse than death; consider that Atlantic City, N.J., never got its mojo back after gambling faltered.

The travails of Las Vegas come at a time when Americans are gambling more than ever. The problem is that much of the new business is going online to sports betting sites and prediction markets. That’s a big reason that Vegas has seen a drop in visitations, even as other domestic tourist destinations are having good years.

Yet the pearl-clutching (or rhinestone-clutching?) about Vegas’ future overlooks the fact that the city is already working on its next act. While gambling revenue has been stagnant for decades, casinos have been offsetting it by offering other attractions, from shows to spas to world-class restaurants.

The far more important transformation is happening outside the gambling industry. Sin City is turning itself into a hub for logistics and high-tech start-ups staffed by highly educated white-collar and skilled professionals. At the same, the metro area’s warm weather, moderate costs, and lack of state income tax is luring retirees, and the city’s healthcare sector is rapidly expanding to accommodate them.

Las Vegas even has a model for its ambitions some 400 miles to the north in smaller Reno, Nev., which has become an industrial hot spot. In a best-case scenario, Las Vegas tourism recovers even as new industries grow and expand.

“[Las Vegas] will still be a world-class city for leisure, hospitality and gaming, but we need strong secondary industries,” says Andrew Woods, director of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Center for Business and Economic Research. “We’re living through a time where states and communities have to make their own destinies.”

The Black Fire Innovation institute at the UNLV campus is a success story. It opened in 2020 in collaboration with Caesars Entertainment

and has fueled both tech innovation and early-stage start-up companies. Two spinouts include Quantum Copper, commercializing a polymer technology with fire-retardant characteristics that can improve the safety of electric-vehicle batteries, and WAVR Technologies, focused on atmospheric water harvesting—a key technology in an arid state.

Las Vegas has other wins, too. Air Liquide opened its largest liquid hydrogen production and logistics infrastructure facility in North Las Vegas. Haddington Dynamics is a Las Vegas–based robotics and automation company, and Paysign is a fintech company in neighboring Henderson, Nev.

Las Vegas needs such new players to counter its ailing casino industry. Visitation dropped 7.5% in 2025, the sharpest annual drop since record-keeping began in 1970, excluding the pandemic years. President Donald Trump’s aggressive stance toward Canada is part of the problem. The northern neighbor is Las Vegas’ biggest foreign market, but those visitors dropped by nearly a quarter last year, or about 200,000—the steepest annual decline in half a century, excluding the Covid-19 pandemic. Direct flights from South Korea mean passenger traffic from that country is up by more than a quarter, but those numbers aren’t enough to offset the decline.

Overall, 2026 may be another mediocre year: Early estimates had visitation inching up, but considering the war in Iran, high gas prices at home, and headaches at the airport, some of those expected tourists may not materialize.

And Las Vegas is no longer a cheap getaway. In 2025, the average daily room rate was $183.52, up from $132.69 in 2019, and nearly every major hotel on the Strip charges a daily resort fee on top of that. Formerly free perks like parking are now another cost, as are the drinks that used to be complimentary for gamblers.

The casinos are squeezing gamblers to increase their take. Many roulette wheels now feature three zero spaces instead of two, while blackjack tables often offer $6 payouts for every $5 bet rather than the former 3:2 ratio, reducing players’ winnings. More than ever, “the odds are against the gambler,” says Kevin Gale, co-chief investment officer at wealth management firm Ancora.

Despite that, running casinos hasn’t been a great business for a while. Gaming revenue has been basically stagnant for nearly three decades, when adjusted for inflation. And online sports betting is now luring away new customers. The number of 20-something travelers in Las Vegas is roughly half prepandemic levels.

“Virtually every state has gaming now; the younger generation is face-to-phone, busy sports gambling; the trade war is a big hindrance to Canadian tourism; and like everywhere else, the cost of everything has gone up,” says Gale. “Las Vegas is being hit with a confluence of multiple things at once.”

The pain is reflected in the stocks of casinos, including Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, and Golden Entertainment. Shares of VICI Properties, the city’s major real estate investment trust that owns iconic properties like Caesars Palace and the Venetian, have gone nowhere over the past five years, hurt by a mixed earnings record, concerns about its debt load, and uncertainty about its casino tenants.

Plenty of old Las Vegas staples are gone, and high prices are keeping some visitors away.

Plenty of old Las Vegas staples are gone...

Plenty of old Las Vegas staples are gone, and high prices are keeping some visitors away.

...and high prices are keeping some visitors away.

Las Vegas has remade itself before. The 2007-09 financial crisis was a wake-up call to the state. The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development began operations in 2012 with a mission to create a more sustainable economy and high-paying jobs, and it has made significant progress, says the office’s senior director of Strategic Programs & Innovation, Karsten Heise. Wins include the Google data center in Henderson and CAE’s state-of-the-art flight training center overlooking Harry Reid International Airport.

Nevada itself should provide a tailwind. The state was the third-fastest growing in terms of new businesses with employees created after the pandemic, with some 7,000 new formations in December 2025 alone, leading to a 12% year-over-year jump in business licensing fees that month.

