Category: Brandpoint Business & Finance

2026-08-24T08:01:00

(BPT) – Beyond home and the workplace, people need spaces to gather, meet new people and just hang out. These are known as “third places”: public parks, libraries and community centers, plus retail spaces, like coffee shops, bookstores and restaurants, and downtowns and main streets where people can socialize.

Many Americans today feel more lonely and isolated, navigating increased disconnection caused by screens and social media, plus cultural shifts that began during COVID. Nearly half of Americans (44%) say there’s no local coffee shop, bar, restaurant or park they visit regularly, and only 1 in 4 who live near potential gathering spots go there weekly.

Survey data shows that neighborhoods with multiple third places report higher levels of sociability. People who interact with neighbors at regular community spots are more likely to feel a sense of connection in their communities. Nearly half the residents in those communities report talking with someone they didn’t know well at least once monthly, according to the American Community Life Survey. That’s nearly twice as high as those living in areas without many third places.

These third places improve neighborhood cohesion and give people a reason to cross paths with those from different walks of life. Downtowns are one of the clearest examples of this in action. A thriving main street is a cluster of third places. The coffee shop, the bookstore, the diner, the plaza that hosts festivals. These main streets give people a reason to linger, run into a neighbor or strike up a conversation.

Today, states like Michigan are supporting efforts to nurture and create these crucial spaces and downtowns.

Community revitalization drives impact

Revitalization projects often showcase their environmental or safety benefits first, but their effect on local businesses is just as significant and often harder to quantify. Creating third places pays off not only in residents’ health and quality of life but also in increased foot traffic and local reactivation.

Because community development is one of the clearest paths to creating more third places and opportunities for human connection, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) offers numerous programs and grants toward this goal that support the unique vision of each community and empower local residents to design and implement solutions that build vibrant, diverse and resilient downtowns.

Creating opportunities for main street

Across Michigan, 24 communities are working through the Michigan Main Street program to revive their commercial districts, and the results show up in both foot traffic and investment dollars. Downtown Lansing has welcomed 116 new businesses and over $123 million in private investment since 2010. Grand Haven has drawn nearly $30 million in private investment and 110 new businesses since 2005. And in Howell, a downtown revitalization effort logged more than 62,000 volunteer hours and earned recognition as USA Today’s Best Main Street in 2024.

The results extend well beyond balance sheets. When a downtown becomes a place worth visiting again, residents show up, filling storefronts and connecting with one another.

Building up main street businesses

Small businesses are often what turn a storefront into a third place, the coffee shop or bakery where people linger, not just transact. The MEDC’s Match on Main program provides reimbursement-based grant funding of up to $25,000 per project to support new and expanding place-based small businesses.

Doozers, a popular bakery in downtown Ishpeming, restored a space in the historic Gossard Building with the support of a Match on Main grant, turning a home-based cookie-making venture into a bustling spot for people of all ages to hang out and enjoy sweet treats, complete with a kids’ play area.

“It’s nice having a third space,” said the bakery’s owner Claire Morgan-Heredia. “When I grew up, I went to the library six days a week and just hung out there or a coffee shop. We wanted to add to the community with our space. A variety of third spaces is good, so that the community foundation remains strong.”

Community spaces as third places

Not every third place is a business. Some are simply public: a park bench, a plaza, a farmers market stall. The Public Spaces Community Places program, created in partnership with the Michigan Municipal League, matches community crowdfunding campaigns dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000 for projects like parks, plazas, markets and other public gathering spaces. The match kicks in only after the community has met the project’s fundraising goal.

Since 2014, this program has:

• Helped fund 421 projects across Michigan, backed by over 77,000 community members.
• Crowdfunded more than $16.9 million, leading to $14.7 million in matched funding.
• Created or redeveloped 25.9 million square feet of public spaces.

In St. Johns, the Fantasy Forest crowdfunding project transformed a beloved aging playground to be universally accessible, providing freedom of play to all children and families. Meanwhile, in Alpena, crowdfunding for the Besser Museum’s Discover Northeast Michigan History Exhibit turned an outdated exhibit space into an experience that takes visitors from the Big Bang to Big Industry, providing opportunities to learn about Northeast Michigan’s heritage in a family-friendly environment.

Through programs like Public Spaces Community Places, communities and the MEDC are equally invested in creating, improving and transforming spaces for all to enjoy.

With investments like these, states like Michigan are helping to support more opportunities for community connection and business development. Learn more about ways revitalization projects can support thriving communities through third places at MichiganBusiness.org.

2026-08-24T05:01:00

(BPT) – Key takeaways

• The vulnerabilities inside legacy systems of large organizations are no longer hidden.
• While Y2K forced organizations to confront decades of accumulated code, frontier AI is forcing the same reckoning.
• The organizations responding fastest are the ones that have built the capacity to correct vulnerabilities at machine speed.

You have a password manager, or you don’t. You use two-factor authentication on some accounts but not others. You read the breach notification email, change the password and move on. Most of us trust that the systems we depend on (our banks, our health records, our social platforms, our employers) are doing the work in the background.

But they’re not. Or rather, they can’t anymore. A new generation of artificial intelligence, capable of scanning entire enterprise estates in hours, has fundamentally changed the problem. The vulnerabilities buried inside legacy systems for decades, the technical debt that every large organization carries, are no longer hidden. To anyone with access to the right models, these flaws are thrown into sharp relief. The audit that used to take weeks now takes hours, and the people tasked with defending these systems are no longer the ones finding the vulnerabilities first.

