The future of work is changing fast. Future Focus cuts through the noise with three trends each week that matter most to HR and business leaders. When everything else is in flux, stay focused with Future Focus.
Actors Fight Back as AI Deepfakes Become Scarily Accurate (Fast Company)
What to Know: As synthetic media becomes more convincing, actors are organizing legal, contractual, and technical responses to protect their voice and likeness. The push spans consent standards, compensation frameworks, and content-authentication tools to curb unauthorized use.
Where to Focus: Hyper-realistic deepfakes raise enterprise-wide risks, from brand trust and executive impersonation to fraud exposure and marketing integrity. Leaders should anticipate rising expectations for provenance and consent, tighter norms in contracts and partnerships, and a premium on verifiable content as synthetic media scales.
JPMorgan Cuts All Ties With Proxy Advisers in Industry First (The Wall Street Journal)
What to Know: The major asset manager will stop using external proxy advisers and shift to an in-house, AI-powered platform, Proxy IQ, to analyze thousands of annual meetings and inform voting decisions. The move follows sustained criticism of proxy advisers’ influence and comes as regulators scrutinize the industry’s role, signaling a potential reconfiguration of the mechanics behind shareholder voting.
Where to Focus: If large investors internalize voting with AI-assisted analysis, corporate issuers should expect more firm-specific rationales, direct engagement, and less reliance on third-party policy frameworks. This raises the bar for transparent disclosures, performance narratives, and risk oversight. In short, governance communications must become more data-rich, timely, and tailored to investor priorities.
Are 'Tech Dense' Farms the Future of Farming? (BBC)
What to Know: Farms across North America are layering software, sensors, computer vision, and AI onto operations — from precision spraying that targets individual weeds to planning apps that optimize seed orders and harvest timing. Platforms using satellite imagery and decades of weather data increasingly guide interventions, promising higher yields, lower input costs, and fewer crop failures that can translate into more stable food prices.
Where to Focus: As agriculture digitizes, downstream sectors — from consumer packaged goods to retail and foodservice — could see more predictable supply, shifting cost structures, and new data-sharing expectations with producers. Leaders should anticipate procurement and pricing models that rely on real-time agritech data, along with new vendor dependencies, interoperability needs, and skills to interpret farm analytics for decision-making.
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