Allegiant Stadium hosted the 2024 Super Bowl just four years after it was erected to lure the Raiders pro football team to Las Vegas. And the storied Tropicana Hotel on the Strip was demolished to make room for a new baseball stadium for when the Oakland Athletics move to Las Vegas in 2028. NHL hockey is already in town, and NBA basketball is likely to follow.

Healthcare employment in Nevada has doubled over two decades, with another 28% bump projected by 2030. Demographics are on healthcare’s side, with one in five people in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson above the age of 65. Chris Loftus, chief executive of West Henderson Hospital, says that a state bill, SB5, should further boost healthcare in Nevada by recruiting doctors and expediting the credentialing process.

Other solutions can use government help as well. Nevada has potentially the largest lithium deposit in the world, but it has been lagging behind in terms of incentivizing intermediary steps like refining that could provide true vertical integration for local battery and electronics makers.

Skeptics say that Las Vegas can’t wean itself from its slots-based economy. Yet in many ways, a framework for transformation exists within its own state, roughly seven hours up Highway 95.

Reno was in such dire straits after the 2007-09 recession that “it felt like we had to diversify and grow or simply accept oblivion as a fate,” says Fred Steinmann, director of the University Center for Economic Development at the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Business.

Today, things look different. The region has leaned more into outdoor leisure—including Lake Tahoe—while tech and manufacturing have stolen the show. Reno’s growing Lithium Loop tech hub includes the Tesla-Panasonic Gigafactory, battery recycler Redwood Materials (begun by a Tesla veteran), and battery maker Dragonfly Energy Holdings, which traces its roots to the University of Nevada campus in Reno.

The collaboration among “companies, the University of Nevada, and the Nevada Tech Hub creates a practical environment to design, prototype, and manufacture,” says Dragonfly CEO Denis Phares.

Employees prepare key electronic components that regulate performance and safety in lithium battery packs at Dragonfly Energy’s manufacturing facility. (Photograph by Bridget Bennett)

The university is leaning hard into that success. Its College of Engineering is opening a new semiconductor nanofabrication and advanced materials lab, one of just a dozen such U.S. facilities.

Reno has attracted so many companies, and incubated new ones, that its economy is already more resilient, even as its downtown casinos lose business to tribal casinos in Northern California. The city, which took the better part of a decade to fully recover from the 2007-09 recession, reported real gross domestic product of $34 billion in 2023, up from less than $23 billion in 2010—and economic growth in Reno’s Washoe County is outpacing that of Las Vegas’ Clark County for the first time in decades.

A cautionary tale, of course, lies 2,500 miles away in Atlantic City. The famous New Jersey seaside resort town went from credibly calling itself the World’s Playground during its 1920’s golden age, when it boasted a Ritz Carlton, to being a punchline a few decades later, hurt by corruption and competition. Although it is seeing a modest visitation revival postpandemic, it remains just an echo of its heyday, its downtown hampered by crime and high vacancies.

Las Vegas’ world-famous Strip and long history means it’s unlikely to suffer that fate—nor is it likely to swap casinos for semiconductors wholesale. Gaming will endure but increasingly share the spotlight with new businesses, wellness resorts, and professional sports. The popularity of the Sphere entertainment and music area in nearby Paradise, Nev., alongside the rally in Sphere Entertainment, show that there is still a strong appetite for novel, exclusive entertainment. “Only in Vegas” is more than a slogan—it’s a recipe for bringing people back.

It is, however, working to attract new residents, visitors, and businesses alike, a process that’s advancing slowly but surely. Clark County is home to multiple Nevada Tech Hub consortium members as well as natural attractions like the Valley of Fire and Red Rock Canyon, so borrowing some lessons from Reno is a feasible way to broaden its economic base.

The casino stocks themselves look dicier, at least until tourism turns around. Caesars’ turnaround could come to fruition next year if the company delivers its first annual per-share profit since 2023, but that’s a high-risk bet. Likewise, Wynn’s Macau business is finally nearing prepandemic levels, spurring growth hopes, though the Iran war is a big question mark over its United Arab Emirates expansion. Nearby Red Rock Resorts casino may be a safer option to play Vegas’s population boom, as the new Durango Casino & Resorts caters to more-local crowds and has seen success positioning itself at the higher end of the market.

Betting Las Vegas writ large can make a comeback is a wager worth making. Betting on the gaming stocks may take some patience.

Dealers want to see a fuller lineup but a turnaround will be expensive and difficult

This past week, the auto industry descended on New York to unveil its latest models. Nearly half a million people were expected to pass through the sprawling Javits Convention Center, from industry bigwigs to families just coming to ogle hundreds of new vehicles on display.

One auto chief executive, Matt McAlear, took the stage at the New York International Auto Show to make a bold declaration: “We’re here to make things people didn’t see coming.”

Behind that CEO was a pair of Chrysler Pacifica minivans—slightly altered with new headlamps and updated features, or what the auto industry calls a “refresh.” At most brands, such an update wouldn’t merit much fanfare.

For Chrysler, however, a marginal refresh of the only model it sells was a welcome pulse check.

The brand that invented the minivan in the 1980s, and with it a style that became shorthand for American suburban family life, is fighting for survival. Chrysler is one of 14 big car brands owned by the European-American conglomerate Stellantis, a big portfolio compared to General Motors’s four or Ford’s two. And Chrysler is the only major brand to sell just one model.