This is what some in the industry describe as a new Y2K moment, though the comparison is less about the threat than the reckoning it forces. Y2K had a known deadline, a known fix, and years of coordinated global response. Engineers went in to patch one thing (the date field) and discovered a catastrophe’s worth of brittle, tangled code no one fully understood. The frontier AI moment offers no such certainty.

The defining feature of this moment is a structural mismatch: offense now moves at machine speed while defense still moves at the speed of human review and scheduled maintenance. The deadline is unclear, the scope expands faster than fixes can be deployed, and the response is being navigated company by company. The true parallel is that both moments expose the cost of deferred modernization. Y2K forced organizations to look honestly at decades of accumulated code. This time, adversaries are running the audit in real time.

The new bottleneck in threat detection

For all the urgency the moment demands, the organizations responding fastest are not the ones with the best threat detection. They are the ones with the capacity to remediate vulnerabilities at machine speed.

Detection has stopped being the constraint. A good security team with the right tools can find vulnerabilities in hours. What determines survival is what happens next: the ability to prioritize, patch, and deploy fixes faster than threats accumulate. Remediation capacity is now the bottleneck. When discovery outpaces repair, the backlog of known but unpatched flaws grows faster than teams can close it, and that patch queue itself becomes the attack surface: a published list of openings an adversary can work through while defenders wait for a maintenance window. Closing that remediation-velocity gap is the capability that now separates resilient organizations from exposed ones. That capacity is not something you buy from a single vendor. It requires orchestrating across the stack: linking defense, intelligence, and modernization at scale.

The same forcing function that has made security a board-level concern is reopening conversations about modernization that have stalled for years. In recent Cognizant research, 73% of Global 2000 leaders identified cybersecurity as a major driver of legacy modernization, the joint-highest rating alongside reducing operating costs.[1] For two decades, the case for enterprise modernization was made in the language of efficiency, cost, and competitive advantage. These arguments were easy to resist. Like patching your roof before a storm hits, the work that prevents catastrophe rarely feels urgent until the danger is right in front of you.

The frontier AI moment is changing that calculation. The cost of waiting is no longer abstract. It’s measurable and increasingly visible in the form of a continuously expanding attack surface that legacy systems cannot defend. What was once a productivity argument is now a survival argument. And leaders know they are behind. Half of Global 2000 leaders say the current pace of progress in updating defense systems is not yet fast enough.[1]

What does frontier AI modernization look like now?

In the age of frontier AI, modernization is no longer a program run alongside cybersecurity. It is cybersecurity, expressed at the architectural level. Each vulnerability is a symptom; the aging architecture that let it persist is the underlying condition. Patching the symptom without modernizing the architecture leaves the condition in place, which is why remediation at scale and modernization are the same work.

Three patterns are emerging across organizations moving fastest. The first is the systematic retirement of legacy systems that cannot be defended at scale. Unsupported platforms are not merely operational risks; they are mapped terrain for adversaries. The second is the embedding of zero-trust principles (identity, segmentation, encryption) as platform fundamentals rather than incremental fixes. The third is the deliberate design of operations that can withstand AI-era threats, including the inventories, baselines, and governance frameworks autonomous systems require.

These aren’t new ideas. What is new is that the frontier threat has made them unavoidable. The scope of the problem is forcing the scope of the solution. No single company, no product vendor, no single-service firm, can orchestrate this alone. Closing the remediation-velocity gap means making endpoint defense, data security, threat intelligence, incident response, and architectural modernization work as one system, with governance holding throughout. A point tool secures its own layer; only an orchestrating partner can engineer the whole. It is the work of an AI builder: the party that integrates capability across an ecosystem and embeds it into how an enterprise actually operates.

In financial services, AI-driven defense systems now detect and respond to anomalous activity in milliseconds, often before customers notice anything unusual. In healthcare, modernized claims platforms protect patient data while accelerating reimbursement. In retail and logistics, architectures built for security by design allow responsive experiences without exposing underlying systems to risk.

None of this is what most consumers think about when they tap a card or open an app. But it is the reason the experience works.

Recognizing threat in digital transformation

The frontier AI moment is not ultimately about cybersecurity. It is about how the digital economy must be rebuilt to remain trustworthy in a faster and more contested environment.

Y2K was a test run. It taught a generation of leaders that infrastructure matters, that technical debt comes due, and that coordinated effort can avert catastrophe. The frontier era is the real thing. The organizations that come through it well will be the ones that recognize the threat as also the moment.

The work is happening. Most people will never see it. That is the point. But the window to do it is not open indefinitely. The enterprises that close the gap before their adversaries reach parity are the ones that will define trust in the decade ahead.

_______________

[1] Cognizant, “Legacy modernization and the AI timeline.” Available at: cognizant.com/us/en/insights/insights-blog/legacy-modernization-mandate-ai-timeline

2026-08-13T18:05:00

(BPT) – By Lee Myong Young, Research Fellow at Display Picture Quality Development Team, LG Media Entertainment Solution Company at LG Electronics

Every premium TV looks spectacular in a pitch-black, cave-like room. But that isn’t how most of us watch. More often than not, when we actually have a moment to sit down and catch up on our must-see shows, there’s either sunlight pouring in through the windows, or all the lights are on inside the house. And it is in these bright environments that the true value of a display’s black levels becomes more apparent.

At LG, we recognized that mastering this daylight viewing experience required a two-fold solution: maximizing screen brilliance and shielding that brilliance from ambient light. This realization led us to pair Brightness Booster Ultra, which dramatically elevates luminance, with Reflection Free Premium technology, a picture quality solution designed to help preserve OLED evo’s Perfect Black¹ and Perfect Color,² even in the most brightly lit rooms.

