September 21, 2026

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Hello there. ICYMI, the autumn squash soup is back on the menu boards at Panera, and your favorite septuagenarian would probably appreciate a get-together. Just remember that the Venn diagram of people who love this soup and people who will ask you pointed questions about your love life is basically a circle.

—Brendan Cosgrove, Holly Van Leuven, Neal Freyman

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

AI assistants in the time of sandbox-breaking
Paramount’s advanced settlement negotiations
The highest-returning stock in the S&P 500

Markets: Year-to-Date

Nasdaq

26,522.54

+14.11%

S&P

7,650.5

+11.76%

Dow

51,682.64

+7.53%

10-Year

4.998%

+83.5 bps

Bitcoin

$81,268.01

-7.13%

Sandisk

$1,791.82

+654.83%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 11:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: With last week’s interest rate hike firmly in Wall Street’s rearview mirror, geopolitics will be in the driver’s seat this week, with President Trump set to meet with a slew of leaders from around the world (more on that later).
Stock spotlight: Memory storage company Sandisk is getting promoted to the S&P 100 today after a stunning rise over the past year. Last Friday, the stock jumped nearly 11%.

double agents?

AI can’t be controlled, so give it your credit card

Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images

AI may leave civilization in a burning heap of rubble, but until then, our monthly protein powder shipments will be completely frictionless. At least that seems to be the pitch from Big Tech companies that simultaneously warn about the dangers of rogue AI while trying to convince us they can be trusted assistants on par with Alfred or Jeeves.

AI with the assist. Tech companies have long talked of personal AI assistants that could buy your groceries, book a trip, and schedule appointments, but they finally seem to be at a watershed moment:

Muse, Meta’s personal AI agent, recently became the No. 1 free app in Apple’s US App Store.
AI assistant startup (and Silicon Valley darling) Instinct is reportedly in talks for funding based on a $10 billion valuation.
Google is testing a new AI assistant for families, all while OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Apple each make moves of their own.

Going rogue

But while the technology is there, the trust may not be. AI assistants often require access to your schedule, medical history, and credit card information. That’s a lot to hand over to a bot, especially when rogue AI agents are escaping sandboxes more often than Tommy Pickles.

Just look at the OpenAI–Hugging Face hack, or Google’s acknowledgment on Friday that its Gemini model hacked its way into three companies in May. (Not to mention, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent prediction that rogue AI agents could soon team up and eat through the internet.)

There are smaller stakes, too. According to ABC News Australia last month, an Australian man asked his AI assistant to get him a good spot in a Pilates class, so the OpenClaw agent hacked into the gym, deleted another person’s reservation, and signed him up.

So, what’s the solution? Testing and adding safeguards, though tech execs acknowledge that won’t completely solve the problem. In the meantime, be sure your AI assistant asks for permission before setting the world on fire.—BC

Reader Poll

Have you used or are you using AI agents for personal chores?

Yes, they’re OK.
Yes, they save me a lot of time.
I tried them, but I don’t use them anymore.
No, too techy for me.
No, because I read the news.