Chatbot Cubicle

PRESENTED BY INCOGNI

Happy Wednesday, Future Party. Timing can be a strange thing. Most people had no idea how a new pope was chosen until Edward Berger’s Conclave was released last year (great movie). When news hit Monday that Pope Francis passed away at the age of 88 — meaning another conclave was set to unfold — views of the movie shot up 283% on PVOD that night. Now that it just started playing on Prime Video yesterday, expect viewership to skyrocket even more. Everyone wants the inside scoop.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Prepare To Slack Your AI Colleague

AI firm Anthropic believes that AI-powered chatbots will become autonomous employees within companies as soon as next year.

Why It Hits: Are we ready to share virtual cubicle space with AI? Probably not, which is why Anthropic is sounding the alarm that companies need to prepare for this… especially as it concerns cybersecurity. Corporate espionage is about to get a major update.

Behind the Hires: Get the name tags ready for your new AI coworkers.

• Jason Clinton, Anthropic’s chief information security officer, told Axios that these AI employees will have their own “memories,” which will allow them to work on tasks continuously.

• That will naturally require the AIs to have designated roles within a company, their own corporate accounts, and, presumably, their own passwords.

• Clinton believes that Anthropic has two key responsibilities — making sure its Claude chatbot can withstand cyberattacks and preventing people from fooling Claude into harming a company.

The Future: If AI employees are onboarded, figuring out how to secure them beyond the guardrails baked into the chatbots will become a top priority. And when something becomes a top priority, you can expect that a lot of money will be invested in startups that hope to fill the need. Companies like Okta just started rolling out agentic-AI management platforms, so competition is heating up.

Counterpoint: Carnegie Mellon University staffed a fake company with AI agents to see how it would perform. It didn’t go so well.

Together with Incogni

My SSN Is On The Dark Web. Now What?

When a data broker sells your personal data (SSN, phone number, address) on the internet, a few things can happen:

1. More spam calls/emails

2. Raised insurance rates

3. Worst case: Identity theft or fraud

Fight back with Incogni. The agents at Incogni track down your sensitive info and confront data brokers on your behalf. And unlike others, Incogni scrubs your data from all broker types (even People Search sites).

Your data’s already out there — protect yourself from identity theft, spam calls, and health insurers raising your rates.

Score 55% off using code FUTUREPARTY.

Tokyo Perfects The “Urban Knowledge Campus”

Tokyo is in the spotlight for redefining the downtown district to include multiple distinct, mixed-use business areas that cater to the full spectrum of people who work there — making it feel more like a college campus than a typical downtown.

The Big Picture: COVID majorly derailed downtown development, as remote work took hold and storefronts shuttered. To bring downtowns back, rethinking how they’re organized could help revitalize them for the modern needs and habits of society at large… no matter where in the world they’re located.

Between the Downtowns: Tokyo, the world’s largest metro area is cementing the idea of the “urban knowledge campus,” per Fast Company.

• Instead of a centralized downtown, Tokyo has built unique districts that specialize in a specific category — such as Marunouchi-Nihonbashi (the financial and professional services hub) and Shibuya (the creative and tech hub).

• The districts have a dense mix of office space, restaurants, parks, homes, childcare, nightlife, public transportation, etc. — ensuring that the districts are 24/7 areas, as opposed to places where the lights go off at 5pm when everyone goes home.

• In fact, there’s such a diverse mix of spaces that offices only account for 40% of land use in four out of the city’s five major districts. In comparison, London’s Canary Wharf has 80% offices and Lower Manhattan has 60% offices.

• That mix creates what BCG Henderson Institute calls “interaction density” — “the constant, unplanned collisions that spark new ideas and connections.”

Closing Thoughts: The organization of Tokyo has helped lead the city to rebound, with “high rates of office return, higher commercial rents, and lower vacancy rates than nearly any other global city.” That’s impressive when Tokyo’s downtown districts have some of the highest population density in the world — 70,000 people per square kilometer, which is double that of Manhattan. Expect urban planners and even companies themselves to take some pages out of Tokyo’s book.

Together with Mood

This Cannabis Startup Pioneered “Rapid Onset” Gummies

Most people prefer to smoke cannabis, but that isn’t always an option if you’re at work or in public.

That’s why we were so excited when we found out about Mood’s new Rapid Onset THC Gummies. They can take effect in as little as five minutes without any coughing, lingering smells, or the need for a lighter.

Nobody will ever know you’re enjoying some THC.

We recommend you try them out, because they offer a 100% money-back guarantee. And for a limited time, you can receive 20% off with code FIRST20.

Shop Now

DEEP DIVES

• Read: Forbes profiles Scale AI co-founder Lucy Guo, who has become the youngest female self-made billionaire at only 30 years old.

• Listen: Don’t Kill the Messenger chats with legendary marketing exec Tony Sella about how to craft a great movie campaign like he did with Avatar and Independence Day.

• Explore: NYT has a breakdown of all the major antitrust cases the US government has ongoing right now, including Meta, Google, and JetBlue.

64.5% of you voted Regular posts in yesterday’s poll: What do you find more engaging on Instagram — Stories or regular posts?

“I don’t always want people to see if I’ve looked at their Stories — posts allow a bit of anonymity.”

“I avoid Stories at all costs (usually someone complaining about politics). But they post about their life, which is what I want to see.”

“This one was hard for me. I love a post, because it’s usually longer and has more robust content, whereas a Story is just a snippet. But I’m finding that Stories have been capturing my attention just a smidge more lately.”

“I’m too busy to scroll through my feeds, but I do have time to watch Stories, which are basically feed highlights.”

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.

QUICK HITS

→ Technology

🚗 After Tesla posted a 71% decrease in net income last quarter, CEO Elon Musk announced that he would step back from DOGE to focus more on the automaker.

👀 OpenAI signaled it would be happy to buy Chrome if a federal judge rules that Google needs to sell it. We’re sure Google loved to hear that. (Not.)

🔋 Horse Powertrain has invented a way to turn an EV engine into a hybrid one.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

🏈 Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is joining VC firm Cashmere Fund as a partner, where he’ll invest and act as a quasi-influencer for portfolio companies.

🍬 The FDA has ruled that it will ban the use of artificial dyes in food by the end of 2026.

🫗 Orka Beverage Co. burned a lot of capital making its famous clear bottles.

→ Creator Economy

🏆 Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Google, and NBCUniversal were the big winners of the 2025 Webby Awards.

📱 Meta debuted a new video editing tool, Edits, to compete with TikTok’s CapCut.

😬 At Meta’s antitrust trial, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom testified that he believes Meta withheld resources from Instagram, because it viewed the app as a threat to Facebook.