A Price Just for You, Specifically

Imagine that an airline notices you’ve booked a five-star hotel, so it charges you more for your ticket than it would have if you had booked a four- or three-star hotel. That’s the vision of personalized pricing, a concept that has for years intrigued companies and enraged consumer advocates.

While consumer backlash may still give companies pause, some roadblocks to widespread use of the strategy may be clearing.

The Trump administration introduced a plan this week to clear the way for A.I. innovation, reinforcing its embrace of A.I. and raising questions about whether inquiries into the practice that Biden-era regulators started will be given any priority. At the same time, the technology has developed at a rapid pace.

“It’s going to be: Whatever you can get away with, it’s legal,” Robert W. Mann, an independent airline industry analyst and former airline executive, told DealBook. When it comes to regulatory scrutiny, he added, “from curious to none is probably the transition.”

Delta Air Lines promoted its plans this month to ramp up its use of A.I. to set prices. And while it’s not clear what data the airline is using — and whether it constitutes personalized pricing — privacy experts and industry analysts say many companies may see an opportunity to open what they’ve long considered to be an untapped gold mine.

Delta has been met with swift backlash. It said on its latest earnings call that it was working with Fetcherr, an A.I. start-up, and planned to use A.I. to price 20 percent of domestic routes by the end of this year. But it has pushed back against claims that it’s turning to “personalized” pricing. In a statement, it said it was leaning into new technology to streamline existing dynamic pricing models, which are based on market factors, not personal information.

Regardless of the consumer data that Fetcherr is offering Delta specifically, an archived version of a Fetcherr blog post, reported earlier by the Thrifty Traveler blog, hailed the start-up’s ability to offer “truly personalized” prices to travelers, based in part on their past purchases.

Under the Biden administration, regulatory scrutiny of personalized pricing started to build. Members of Congress and data privacy experts have raised concerns about the strategy in industries such as groceries and travel. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission, under its previous chair, Lina Khan, opened an inquiry into “surveillance pricing” — another term for the use of personal data to set prices. The market study examined practices at several companies, including Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase and Accenture.

Initial findings released in January said that “consumer behaviors ranging from mouse movements on a webpage to the type of products that consumers leave unpurchased in an online shopping cart can be tracked and used by retailers to tailor consumer pricing.”

It’s not clear whether the Trump administration will make those inquiries a priority. The F.T.C. under its new chair, Andrew Ferguson, withdrew public comment on surveillance pricing. Joe Simonson, an agency spokesman, told DealBook that the study was ongoing.

“If Democrats are complaining about this practice, we’re actually doing something about it. We’re looking into this issue,” he said.

An “A.I. Action Plan” that President Trump outlined this week recommends that the F.T.C. review prior investigations to make sure they don’t “unduly burden A.I. innovation.”

“All of that does lead to an opening for surveillance pricing, and emboldening,” Ben Winters, the director of A.I. and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, told DealBook.

Public backlash could still thwart A.I. pricing ambitions. After the uproar over Delta’s public embrace of A.I. to set airfares, American Airlines called the practice inappropriate this week. “Consumers need to know that they can trust American,” the C.E.O., Robert Isom, said on an earnings call.

But Gene Burrus, a law and policy consultant who worked as American Airlines’ competition lawyer 25 years ago, said consumer backlash was less of a concern for airlines than it used to be, in part because of consolidation in the industry. Mergers have left just a handful of major airlines, which means travelers have fewer places to turn if they’re upset with an airline’s pricing, he said.

Will Congress step in? Three Democratic senators sent Delta a letter this week raising concern about the airline’s A.I. plans and the impact on travelers. A Republican senator, Josh Hawley of Missouri, said in a social media post that Delta’s plans were “the worst thing I have heard from the already awful airline industry.”

Also this week, Representative Greg Casar, Democrat of Texas, introduced legislation to ban so-called surveillance pricing at the federal level. It’s unclear how far that bill will go. A handful of states, including California, Georgia and New York, have introduced bills to regulate the practice, too, though several have stalled or been watered down.

It’s difficult to tell exactly what data companies are using. While critics worry about privacy breaches and higher prices, consumer companies have countered that A.I.-driven pricing won’t harm already strained shoppers — and could even lead to more discounts. For regulators, the competing claims pose a challenge, said Victoria Noble, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She added: “They would have to peer under the hood to look at what these tools are actually doing.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The United States seeks trade deals ahead of an Aug. 1 tariff deadline. An agreement with Japan calls for a 15 percent tariff on imports, which is emerging as a new standard. European Union officials voiced optimism about a similar deal, but nearly every member country voted on a plan to retaliate against U.S. tariffs should the deal fall through.

