📰On The Record – 24th June 2026

Oracle has shed roughly 21,000 employees over the past year — about 13% of its workforce — while spending $1.84 billion on severance and restructuring, even as it pours money into AI infrastructure for customers like OpenAI and Meta. This matters more than any other story today because it's the clearest evidence yet that AI isn't just changing how companies work, it's changing how many people they need to do that work. The broader implication is sobering: efficiency gains for shareholders are increasingly being funded by headcount, and Oracle won't be the last to make that trade. Read full story →

The must read articles that are moving the business landscape today.

Meta launched its own-brand smart glasses at $299, undercutting its pricier Ray-Ban collaboration and landing well ahead of Apple's rumoured entry into the category. Built with EssilorLuxottica and styled in part by Kylie Jenner, the glasses pack cameras, AI assistance and voice control into a much more accessible price tag. This matters because Meta isn't just shipping a gadget — it's trying to make AI wearables feel as normal as a phone case. If it works, the company that owns the "first AI device people actually wear" wins a category Apple hasn't even entered yet. Read full story →

Alibaba has sued the U.S. Department of Defense to get itself removed from a list of alleged "Chinese military companies," arguing there's no real link between its e-commerce and cloud business and China's defence apparatus. This matters because the designation isn't just symbolic — it can scare off Western partners and invite further restrictions. For any company doing business with Alibaba's cloud or logistics arms, this lawsuit is now a live risk factor worth watching, not background noise. Read full story →

Blackstone plans to invest $30 billion in Japanese AI data centres over the next three to five years, eyeing more than a gigawatt of capacity according to president Jonathan Gray. This matters because it signals where the smart money thinks the next wave of AI infrastructure demand will land — and it isn't only Silicon Valley. For Japanese businesses and policymakers, it's a vote of confidence that could reshape the country's role in the global AI supply chain for a decade. Read full story →

Shopify will ban all vape products from its platform after pressure from 25 U.S. state attorneys general targeting a roughly $9 billion illegal e-cigarette trade, much of it imported from China. This matters because it shows payment and e-commerce infrastructure becoming the new front line in regulation — Mastercard is already warning partners too. For legitimate vape brands, the real-world consequence is a cleaner playing field; for illegal sellers, the online shortcuts just got a lot harder to find. Read full story →

A daily score of business conditions (scored out of 100), with a breakdown of what’s driving it.

The Daily Business Index, our daily 0–100 readout of global business health where 50 is neutral, slipped to 49.4 as a historic selloff in semiconductor stocks — sparked by South Korea's Kospi suffering its worst day in three months — rippled across global markets, dragging chipmakers like Micron and Nvidia down sharply. It wasn't all bad news: oil tumbled to three-month lows on US-Iran peace progress, and factory activity in the US and Europe beat expectations, showing the slowdown is concentrated, not universal.

The one story from the archives worth remembering today, so you can spot the pattern before everyone else does.

A year ago, FedEx reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations — only for shares to drop about 5% in after-hours trading as the company offered current-quarter profit guidance that came in slightly below what Wall Street was expecting. The lesson aged well: in this market, what you say about tomorrow matters more than what you delivered yesterday. With today's Oracle story all about AI reshaping workforces, it's worth remembering that even "good" earnings can spook investors the moment guidance hints at a harder road ahead. Beating the number isn't the same as beating the narrative.

The one piece of business jargon demystified today, so you can nod along with confidence.

What it means: This is corporate-speak for permanently cutting costs out of how a business runs — not a one-off saving, but a change to the operating model itself. Oracle's AI-driven headcount cuts are a textbook example: it's not trimming a budget line, it's redesigning how many people the business needs to function at all.