The Hidden Trade-Off of Reducing Reflection

Coatings or technologies that reduce screen glare are nothing new. The conventional approach is to scatter incoming light across the screen’s surface, breaking up the sharp, mirror-like reflections that make a TV hard to watch in light-soaked spaces. It works up to a point. But it causes a side effect that we weren’t willing to accept.

True reflection-reduction technology must do more than simply lower the reflectance rate. It must be able to minimize reflections without compromising the original picture quality. Diffusion-based anti-reflection treatments successfully cut down on mirror-like reflections, but they frequently make the screen look hazy, blurring fine details and degrading color vibrancy.

Picture a canvas painted with vivid, richly saturated colors, and then imagine someone spreading a layer of dust across the entire surface. The images on the canvas are still visible, but the colors have become muted, flat and lifeless. The same thing happens when a TV employs a conventional light-scattering coating to combat reflections: the picture is still there, but the vitality is gone.

The real question, then, is not “Does your TV have anti-reflection technology?” It’s “Does that technology preserve the picture quality you paid for in the first place?”

Why Perfect Black Isn’t Just About Dark Scenes

The impact of conventional reflection-reduction technology on picture quality goes deeper than you might realize. Take “black level” for instance. This isn’t a standalone specification of interest only to tech reviewers. It’s the foundation everything else in the picture is built on, including color accuracy and fine detail.

Consider a tightly zoomed-in scene: a woman with blonde hair fills the screen. Around her hairline, subtle shadows help distinguish individual strands from the skin beneath. If black levels become washed out, those shadow gradations begin to disappear. You can no longer tell exactly where the hairline ends and the skin begins.

The effect compounds at higher resolutions. A 4K image can only reveal the full extent of its razor-sharp detail, such as a single bead of sweat or the weave of a silk scarf, if there is enough contrast between neighboring pixels. When black levels wash out, that contrast margin shrinks and the finest details become indistinct. As a result, the benefits of 4K resolution can become harder to perceive. Not because the number of pixels has somehow shrunk, but because weakened contrast makes it difficult to perceive visual nuance and subtlety. However, when Perfect Black remains intact, all those minuscule details stay clearly defined and the overall image retains its depth and vibrancy.

LG’s Answer: Absorb, Don’t Scatter

Our answer to dealing with reflections came from an obsession with detail. Rather than scattering incoming light, LG’s Reflection Free Premium technology is engineered to absorb it, taking in the vast majority while dispersing the rest in multiple directions. What little reflection remains is not enough to distract the eye. Relying on light-absorbing materials alone cannot drop a screen’s reflectance below the 1 percent mark, as residual light inevitably bounces back. Through earlier advances in reflection reduction, our previous generation of OLED had already overcome this barrier, achieving an impressive reflectance rate of 0.6 percent.

Pushing reflectance down by a further 0.1 percentage point required an additional technological breakthrough. To achieve this, we developed a three-layer coating designed to make incoming light waves collide and cancel each other out, much like two ocean waves meeting and flattening into calm water. Any minuscule amount of light that survives this process is then finely dispersed to minimize visible, mirror-like reflections.

The road to Reflection Free Premium technology wasn’t straightforward. Although the difference between 0.6 and 0.5 percent may sound marginal, developing and optimizing the three-layer coating took a year and a half of relentless engineering.

The real challenge wasn’t just dropping the reflectance rate but doing so without introducing secondary issues like color shifts, screen haze or loss of sharpness.

Matching reflectance, color accuracy, surface quality and sharpness all at once proved to be a monumental engineering hurdle. Even the slightest mismatch in the formulation ruined the entire result. We built and tested hundreds of display samples, repeatedly refining the formulation to find the perfect balance. But in the end, as a growing number of customers can now attest, these exhaustive efforts yielded significant and measurable returns.

The latest LG OLED evo displays have been independently certified by Intertek as Reflection Free Premium,³ achieving an exceptionally low reflection rate of around 0.5 percent. However, this certification goes far beyond just measuring how much light bounces off the screen. It is a comprehensive evaluation of uncompromised picture quality. Achieving the “Premium” tier signifies that the display can deliver outstanding picture quality in bright environments, reducing reflections without sacrificing resolution, low-tone detail visibility or color accuracy.

This rigorous standard unlocks a new level of freedom in how we design our days around entertainment. Historically, enjoying a truly cinematic experience at home meant choosing between living in a dimly lit cave or accepting a compromise on what we saw. LG OLED evo removes this barrier entirely. By satisfying Intertek’s dual demands for reflection reduction and absolute image fidelity, the technology protects from the daylight so it doesn’t dilute the deep, velvety shadows and rich textures of your favorite content. You no longer have to wait for sundown or manually adjust your environment to appreciate every subtle detail on screen.

Ultimately, this breakthrough actively and effectively safeguards everything that makes the OLED experience so incredible: pure blacks, vibrant colors, high contrast, smooth gradations and sharp details.

Premium Picture Quality, Designed for Real Living

Reflection Free Premium technology is applied to the LG OLED evo W6 and G6 AI TVs, bringing the technology described above to LG’s latest flagship OLED lineup.

These flagship models are powered by Brightness Booster Ultra, which achieves luminance levels up to 3.9 times brighter than conventional OLEDs.⁴ By pairing this intense brilliance with the glare-absorbing defense of Reflection Free Premium, LG OLED evo’s signature depth and vividness remain uncompromised, even when daylight floods the room. Combining refined design with this powerful engineering synergy, our TVs deliver peak performance in real-world living spaces.

