Insights

Healthcare generates vast amounts of real-world data (RWD) from clinical encounters, diagnostics, prescriptions, and patient-generated sources. Despite this data abundance, healthcare outcomes have not improved proportionally, due to a lack of actionable insight that influences decision-making. The problem lies not in data availability or technology but in fragmented evidence generation, which is often retrospective, product-centric, and aligned with regulatory or academic needs rather than system-level improvement. Real-world evidence (RWE) should shift upstream to guide strategic decisions on care pathways and system performance. Emphasizing ecosystem-level evidence, such as patient journeys and service interactions, can enhance diagnosis, reduce variability, and improve outcomes. The CARABELA initiative in Spain exemplifies applying RWE to optimize chronic disease care through collaboration. Ultimately, overcoming organizational barriers to integrating evidence as a strategic asset is crucial to transforming healthcare systems.
Health, Education
Modern healthcare is data‑rich but insight‑poor
Sweden banned all fossil fuel production in 2022 despite having no such industry, driven by the Green party's long-standing campaign and scientific support from the Swedish Geological Survey. The ban, largely symbolic, prevents future fossil fuel exploitation and strengthens Sweden’s leadership in global climate efforts. It bolstered Sweden's influence in EU climate policy and led to joining the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. This move aligns with a global shift to phase out fossil fuels, highlighted by a major international conference led by Colombia, focusing on just transitions and overcoming legal and financial challenges in reducing fossil fuel dependence worldwide.
Why Sweden’s ban on fossil fuel production matters, despite not producing any itself – new research
Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary marks the end of his illiberal regime, with Péter Magyar’s party, Tisza, winning a surprising landslide and a smooth power transition backed by a supermajority. Despite being outspent and marginalized in public media, Tisza capitalized on economic stagnation, opposition unification, scandals involving Fidesz officials, voter fatigue, and Orbán's focus on international rather than domestic issues. Magyar’s moderate right-wing platform and grassroots campaigning successfully engaged voters, offering a robust domestic agenda. This political shift challenges the future of illiberalism in Hungary and may influence similar movements globally.
Was Tisza’s victory in Hungary the beginning of the end for illiberalism?
Mythos, an AI model developed by Anthropic, can autonomously find and exploit zero-day software vulnerabilities, significantly accelerating cyber-attacks. While currently limited to preview access by major tech and financial firms for vulnerability scanning, there is concern that if such technology falls into malicious hands, it could enable faster, larger-scale attacks by less skilled actors. The financial sector is particularly vulnerable due to outdated software and reliance on consolidated cloud providers, raising risks of systemic disruption. For financial inclusion, this heightens cybersecurity threats to smaller banks and fintechs serving vulnerable populations, potentially causing widespread financial disruption and eroding consumer trust.
Financial services
FinDev Guide to Mythos
The publication analyzes regional cooperation and integration among ADB Pacific developing member countries, using a customized index to measure progress. It highlights opportunities to enhance resilient economic growth through increased trade, regional value chains, infrastructure development, and digital connectivity. The study offers policy recommendations to strengthen trade, investment, financial integration, labor mobility, and digital transformation, aiming to address economic constraints and improve integration with external partners in the Pacific region.
Latin America
Regional Cooperation and Integration in the Pacific: Measurement, Trends, and Policies
Sri Lanka’s experience with Tropical Cyclone Ditwah in 2025 revealed that effective disaster recovery depends heavily on pre-established financing arrangements, institutional coordination, and capacity. The cyclone caused $2 billion in damages and highlighted challenges such as the lack of pre-arranged recovery funds, reliance on ad hoc financing, and limited implementation capacity. In response, Sri Lanka, supported by the Asian Development Bank, is strengthening recovery readiness through layered and contingent financing mechanisms for timely, predictable funds, and enhancing institutional systems at all levels. This approach accelerates recovery, supports fiscal stability, and ensures effective "build back better" implementation, offering critical lessons for climate-vulnerable countries.