McAlear said he’s one of the people fighting for Chrysler’s future. Stellantis’s upcoming investor day in May will shed additional light on the future direction of the brand, he said.

“We’re here to make the Chrysler brand feel unexpected again, sharper, unapologetic and, yeah, a lot more attitude than people expect from a minivan brand,” he said. “A minivan brand for now.”

A turnaround will be expensive and difficult. Stellantis will either need to invest a lot more. Or it may need to consider the unthinkable.

For much of its existence, the Chrysler name has been intrinsically tied to Detroit’s Big Three automakers. Crosstown rivals General Motors and Ford Motor have generally always sold more cars, and Chrysler was affectionately called the “little brother” of the car triumvirate. This often made it scrappy and innovative, however, often pioneering technologies like better automatic transmissions, cruise control and four-wheel anti-lock brakes.

A seemingly endless string of corporate mergers, over time, starved the Chrysler name of resources and different models to sell. Ten years ago, it sold two sedans in addition to its minivan. Twenty years ago, Chrysler’s sprawling lineup included midsize and large sedans, an SUV, the quirky PT Cruiser wagon, a sports car and multiple convertibles.

The Pacifica is all that’s left today. Chrysler’s sales last year were down 80% compared to two decades ago. Last year, it sold about 126,000 cars.

Stellantis also owns Jeep, Maserati, Peugeot, Fiat and Alfa Romeo. It was created in a 2021 merger to give those brands the capital to take on the industry’s new challenges like electrification and autonomous driving.

But Stellantis posted a $25 billion loss in 2025, much of which it blamed on a pivot away from electric vehicles in the U.S. Meanwhile, the whole industry is threatened by upstart, high-tech Chinese carmakers that are making lower-cost vehicles.

Big car brand names have died before, like General Motors’ Pontiac and Oldsmobile, or even Chrysler’s onetime family member Plymouth. While GM, Ford and Chrysler together once overwhelmingly dominated American sales, they are now heavily eclipsed by foreign automakers, including ones that make cars in the U.S.

McAlear, 48, was running the Dodge brand when the company tapped him several weeks ago to oversee Chrysler as well. McAlear’s father retired from a career at Chrysler, he said in an interview on the sidelines of the auto show this week. He rode in Chrysler cars from the time he was born.

“It’s my responsibility to be a steward of the brand and set it up for the next person,” McAlear said. The company owes it to its dealers to position Chrysler to be successful and “sell in volume beyond just one nameplate,” he added.

Few car brands carry the kind of name recognition of Chrysler, which alone could drive sales, dealers say. The Pacifica has been America’s top-selling minivan for years. Chrysler just needs an actual portfolio of vehicles to sell, they say.

“Nobody knows Stellantis in this country,” said Jeff Dyke, president of Sonic Automotive, one of the largest car retailers in the U.S. “They sure as hell know Chrysler.”

The brand delivered aerodynamically groundbreaking cars in the 1930s and luxurious land yachts in the ‘60s and ‘70s with “Fine Corinthian Leather.” Generations of American families grew up in Chrysler minivans such as the Town & Country in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The Chrysler 300C sedan of the 2000s became a mainstay in hip-hop videos.

In 2005, nearly 650,000 Chrysler brand vehicles were sold in the U.S., or one out of every four cars for then-parent company DaimlerChrysler.

Then came Chrysler’s sale to a private-equity company in 2007, followed by its bankruptcy, bailout and takeover by Italy’s Fiat, creating Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. In 2021, that company merged with France’s PSA Group to form Stellantis. Highly profitable brands Jeep and Ram took priority.

“They’ve let Chrysler go on the backshelf for a while,” said Steven Wolf, a Texas dealer who started out in the 1970s as a Chrysler dealer.

Today, Wolf sells Stellantis’s other core American brands as well, including Jeep, Ram and Dodge. He’s championed the idea of having a Chrysler model to sell that’s not a minivan.

Around the end of the 1930s, Randy Bierlein’s grandfather first started selling Chrysler vehicles out of his family’s dealership in northern Michigan. The dealership, Schaefer & Bierlein, lays claim to being the country’s oldest.

A fifth-generation owner, Bierlein had ambitions to work for the Chrysler corporation when he got out of college in the early 1970s. Everyone told him he was crazy. He was lucky to sell Chrysler’s cars, he said. So he stayed put.

“Chrysler was always at the top of the food chain in our world,” Bierlein said.

The Schaefer & Bierlein shop in Frankenmuth, Mich., exudes Chrysler. The company’s Pentastar logo is fashioned into the tile on the dealership’s floor. Bierlein’s son, Kyle, is currently CEO of the dealership. When Kyle and his brother acquired some Ford and Chevrolet dealerships two years ago, Randy refused to wear the new family-branded pullover that also bore the logos of Chrysler’s longtime rivals.

“It sat here for a year,” Kyle said. “That’s the loyalty, that’s what he had his whole life.”

Dealers typically retain buyers by selling them one car in a line and then upgrading them to another model a few years later. But Chrysler dealers, Kyle says, are at a disadvantage because there’s only the Pacifica minivan. Some buyers who want an SUV recoil at the thought of owning a Jeep, but there isn’t a Chrysler SUV to offer them.