For many years, the display industry wrestled with the challenge of how to lower screen reflectance without sacrificing picture quality. A rejection of the compromise solutions that have come before it, Reflection Free Premium technology is our declaration that a true premium viewing experience — and the true value of Perfect Black — should be available at any time, regardless of lighting conditions.

¹ LG OLED Display is verified by UL for delivering black levels ≤0.24nit up to 500lux, based on IDMS Section 11.5 Ring light reflect measurement.

² LG OLED Display is verified by UL for delivering color consistency levels >99 percent up to 500lux, based on IDMS Sections 11.5 Ring light reflect measurement.

³ LG OLED display is certified by Intertek for Reflection Free measured to IDMS 11.2.2 sampling-sphere implementation. Reflection Free Premium applies to W6 and G6 series (except 97, 48-inch models).

⁴ Brightness may vary based on model, screen size, and market region. Peak brightness is 3.9 times brighter than conventional OLED @3 percent window by internal measurements.

2026-08-10T09:01:00

(BPT) – Investing is a smart way to build wealth. You can start with a small amount and gain confidence as you go. With steady contributions, you can help your money grow even faster. Even if you’re starting with $500 or $1,000, making small, consistent contributions can really add up over time.

In this guide from Navy Federal Investment Services, you’ll learn how to start investing with confidence so you can take your first step toward growing your money in a way that works for your life.

Step 1: Set your financial goals

Before you put a single dollar into an investment account, it helps to know why you’re investing. Your goals will guide how much to invest, what to invest in and how much investing risk makes sense for you to take on.

Your goal matters because your time horizon depends on whether your goal is short term or long term. Short-term and long-term goals usually require different investing approaches. Goal-based investing can help you shape your strategy and build a plan that fits your goals.

Step 2: Decide how much to invest

What matters more than the amount of money you invest is the habit of investing consistently over time, even in small amounts. That’s what helps to build real wealth.

So how much should a beginner invest? There’s no single right answer. Many people aim to invest around 10%-15% of their income. If that’s not realistic, start with whatever amount you can afford. Even $25 or $50 a month is a meaningful start. Add investing to your budget and schedule a transfer so you stick with it.

Step 3: Understand your risk tolerance

Generally speaking, investments with higher potential returns also come with higher potential losses. Risk tolerance is how comfortable you are with your investments moving up and down. It’s an important part of building an investment approach that works for you.

Step 4: Choose the right investment account for your goal

Once you know your goals and risk tolerance, it’s time to pick the right type of account for your investments. The account you choose can have a big impact on how your money grows, particularly when it comes to taxes.

Step 5: Build your investment portfolio

Now, you get to decide how to put your money to work. You can make smart investing decisions without being a market expert. Many beginner-friendly investment options make it easy to build a diversified portfolio and start investing with confidence right away.

You can choose investments across different asset classes, like stocks, bonds and cash. Many beginners start with funds because they help spread risk across many companies.

Step 6: Invest consistently and be patient

Picking your investments is a big milestone on your wealth-building journey, but it’s not the finish line. Once your portfolio mix is set, focus on steady behavior.

One of the simplest ways to stay on track is to automate your investments. Set up recurring transfers to your investment account so money moves automatically on a schedule that works for you. When investing happens in the background, you’re more likely to stick with it.

Keep in mind that using this method won’t guarantee profits or make you immune to losses during downturns. You’ll still need to diversify your investing dollars among a variety of companies, industries and sectors to lower your risk and increase the likelihood of earning returns.

Find out more about the investment services available to Navy Federal members, including Digital Investor and personalized guidance from their team of financial professionals.

This content is intended to provide general information and should not be considered legal, tax or financial advice. It is always a good idea to consult a tax or financial advisor for specific information on how certain laws apply to your situation and about your individual financial situation.

Navy Federal Financial Group, LLC (NFFG) is a licensed insurance agency. Non-deposit investments, brokerage, and advisory products are only sold through Navy Federal Investment Services, LLC (NFIS), a member of FINRA/SIPC and an SEC registered investment advisory firm. NFIS is a wholly owned subsidiary of NFFG. Insurance products are offered through NFFG and NFIS. These products are not NCUA/NCUSIF or otherwise federally insured, are not guaranteed or obligations of Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU), are not offered, recommended, sanctioned, or encouraged by the federal government, and may involve investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Deposit products and related services are provided by NFCU. Financial Advisors are employees of NFFG and are employees and registered representatives of NFIS. NFIS and NFFG are affiliated companies under the common control of NFCU. Call 1-877-221-8108 for further information.

2026-08-05T08:01:00

(BPT) – Drones have come a long way from capturing scenic photos and videos. Today’s models fly farther and longer, carry heavy payloads, and can be equipped with LiDAR, multispectral, and thermal sensors that gather rich datasets in a single pass. They can uncover the precise data stakeholders need to support infrastructure projects at every step, from land-boundary detection and cadastral surveys to environmental monitoring and terrain modelling.

This flexibility, durability, and accuracy are fueling a drone service market that Fortune Business Insights projects will reach USD 261.32 billion by 2034. Deloitte’s State of Digital Adoption in Construction 2026 confirms the trend: 34% of surveyed companies already use drones, with another 32% planning to add them soon. Drones are here to stay. The real question is who gets to use them.

