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In a study by professor Jackson Lu and co-authors, researchers followed 471 employees at a Fortune 100 company. Some were randomly assigned to complete nine weeks of debate training. A year and a half later, those employees were 12% more likely to have been promoted into leadership roles. Learning to debate isn't just about arguing. It's about learning how to share your perspective diplomatically and assertively, a skill that is valued in many American workplaces, Lu told Business Insider.

Many companies spending significantly on AI are actually increasing headcount, according to a study by research affiliate Lawrence Schmidt and co-authors. The research also found that AI use can contribute to growth in certain roles because workers focus on higher-value tasks. Increased AI use was linked to both employment and sales growth.

In his new book, "Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment," Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman estimates that about 17% of U.S. employees are marginal workers — roughly one in six employees. They are technically part of an organization but have little connection to its traditional career structure. "We're not becoming a gig economy; we're becoming a disposable one," he said.

Principal research scientist Neil Thompson wrote: "AI can increasingly provide information. Technical professionals will continue to provide something harder to automate: judgment, context, and the ability to help people turn knowledge into decisions. When this happens, decision friction decreases."

American target-date funds held $4.8 trillion at the end of 2025, a fifth more than a year earlier. Distinguished senior lecturer Robert Pozen has spent this year arguing that conventional advice is too timid for savers who are comfortably off. Pozen's complaint is that the glidepath turns cautious for savers who have no need of the money. Most advisors counsel a 60-40 split between shares and bonds, whereas the wealthier sort would do better holding 90% in a cheap index fund and 10% in a money market fund.

Professor Catherine Wolfram said: "We tend to associate climate change with higher heat, but the El Niño phenomenon also brings flooding to some places and droughts to other places. If you're a farmer in India or Africa and you experience a flood one year that wipes out your crop, it probably makes you less able to sustain a heatwave that comes the next year."