Columbia agrees to a $200 million fine to settle its fight with President Trump. The deal will restore more than $400 million in research funding that was revoked after the White House accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment.

The F.C.C. approves the Skydance-Paramount deal. The $8 billion deal cleared its biggest remaining hurdle after Skydance reassured Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, that the new company would be committed to unbiased journalism and would not establish programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Meme stocks are back. This wave comes with a fun acronym: “DORK.” It refers to the stock symbols for a handful of companies whose share price popped this week: Krispy Kreme (DNUT), Opendoor (OPEN), Rocket Mortgage (RKT) and Kohl’s (KSS).

An earnings recap: General Motors and Stellantis reported second-quarter declines and said tariffs were eating into profits; Google’s better-than-expected results lifted A.I. stocks; and Tesla reported its worst quarterly revenue drop in over a decade.

Investors see few alternatives to U.S. Treasuries. Could Europe make one?

For decades, U.S. Treasuries have been at the pinnacle of the global financial system, with investors, governments and central banks steadily acquiring the dollar-denominated debt with the expectation that the U.S. government will never default.

Now the chaotic rollout of President Trump’s economic policies and threat to the Federal Reserve’s independence have provoked questions about the stability of American assets. But investors who want to shift out of Treasuries and dollars face a wasteland of viable alternatives.

Enter “Eurobonds,” a new type of European financial asset proposed by Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ángel Ubide, the head of economic research for global fixed income and macro at Citadel.

The prospect of debt issued by the European Union has been floated in some form for more than a decade, but faced heavy resistance, particularly from countries with strict limits on debt, like Germany. Some of the hurdles were overcome in 2020 when the bloc announced a plan to issue up to 750 billion euros in joint debt to help fund the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. But that was a short-term plan.

Blanchard and Ubide’s proposal is to regularly issue debt, building a liquid pool of assets, and strengthen Europe’s financial infrastructure. And it’s gaining traction: The chief economist of the European Central Bank recently discussed its merits.

Eshe Nelson spoke to Ubide about whether Europe could overcome its internal differences and make the plan a reality. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Why do you think Europe would be open to this idea now?

There is an urgent need for Europe to achieve strategic autonomy. And for that, you need both military and financial power. And you cannot have financial power unless you have a deep and liquid safe asset that serves as a foundational pillar of the financial sector.

You’ve mentioned to me before that the European Central Bank has also started talking about the international role of the euro. Why does that matter?

There has been an increased use of financial sanctions as a geostrategic tool, which essentially gives most of the power to the United States, because it dominates the global payment system. At the same time, China has also increased the internationalization of the renminbi. I think what the E.C.B. is perceiving is that just staying passive means losing ground from a geostrategic standpoint.

So, what are you proposing?

To replace European countries’ debt, up to the value of 25 percent of their G.D.P. or about €5 trillion, with Eurobonds. We suggest an exchange of current national bonds for Eurobonds and refinancing future maturities that are coming due.

To pay for the debt, countries would allocate a share of their value-added tax [a type of sales tax] receipts for the service of the Eurobonds.

Could a Eurobond really challenge U.S. Treasuries?

It would complement. Global investors are starting to wonder, with all the geopolitical changes, whether it’s a good idea to have another hedging instrument.

What’s stopping this idea from being adopted right away?

Some ask: Is this going to lead to runaway spending and borrowing? And the answer is no. We are simply advocating a change in the funding. We don’t advocate any increase in spending.

The other pushback is: Why should countries like Germany with low funding costs do this? And that’s fair. But you cannot just get better and bigger, and go along with the increase in defense spending and achieving strategic autonomy, without changing something.

Money has been flowing into safe-haven assets like gold and the Swiss franc. Switzerland is actually struggling with the strength of the currency, which is raising questions about whether Europe can absorb a strengthening euro.

All this funding would have to be applied to something. There is plenty of investment that needs to happen in Europe. Can there be a situation, eventually, where there is too much of a good thing? Yes. But that’s a high-quality problem to deal with in five or 10 years.

Chart of the week: The view from Gen Z

Despite a high degree of economic uncertainty and the introduction of new A.I. tools, the labor market remains strong. Still, there are signs that companies have put more ambitious hiring plans on hold — and that has taken a toll on the youngest job seekers.

A recent survey for the Schultz Family Foundation, conducted by HarrisX, asked 5,700 young adults, parents, “navigators” (the guidance counselors and teachers who work with young adults) and employers about how they saw the job market. The result suggests a generational disconnect.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you Monday.

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