AI-Powered Hotel (No B.S.), Fake Job Postings and Canadian Angst Over Trump

Dear Fellow Trend Curator,

Thanks for being loyal readers of this newsletter! Starting this week, you’ll see a slight addition to my usual format as I’m going to be including a recommendation for a book AND a media source every week moving forward. Many of you have told me that you really want to expand your own thinking and mindset in the coming year, and I hope these book and media suggestions will help with that!

In stories this week, you’ll read about why the Canadians are afraid of the upcoming inauguration, an AI-powered hotel that may not be as ridiculous as it sounds, what we can all do about fake job postings (and why we should care), and how to actually learn from failure (and how not to).

Finally, as a quick recap from the tradeshow floor where I was last week, at CES this year I did more than 30 interviews with founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. My team will be releasing those over the coming weeks on my YouTube channel and over social media. In case you missed the ones we’ve posted so far, here’s a YouTube playlist you can bookmark or make sure to follow me on Instagram for the latest videos!

Enjoy this week’s stories and stay curious,

PS – This week I’m officially eligible to get that AARP card … and so a big thanks to everyone for all the kind birthday wishes and messages. 🙂

Why The “World’s First” AI-Powered Hotel May Be More Than Fancy Marketing

From the outside the Otonomus Hotel (pun probably intended) doesn’t really look much different from any other spot. The property just had their soft-launch before officially opening in April 2025, declaring themselves the “first true AI-powered hotel in the world.” I can already picture you rolling your eyes. Despite the cringe-worthy marketing hyperbole, there are some features the hotel has planned which could indeed offer a glimpse into a future normal for hotel stays we can all expect.

For example, the system promises to respond to verbal prompts about specifics a guest might want such as adjoining rooms or a room near the pool or a certain temperature in the room. If you give permission, the AI system will also ask you about your preferences and what you like to do. Then comes the fun part. They can customize elements of your stay and in theory, react to your preferences. If you’re a swimmer, they could automatically bring you extra towels. Love to stay up late? The system can give you promotions for happy hour drinks. With enough time and data, the hotel could build up enough personality profile information to offer a Netflix-style experience where they can predict what you would like and offer it before you even know you want it.

Of course, there’s the usual privacy concerns, and the potential for a constant upsell on property will be immediate turnoffs for future guests. Still, it’s easy to imagine many of these features becoming commonplace inside hotels of the future. In a few months, for better or worse, you’ll be able to experience that future for yourself.

The Problem of Fake Job Postings  

The Wall Street Journal published a piece this week about the rise in fake job postings online. The reasons for these range from some companies using those listings to try and appear larger or more successful than they are, to some that are fraudulently listed to try and capture data. There are even some organizations who are creating and then uncreating job openings after they fill part of it or decide they don’t want to hire after all.

There is a real human cost to these “ghost jobs” as hiring platform Greenhouse suggested they make up as much as 22% of all jobs advertised online. People who spend time and emotional energy applying can take a hit to their confidence at the worst possible time when they either don’t hear back or get rejected from a job that never really existed in the first place.

It may seem like there isn’t an obvious solution to this problem. Actually, I can think of two. The first is for any of us working at a company to advocate for our colleagues and HR teams to only post job openings if they are real and actually available. Putting a job listing online for a role that you really don’t need is not a victimless crime. The thing we can all do is support our friends and family who may be job seeking at the moment by reminding them that they have a lot to offer. A string of rejections (from fake roles or not) can erode anyone’s confidence. If you really care, reach out and help someone build it back up.

What the Canadian Angst Over the Upcoming Trump Inauguration Can Teach Us

In less than a week, President Trump will take office again and there is certainly some concern among the groups you would expect. One unusual source for some of the strongest angst is some of our neighbors from the North who have been swaying between terror and confusion over some of the soon-to-be-President’s most audacious plans for Canada. Bestselling author and student of history Dan Gardner offered an alarmist call to arms for his fellow Canadians on how Canada should respond to Trump. Popular YouTuber Julie Nolke took a different tactic, creating a viral video response for “When Trump Invades Canada” that’s already passed half a million views in just a few days.

Given President Trump’s well-known and extremely effective negotiating tactic of using sensationalist claims to distract from his real intentions, the reality is probably less likely to be Trump trying to make Canada the 51st state and more about securing trade deals that achieve his intentions. The story is a good indication of what we should all expect in the coming months and years as Trump takes office. Lots of noise about something that will be easy to get outraged about, done as a distraction from the much quieter work behind the scenes to actually get the things done that Trump and his administration care about with relatively little resistance from all but those who are able to see through the distractions to the true end game.

Flash Superhero Movie Director Proves We’re Not Great at Learning from Failure

The Flash movie came out in 2023 and by box office standards, it was a flop. A story making the rounds in entertainment trade publications this week was all about comments the movie’s director Andy Muschietti made in recent interviews attempting to explain exactly why the movie failed. According to him, it performed poorly because “it wasn’t as widely appealing as everyone hoped it would be.” Not exactly a stunning insight. He goes on to say, “I’ve found in private conversations that a lot of people just don’t care about the Flash as a character.”

In case you’re not up to date on the entire big and small screen history of this DC Comics’ character, back in 2014 a new TV series focusing on the character started on The CW and was so popular it ran for nine seasons. The character in that show had a cult following of fans who (you guessed it) cared about Flash as a character. The Flash movie cast a different actor in the title role and was not linked to the TV show which also possibly alienated a group of superfans who should have been the biggest ambassadors for the movie.

So yes, it failed, and the director is probably finding his own justifications for it. The reason I found this interesting enough to share, though, is because we can all be guilty of the same thing when we work on something that falls flat. Failure can be a great thing, but only if we learn true lessons that explain why it happened. Assigning the wrong rationale for failure is the same as learning nothing at all.

The Non-Obvious Media Recommendation of the Week

The Root

The Root is definitely opinionated, sometimes biased and certainly more hyper focused on pop culture than most things I read. It’s also a great example of a media source that understands their audience and what that audience really cares about. I’m not meant to be part of that audience, which is one of the reasons why I get so much from being a regular reader of the site. Do you care about seeing photos of Naomi Campbell’s babies or what the kids of rap legends are doing with their careers?

Perhaps not, but sometimes the most insightful takeaway you can get from reading unfamiliar media is understanding what other people care about—especially if it falls outside your own interests or culture.

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

Brave New Words

Back in April of 2023, Sal Khan (founder of Khan Academy) did a TED talk with a timely title: How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education. It was near the start of what would soon become a full-blown debate about the role of AI in schools, whether kids are stunting their learning and intellect by using generative AI and what the future will look like if kids increasingly allow tools to do all their thinking. In this book, which was our pick for the Most Important Book of 2024 in the recent Non-Obvious Book Awards, Khan lays out his more optimistic vision for how AI could become a personalized tutor for students allowing anyone to have custom instruction available on demand anywhere in the world.

The book is not filled with wide-eyed hopes for an unlikely future though. Instead, Khan dives into some of the earliest trials and beta testing that his team has been doing for several years now already to help shape AI into the positive educational force it could be. Reading this book, you may be left with the same conclusion as me: if we are going to live in a future where AI offers more positive change, it will require people like Khan and his team remaining on the front lines to guide the technologists towards what they should do instead of letting them blindly chase what they can do.

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Bookshop.org

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I will be featuring a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I’m able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop? 

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This Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter is curated by Rohit Bhargava.

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