Financial services
Why Financing Recovery Matters Before Disasters Strike: Lessons from Sri Lanka
Virtual worlds are transforming human interaction, production processes, and business models, with over 88,000 global activities mapped across business, innovation, and research involving 68,000 entities. The EU leads in virtual world research publications and innovation strategies, promoting cross-sector collaboration despite regional fragmentation. Venture capital funding is dominated by the US ($9B) and China ($5.8B), while the EU holds 16% of deals but ranks fourth in total investment. Creative Cultural Industries, Tourism, and Retail are key sectors adopting virtual worlds, while Healthcare, Aerospace & Defence, and Energy sectors remain underutilized, signaling growth opportunities for the EU alongside enabling technologies like XR, AI, and IoT.
Luxembourg | Education, ICT
Virtual Worlds, Real Impact
Collective intelligence enables groups to solve problems and make decisions more effectively than individuals alone. This phenomenon is widespread in nature, seen in fish shoals' coordinated movement and ants' complex mound-building. In humans, it manifests through knowledge passed across generations and decision-making methods like majority voting. The issue explores the evolutionary origins of collective intelligence, its significance in modern societies, and the potential impact of emerging technologies on its future development.
The evolution of collective intelligence
Governance relies on simplifying complex realities into measurable metrics, serving as proxies for local knowledge to manage resources and populations. Data-driven governance has existed throughout history, from Roman censuses to modern bureaucracies, yet all rulers remain constrained by public sentiment, which is difficult to measure directly. Governments approximate sentiment through various proxies, but as societies decline, they often lose effective connection with their citizenry, leading to corrupted information. Metrics themselves have a "half-life," where their accuracy and relevance erode over time due to changing incentives and behaviors, necessitating redefinition or replacement to maintain effective governance.
The Half-Life of Metrics
Auditing AI by Christian Sandvig et al explores the critical need for robust audits of AI systems that increasingly influence areas like healthcare, policing, and employment. The book provides a clear framework for conducting AI audits to identify and address errors, such as biased facial recognition and flawed hiring tools. Using real-world examples—including AI-driven drones causing civilian harm and discriminatory HR software—it demonstrates how audits can drive policy and corporate reforms to protect the public from AI-related harms. Readers gain insight into audit practices, interpretation, and actionable responses to promote safer, fairer AI deployment.
Auditing AI
A new global landscape is reshaping US priorities, driven by shifting supply chains, evolving geopolitical alliances, increased weather disasters, and emerging transformative technologies. To secure national and economic interests, the US must prioritize developing frontier technologies and competitive industries. Key areas include critical minerals, semiconductors, biomanufacturing, quantum computing, drones, and advanced manufacturing. Investing in these technologies will build innovation and industrial ecosystems essential for US security and prosperity in the 21st century.
New Zealand, South Africa | ICT, Health, Education, Financial services
Priority Technologies
The public is concerned about AI, yet governments have struggled to define a clear vision for its beneficial development. It is essential for governments to protect citizens from AI risks while actively steering AI advancements toward public value. Current policies have been too cautious, prompting calls for more ambitious interventions. The report offers reflections on AI policy, outlines next steps, and presents a practical guide with priority recommendations for European governments to ensure AI serves the public interest.
Acceleration is not a strategy: A framework for directing AI towards public value before it’s too late
The strategic rivalry between the US and China over critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements is reshaping global trade and supply chains. China dominates processing these minerals, prompting the US and EU to diversify sources and promote domestic production through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act. Multinational firms must adapt by diversifying supply chains, balancing costs, and complying with regulatory frameworks, often pursuing “China-plus-one” strategies. Resource-rich countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia gain strategic importance, seeking more value through local processing amid intensified geopolitical competition. Firms face heightened risks from regulatory changes, political instability, and ESG pressures, necessitating multi-jurisdictional sourcing and partnerships, while new south–south and triangular cooperation models are emerging.
Bolivia, Canada, Ecuador, Lithuania, Mexico, Peru, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka | Financial services, Health
How firms should react to rivalry between America and China in critical minerals
Iran leverages its strategic control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for about 20% of the world's oil and gas, to exert significant geopolitical influence despite weaker military power compared to the US and Israel. This control impacts global fuel prices and reflects principles of game theory, where power derives from being indispensable and patient in negotiations. Other regions similarly hold leverage through unique assets: China with manufacturing, Sub-Saharan Africa with natural resources and demographics, and the EU with its single market. In a world of uncertain alliances and intertwined supply chains, success depends on creating irreplaceable strengths—modern “straits” that others rely on—and reducing dependency on single partners.
