For every dour AI study, there’s a brighter version.
In recent years, Wharton’s Human-AI Research department has been asking business leaders how generative AI adoption is going. The latest findings: Almost 75% of companies are getting positive ROI from AI projects.
The study also reveals which enterprise AI tools are being used the most, and which ones aren’t used as much.
Take a look at the chart below, created by Business Insider’s amazing graphics team.
I’m surprised Anthropic‘s Claude is so low here. This AI startup is supposed to be crushing it on enterprise AI adoption.
OpenAI‘s ChatGPT is used far more, which also surprised me.
Microsoft’s Copilot is clearly ahead of Google. That’s probably because Copilot is baked into Microsoft’s work software, which is used by many companies. That old Windows monopoly is still paying dividends!
October was mostly treats instead of tricks for the biggest hedge funds in the industry.
Market volatility briefly reached its highest point since the spring rollout of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but investor jitters dissipated quickly as the US and China came to a trade agreement.
The biggest players in the $5 trillion hedge fund industry finished October mostly positive, though few were able to match the returns of the S&P 500.
At Izzy Englander’s $79 billion Millennium, the firm managed to return 1.5% in October, according to a person familiar with the firm. That bumped its 2025 gains to 7.6%.
Citadel had one of its strongest months of the year, with all five strategies making money across Ken Griffin’s $69 billion firm, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The flagship Wellington fund gained 1.8% and is up 6.8% year-to-date.
Its Tactical Trading fund, which blends its quant and fundamental stock-picking teams, gained 2.7% and is up 13.4% year-to-date; its equities fund gained 2.3% and is up 10.4% on the year; and its fixed-income fund gained 1.1% and is up 7.3% year-to-date.
Dmitry Balyasny’s $29.5 billion firm is now up 12.5% on the year after a 2.4% gain last month, a person close to the manager said. Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint continued its strong year with another positive month, and the New York-based firm is now up 14.2% year-to-date, a person close to the manager said.
The S&P 500 hit new highs after a monthly gain of 2.3%, which was partially driven by strong earnings growth from the world’s largest companies. A review by the London Stock Exchange Group found that roughly 83% of S&P 500 companies that reported earnings so far in the fourth quarter have beaten estimates.
For the year, the index is up more than 16%.
Still, the industry overall is in a good place. Citco, a fund administrator with trillions of assets under administration, said in a recent report that 2025 is on pace to be the best year for hedge funds since 2020.
The managers mentioned declined to comment.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published on November 4 at 7:06 am. New figures have been added to the table below as they have been learned.
Generative AI is becoming a headache for the marketplace quality team at TikTok Shop.
Fraudsters are using generative AI to try to list fake brands or sell dupe products on Shop.
TikTok exec Nicolas Waldmann said the company is mixing AI and human moderation to combat fraud.
AI-generated “slop” isn’t just mucking up our social feeds with deepfakes and other unsavory content. It’s also becoming a real problem for marketplace quality teams at e-commerce platforms like TikTok Shop.
Fraudulent sellers are using generative AI tools to make fake brands or dupe products in an attempt to get users to pay for goods that don’t actually exist, said Nicolas Waldmann, who leads TikTok Shop’s governance and experience external affairs team.
“It’s organized crime, to be honest,” Waldmann said. “They’re trying to basically go through and sell, and of course, never deliver anything, and then run with the money.”
While this type of e-commerce fraud has been around for years, generative AI has increased the sophistication of the methods that bad actors use to try to trick moderation teams on platforms like TikTok Shop or Amazon, Waldmann said.
TikTok uses a mix of human and AI moderation to help track down fraudulent accounts and listings. The company has its own in-house detection tools, as well as partnerships with outside firms to manage tasks like authenticating pre-owned luxury goods.
“We use AI to basically deal with AI,” Waldmann said.
In a new report published Thursday, the company said it had rejected 70 million products and removed 700,000 sellers for various policy violations in the first six months of 2025.
TikTok Shop is a top priority at the social-video company, which has set ambitious growth targets that have been challenging for its US team to hit. Last year, the company drove $100 million in single-day sales on Black Friday in the US.
The company has run into a variety of marketplace quality challenges since it began testing its e-commerce tool in the US in 2022. While TikTok has a lengthy list of prohibited items listed on its website, savvy operators have still managed to break through its filters to sell items like THC syrup and sex toys. “Dupes,” or knockoff versions of household-name items, have also created headaches for the social-shopping app. The company’s automated enforcement has irked some sellers in the past who said they were hit with violations without a clear explanation.
