Trump administration weighs executive order requiring federal review of new AI models before release - The Trump administration is considering an executive order to create a working group on artificial intelligence, among a series of steps to boost oversight of the emerging technology. One proposal would include a government review process for new models. White House officials told executives from Anthropic, Alphabet, and OpenAI about some of the plans under consideration during meetings last week. The change could be prompted by concerns about Anthropic's new AI model called Mythos, which cybersecurity experts warn could supercharge complex cyberattacks.
Blackstone files for $1.75B IPO of the first AI-era data center REIT (BXDC)- Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, a newly formed REIT controlled by the world's largest alternative-asset manager, is seeking to raise as much as $1.75bn in a US initial public offering, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BXDC. The trust intends to hold leased data center assets anchored by a small number of hyperscaler tenants.
Microsoft Agent 365 hits general availability, alongside the new $99/user/month E7 "Frontier Suite" - Microsoft 365 E7 is the Frontier Suite powered by Work IQ, bundling Microsoft 365 E5, Copilot, and Agent 365 into a single solution integrated with the apps and security stack customers already rely on. The platform now extends beyond Microsoft platforms to discover, observe, govern, and secure local, SaaS, and cloud agents, including OpenClaw, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Claude Code.
Anthropic, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and Hellman & Friedman launch $1.5B enterprise AI deployment firm - Anthropic and three Wall Street giants announced a $1.5B AI-native services firm to embed Claude into mid-sized companies, with real estate among the named target sectors. OpenAI announced a parallel $4B venture called The Development Company hours earlier with TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital.
Not sure where Cowork fits in the Claude lineup? Start with the breakdown: Claude Chat vs. Cowork vs. Claude Code.
In this week’s Studio lesson, Jonathan walks our students through how to make the most out of Claude’s Cowork, including the use of .md files.
Jonathan walks through the essential technical "first steps"—from optimizing your privacy and capability settings to mastering token efficiency. By learning how to properly connect Claude to a dedicated workspace folder on your computer, you will move beyond isolated, one-off conversations and establish a professional-grade environment where your AI has direct access to the files and context it needs to perform.
This lesson focuses on the creation of two extremely important persistent files:
The first is a "Global Instruction" file otherwise known as Claude.md that defines your professional identity, communication preferences, and strict "Always/Never" rules for the AI.
The second is a “strategic memory file” or memory.md. This acts as a living record of your business goals, active priorities, and key decisions, effectively giving Claude a "long-term brain" that prevents the "context drift" common in standard AI tools.
These two files are the starting point for a full second brain in Claude. The 5-step build is here: How to Build a Second Brain in Claude.
For the Commercial Real Estate professional, this workflow is a game-changer because our industry relies on high-stakes consistency and deep project context.
Across our conversations with CRE professionals this year, one pattern keeps coming up: people are using AI at work almost daily, and more likely, figuring it out alone. Whether it’s a broker puling comps with ChatGPT between calls, an asset manager running lender memos through Claude before a meeting, or an attorney testing prompts on a lease abstract over the weekend. There's no playbook for any of this, and nobody's getting reimbursed. They're just figuring it out
We recently gave a presentation to a room of CRE senior leaders who admitted that training simply hasn’t made it to their roadmaps.
This isn’t anecdotal. An October 2025 Express Employment / Harris Poll survey found that 72% of hiring managers say their companies are using AI tools, but more than half admit their organizations don't have the resources to train employees to use them well. Wharton's 2025 Accountable Acceleration report puts it more bluntly: senior leaders openly acknowledge that training and capacity building are falling short.
This is by no means a knock on companies. Most firms don't yet have a clear owner for AI enablement, much less a budget line. L&D teams are being asked to build curriculum around tools that change weekly and IT and procurement are still working through governance and legal approvals.
The technology is simply moving faster than any function inside the building can follow.
But waiting for your firm to train you is no longer an option. AI fluency is moving from edge to baseline. Build it now and you'll be running the deals of the next decade. Wait, and you'll spend years catching up to people who didn't.
One thing fluency is not is chasing every new tool. It's about understanding where AI fits into your workflow, where it fails, and where human judgment still has to live. That kind of fluency takes reps (as Jonathan covered in our last issue). Reps you build by trying things, breaking things, and refining until the output earns its place in your work.
What makes that harder is that most of us aren't used to this kind of self-directed professional education. The last time we focused on formal learning was probably school. Historically, the tools that changed how we worked, ARGUS, CoStar, Yardi, Salesforce, were cost-prohibitive for individuals to access on their own. We waited for our firms to license them and train us, because there was no other way. AI has broken that pattern. The most powerful tools in CRE history are now sitting behind a $20-a-month subscription, and they're improving every week. Until companies catch up, keeping up is on us.
The mindset shift is simple: treat AI literacy the way you treated your CCIM, your law degree, your CFA, or your first hard-earned underwriting reps. As something you owned, earned and that nobody handed you.
The CRE professionals we see thriving right now are the ones who decided they would take matters into their own hands, roll up their sleeves on their own time, and get smart about this. You see it in the work itself. First drafts come back faster. Analysis catches things others miss. There's time to think, which is rare in this business. The longer they keep at it, the further they pull ahead.
This is why we built the Studio.