The Strait of Hormuz shows how everything is now about leverage
Intentional communities—groups sharing land, resources, and cooperative living—demonstrate enhanced resilience amid global instability by reducing reliance on volatile energy and food markets. They employ shared renewable energy systems, collective food production, and cooperative housing, which lower costs and spread risks. Beyond financial benefits, these communities offer strong social support networks that help mitigate psychological impacts during crises. Though not entirely self-sufficient, their adaptability and diversified resource management bolster their resilience. These communities serve as models for sustainable, cooperative living, influencing broader policies and practices.
What intentional communities can teach us about resilience amid global instability
Lexin Zhou and colleagues developed general scales for AI evaluation that measure cognitive demands across tasks, quantify AI systems’ strengths and limitations, and predict performance on new tasks. Their automated method uses 18 rubrics to place diverse tasks and models on unified scales, demonstrating improved explanatory power and accuracy over traditional benchmarks. These scales clarify AI capabilities like reasoning, ensure construct validity, and offer robust performance predictions—even for out-of-distribution scenarios—establishing a strong foundation for reliable AI assessment and deployment.
Education
General scales unlock AI evaluation with explanatory and predictive power
Effective decision-making in business extends beyond choosing the best visible outcomes; it requires evaluating effectiveness, efficiency, and consistency to ensure decisions foster personal growth, trust, and sustainable relationships. Managers should balance freedom, rationality, and willingness, focusing on both results and people’s development. Practical exercises include pausing to assess impacts before acting, questioning true motivations, anticipating consequences, repairing relationship damage, and reviewing decision patterns over time. Strong leadership views collaborators as individuals and builds trust through consistent, thoughtful choices, ultimately shaping better future decisions and healthier organizations.
10 exercises to transform your decision-making
Ransomware began in 1989 as a rudimentary extortion tool but evolved into a sophisticated, multibillion-dollar criminal industry. Key developments included Tor for anonymous communication and cryptocurrencies for untraceable payments. Early "commodity ransomware" targeted many users with small ransoms, while later generations focused on high-value businesses with tailored attacks and negotiation. The rise of data privacy laws led to "double-extortion," where sensitive data was stolen and threatened with exposure. COVID-19 expanded vulnerabilities via remote work. Advanced AI now facilitates more effective hacking and widespread ransomware accessibility, increasing the threat despite ongoing law enforcement efforts.
Financial services
From floppy discs to Claude Mythos, how ransomware grew into a multibillion‑dollar industry
The UK is signaling a pivot back toward closer alignment with EU regulations after Brexit, aiming to adopt EU single market rules through new UK legislation. This move seeks to reduce costly trade barriers and bureaucracy created by Brexit, benefiting UK businesses, consumers, and workers. A new 2025 UK-EU trade agreement supports economic cooperation amid global trade disruptions and geopolitical instability. Closer alignment could lower food prices by streamlining cross-border trade, improve supply chain resilience, and attract foreign investment, especially in technology and renewable energy. This step signals the UK's commitment to rebuild trust and cooperation with the EU despite likely political opposition.
United Kingdom | Financial services
With talk of closer EU alignment, the UK is signalling to Europe that it’s a partner worthy of trust
The Wharton Blueprint for AI Agent Adoption identifies psychological barriers—perceived competence, trust, and delegation of control—as key challenges to AI agent use. It recommends strategies such as fostering a sense of ownership, transparently demonstrating the agent’s capabilities and limitations, pairing AI with human experts, and designing agents for moderate autonomy with user control. Addressing control concerns and showcasing successful outcomes can significantly increase adoption. These insights, drawn from behavioral science and corporate feedback, aim to accelerate AI agent acceptance by overcoming trust and control hurdles.
The Wharton Blueprint for AI Agent Adoption

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