Remember when we realized that all the kids these days are just using ChatGPT to earn their degrees instead of their actual brains?

Well, generative AI isn’t just shaking up how people learn (or don’t learn). It’s also reshaping the entire education landscape, including the companies that traditionally provide learning assistance: education tech.

Take Coursera, which surged 36.23% today after a stellar Q2: The company not only beat top and bottom line earnings expectations, but raised its revenue outlook for the full year to between $738 million and $746 million, above previous estimates of $720 million and $730 million.

“This quarter, we attracted more than seven million new learners looking to master emerging skills that can advance their careers,” said Coursera CEO Greg Hart in a statement.

But what shareholders are most excited about is how the platform is utilizing AI. Coursera is not only leveraging machine learning to translate courses to expand into international markets, but it’s also literally teaching courses on AI itself. The company said it recently brought in over 10 million enrollees in generative AI courses and certifications.

Today, Bank of America analyst Nafeesa Gupta increased her price target on Coursera from $7 to $12 and upgraded her rating from “underperform” to “neutral,” citing the company’s impressive margins, strong subscription growth, and lower content costs.

AI is grading on a curve

While some are ably adapting to this brave new world, others are helplessly watching ChatGPT eat their lunch.

You may remember when Duolingo made headlines a few months ago when management told everyone they were going to be an “AI first” company—to the eyeroll of actual humans. While the CEO has walked back his zeal for robots (sort of), its stock is up 116.32% in the last 12 months, outpacing the S&P 500’s gain of 18.33%.

Notorious cheating homework assistance platform Chegg, on the other hand, has been struggling. Shares are down 55.11% in the last 12 months, and in May it slashed 22% of its workforce as it acknowledged that ChatGPT is taking its market share faster than it can write a 10th-grade English paper on King Lear.

Zoom out: Chegg has traditionally been a platform where students can post homework questions, and now, with chatbots, it’s quickly becoming obsolete. Duolingo is using AI to cut costs, while Coursera, which offers classes, is still a platform that AI can’t replace (yet).

Classrooms are changing quickly, but we’re still in the early innings of the AI race—which companies earn an A+ and which are left repeating a grade is still an open question.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• Tesla arrested its latest decline and gained 3.52% on the news that it will roll out its new robotaxi program in San Francisco as soon as this weekend.
• Palantir rose 2.54% to become the 20th most valuable company in the country by market value.
• Deckers Outdoor, the maker of Hoka and Ugg shoes, soared 11.35% on the back of stronger-than-expected earnings thanks to impressive international sales.
• Newmont climbed 6.89% after a quarter of surging gold prices helped propel the miner’s earnings to new heights.
• Managed care provider Centene added 6.09% despite marked declines in its Medicaid and Medicare membership, as well as soaring costs.
• Boston Beer rose 6.54% as shareholders raised a toast to management’s effort to keep tariff costs low.

What’s down

• Intel fell 8.53% on the news that it’s cutting costs by laying off 15% of its workforce and scaling back its chip foundry plans.
• Puma plummeted 15.67% after the European footwear company warned of the high cost of tariffs.
• Charter Communications plunged 18.49% in its worst day of trading ever after reporting that it lost 117,000 broadband subscribers last quarter. It was so bad that other cable stocks like Comcast sank 4.78% and Altice lost 9.46%.
• Lyft announced it’s rolling out new autonomous shuttles, but shares still fell 0.56% as shareholders realized it’s just trying to keep up with Uber.

Barclays’ “equity euphoria” index is warning of a bubble. Goldman Sachs’ “speculative trading indicator” is at an all-time high. Deutsche Bank warns that US margin debt is rising at an unprecedented rate, and that the market is getting “too hot to handle.”

Everywhere we look, Wall Street analysts are warning that there’s some serious froth in equities at the moment. Meanwhile, retail traders are too busy yelling “Sydney Sweeney, take my money!” to care about measures of market volatility.

For now, at least, retail traders are in full control of the market, and Wall Street knows it. The pros are particularly worried that retail traders’ penchant for using derivatives to soup up their gains are creating a speculative bubble that’s about to burst, and have begun planning accordingly. For instance, Goldman and Citadel Securities are both pushing their customers to buy cheap hedges against an S&P 500 downturn to protect themselves.

Analysts think the music is about to stop, but retail investors just keep on dancing. The question is, who’s right?—MR

This article is brought to you by our best bud Judy, who runs The Playbook, Morning Brew’s source for expert real estate advice. Check it out!

Ask, “How’s the housing market?” to anyone braving the open-house trenches these days, and you may hear two wildly different reactions depending on where they are looking.

In the Northeast and Midwest, shoppers are hurting. Median home prices in the Northeast rose by 4.2% annually to $543,300, and in the Midwest they gained 3.4% to hit $337,600, according to June data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

In the South, however, prices remain more or less flat at $374,500—or are even falling in certain areas like Florida.