“I see a lot of people in big jobs, including political jobs. They grow into it,” said Jamie Dimon.
Bloomberg/ Getty Images
New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as its next mayor.
Business leaders including Bill Ackman, Ken Griffin, and Andrew Yang congratulated Mamdani on his win.
Some high-profile figures, like Elon Musk, came out against Mamdani.
Zohran Mamdani is the next mayor of New York City, and the congratulations have started to roll in from some business leaders.
Mamdani’s progressive agenda, which includes freezing rent, establishing city-owned grocery stores, free child-care, and taxing New York’s millionaires a flat 2% tax, has put some on Wall Street on edge. The 34-year-old mayor-elect has also said he doesn’t believe billionaires should exist.
Some high-profile business leaders came out against Mamdani prior to election night, throwing their support behind former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Billionaires like Bill Ackman, Mike Bloomberg, and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia poured millions into pro-Cuomo groups. On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged in a post on X to “VOTE CUOMO!”
Wall Street, however, isn’t unanimously anti-Mamdani. An analysis by Business Insider previously found that back-office workers on Wall Street overwhelmingly donated to the democratic socialist.
Yasser Salem, a former McKinsey executive and Mamdani’s “CEO whisperer,” told Business Insider that some executives are open to a few of Mamdani’s proposals, including free childcare, which could alleviate some of their employees’ financial burdens.
Here’s what business leaders are saying about New York City’s mayor-elect:
Jamie Dimon
Bloomberg/ Getty Images
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that he won’t make “quick decisions” about the bank’s future in New York because of Mamdani’s win.
“He’s a young man. Will he get good at it?” Dimon said about Mamdani making and implementing good policies. “I see a lot of people in big jobs, including political jobs. They grow into it.”
He added, “I’ve seen a lot of people. They kind of swell into the job. They get worse. They, you know, it all becomes about them.”
“I’m hoping he’s the good one and that will be important for the future in New York,” he said.
In his first press conference since being elected on Tuesday night, Mamdani mentioned the JPMorgan CEO and said, “I look forward to meeting with Jamie Dimon and meeting with anyone who is concerned about the future of our city, and is invested in the vitality of that same city.”
Bill Ackman
Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, spent a total of $1.75 million over the last year to keep Mamdani from becoming mayor, including $500,000 during the Democratic primary and $1.25 million in the general election.
On Tuesday night, Ackman wrote on X: “Congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
He expanded on that message in a follow-up post on Wednesday, writing that he cares “enormously” about the city and that Mamdani’s win was “decisive.”
“While I did not support Mamdani for mayor and have concerns about the unintended and negative consequences of his policies, I want to do everything I can to help NYC regardless of who are mayor is,” Ackman wrote.
Ackman has been a vocal opponent of Mamdani and publicly encouraged Sliwa to drop out of the race.
Mamdani singled out Ackman on the stump, naming him among the billionaires who oppose his candidacy. He has also mocked the hedge fund manager for his “1000-word tweets.”
Ackman is worth $8.44 billion, per Bloomberg.
Ken Griffin
Citadel’s Ken Griffin
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Billionaire Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel and market maker Citadel Securities, said he’s praying for the people of New York City.
“For the people of New York, I pray that the policies Mamdani uses to govern and lead New York are different than the talking points he used to win the mayoral race,” Griffin said Wednesday at the America Business Forum in Miami. “The people of New York deserve better.”
Griffin, one of the biggest donors to the GOP, was asked whether New York’s direction could prompt an exodus to cities like Miami. He moved Citadel’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, over concerns about rising crime.
“You can’t live in a city awash in violent crime and feel proud to call that place home,” he said, adding that Florida is a great place to live.
“I really hope that when Mamdani thinks about leadership, he thinks about the right role models,” Griffin added. “There’s a lot to copy from our great state of Florida and from this great city of Miami.”
James Whelan
New York’s increasingly expensive real estate is a major focus for the mayor-elect.
Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
In a statement on Tuesday night, James Whelan, the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said: “We congratulate Mayor-elect Mamdani on his victory.”
He added: “REBNY is prepared to work with the next mayor to address the issue of housing affordability and other challenges facing our city.”
