{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "last_updated": "2026-06-01",
  "intro": "The source canon for the AI Predictions Tracker. 40 sources across 5 tiers. Tier 1 (consultancies) and Tier 5 (labs) are flagged as structurally incentivised — they sell the technology they predict about. Tier 4 (academics + skeptics) is the deliberate counterweight. Tier 3 (European) catches the regulation-aware angle that US press underweights. Curated by Claude deep research, May 2026.",
  "tier_notes": {
    "1": "All firms in this tier sell AI strategy, implementation, and transformation services. Predictions are marketing-adjacent thought leadership, not neutral forecasting. Cross-check quantitative claims against Tier 4 before treating as baseline.",
    "5": "Every source in this tier predicts about its own products. Tag every prediction from this tier as PRIMARY / SELF-INTERESTED."
  },
  "tiers": [
    {
      "tier": 1,
      "name": "Mainstream Consultancies",
      "sources": [
        { "name": "McKinsey QuantumBlack / MGI", "region": "Global (HQ US)", "url": "https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights", "why": "Annual State of AI survey + MGI long-horizon GDP/automation forecasts", "bias": "Sells AI transformation; partnerships with Nvidia, Google Cloud, Cohere, C3 AI" },
        { "name": "BCG (incl. BCG X)", "region": "Global (HQ US)", "url": "https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/artificial-intelligence/insights", "why": "Annual 'AI at Work' / 'Where's the Value in AI' surveys; CEO-targeted dated predictions", "bias": "BCG X is a paid AI build practice" },
        { "name": "Bain & Company", "region": "Global (HQ US)", "url": "https://www.bain.com/insights/topics/ai/", "why": "Andrew Ng partnership; agentic-AI scaling forecasts", "bias": "Sells AI consulting; Andrew Ng creates capability-optimism incentive" },
        { "name": "Deloitte AI Institute", "region": "Global (HQ US/UK)", "url": "https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/what-we-do/capabilities/applied-artificial-intelligence/content/state-of-ai-in-the-enterprise.html", "why": "Annual State of AI in the Enterprise; dated adoption forecasts", "bias": "Alliances with NVIDIA, Google Cloud, AWS" },
        { "name": "Accenture", "region": "Global (HQ Ireland/US)", "url": "https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/generative-ai", "why": "Largest pure-play AI services revenue; $10.3T-by-2038 forecast", "bias": "Extreme commercial incentive to project gen-AI ROI" },
        { "name": "PwC", "region": "Global (HQ UK)", "url": "https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/technology.html", "why": "'Sizing the Prize' ($15.7T-by-2030); annual AI Jobs Barometer", "bias": "Sells AI advisory + audit; 'AI-first' firm narrative" },
        { "name": "EY", "region": "Global (HQ UK)", "url": "https://www.ey.com/en_gl/services/ai", "why": "EY.ai platform; AI Sentiment Index", "bias": "2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year for AI/Copilot" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "tier": 2,
      "name": "Mainstream Business Press (US/UK)",
      "sources": [
        { "name": "Harvard Business Review", "region": "US", "url": "https://hbr.org/topic/subject/ai-and-machine-learning", "why": "Frequent AI-management articles with dated implementation claims", "bias": "Metered paywall; publishes consultancy authors — derivative Tier-1 bias often present" },
        { "name": "Financial Times", "region": "UK", "url": "https://www.ft.com/artificial-intelligence", "why": "Daily AI reporting; rigorous on corporate capex and infrastructure", "bias": "Hard paywall; owned by Nikkei; majority-owns Sifted" },
        { "name": "Wall Street Journal", "region": "US", "url": "https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai", "why": "Daily AI/tech coverage; CIO Journal enterprise-adoption predictions", "bias": "Hard paywall; News Corp ownership; Dow Jones AI vendor discussions" },
        { "name": "The Economist", "region": "UK", "url": "https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology", "why": "Schumpeter / Science & Tech sections; AI predictions with explicit horizons", "bias": "Hard paywall; Exor (Agnelli) + Rothschild ownership; pro-market" },