“Chrysler doesn’t need to come out with a competitor for the Corvette or a Viper or anything like that,” Kyle said. “That’s not what we’re looking for. We need small, midsize SUVs, maybe a sedan, something that we can pump out to people who want them.”

Randy remembers selling Chryslers in the 1970s when the brand was in the midst of its first modern existential threat: the oil crisis.

Sales of Chrysler’s gas-guzzling coupes and sedans were tanking. Lee Iacocca, an iconoclastic ex-Ford executive, was brought in to rescue the company from near-bankruptcy. Iacocca secured a U.S. government loan and revamped the lineup to save the day.

Iacocca’s turnaround worked, bolstered by the launch of a successful minivan line under sister brands Dodge and Plymouth. A new Chrysler LeBaron brought convertibles back to America after a years-long absence. Iacocca also expanded the Chrysler brand to include less-premium, more affordable models.

But the late 1990s merger between Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and Chrysler hardly led to a turnaround for the namesake brand. Cultures clashed, synergies failed to materialize and profits sank.

Dealers loved the Chrysler 300, which had a good amount of Mercedes hardware under the skin, but the brand struggled to adapt to a world where SUVs began to rule American roads.

The brand’s lineup has only dwindled since. Today, the Chrysler nameplate is often sandwiched in at Jeep, Dodge and Ram dealerships.

The 2021 creation of Stellantis was supposed to be a reversal of fortunes for the Chrysler name. Carlos Tavares, the merged automaker’s first CEO, had ambitions of shepherding Chrysler along with the company’s other brands into an all-electric future.

“We are now preparing for the rebound of this brand,” Tavares said of Chrysler in mid-2021.

But at the end of 2024, with Jeep and Ram dealers in revolt over high sticker prices, Tavares and the company’s board agreed to part ways. Tavares declined to comment.

The company brought in Fiat and Jeep veteran Antonio Filosa as CEO, and he is emphasizing the importance of the U.S. market and the need to regain lost market share.

The then-CEO of Chrysler, Chris Feuell, said a compact car priced below $30,000 was underway. The brand also started selling a cheaper version of the Pacifica, called the Voyager. She pinned high hopes on the new Pacifica minivan.

Last month, Feuell left the company, citing personal reasons. Feuell didn’t respond to requests for comment. New products, like a long-teased crossover SUV or electric vehicles, never materialized.

In New York, McAlear said things are changing. “We’re going to have a lot more fun in the coming months,” he said in front of the updated minivan. He touted familiar features like Stow ’n Go seats, which fold into the floor to maximize storage space, and a camera that lets parents see what their kids are doing in the back seats.

“Could you resurrect a brand? Yes, you could,” said Larry Dominique, a former Stellantis senior vice president who left the company in 2024 after decades in executive and product planning roles. “It’s going to take time, a lot of resources, and focus. It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely challenging.”

When you connect medical records and health data to a chatbot, you get results. But you must understand the risks.

As the lab technician prepared my vials, I told him, “I’m going to upload my blood work to AI!”

His response: “Oh boy.”

I agreed. I was more nervous about opening up my medical records to a chatbot than getting my arm pricked.

Others are already doing it. One-third of U.S. adults have turned to artificial intelligence for health advice in the past year, and of those, around 41% uploaded personal medical information to the chatbot, according to a recent survey from the health nonprofit KFF.

Data sharing is getting even easier. In recent months, the most popular AI apps—OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity and Microsoft’s Copilot—unveiled ways to connect your wearables and medical records.

A headache can be benign or life-threatening depending on the context. In the white-hot AI race, a model that can help us navigate that medical complexity—and make sense of our growing pile of health data—could gain an edge.

I let Claude and Perplexity access my health data to search for hidden patterns in my personal metrics, and better understand what the risks are. After lots of prompting, I found that the bots are expert explainers, though occasionally prone to overstatement. I awarded the top chatbot a 🏆 in three scenarios.

And the experience drove home a truth I have long warned about: Gaining AI-enabled medical clarity means losing some privacy. And no, HIPAA doesn’t apply merely because these companies can access your health network’s data.

Sharing the data

Any chatbot will give you an answer to “My back hurts. What should I do?”

These new health-focused AI features offer more personalized responses based on everything you’ve shared. If, say, you’ve had a stomach ulcer, the bot would recommend a painkiller that’s easy on the gut.

OpenAI and Microsoft haven’t made their services widely available yet. Claude and Perplexity’s are in beta, but already available to paying U.S. subscribers (starting at $20 a month) right now. The integrations are off by default—you have to opt in. Sharing Apple Health data was as simple as flipping a switch.

To link my medical records, I had to identify myself to health data connectors that work with the AI companies. For Claude, HealthEx needed my birth date, phone number, face scan and a driver’s license for verification. For Perplexity, B.well took me directly to my medical provider’s portal to grant access.

I could select which categories of information to share with the AI bots, such as medications, and lab results. The more you give the AI, the more personalized the response can be, so I granted full access.

Prompting the bots

Accuracy is essential for health queries, and AI bots are known to make up information. So I consulted Dr. Sumant Ranji, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Ranji was clear he didn’t endorse this practice: “I would definitely not recommend that patients upload their medical records to any AI due to lack of privacy standards.” But he went along with my experiment.