Autonomous Drones Bring Big Promises and Real Barriers

Drone hardware has been improving year after year, but the true novelty with the next generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is autonomy. AI-powered drones can now fly pre-programmed routes guided by GPS waypoints and onboard AI, capturing consistent and comparable data without a pilot steering every movement by hand. This is ideal for tracking construction progress, monitoring erosion, or spotting infrastructure changes week over week. Computer-vision systems help drones navigate complex environments, avoid obstacles, and automatically flag what matters inside enormous datasets: a cracked weld, a hot spot on a solar array, a shifting slope.

Yet as drones grow more capable, access to them is still limited for most organizations. Large enterprises, major cities, and federal agencies can afford to build drone programs in-house. For municipalities, counties, and smaller businesses, adoption is much harder: the aircraft itself, the certified pilots, the regulatory approvals, and the expertise to turn raw flight data into usable insight can all feel out of reach, especially for organizations in rural or geographically isolated areas with limited resources.

Global Tech Meets Local Expertise

End-to-end models like Drone as a Service exist to close that gap. A subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed technology company ZenaTech, Inc., Drone as a Service gives businesses and government buyers direct access to AI-powered drones for construction, urban planning, and public works, without the headaches that usually come with technology adoption. It’s a flexible, pay-per-use or subscription model that provides the hardware, the trained and certified pilots, and the AI software to collect and analyze data accurately. Every mission is flown by a licensed pilot using a registered aircraft and backed by a network of experienced land-survey professionals. With 25 locations across the United States, Canada, and Europe, Drone as a Service stays rooted in local communities to better support businesses, municipalities, and public agencies.

Drones equipped with LiDAR, multispectral, and thermal sensors, GPS tracking, and high-definition imaging change the traditional equation. Drone-based surveys can cut survey times by 80% while improving data quality. Construction teams can monitor progress more frequently and move faster through permitting; urban planners can gather large-scale geographic data far more efficiently; and municipalities can strengthen public safety, infrastructure inspection, and environmental monitoring. As a result, businesses and local governments can save costs while taking people out of dangerous inspection scenarios altogether, and supporting communities with flood, wildfire, and storm damage assessments or search-and-rescue missions.

Every region brings its own terrain, regulations, environmental conditions, and infrastructure needs, and situations where speed is critical — severe weather damage, wildfire assessments, search and rescue — call for local teams already on the ground. Over the past year, Drone as a Service has acquired and integrated 25 land-surveying firms across the United States, Canada, and Europe, many with decades of experience and deep knowledge of their local markets. That means clients work with professionals who already understand regional permitting, zoning, environmental risk, and infrastructure priorities, while gaining access to high-performing aerial intelligence. Additionally, maintaining unified standards ensures consistent safety practices, data quality, and service delivery everywhere the network operates.

The Future of Community-Based Aerial Intelligence

As construction, urban planning, and public works are hit by a new wave of innovation, local communities can’t afford to be left behind. Small businesses, municipalities and counties have a real role to play in making sure they benefit from autonomous drone technology. By combining advanced aerial intelligence with local knowledge and scalable operations, networks like Drone as a Service are redefining what drone adoption can look like for communities across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

“We built Drone as a Service to address the many barriers to drone adoption we’ve seen across the industries we serve. If implementing drone technology can be challenging for large multinational corporations and federal agencies, you can imagine how difficult it can be for municipalities, counties or small businesses,” said ZenaTech CEO Shaun Passley, Ph.D. “Our goal is to build a large global network powered by drone technology, the incredible local expertise of our surveying professionals, and community connections. Over the next few years, we aim to make drone technology far more accessible to both government and private organizations, regardless of their size, location, or resources.”

Learn how aerial intelligence can support your organization and your community at DroneAsAService.com.

2026-07-27T04:01:00

(BPT) – By Janet Murguía, president and CEO, UnidosUS

Across this country, I hear the same concerns from Latino families with striking consistency. A young couple who both work full time and still can’t make rent. A grandmother who can’t afford her prescription copay. A small-business owner who built his shop from nothing, watching his margins disappear as prices climb and customers pull back. These are not just anecdotes. They are real life experiences of American families.

And they are not alone. Our bipartisan poll of Hispanic voters makes evident that these are the stories of millions of families around the nation. And when so many are facing similar obstacles, it suggests some policy decisions may not be serving America’s workers. While Hispanics have one of the highest labor force participation rates in the nation, more than four out of five Latino voters are in a continuous struggle to stay afloat, made worse lately by the rising cost of daily living while wages have not kept up.

So it’s no surprise that four of their top five priorities for congressional action are related to the economy — from the cost of living to wages, to healthcare and housing costs. Yet, two-thirds of Hispanic voters don’t feel President Trump and Congressional Republicans are focusing on addressing these economic challenges. And over half think the current economic policies will make them worse off in the next year.

Months out from the November elections, more than 7 in 10 Hispanic voters say they are paying attention to the news and political events, and just as many say they are certain or almost certain they will vote this November. This would put voter participation in the neighborhood of the record levels we saw in 2018. And with Hispanic voters having a significant presence in competitive districts, they could decide the balance of power in Congress. The message from the second largest group of voting age Americans to candidates? “You have work to do if you want our support.”

According to the poll, while Democrats have an edge in the generic ballot — 57% of Hispanic voters would vote Democrat, 27% Republican — both parties underperform 2024 support levels. The data suggests that a plurality of Latino voters inclined to vote Democrat say they are motivated more to speak up for their community than to support the candidates. Additionally, the findings imply that 25% of Hispanics who voted for the president in 2024 would not do so today — and the two biggest issues shaping views of the president are the economy and immigration actions in U.S. cities.

More than 8 in 10 Latino voters say Congress is not doing enough to serve as a check on executive power — a figure that has grown over the past year. More than half say they are not confident the government will respect their basic constitutional rights.

