Informed i’s Weekly Business Insights

Extractive summaries and key takeaways from the articles carefully curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Since 2017 |  Week 438, January 30-February 5, 2026. | Archive

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Hiding in plain sight: The underestimated size of the semiconductor industry

By Bill Wiseman et al., | McKinsey & Company | January 15, 2026

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. Market analysts may disagree about specific trends and forecasts, but they typically share the same optimistic attitude about the semiconductor market.  According to McKinsey research, the value of the semiconductor market totaled $775 billion in 2024 and could reach $1.6 trillion (ranging from $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion) by 2030—figures that far surpass other estimates. 
  2. The leading segments in 2030 will be the three that now dominate the market, but their growth trajectories and demand drivers will differ:  Computing and data storage, wireless and automative.
  3. Not all semiconductor companies will benefit equally, because most growth will relate to leading-edge chips and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). A few highly innovative companies will likely account for the most value in these segments, given the semiconductor industry’s winner-take-all dynamic. In other market segments—such as advanced and mature nodes, or DDR1 DRAM and NAND memory—the top companies aggressively reduce costs, either by increasing scale or undertaking traditional cost excellence programs. They also strive to expand their presence in higher-growth segments and attempt to differentiate their offerings.

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Topics:  Semiconductor Industry, OEM

What’s next for EV batteries in 2026

By Casey Crownhart | MIT Technology Review | February 2, 2026

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. Demand for electric vehicles and the batteries that power them has never been hotter.  In 2025, EVs made up over a quarter of new vehicle sales globally, up from less than 5% in 2020. Some regions are seeing even higher uptake: In China, more than 50% of new vehicle sales last year were battery electric or plug-in hybrids. In Europe, more purely electric vehicles hit the roads in December than gas-powered ones. (The US is the notable exception here, dragging down the global average with a small sales decline from 2024.)
  2. As EVs become increasingly common on the roads, the battery world is growing too. Looking ahead, we could soon see wider adoption of new chemistries, including some that deliver lower costs or higher performance. Meanwhile, the geopolitics of batteries are shifting, and so is the policy landscape.
  3. Lithium-ion batteries are the default chemistry used in EVs, personal devices, and even stationary storage systems on the grid today. But in a tough environment in some markets like the US, there’s a growing interest in cheaper alternatives – Sodium-ion cells the most competitive one.  As we enter the second half of this decade, many eyes in the battery world are on big promises and claims about solid-state batteries.

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Topics:  EV Batteries, Lithium-ion batteries, Sodium-ion cells, Solid-state batteries

Marketing at the Speed of Culture

By Ayelet Israeli et al., | Harvard Business Review Magazine | January–February 2026

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. The ability to create and release marketing at the speed of culture, often referred to as fastvertising, real-time marketing, or newsjacking, has become a full-blown strategic capability.  The fastvertising model—producing rapid-fire, culturally relevant, platform-native content that engages people at just the right time—is no longer optional. Social media accelerates the pace of public discourse so much that being fast isn’t just a marketing edge; it’s a survival skill.
  2. When done well, fastvertising appears easy and inevitable. This may lull marketing teams into thinking that if they just act fast and say something, they will always be successful, but that’s not the case. It’s just as easy to get things wrong.
  3. Companies that want to produce effective fastvertisements need to keep five key principles in mind:  speed is crucial, relevance beats production values; trust and organizational fluidity enable agility; humor, humility, and humanity fuel connection; and failure is cheap—and necessary.

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Topics:  Marketing, Fastvertising, Newsjacking, Real-time Marketing

Can Customers Find Your Brand? Marketing Strategies for AI-Driven Search

By Michael Pettiette and Kimberly A. Whitler | MIT Sloan Management Review | January 28, 2026

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. Customers must be able to find your brand in order to consider, desire, or buy your offerings. AI’s opaque and evolving algorithms risks dire consequences, even for brands that lead in market share. 
  2. Strategic companies can adapt and prepare for the future by understanding the Information Search Marketing (ISM) framework.  ISM encompasses all marketing activities aimed at having content appear more visibly — ideally, at the top of result lists — on digital search platforms.
  3. The five A’s of search success can help businesses better understand and adapt to next-generation search.  A) Authority – build credibility and trustworthiness on a platform, B) Answers – must adjust to platforms where a query results in a single answer as opposed to multiple pages of responses, C) Arrangement. Preferred data arrangements/structures must be presented in the language most easily decoded by the ISM method, D) Attribution. Companies must develop appropriate measurement mechanisms based on the marketing objectives of the ISM tactic used. And E) Agnostic alignment. Stay zoomed out and observe as behaviors shift; if a tool proves to have scale, address it. Learn about as many tools as possible, test them, and then incorporate those that work best into your strategy.