🤖 Prompt #1: What’s my risk for cardiovascular disease? The bots scanned my lipid panels and Apple Watch heart-rate data. The verdict: I’m low risk. I preferred Claude’s scannable format, which used tables and emojis for clarity.

However, Ranji said Perplexity’s response was closer to how he counsels patients. He approved of the AI requesting age and other information for context, and said its “bottom line”—that long-term risk is never zero—was correct.

Claude’s advice, while similar, overemphasized data from my smartwatch, Ranji said. “VO2 max” is a health measurement that suggests how fit you are based on metrics like heart rate during activity. Claude thought mine was “trending volatile.”

Ranji dismissed the “scary-sounding” phrasing, noting that wearable data isn’t clinically reliable. An Anthropic spokesman said the AI is designed to help people navigate complex information and isn’t a substitute for professional medical care.

🏆 The winner: Perplexity

🤖 Prompt #2: What supplements should I take for improved sleep and fitness? For his own recommendation, Ranji consulted an AI bot popular among doctors: OpenEvidence. The free tool pulls its responses from medical journals.

OpenEvidence doesn’t have my information, but its advice to take magnesium and creatine was consistent with suggestions from Perplexity and Claude. It even gave extra female-specific advice, including omega-3 for post-workout recovery.

Perplexity and Claude did point out that my iron levels haven’t been tested, and if they’re low, a supplement could increase energy levels. While Claude suggested a few more supplements than Perplexity, their overall responses were similar.

🏆 The winner: OpenEvidence

🤖 Prompt #3: I’ve been fatigued for three weeks and woke up with a sore throat. Help? Both bots identified dips in my heart-rate variability data and an increase in resting heart rate from my smartwatch, which could indicate my body has been fighting an illness. Perplexity ruled out infection, based on my recent lab results.

Perplexity advised rest and fluids, while Claude also recommended zinc lozenges and saltwater gargles. And it reminded me to pause my Peloton training, recalling an earlier conversation about workouts.

Ranji said the advice from both bots was “practical.”

🏆 The winner: A tie!

Ranji pointed out that none of these cases were emergencies. A recent study in Nature Medicine found that, in early-access testing, OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Health had trouble with emergencies. In one instance, it referred a case of impending respiratory failure to overnight evaluation instead of an ER. An OpenAI spokeswoman said the study doesn’t reflect typical health conversations in ChatGPT.

Ranji also worried past conversations, such as one on homeopathic treatments, could steer the AI away from evidence-based results.

Perplexity said it keeps health chats siloed from general conversations. Anthropic said while Claude health conversations are part of the chatbot’s memory, any specific memory can be deleted in settings at any time. Claude is also designed to provide evidence-based health information, regardless of prior conversations, the spokesman said.

Health data is considered confidential to prevent insurance discrimination and employment bias.

Dr. Ami Bhatt, a cardiologist and the chief innovation officer of the American College of Cardiology, said this data is vulnerable when patients use chatbots, which don’t offer healthcare-grade privacy and security protections. Bhatt wants patients to understand before using chatbots how their health data will be stored or shared.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Have you ever consulted AI for health issues? How was the outcome? Join the conversation below.

After this experiment, I’ll purge any health-related memories and conversations. AI is moving fast, and I don’t want my data caught up in a version of the technology we haven’t met yet.

Anthropic and Perplexity say that users’ health data isn’t used to train models and can be disconnected at any time. (Anthropic offers a HIPAA-ready enterprise version of Claude for healthcare providers.)

Bhatt recognizes that the desire to turn to AI isn’t just the allure of chatbots—it’s a reaction to the current state of healthcare. “We have an access problem,” she says. “We have fewer clinicians than we do patients, and that disparity is going to increase.”

I relate. My results were normal so my doctor didn’t follow up. But I wanted to know more about my numbers, and AI filled that gap.

**Four Journalistic Investigations Put LVMH's Communications Team Under Pressure**

The group's head of external relations, Jean-Charles Trehan, already overwhelmed by the recent uncontrolled media outing of Hélène Mercier-Arnault, now faces a series of investigations set to hit newsstands and bookshops.

The LVMH group, and in particular the family of CEO Bernard Arnault, is about to make front pages at newsstands — and perhaps feature prominently in bookshop displays — before the end of the year. Enough to make the communications teams of the world's leading luxury group decidedly jittery, starting with Jean-Charles Trehan, its powerful head of external relations since 2017.

Thirteen years after *L'Ange exterminateur* by journalist Airy Routier (Albin Michel), the last unauthorised biography of the luxury boss, a new portrait book will be published in autumn, written in English by two Wall Street Journal journalists, Nick Kostov and Stacy Meichtry, and published by St Martin's Press. Over the summer, a six-part series in *Le Monde*, penned by Raphaëlle Bacqué and Vanessa Schneider, will take stock of Bernard Arnault and his group in the midst of a generational transition. Like the 2018 series on Karl Lagerfeld, this one could well give rise to a book in an expanded edition. An investigation in *L'Express* is also planned before the summer. More imminently — just a few days before the AGM on 23 April — *Le Nouvel Obs* will publish its own piece, less than two years after its cover story on "The influential Bernard Arnault" that ran at the end of 2024.