Over 40% say people in their communities are afraid immigration authorities will harass or arrest them even if they are U.S. citizens or legal residents. Currently, children are missing school. Employers have lost workers. It’s clear that local economies are feeling the damage.

The families who voiced their opinions in our poll have common messages for every candidate who wants their vote: Address the cost of living, protect our families from economic ruin and government overreach, and treat us with respect as the full citizens and voters we are.

And to win that support, meaningful outreach to these voters is key. Forty percent of Latino voters have joined the electorate in just the last four years. In the 32 competitive congressional districts we surveyed around the country, this community is not a rounding error. It can be the difference in electoral races that are decided by razor-thin margins.

To learn more about the bipartisan poll and important issues for Hispanic voters, visit UnidosUS.org.

Janet Murguía is president and CEO of UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization.

2026-07-23T09:01:00

(BPT) – Key takeaways

• The prevalence of AI search engines has fundamentally changed how consumers discover brands.
• AI systems assess the value of a brand’s content in terms of credibility, authority, consistency and frequency, whether sponsored or earned.
• PR and MarCom professionals seeking brand visibility need to follow the shift in discovery through both earned and editorial content placed in credible publications.
• Brandpoint Optimize helps brands build stronger AI visibility through quality content, trusted syndication and credible third-party validation.

By Stacy Stusynski, Chief Commercial Officer, Brandpoint

The widespread adoption of AI search has dramatically altered your brand’s visibility, whether you’ve invested in this process or not. In 2026, AI speaks for your brand every day by assessing and summarizing (or ignoring) your existing content for consumers.

For decades, the industry defined earned media as one thing: A journalist chose to cover a story someone pitched. No payment, no guarantee; just the credibility of a third party deciding your story was worth telling.

That definition still exists, but it’s only part of the picture. Today, earned media means any third-party content that signals credibility and authority to audiences and to algorithms that decide what gets trusted, cited and recommended.

The impact of AI search on PR and MarCom strategy

I’ve spent my career watching technology change how consumers discover and evaluate products. When the discovery method shifts, brands that understand that change succeed.

This is one of those moments. If you’re a marketer or communicator who hasn’t adapted, you risk building strategies that are invisible to the audiences you’re trying to reach.

Third-party validation through earned media remains one of the most powerful tools in a communicator’s toolbox. When a credible publication covers your organization independently, this signal tells AI algorithms your content is worth surfacing before a human ever sees it.

2026-07-22T08:01:00

(BPT) – Americans are increasingly turning to AI for financial guidance and it shows. According to recent Intuit Credit Karma research, 66% of Americans who have used generative AI have turned to it for financial advice. But as AI becomes a bigger part of how people manage their money, not all of it is designed to do the same job.

General-purpose AI, the AI assistants hundreds of millions of people use daily, can be a useful starting point for learning about financial topics, understanding how a product works, or getting a broad sense of your situation. But information is only the first step. When it comes to actually improving your financial health, the real value comes from moving from knowing to doing.

As economic uncertainty, inflation, debt pressures and a rapidly evolving financial landscape continue to shape consumer behavior, demand for personalized financial guidance is growing because one-size-fits-all doesn’t work when it comes to someone’s money.

AI built for your financial life bridges the gap between knowing and doing, designed to identify opportunities, recommend personalized actions, and connect consumers with the tools and products they need to achieve the best outcome.

If you’re looking to use AI to improve your financial health, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Look for tools that help you build, not just browse

As AI becomes a bigger part of consumers’ financial lives, the most effective experiences will do more than answer questions.

Whether your goal is reducing debt, building credit, saving money or improving your overall financial health, look for tools that help you turn information into action.

AI should help move you from “What should I do?” to “Here’s what I can do next.”

A general AI tool can explain how debt consolidation works while AI that knows your finances can evaluate a consumer’s actual debt situation, estimate potential savings, recommend a path forward and connect them with options they are likely eligible for.

Intuit Credit Karma’s Debt Assistant helps members understand their debt picture, explore consolidation opportunities and identify ways to reduce interest costs. In fact, those using Debt Assistant save an average of $178 per month in interest.*

Use technology to uncover opportunities you may not know exist

One of the biggest advantages of technology built for your financial life is its ability to identify opportunities that are relevant to where you are today, and adapt as your financial needs change over time.

For consumers early in their financial journey, that may mean building credit. For millions of Americans who don’t have a credit score or have limited credit histories, establishing credit remains a major hurdle. Historically, the credit system has been a catch-22: you need credit to build credit, but you need a credit history to access products that help you build it.

That’s why products that leverage alternative payment data are helping more consumers establish credit histories using positive financial habits they already demonstrate. Credit Karma’s Credit Spark, for example, turns existing utility and phone bill payments into credit history, helping consumers build credit without taking on debt.

As you make financial progress, your priorities naturally change. Someone who has already built strong credit may be more focused on maximizing rewards, reducing costs or getting more value from the cards they already have. Credit Karma’s Cards Optimizer helps consumers identify opportunities to earn more rewards and benefits based on how they actually spend, helping ensure they aren’t leaving value on the table.

As AI and technology become a more common part of consumers’ financial lives, the key is understanding what role different tools can play. The most popular AI assistants can be a valuable resource for learning about financial topics and exploring your options, but when it comes to improving your financial health, consumers should look for tools that can help them take the next step.

*Based on a weighted average of members who saved on interest or lowered their monthly payment by finding a better loan option via Debt Assistant.