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Topics:  Marketing, GEO, GEM, SEO, SEM

Donald Trump, CEO-in-Chief: How the president’s dealmaking instincts are shaking up business and the government

By Geoff Colvin | Fortune Magazine | January-February 2026 Issue

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. The deal was vintage Trump and a telling anecdote for business leaders about how the business world now works under Trump 2.0. In the first year of his second term, Trump has rewritten the government’s relationship with business more radically than any predecessor. He started by imposing new tariffs on scores of countries, scrambling business models at millions of companies big and small. He has intervened in other ways. 
  2. Some CEOs, especially in tech, praise him fulsomely. But when CEOs speak anonymously in surveys, they don’t seem any happier, collectively, after a year of Trump’s pro-business policies.
  3. Why the disconnect? It has a lot to do with the president’s leadership style. Though we’re only one year in, three clear themes have come to define that style. Above all, his love of one-on-one deals. Second, his practiced element of unpredictability. Finally, his penchant for grabbing the deal without sweating the details. Deals have always been inherent in politics, but Trump’s devotion to them is different. In every relationship, problem, and wish, he can find a deal, and he revels in it. Bottom line: Great CEOs can be American heroes, but it’s not yet clear if history will bestow that distinction on presidents who think they’re CEOs.

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Topics:  Leadership, Donald Trump, Decision-making

7 Practical Ways To Add Value To Your Professional Network

By Joseph Liu | Forbes | February 04, 2026

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. Networking involves a give and take. Too often, people focus on taking too quickly, likely putting people off. On the other hand, if you can focus on genuinely giving without expecting anything in return, you might be surprised how this pays off in the long run.
  2. Seven simple ways you can offer value to someone that don’t require deep industry knowledge, role seniority, tremendous resources, or huge amounts of time.  These are:  Share a resource, make targeted introductions, relay an opportunity, mention an event, refer a new customer, acknowledge publicly, and share a useful tool.
  3. Building a strong network takes effort and time. As is the case with any other high quality relationship in life, your professional contacts require nurturing and ongoing maintenance. Giving to your network through contribution and assistance is a way to build stronger, quality relationships while giving you the satisfication of knowing you’re doing what you can to be helpful to someone.

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Topics:  Networking

I Asked 75,000 People About Their Biggest Regrets. These 6 Patterns Changed How I Think.

By Jason Feifer | Entrepreneur Magazine | January, 2026 Issue

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3 key takeaways from the article

  1. Regrets blossom in darkness. When we lack information, and we keep regrets to ourselves, they feel big and embarrassing, as if we should have known better. But the more we share them with others, the more we recognize how common they are — and how small they are by comparison.
  2. The author asked his 75,000 newsletter subscribers: What missed opportunity do you still regret?   Six common themes emerged:  Giving up on a winning idea.  The grass is always greener.  The missing money.  The ‘What if…’ stories.  Wasted time and ‘I never followed up’.
  3. Big moments can mean nothing. Small moments can change our lives. The good can become bad, and the bad can become good, and it’s simply impossible to predict what will actually matter in life.  So here’s the best we can do: We can carry forward with gusto, making the most of our time, building the things that matter, pursuing what matters most to us, and living as if there’s nothing to regret.

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Topics:  Regrets, Missed Opportunities, Wasted Time

5 Ways to Use Google Gemini to Streamline Your Workday

By Jason R. Rich | Inc Magazine | February 3, 2026

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2 key takeaways from the article

  1. Having an advanced AI assistant at your disposal provides another way to interact with computers and mobile devices to streamline everyday activities, gain access to information, compose and summarize text and audio content, and much more. 
  2. There are a lot of similarities between Gemini, Copilot+, ChatGPT, Claude and others, but Gemini does an excellent job making its AI tools and features available—only when you want or need them.  Here are five ways you can start using Gemini to streamline your workday and more efficiently manage content, documents, recordings, and data. Quickly summarize long documents, notes, and reports.  Compose and proofread content.  Transcribe and summarize digital recordings of meetings and calls.  Manage your schedule more efficiently. And Perform research to help with decision making.

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Topics:  Google Gemni, AI, Technology & Humans