        { "name": "Bloomberg", "region": "US", "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/technology-ai", "why": "Real-time AI business news; 'The AI Race' tracker; Businessweek deep dives", "bias": "Bloomberg LP is itself an AI vendor (BloombergGPT, ASKB)" },
        { "name": "Reuters", "region": "UK/US", "url": "https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/", "why": "Hard-news AI reporting; generally non-paywalled — lowest-friction target", "bias": "Thomson Reuters sells AI products (CoCounsel, $200M+ annual AI investment)" },
        { "name": "Forbes (staff-written only)", "region": "US", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/ai/", "why": "Staff reporters + Rob Toews's annual '10 AI predictions' series with public retrospectives", "bias": "DO NOT monitor forbes.com/sites contributors. Toews is also a Radical Ventures partner — commercial conflict" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "tier": 3,
      "name": "European Sources",
      "sources": [
        { "name": "The Guardian", "region": "UK", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/artificialintelligenceai", "why": "Dedicated AI vertical; strong on labour, safety, policy-critique angles", "bias": "Reader-supported; Scott Trust; centre-left" },
        { "name": "NRC Handelsblad", "region": "Netherlands", "url": "https://www.nrc.nl/sectie/tech/", "why": "NL paper of record; quality tech investigations with EU policy angle", "bias": "Hard paywall; Mediahuis ownership; liberal/centre-left" },
        { "name": "Heise Online / c't", "region": "Germany", "url": "https://www.heise.de/thema/Kuenstliche-Intelligenz", "why": "Most technically literate German-language AI coverage; KI-Update podcast", "bias": "Freemium (heise+); industry/trade-tech orientation" },
        { "name": "Handelsblatt", "region": "Germany", "url": "https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/ki/", "why": "Germany's leading business daily; KI-Briefing newsletter; DAX-firm AI strategies", "bias": "Hard paywall; Holtzbrinck Medien; pro-business" },
        { "name": "Le Monde (Pixels)", "region": "France", "url": "https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/", "why": "French paper of record; covers Mistral, EU AI Act, 'AI sovereignty' framing", "bias": "Metered paywall; consortium ownership; centre-left" },
        { "name": "Euractiv", "region": "EU (Brussels)", "url": "https://www.euractiv.com/sections/digital/", "why": "Strongest dedicated EU AI Act enforcement coverage", "bias": "Sponsored 'Special Reports' funded by industry/EU bodies; Mediahuis-owned" },
        { "name": "Politico Europe", "region": "EU (Brussels)", "url": "https://www.politico.eu/section/technology/", "why": "'AI Decoded' and 'Digital Bridge' newsletters; influential among EU regulators", "bias": "Axel Springer ownership; Politico Pro tier paywalled" },
        { "name": "Sifted", "region": "EU", "url": "https://sifted.eu/sector/artificial-intelligence", "why": "Best dedicated European AI startup/funding coverage (Mistral, Aleph Alpha, Helsing)", "bias": "Majority-owned by FT Group; startup-ecosystem-friendly framing" },
        { "name": "Bruegel", "region": "EU (Brussels)", "url": "https://www.bruegel.org/keyword/artificial-intelligence", "why": "Top-ranked European economics think tank; rigorous AI/industrial-policy analysis", "bias": "EU member-state + corporate funding (5% per-funder cap); pro-EU-integrationist" },
        { "name": "CEPS", "region": "EU (Brussels)", "url": "https://www.ceps.eu/ceps-topic/ai-digitalisation-innovation/", "why": "GRID unit produces detailed AI Act analyses; key for EU regulatory milestone predictions", "bias": "~40% EU-grant funded; EU-policy-engaged" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "tier": 4,
      "name": "Academic / Skeptic Voices",
      "sources": [
        { "name": "Daron Acemoglu", "region": "US (MIT)", "url": "https://economics.mit.edu/people/faculty/daron-acemoglu", "why": "2024 Nobel laureate; the standard skeptical productivity benchmark (≤0.66% TFP over 10 years)", "bias": "SKEPTIC stance on hype; academic" },
