A Disturbance In The Force

PRESENTED BY SECTION

Happy hump day, Future Party. According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mars once had an ancient ocean with “vacation-style” beaches. It’s all dried up now, but it gives researchers hope that they’ll be able to find water deep down in the Red Planet… and gives future space developers hope that it can sell some intergalactic timeshares.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is reportedly planning on retiring from the George Lucas-founded production company at the end of the year.

The Big Picture: Lording over all things Star Wars (and Indiana Jones, but that franchise seems to have run its course) is one of the most enviable and anxiety-inducing jobs in Hollywood… almost as much as running James Bond. With Kennedy stepping down, expect every ambitious exec in Hollywood to jockey for the position.

Behind the Scenes: After 13 years, Kennedy is leaving the Jedi Council (the Disney lot).

Closing Credits: Kennedy — a legendary producer behind over 70 movies, including classics like Back to the Future and E.T. — has had a mixed track record at Lucasfilm. She produced more Star Wars titles than have ever been released, led The Force Awakens to become the fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time, and ramped up TV output to meet the demands of Disney’s streaming mandate. But in creating so many projects (and abandoning even more), many have argued that Lucasfilm’s overall quality has slipped over time. Fans, the media, and the internet have relentlessly put Kennedy’s feet to the fire.

Regardless, Kennedy — who was trained under the tutelage of none other than Steven Spielberg — will likely form a new venture. After decades of blockbusters, it’ll be interesting to see where her creative ambitions lead next.

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The next era of work will introduce widespread collaboration between human employees and agentic AI chatbots — systems that can both answer questions and complete tasks.

Why It Hits: The AI revolution is here. While the tech industry is pitching AI agents as an added value to a human workforce, chatbots are already replacing humans in some roles. The remaining flesh-and-blood workers at companies will likely be expected to play middle manager to a team of chatbots that can increase their productivity.

Between the Cubicles: Ryan Gavin, the chief marketing officer at Slack, told Axios to get ready for chatbots to slide into their work DMs.

The Future: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called AI agents a “limitless workforce” because… well… they don’t get tired, go on vacation, or quit when they’re looking for new opportunities. But first, they need a major update to become a reliable workforce. AI-agent management startup Wayfound has itself been using AI agents as employees for the past year. The verdict: “It feels a lot like managing a team of interns, who are book smart but still make frustrating mistakes on the job once in a while,” says CEO Tatyana Mamut.

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74.8% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Are you into Survivor?

“I liked the show in its early days, but the formula has gotten stale over the years, and their attempts at reinvention have made the concept overly complicated. I haven’t watched as a regular viewer in many, many years.”

“I had a chance to watch Survivor: Panama being filmed. It’s so fake. ”

“Yes, but like many other reality shows, the format has become tired. The problem in general is just too much content and too little time to care to spend it watching anything, let alone people trying to win a million dollars while on a months-long stay on a tropical island.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

📺 It turns out customers love a good streaming bundle, as evidenced by the success of the rollup of Disney+, Hulu, and Max.

💿 An album featuring hitmakers like Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Cat Stevens, and Damon Albarn is made up of silence… to protest changing copyright laws in the UK.

🎉 NBC has wrapped up the rights to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the next ten years.

🤖 Anthropic announced that it’s released the first “hybrid reasoning” AI model.

🏛️ New FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson says that he plans to maintain the same level of M&A enforcement as his predecessor.

🚚 Pronto, an autonomous trucking startup, is rolling out 100 trucks worldwide over the next three years.

👜 Luxury brands are turning to LinkedIn to find new professional (read: wealthy) customers.

✊ Grassroots organization The People’s Union USA is trying to organize an economic blackout this Friday.

⌚ Leonardo DiCaprio has been named a Rolex “Testimonee” — the name of their small circle of brand ambassadors.