This Month’s Reports by TechLetter: January 2026

AI, Work, and the New Geography of Power

January feels like the month the AI narrative finally caught up with reality. We can stop pretending we are “early experimenting.” We are now in the phase where public services are being redesigned around AI, governance has turned into a vendor market, and Chinese models quietly dominate the places Western tools cannot reach. The reports below are not about what might happen one day. They read like field notes from systems that are already running.

This is the first TechLetter “This Month’s Reports” of 2026, a series where I round up the papers and briefings that actually move the AI governance, business, and geopolitics conversation forward.