2026-07-13T07:01:02

(BPT) – Key takeaways

• The vulnerabilities buried inside legacy systems at every large organization are no longer hidden.
• While Y2K forced organizations to look honestly at decades of accumulated code, the frontier AI moment is forcing the same reckoning.
• The organizations responding fastest are the ones that have built the capacity to remediate vulnerabilities at machine speed.

You have a password manager, or you don’t. You use two-factor authentication on some accounts but not others. You read the breach notification email, change the password and move on. Most of us trust that the systems we depend on (our banks, our health records, our social platforms, our employers) are doing the work in the background.

But they’re not. Or rather, they can’t anymore. A new generation of artificial intelligence, capable of scanning entire enterprise estates in hours, has fundamentally changed the problem. The vulnerabilities buried inside legacy systems for decades, the technical debt that every large organization carries, are no longer hidden. To anyone with access to the right models, these flaws are thrown into sharp relief. The audit that used to take weeks now takes hours, and the people tasked with defending these systems are no longer the ones finding the vulnerabilities first.

This is what some in the industry describe as a new Y2K moment, though the comparison is less about the threat than the reckoning it forces. Y2K had a known deadline, a known fix, and years of coordinated global response. Engineers went in to patch one thing (the date field) and discovered a catastrophe’s worth of brittle, tangled code no one fully understood. The frontier AI moment offers no such certainty.

The defining feature of this moment is a structural mismatch: offense now moves at machine speed while defense still moves at the speed of human review and scheduled maintenance. The deadline is unclear, the scope expands faster than fixes can be deployed, and the response is being navigated company by company. The true parallel is that both moments expose the cost of deferred modernization. Y2K forced organizations to look honestly at decades of accumulated code. This time, adversaries are running the audit in real time.

From finding to fixing, the bottleneck has changed

For all the urgency the moment demands, the organizations responding fastest are not the ones with the best threat detection. They are the ones that have built the capacity to remediate vulnerabilities at machine speed.

Detection has stopped being the constraint. A good security team with the right tools can find vulnerabilities in hours. What determines survival is what happens next: the ability to prioritize, patch, and deploy fixes faster than threats accumulate. Remediation capacity is now the bottleneck. When discovery outpaces repair, the backlog of known but unpatched flaws grows faster than teams can close it, and that patch queue itself becomes the attack surface: a published list of openings an adversary can work through while defenders wait for a maintenance window. Closing that remediation-velocity gap is the capability that now separates resilient organizations from exposed ones. That capacity is not something you buy from a single vendor. It requires orchestrating across the stack: linking defense, intelligence, and modernization at scale.

The same forcing function that has made security a board-level concern is reopening conversations about modernization that have stalled for years. In recent Cognizant research, 73% of Global 2000 leaders identified cybersecurity as a major driver of legacy modernization, the joint-highest rating alongside reducing operating costs.[1] For two decades, the case for enterprise modernization was made in the language of efficiency, cost, and competitive advantage. These arguments were easy to resist. Like patching your roof before a storm hits, the work that prevents catastrophe rarely feels urgent until the danger is right in front of you.

The frontier AI moment is changing that calculation. The cost of waiting is no longer abstract. It’s measurable and increasingly visible in the form of a continuously expanding attack surface that legacy systems cannot defend. What was once a productivity argument is now a survival argument. And leaders know they are behind. Half of Global 2000 leaders say the current pace of progress in updating defense systems is not yet fast enough.[1]

What modernization looks like now

In the age of frontier AI, modernization is no longer a program run alongside cybersecurity. It is cybersecurity, expressed at the architectural level. Each vulnerability is a symptom; the aging architecture that let it persist is the underlying condition. Patching the symptom without modernizing the architecture leaves the condition in place, which is why remediation at scale and modernization are the same work.

Three patterns are emerging across organizations moving fastest. The first is the systematic retirement of legacy systems that cannot be defended at scale. Unsupported platforms are not merely operational risks; they are mapped terrain for adversaries. The second is the embedding of zero-trust principles (identity, segmentation, encryption) as platform fundamentals rather than incremental fixes. The third is the deliberate design of operations that can withstand AI-era threats, including the inventories, baselines, and governance frameworks autonomous systems require.

These aren’t new ideas. What is new is that the frontier threat has made them unavoidable. The scope of the problem is forcing the scope of the solution. No single company, no product vendor, no single-service firm, can orchestrate this alone. Closing the remediation-velocity gap means making endpoint defense, data security, threat intelligence, incident response, and architectural modernization work as one system, with governance holding throughout. A point tool secures its own layer; only an orchestrating partner can engineer the whole. It is the work of an AI builder: the party that integrates capability across an ecosystem and embeds it into how an enterprise actually operates.

In financial services, AI-driven defense systems now detect and respond to anomalous activity in milliseconds, often before customers notice anything unusual. In healthcare, modernized claims platforms protect patient data while accelerating reimbursement. In retail and logistics, architectures built for security by design allow responsive experiences without exposing underlying systems to risk.

None of this is what most consumers think about when they tap a card or open an app. But it is the reason the experience works.

The work behind the scenes

The frontier AI moment is not ultimately a story about cybersecurity. It is a story about how the digital economy is rebuilt to remain trustworthy in a faster and more contested environment.

Y2K was a test run. It taught a generation of leaders that infrastructure matters, that technical debt comes due, and that coordinated effort can avert catastrophe. The frontier era is the real thing. The organizations that come through it well will be the ones that recognize the threat as also the moment.

The work is happening. Most people will never see it. That is the point. But the window to do it is not open indefinitely. The enterprises that close the gap before their adversaries reach parity are the ones that will define trust in the decade ahead.