**The Financial Communications Team on Edge Too**

A veritable avalanche, then, for a group accustomed to exercising tight control over what is written about it — leveraging both its position as owner of a significant portion of the financial press (*Les Echos*, *Challenges*, *Boursier.com*, etc.) and its clout as a major advertiser with the magazine press. Jean-Charles Trehan, who operates in the shadow of Antoine Arnault — head of the group's image and the eldest of the Arnault sons — appears increasingly strained in his efforts to keep family rifts under wraps. He had already been completely wrong-footed in February by the peculiar media outing of Hélène Mercier-Arnault.

That operation had allowed the pianist to give her version of the family situation, while also promoting her latest record. It had been organised behind the group's back by Louis Jublin, the personal new impresario of Bernard Arnault's wife (*La Lettre* of 24/02/26 and 27/02/26). In the midst of the communications crisis, Jean-Charles Trehan and LVMH's communications director, Hélène Freyss, politely kept silent, while politicians and comedians were quick to seize on the remarks made by France's first lady of luxury regarding taxes and public spending — and then on the homeless, once the various RTL rushes were leaked by *Le Canard Enchaîné*, *Mediapart* and *Blast*.

The communications teams are not the only ones on edge. CFO Cécile Cabanis is also fielding an ever-growing number of questions from investors and analysts about the CEO's age and succession plans. Together with LVMH's deputy chief executive Stéphane Bianchi, she is bracing for an AGM at which the topic is likely to surface, while the first-quarter results — due to be announced on 13 April — are unlikely to reassure retail shareholders.

Le directeur des relations exterieures du groupe, Jean-Charles Trehan, deja depasse par la recente sortie mediatique non controlee d'Helene Mercier-Arnault, doit desormais faire face a une serie d'enquetes a venir en kiosque et en librairie.

Le groupe LVMH, et en particulier la famille du PDG Bernard Arnault, va faire la Une des kiosques et peut-etre jouer les tetes de gondole en librairie d'ici a la fin de l'annee. De quoi rendre febriles les equipes de communication du leader mondial du luxe, a commencer par Jean-Charles Trehan, son puissant directeur des relations exterieures depuis 2017.

Treize ans apres L'Ange exterminateur du journaliste Airy Routier (Albin Michel), derniere biographie non autorisee du boss du luxe, un nouveau livre portrait parattra a l'automne, ecrit en anglais par deux journalistes du Wall Street Journal, Nick Kostov et Stacy Meichtry, publie par St Martin's Press. Pendant l'ete, une serie du Monde en six episodes sous les plumes de Raphaelle Bacque et Vanessa Schneider fera le point sur Bernard Arnault et son groupe en pleine transition generationnelle. Comme celle de 2018 sur Karl Lagerfeld, cette serie est susceptible de donner naissance a un livre, dans une version augmentee. Une enquete dans

L'Express est aussi prevue avant l'ete. A plus courte echeance, soit quelques jours avant

l'assemblee generale du 23 avril, Le Nouvel Obs sortira la sienne, moins de deux ans apres celle sur "L'influent Bernard Arnault" qui avait fait la Une fin 2024.

La com' financiere a cran aussi

Une avalanche, done, pour un groupe habitue a contr6ler fortement ce qui s'ecrit sur lui en tirant parti a la fois de son rang de proprietaire d'un large segment de la presse economique (Les Echos, Challenges, Boursier.com, etc.) et de sa position de force comme annonceur aupres de la presse magazine. Jean-Charles Trehan, qui ceuvre dans l'ombre d'Antoine Arnault, directeur de l'image du groupe et premier des fils Arnault, semble de plus en plus peiner a mettre les dissensions familiales sous le tapis. 11 avait deja ete totalement depasse, en fevrier, par la dr6le de sortie mediatique d'Helene Mercier-Arnault.

Cette operation avait permis a la pianiste de donner sa version de la situation familiale, en plus de faire la promotion de son dernier disque. Elle avait ete organisee dans le dos du groupe par Louis Jublin, le nouvel impresario personnel de la femme de Bernard Arnault (LL du 24/02/26 et du 27/02/26). En pleine crise de com', Jean-Charles Trehan et la directrice de la communication de LVMH, Helene Freyss, ont poliment garde le silence, alors que politiques et humoristes se sont vite empares des remarques de la premiere dame du luxe franr;ais sur les taxes et les depenses publiques, puis sur les SDF une fois les differents rushs de RTL divulgues par Le Canard enchaine, Mediapart et Blast.

Les services de communication ne sont d'ailleurs pas les seuls a etre a cran. La directrice financiere, Cecile Cabanis, doit, elle aussi, repondre a de plus en plus de questions de la part des investisseurs et des analystes sur l'age du PDG et ses choix de succession. Avec le directeur general delegue de LVMH, Stephane Bianchi, elle se prepare a une assemblee generale durant laquelle ce sujet pourrait etre aborde, tandis que les resultats du premier trimestre, qui seront annonces le 13 avril, ne devraient pas etre a meme de rassurer les petits porteurs.

• Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., are probing potential insider trading in government, sending a letter to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Defense Department inspector general.
• The senators cited public reporting of “large positions in equities and equity-linked derivatives” being built up before major policy announcements, such as the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s tariffs agenda.
• The lawmakers also cited a recent report that a broker tied to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to make a multimillion-dollar investment in a defense-linked ETF weeks before the Iran war.

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., demanded answers on potential insider trading in government in a letter sent Thursday to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Defense inspector general.

The senators cited public reporting of “large positions in equities and equity-linked derivatives” being built up before major policy announcements, such as decisions related to the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s tariffs agenda. And they suggested those instances indicate “federal officials are disclosing material nonpublic information for financial gain.”

“Recent reports of equity trading that occurred shortly before significant government policy announcements suggest that federal officials are disclosing material nonpublic information for financial gain,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Pentagon IG Platte Moring. “These actions undermine public interest and market integrity, and demand oversight by each of your respective authorities, as well as by Congress.”

The letter comes after a slew of reporting that positions have been built up ahead of major policy announcements, which could yield a large benefit afterward. Prediction markets have caught similar heat recently, and the Financial Times reported that a broker associated with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looked to make a multimillion-dollar buy into a defense-related fund before the White House began the war against Iran.

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Schiff said the “possibility that someone connected to the Secretary of Defense may have been attempting to trade on material non-public information is highly concerning, and presents serious implications for U.S. national security.”

They said the “appearance that material nonpublic information may be unevenly distributed in advance of government announcements risks undermining investor confidence and the integrity of U.S. capital markets.”

Warner and Schiff asked Atkins and Moring to answer a series of questions, including whether their agencies intend to review the trading activity; what tools their agencies use to detect suspicious trading; whether there are gaps in their agencies’ monitoring; and the safeguards and enforcement measures both agencies have to prevent the unauthorized dissemination of nonpublic information and to prevent federal officials from using nonpublic information for personal gain.

“At a time of heightened market sensitivity to policy developments, it is critical that all market participants operate on a level playing field,” they wrote.

“The DoD OIG is reviewing the letter and we have no further comment at this time,” Defense Department inspector general’s office spokeswoman Mollie Halpern said.

The SEC declined to comment on the letter.

La Lettre — 3 avril 2026 | Résumé bilingue

🇫🇷 FRANÇAIS

Élysée — Dircab sur le départ Georges-François Leclerc, directeur de cabinet d'Emmanuel Macron nommé il y a moins de six mois, serait déjà sur le départ. Sa réputation de manager difficile et ses frictions avec le ministre de l'intérieur Laurent Nuñez accélèrent la séquence. Son départ pourrait coïncider avec celui du secrétaire général Emmanuel Moulin, candidat déclaré à la gouvernance de la Banque de France. Son successeur au poste de chef de cabinet est Laurent Carrié, conseiller territoires promu en interne.

Pacte migration — Équation parlementaire impossible Laurent Nuñez, confronté à la transposition du Pacte européen sur la migration et l'asile d'ici le 12-24 juin 2026, n'entrevoit aucune majorité à l'Assemblée nationale. Il explore la voie des ordonnances, un projet de loi d'habilitation ayant été soumis au Conseil d'État. L'Ofpra a rendu 156 590 décisions en 2025 (+10,3%), un record. Les tribunaux administratifs risquent d'être submergés.

Métropoles — La bataille post-municipales La poussée de la droite et de l'extrême droite recompose les exécutifs métropolitains. Thomas Cazenave (Renaissance) à Bordeaux Métropole, Stéphane Roudaut (LR) à Brest, Éric Ciotti à Nice Côte d'Azur. À Strasbourg, Catherine Trautmann cherche un accord avec les centristes. À Marseille, Nicolas Isnard (LR) prendra la présidence. Plusieurs métropoles de gauche survivent via des accords locaux contraints.

Élysée — Un déontologue enfin nommé Après deux ans de résistance, l'Élysée s'est doté d'un référent déontologue en décembre 2025 : Yannick Desbois, directeur adjoint de cabinet et militaire de carrière, nommé discrètement par Emmanuel Moulin pour trois ans. La fonction, prévue par la loi, avait été réclamée depuis 2021 par l'Observatoire de l'éthique publique.

LVMH — Com' sous pression Le groupe fait face à une avalanche d'enquêtes journalistiques à venir : un livre en anglais signé par deux journalistes du WSJ (Nick Kostov & Stacy Meichtry, St Martin's Press), une série du Monde en six épisodes, une enquête dans L'Express, et une autre dans Le Nouvel Obs. La sortie médiatique incontrôlée d'Hélène Mercier-Arnault en février a déjà fragilisé Jean-Charles Tréhan. La directrice financière Cécile Cabanis est soumise à pression croissante sur la succession de Bernard Arnault. Les résultats du T1 attendus le 13 avril ne devraient pas rassurer.

EDF — Cordemais : fermeture anticipée EDF envisage d'arrêter la tranche 4 de Cordemais avant fin 2026, soit 15 mois avant l'échéance officielle du 31 mars 2027, pour économiser 2-4 M€ de fiscalité. La France est en surcapacité électrique selon RTE. Le personnel est en grève depuis deux mois. Framatome étudie une reconversion industrielle (usine de tuyauteries nucléaires, ~200 emplois, opérationnelle fin 2028).