Among his proposals, Mamdani plans to address the city’s housing crisis by tripling its production of publicly subsidized, rent-stabilized homes, at 200,000 new units over the next 10 years.
The plan would benefit households that make less than $70,000 a year, and it wouldcost the city $100 billion over the next decade.
He also plans to freeze rent for the city’s one million rent-stabilized units.
Andrew Yang
Jordan Strauss/AP
Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and the CEO of Noble Mobile, wrote in a post on X on Tuesday night: “Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City – and the hard part almost certainly lies ahead.”
In an edition of his newsletter published at the end of June, Yang said he predicted a “walkover” for Mamdani in the November election. He added that he met the mayor-elect before his campaign, and wrote: “I found him to be a good person who wants good things for people. He’s a sincere and talented messenger. He is positive and not the least bit hateful or corrupt.”
Alex Soros
Elisa Schu/picture alliance via Getty Images
Alex Soros, son of billionaire George Soros and chair of the $25 billion Open Society Foundations, wished Mamdani congratulations on X.
“So proud to be a New Yorker! The American dream continues!” he wrote in a post.
John Catsimatidis
Lev Radin/Reuters
John Catsimatidis, a New York City real estate and grocery store magnate, told Business Insider after Mamdani’s victory that he was skeptical of the mayor-elect’s plans for the police department and taxes.
Catsimatidis said that he expected the “bleed” of businesspeople from New York to states like Florida to continue under a Mamdani administration. “I don’t want to keep all my eggs in one basket in New York, so let me diversify to other states,” he said, describing the thinking of those who might consider leaving the city.
In June, Catsimatidis said that he would sell or close Gristedes, one of the New York supermarket chains that he owns, if Mamdani became mayor. At the time, Catsimatidis cited concerns about Mamdani’s plan to open city-run grocery stores if elected.
On Wednesday, the day after Mamdani’s victory, Business Insider asked Catsimatidis if he planned to sell Gristedes.
“Let’s see what Mr. Mamdani does,” Catsimatidis said. He said he wants to see if Mamdani makes good on his campaign promise of city-run stores.
“Remember the old expression, ‘You can’t fight City Hall,'” he added.
Microsoft announced a new MAI Superintelligence Lab pursuing “humanist superintelligence.”
Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman announced the MAI Superintelligence Team on Thursday.
“We reject narratives about a race to AGI,” Suleyman wrote, instead seeing it as a “deeply human endeavour.”
Meta launched its own superintelligence lab earlier this year, led by Scale AI cofounder Alexandr Wang.
Four months after Meta announced its superintelligence lab, Microsoft is starting its own team.
Microsoft announced the MAI Superintelligence Team on Thursday, which will be led by Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. Suleyman wrote in a blog post that the team aims to be the “world’s best place to research and build AI, bar none.”
“I think about it as humanist superintelligence to clearly indicate this isn’t about some directionless technological goal,” Suleyman wrote. “We are doing this to solve real concrete problems and do it in such a way that it remains grounded and controllable.”
“We are not building an ill-defined and ethereal superintelligence; we are building a practical technology explicitly designed only to serve humanity,” he added.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Microsoft’s announcement comes just four months after the launch of Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, led by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang.
“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a memo at the lab’s launch. “I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.”
Microsoft also appears to be trying to set itself apart from other AI rivals by emphasizing what it says will be its careful approach to pursuing superintelligence.
“In doing this we reject narratives about a race to AGI, and instead see it as part of a wider and deeply human endeavour to improve our lives and future prospects,” Suleyman wrote in his blog post.
“We feel a deep responsibility to get this right.”
Anthropic has taken a somewhat similar humanist approach, stating it wants to ensure “sophisticated AI systems remain beneficial to humanity.” As for superintelligence, CEO Dario Amodei said it could arrive as soon as 2026.
OpenAI cofounder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is also involved in the superintelligence game. In 2024, Sutskever started his own research lab, Safe Superintelligence Inc., after leaving OpenAI.
Microsoft recently signed a new agreement with OpenAI, which it has invested billions in, that gives Microsoft a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s newly structured for-profit public benefit corporation.
As the two AI shops have become increasingly competitive even while partnered, Suleyman described it like “siblings” with a good relationship who sometimes “squabble.”
Do you work on a superintelligence team? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work device at hchandonnet@insider.com or at henrychand.30 on Signal.