This tale of two markets doesn’t just apply to where buyers are shopping, but what they want to buy. The NAR also found that the median price of existing homes reached a record high of $435,300—however, newly-built home prices declined annually in June by 2.9% to $401,800, per the US Census Bureau.

What weird, upside-down world are we in when you can buy a brand-spanking new home for a lot less than one that’s already been lived in?

How real estate investors are dealing

Much of the housing market’s mixed messages boil down to differences in the local supply of homes for sale, including what’s being built.

New construction has been booming in the South, where more than half of all US building permits were issued last year. But as housing supply ballooned, prices softened. Although home sellers down South are hurting, many buyers aren’t all too eager to dig into these deals, since they’re hobbled by high interest rates.

Still, if there’s one group of buyers who’s feeling cautiously bullish right now, it’s real estate investors, who have surveyed the landscape and see opportunities.

“As an investor focused on buying houses from motivated sellers in Florida, I’ve been shifting my attention toward Cape Coral, Tampa, and parts of the Panhandle, where I’ve been able to find discounted properties that wouldn’t have penciled out a year ago,” Ron Myers of RonBuysFloridaHomes.com told Brew Markets. “I’ve doubled down, and am adjusting my strategy to stay ahead of it.”

Meanwhile, New Orleans—recently dubbed the “toughest housing market in America,” where prices have plummeted since 2000—may have bottomed out and could be turning a corner.

“We’ve been through our downturn already, since the local market softened earlier than most of the country,” explained Steve Keighery at Home Buyer Louisiana. As a result, “New Orleans may be past the worst and now presents a contrarian buying opportunity. There’s less competition, more motivated sellers, and frankly, better deals.”

As for the Northeast? Lancaster, PA-based investor Austin Glanzer at 717HomeBuyers told Brew Markets that, “The Northeast has low inventory, so buyers are still showing up if the product is right” despite the high price. “I used to flip nearly everything, but now I’m holding more properties long-term,” he said, adding that he now owns around 20 rental units.

Let these plucky pearls of optimism serve as a reminder that no matter where you are, every market, even if it’s down, has its upsides.—JD

Want more great insights into the wild world of real estate investing? Take a look at The Playbook, Morning Brew’s source for expert real estate advice.

• President Trump and Jerome Powell took a tour of the Federal Reserve, and things got testy.
• Rebate checks may be coming for Americans struggling to offset the costs of tariffs.
• After a bumpy road to get here, Paramount and Skydance have officially sealed their $8 billion merger.
• Volkswagen announced it ate over $1.5 billion in additional costs due to tariffs last quarter, the latest European company to report a rising price tag.
• Probably nothing: Goldman Sachs traders are taking short positions against the unprofitable tech stocks that retail traders love.
• Wall Street’s got some big ideas for your 401(k), and not all of them will help you make more money.

The economic calendar is absolutely stacked with big announcements next week, particularly when it comes to the labor market. Things kick off on Tuesday with the S&P Case-Shiller home price index, a look at consumer confidence, and the JOLTS report.

Then we get the ADP employment report, Q2 GDP, and pending home sales on Wednesday. Thursday delivers the latest look at inflation with the PCE Index, as well as weekly jobless claims, while Friday wraps things up with monthly US nonfarms employment report.

But the biggest day of all is Wednesday, when the FOMC ends its two-day meeting and the Federal Reserve makes its latest interest rate decision. All eyes are on Jerome Powell—and on Truth Social, where President Trump is sure to let us all know how he feels about the Fed’s call.

Meanwhile, earnings are coming in hot next week, with a ton of big names worth watching.

Monday: Waste Management, Western Union, Nucor, Welltower, and Cadence Design Systems

Tuesday: UPS, PayPal, Visa, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, United Health, Spotify, SoFi Technologies, Boeing, Merck, Royal Caribbean Cruiselines, JetBlue Airways, AstraZeneca, Corning, Stanley Black & Decker, Marathon Digital, Electronic Arts, Mondelez International, EcoLab, CBRE, and The Cheesecake Factory

Wednesday: Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Qualcomm, HSBC, ARM Holdings, ADP, UBS, Rio Tinto, Robinhood Markets, Altria, Ford, eBay, Carvana, Old Dominion, Kraft Heinz, Dexcom, Humana, and The Hershey Co.

Thursday: Apple, Amazon, Mastercard, Coinbase, MicroStrategy, AbbVie, Shell, S&P Global, Stryker, Unilever, Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, Sanofi, British American Tobacco, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cigna, Roblox, CVS Health, Cloudflare, and Ferrari

Friday: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Linde, Colgate-Palmolive, Dominion Energy, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Kimberly-Clark, Moderna, Franklin Resources, Ingredion, Liberty Global, and AMC Entertainment