        { "name": "Gary Marcus", "region": "US", "url": "https://garymarcus.substack.com/", "why": "Regularly dated, falsifiable LLM-limitation predictions; NYU Professor Emeritus", "bias": "Founder of symbolic-AI ventures — commercial interest in non-LLM paradigms; polemic" },
        { "name": "Emily M. Bender", "region": "US (UW)", "url": "https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/", "why": "Co-author 'Stochastic Parrots'; structured critic of LLM capability claims", "bias": "Openly polemic SKEPTIC stance — advocacy framing" },
        { "name": "Narayanan & Kapoor (AI Snake Oil)", "region": "US (Princeton CITP)", "url": "https://www.aisnakeoil.com/", "why": "'AI as Normal Technology' framing; rigorous, forecast-oriented", "bias": "Measured skeptic; no major commercial AI ties" },
        { "name": "Melanie Mitchell", "region": "US (SFI)", "url": "https://melaniemitchell.me/", "why": "Measured skeptic on AGI/reasoning claims; peer-reviewed + 'AI Guide' Substack", "bias": "SKEPTIC; no major commercial conflict" },
        { "name": "Rodney Brooks", "region": "US (MIT emeritus)", "url": "https://rodneybrooks.com/category/dated-predictions/", "why": "GOLD STANDARD: explicit dated-predictions scorecard self-graded annually since 2018", "bias": "Founder Robust.AI / iRobot; MEASURED SKEPTIC" },
        { "name": "Erik Brynjolfsson", "region": "US (Stanford Digital Economy Lab)", "url": "https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/person/erik-brynjolfsson/", "why": "Empirically driven productivity research; counterweight to Acemoglu's skepticism", "bias": "Co-founder of Workhelix (AI consulting); OPTIMIST stance" },
        { "name": "Yann LeCun", "region": "US (Meta + NYU)", "url": "https://ai.meta.com/blog/", "why": "Industry-skeptic of LLM-only paths to AGI; advocates JEPA / world-models", "bias": "Chief AI Scientist at Meta — major corporate conflict; Llama / open-source advocate" },
        { "name": "Ed Zitron", "region": "US", "url": "https://www.wheresyoured.at/", "why": "Prolific dated AI-bubble / economic-collapse predictions; 'Better Offline' podcast", "bias": "CEO of EZPR PR firm; POLEMIC SKEPTIC — flag tone explicitly" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "tier": 5,
      "name": "Industry Primary Sources (Labs)",
      "sources": [
        { "name": "OpenAI", "region": "US", "url": "https://openai.com/news/", "why": "CEO-level dated capability predictions; the most-tracked single lab voice", "bias": "Capped-profit; deep Microsoft relationship; PRIMARY/SELF-INTERESTED" },
        { "name": "Anthropic", "region": "US", "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news", "why": "Dario Amodei's essays + Responsible Scaling Policy with dated capability/safety thresholds", "bias": "PBC; Amazon committed up to $33B, Google ~14% stake; PRIMARY/SELF-INTERESTED" },
        { "name": "Google DeepMind", "region": "UK/US", "url": "https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/", "why": "Demis Hassabis AGI-timeline + AI-for-science predictions", "bias": "Alphabet subsidiary; Search/Cloud integration; PRIMARY/SELF-INTERESTED" },
        { "name": "Google AI (Blog)", "region": "US", "url": "https://blog.google/technology/ai/", "why": "Product/policy AI announcements distinct from DeepMind research", "bias": "Corporate; PR-oriented; PRIMARY/SELF-INTERESTED" },
        { "name": "Meta AI", "region": "US", "url": "https://ai.meta.com/blog/", "why": "Llama releases + LeCun research statements", "bias": "Open-source-Llama advocacy bias to differentiate from closed labs" },
        { "name": "Microsoft AI", "region": "US", "url": "https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/", "why": "Copilot/Office capability roadmap; enterprise-adoption forecasts", "bias": "OpenAI's largest commercial partner; PRIMARY/SELF-INTERESTED" },
        { "name": "Mistral AI", "region": "France", "url": "https://mistral.ai/news", "why": "Only frontier-scale EU lab; key for European AI sovereignty predictions", "bias": "Backed by ASML, Nvidia, Microsoft; 'open-weight European champion' positioning" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}