Accenture — Troisième candidat pour la direction France Cédric Vatier, patron de la division Strategy & Consulting Europe, serait favori pour succéder à Koen Deryckere à la tête d'Accenture Gallia (France, Pays-Bas, Belgique, Luxembourg). Il devance Stéphanie Jandard et Khalid Lahraoui. La succession reste interne.

🇬🇧 ENGLISH

Élysée — Chief of Staff on his way out Georges-François Leclerc, appointed Macron's chief of staff less than six months ago, is reportedly already being eased out. His reputation as a difficult manager and his clashes with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez have accelerated the process. His departure is expected to coincide with that of Secretary-General Emmanuel Moulin, who is angling for the governorship of the Banque de France. Territorial adviser Laurent Carrié has been promoted internally as replacement chief of staff.

Migration Pact — A parliamentary impossibility Interior Minister Nuñez faces a near-impossible task transposing the EU Migration and Asylum Pact before the June 12-24, 2026 deadline, with no parliamentary majority in sight. The government is exploring the ordinance route, with an enabling bill already submitted to the Conseil d'État. The OFPRA processed a record 156,590 decisions in 2025 (+10.3%). Administrative courts risk being overwhelmed.

Metropoles — Post-municipal battle The right and far-right surge at the municipal elections is reshaping metropolitan governance across France. Thomas Cazenave (Renaissance) heads to Bordeaux Métropole, Stéphane Roudaut (LR) to Brest, and Éric Ciotti to Nice. In Strasbourg, Catherine Trautmann is seeking centrist alliances. In Marseille, LR's Nicolas Isnard takes the presidency. Several left-leaning metropoles survive only via constrained local deals.

Élysée — Ethics officer finally appointed After two years of resistance, the Élysée quietly appointed an ethics officer in December 2025: Yannick Desbois, deputy chief of staff and career military officer, named by Secretary-General Moulin for a three-year renewable term. The role, legally mandated, had been demanded since 2021 by the Public Ethics Observatory.

LVMH — Communications under siege The group faces a wave of upcoming investigative journalism: an English-language book by two WSJ reporters (Nick Kostov & Stacy Meichtry, St Martin's Press), a six-part Le Monde series, and pieces in L'Express and Le Nouvel Obs. The uncontrolled media appearance by Hélène Mercier-Arnault in February already blindsided PR chief Jean-Charles Tréhan. CFO Cécile Cabanis faces mounting investor pressure on succession. Q1 results due April 13 are unlikely to reassure.

EDF — Cordemais: early closure EDF is moving to shut down Cordemais unit 4 before end-2026, 15 months ahead of the official March 2027 deadline, saving an estimated €2-4M in taxes. France is currently in electricity surplus according to RTE. Staff have been on strike for nearly two months. Framatome is studying an industrial conversion of the site (nuclear piping plant, ~200 jobs, operational by end-2028).

Accenture — Third candidate for French CEO Cédric Vatier, head of Accenture's Strategy & Consulting division for Europe, is reportedly the frontrunner to succeed Koen Deryckere as head of Accenture Gallia (France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg). He leads over Stéphanie Jandard and Khalid Lahraoui. The succession will be internal.

Microsoft AI, the tech giant’s research lab, announced the release of three foundational AI models on Thursday that can generate text, voice, and images.

The release signals Microsoft’s continued push to build out its own stack of multimodal AI models — and compete with rival AI labs — even though it remains tied to OpenAI.

MAI-Transcribe-1 transcribes speech across 25 different languages into text and is 2.5 times faster than Microsoft’s Azure Fast offering, according to a company press release. MAI-Voice-1 is an audio-generating model. This voice model allows users to generate 60 seconds of audio in one second and allows users to create a custom voice. MAI-Image-2 is a video-generating model.

MAI-Image-2 was originally released on MAI Playground, a new large language model testing software, on March 19. Now, all three models are being released on Microsoft Foundry and the transcription and voice models are available in MAI Playground as well.

The models were developed by Microsoft’s MAI Superintelligence team, an AI research team led by Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, that was formed and announced in November 2025.

“At Microsoft AI, we’re building Humanist AI. We have a distinct view when creating our AI models — putting humans at the center, optimizing for how people actually communicate, training for practical use,” Suleyman wrote in the blog post. “You’ll see more models from us soon in Foundry and directly in Microsoft products and experiences.”

In an increasingly crowded LLM market, MAI hopes a selling point for these models is that they are cheaper than those from Google and OpenAI, the company wrote in the blog post.

MAI-Transcribe-1 starts at $0.36 per hour. MAI-Voice-1 starts at $22 per 1 million characters, and MAI-Image-2 starts at $5 for 1 million tokens for text input and $33 for 1 million tokens for image output.

Despite releasing its own models, Suleyman reaffirmed Microsoft’s commitment to its partnership with OpenAI in an interview with VentureBeat — although a recent renegotiation of that partnership allowed Microsoft to truly pursue this superintelligence research, Suleyman told The Verge.

Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion into the AI research lab and hosts its models in its various products through a multi-year partnership. Microsoft takes the same stance with chips; it both produces its own and buys from outside players as well.