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[1] Cognizant, “Legacy modernization and the AI timeline.” Available at: cognizant.com/us/en/insights/insights-blog/legacy-modernization-mandate-ai-timeline

2026-07-01T08:01:00

(BPT) – From personal milestones to global destinations, bucket lists capture our highest aspirations. For passionate travelers, that means a collection of dream vacations just waiting to be explored. Yet, facing today’s soaring prices, some may feel that crossing these experiences off their list is shifting from a reality to an impossibility.

“Although we’re seeing rising costs across the board at airports, gas stations and hotels, many people are still planning on taking that trip they have had on their bucket list for some time,” said Steven Guilday, Director of Travel for AARP Services. “AARP member benefits can help you every step of the way, from planning through booking. Whether it’s a road trip of the American West or a once-in-a-lifetime cruise, there are many ways to lower your total trip cost.”

Below are some easy ways an AARP membership can help you save money and cross that long-awaited trip off of your bucket list.

Cut Costs, Not Corners

If you’re planning a bucket list trip with a tight budget in mind, AARP Travel Center Powered by Expedia can help put a few dollars back in your wallet. Expedia vacation packages can make the booking process easier, and you get a $50 gift card of your choice when you book any flight package. For car rentals, members save up to 30% on car rentals from Avis, Budget and Payless.

And for a limited time, save +30% off select stays AND enjoy a $50 gift card when you spend $500 or more on eligible hotel stays or car rentals when you book through AARP Travel Center Powered by Expedia. Book by July 13, 2026.

Steals on Wheels

A recent survey from Gas Station TV shows that 72% of Americans plan to road trip this summer.

“With the rising costs and long security lines that airport travel has brought this year, driving to destinations is popular among domestic travelers,” said Guilday. “Considering this road trip renaissance, taking advantage of loyalty programs to save on costs such as fuel and car rentals is a great way to help you stay on budget while you travel.”

Regardless of what model of car you choose to rent, Budget has your back and can help you save in more ways than one. Not only do you save on wear and tear on your personal vehicle, but AARP members get exclusive savings of up to 35% off base rates when choosing the Pay Now option at reservation or up to 30% off when you choose to Pay Later at the pickup counter. Plus, for a limited time if you lock in your reservation by Sept. 30, 2026, you save up to 35% off base rates regardless of which payment path you choose — giving you a worthwhile combination of savings and flexibility. Use BCD #Y508539 to claim your discount today.

And with gas prices still soaring, AARP members can save at the pump with Shell and Exxon Mobile. When you link your Shell Fuel Rewards^® account to your AARP membership, you can enjoy ongoing savings with Complimentary Gold Status — including at least 5¢ off per gallon on your fill-ups at participating Shell stations. AARP members who are new to the Fuel Rewards^® program can also receive a one-time savings of 50¢/gallon* on their first fill-up (up to 20 gallons).

When you link your Exxon Mobil Rewards+™ account with your AARP membership, you earn extra points on everyday purchases like fuel, car washes and convenience store items, plus double the points on fuel on member days. AARP members who are new to the Exxon Mobil Rewards+ program also get a 500-point welcome bonus after their first fill-up.

Check In, Cash In

Where you lay your head down to rest and recover while vacationing is just as important as the sites you’re exploring during the day. Whether you’re looking for a luxurious lodging upgrade or prefer an economically friendly option so you can go big in other ways, AARP membership can help make your travel plans possible. Check out these options before you book:

• With Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and for a limited time, AARP members get 15% off two or more consecutive nights at thousands of hotels in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Latin America when you book by June 30 and complete your stay by Sept. 30, 2026.
• For a limited time, Choice Hotels is offering AARP members 15% off* 2+ night stays on select nights if they book a trip by Dec. 31, 2026.

Cruising in Style

Cruises are a popular way for travelers to experience several coveted spots in one trip. Not only can bucket lists be fulfilled with a cruise, but it comes with built-in entertainment, planned excursion options and experiential dining. When cruising with Holland America Line, AARP members can enjoy even more vacation perks. Holland’s fleet of 11 ships offers more than 500 sailings a year visiting all seven continents, including destinations in Alaska, the Caribbean, Mexico and Europe. AARP members receive up to $400 Onboard Credit per stateroom when booking your next Holland America Line cruise. Use your onboard credit for products or services while onboard, including Shore Excursions, Beverages and Spa services. Plus, book a Grand Voyage or Grand Voyage Segment and receive a FREE Surf Wi-Fi Package, a value of $30.99 per person per day. Offer applies to select cruises.

From now until July 23, 2026, and through the Travel by Sea Sale, AARP members receive up to $400 Onboard Credit per stateroom when booking your next Holland America Line cruise. Use your onboard credit for products or services while onboard, including Shore Excursions, Beverages and Spa services. Plus, book a Grand Voyage or Grand Voyage Segment and receive a FREE Surf Wi-Fi Package, a value of $30.99 per person per day. Offer applies to select cruises.

Whether your dream is to lounge on a 30A beach, camp and hike in Denali or sail around Europe, taking advantage of an AARP membership can help you save along the way and cross out that long-awaited adventure.

To learn more about the benefits and discounts for AARP members, please visit aarp.org/save.

AARP and its affiliates are not insurers, agents, brokers or producers. AARP member benefits are provided by third parties, not by AARP or its affiliates. Providers pay a royalty fee to AARP for the use of its intellectual property. These fees are used for the general purposes of AARP. Some provider offers are subject to change and may have restrictions. Please contact the provider directly for details.