|
|  |  | Wednesday, July 2, 2025 | | | SPONSORED BY |  | |  | | Joe Raedle/Getty Images | | Good morning,
Quartz readers! |
| HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | | | The art of the dealbreaker. The GOP-led Senate passed President Donald Trump’s tax bill 50-50, with the vice president breaking the tie, setting up a vote in the House. |
|
| | Broadband and bureaucracy. In a 99-1 vote, the Senate removed a measure
from the president’s domestic policy bill that would have prevented states from regulating AI.
|
| | A DOGEfight on Wall Street. Tesla stock sank as Elon Musk and Trump ramped up attacks on each other, with the president threatening to sic DOGE on Musk’s
government contracts. |
| | Interest in holding rates. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank would have already cut interest rates if it weren’t for tariffs — and said a “solid economy” buys the bank time. |
| | No cents
and sensibility. The dollar just had its worst start to the year in half a century amid the president’s tariffs, a tax bill that is expected to balloon the national debt, and more. |
| | Sliding
into the DMs. Threads has rolled out DMs and a visual highlighter for its two-year anniversary, as Meta looks to position the app as a standalone social platform. |
| | Siri-ous about outsourcing. Apple is reportedly considering ditching its in-house AI efforts and instead pivoting to using either OpenAI or Anthropic to power a coming update to Siri. |
| | A MESSAGE FROM KANTAR | _2.png) | INTELLIGENT INNOVATION | AI is revolutionizing marketing, but what about innovation, a space where human curiosity and
creativity have always led the way?
In today’s evolving landscape, brands that fail to harness the power of AI — or lack the right expertise and data to do so — risk falling behind. This insightful booklet explores the powerful potential of AI and your innovation process, when applied in the right way. | | | DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR | American households owe a record $18.2 trillion — more than ever before. But before you clutch your pearls (or your purse): Rising debt doesn’t automatically mean economic doom. It often tracks with growth. In fact, relative to income, total household debt has rarely looked healthier. The debt-service ratio — the share of income going toward loan payments — is now just 11.2%, the lowest it’s been since 1998 (barring pandemic-check-fueled blips).
But the averages might mask the mess. Disaggregated, student loans and credit card debt are flashing red. While total balances look sustainable, student debt alone has nearly doubled as a share of income since 2003. The average borrower’s balance has grown faster than their post-grad paycheck, even after $188 billion in Biden-era forgiveness. Delinquencies are back, too: Roughly 8% of federal student loans are now 90-plus days late, which is three times the pre-pandemic rate.
Then there’s plastic. Credit card debt is climbing, and serious delinquencies have returned to 2008 levels, especially among Gen Z borrowers — largely because some everyday essentials now come with a payment plan. Buy-now-pay-later loans, once reserved for big-ticket splurges, are now underwriting groceries and gas. Klarna and Afterpay financed 6% of all e-commerce last year, mostly for shoppers under 35. Meanwhile, the cost of carrying debt has soared. With interest rates still near 20-year highs and APRs on credit
cards north of 22%, even small balances can spiral. And while banks say they’re managing risk, they’ve also padded their margins.
| | MICROSOFT IS READY TO SCRUB IN | Microsoft’s new doctor bot
is making rounds — and making waves. The company says it’s one step closer to diagnosing the future after unveiling an AI-powered system (called MAI-DxO) that it claims has correctly solved up to 85% of New England Journal of Medicine case studies. That’s more than four times the success rate of experienced human physicians, according to Microsoft’s internal research. The tool acts like a virtual panel of doctors,
combining multiple AI models — including GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok — to work through patient cases step by step. MAI-DxO starts with limited data, asks targeted follow-ups, suggests tests, challenges assumptions, and spits out a diagnosis. Microsoft’s AI chief executive officer, Mustafa Suleyman, called this move “a big step toward medical superintelligence.” The tech behemoth is betting big on AI-powered medicine.
Microsoft has already rolled out RAD-DINO (a radiology assistant) and Dragon Copilot (a voice-first tool for clinicians), all under the banner of more accurate, trusted, and scalable healthcare delivery. The American Medical Association says more than 70% of physicians are already using AI in some form. Bill Gates even told The Tonight Show that AI could replace doctors entirely — within a decade. Microsoft, which already has over 50 million health-related queries daily on Bing and Copilot, says AI is already a frontline triage tool, even
before you make it to the clinic. For now, the robots aren’t scrubbing in and doctors aren’t out of a job. But if Microsoft’s diagnosis holds, your next second opinion might not come from a doctor but from a device that never went to medical school but still somehow aced the test. Quartz’s Brian O’Connell has more on why your next ER visit might start with Bing. | | A MESSAGE FROM KANTAR | | INTELLIGENT INNOVATION | AI is revolutionizing marketing, but what about innovation, a space where human curiosity and creativity have always led the way?
In today’s evolving landscape, brands that fail to harness the power of AI — or lack the right expertise and data to do
so — risk falling behind. This insightful booklet explores the powerful potential of AI and your innovation process, when applied in the right way. | | | MORE FROM QUARTZ | |
|
|
