• Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashed at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday in Texas, leaving three people dead. The cause of the crash remains unknown.
• The cargo flight was contracted by Amazon Air.  
• Pilots from Atlas Air, who contracts to Amazon among others, have told Business Insider that fatigue and lack of experience is common in the company.

Three people are dead after an Amazon Air cargo flight, operated by Atlas Air, crashed into a bay on Saturday in Texas. On Sunday, after an investigation, Atlas Air confirmed all three people who were on board are dead.

The cause of the crash remains unknown.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected," Bill Flynn, Atlas Air Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement. "This is a sad time for all of us.

"Our team continues to work closely with the NTSB, the FAA and local authorities on the ground in Houston," Flynn added. "We would like to commend the efforts of all of the first responders. We sincerely appreciate their efforts and support in the investigation."

Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne described the scene as "total devastation,"he told the Associated Press.

Sheets, clothing, and cardboard were found around the crash, Hawthorne told local news affiliate ABC-13. The debris extended for three-quarters of a mile.

Atlas Air Flight 3591 was flying from Houston to Miami. According to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane lost signal about 30 miles southeast of Houston George Bush International Airport. It fell from 6,525 feet to 3,025 feet in 30 seconds. The FAA then issued an alert notice. 

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the flight crew, their families and friends along with the entire team at Atlas Air during this terrible tragedy," Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, said in a statement. "We appreciate the first responders who worked urgently to provide support."

A history of labor issues at Atlas Air

Pilots from the airlines that Amazon Air contracts with have told Business Insider that their pay and benefits are far below industry standards. Pilots said that means those who work with Amazon Air tend to be less experienced.

"It’s a ticking time bomb," Captain Robert Kirchner, Atlas pilot and executive council chairman of Teamsters Local 1224, told Business Insider weeks before the crash. 

Kirchner and other Atlas Air pilots said the company, which contracts to Amazon, DHL, and other carriers, tends to overwork their pilots.   

"They don't recognize pilot fatigue," Kirchner previously told Business Insider. "They think it's people goofing off. We have to constantly show them some of these schedules. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we're able to prove to them that this is a fatiguing schedule."

Are you a pilot who works at ABX, Atlas Air, or another cargo airline that contracts to Amazon? Contact rpremack@businesssinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: Pilots working for airlines that transport packages for Amazon are not happy — and many are considering quitting, a survey found

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• Microsoft has said that it will allow anybody to open an app store for its new HoloLens 2 headset.
• The plan has already won over a former critic: Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, who once decried Microsoft's Windows 10 app store as a move to make the PC a closed platform like Apple's iOS.
• Epic, the creator of "Fortnite," has thrown around its considerable weight to put pressure on Apple and Google, and the 30% cut that they take from most app transactions. Now, Epic is pledging long-term support for HoloLens, citing this policy of openness as a reason why. 
• Together, the two stand to form an alliance that could promote more competition between app stores, and a rethinking of the economics of the app economy. 
• The move stands to benefit Microsoft, as well: It hasn't had much success with its own PC app stores, so taking a stand here could attract more developers to the Windows PC.

On Sunday, Microsoft announced the HoloLens 2— the second iteration of its pioneering holographic headset, a $3,500 device that projects digital imagery over the real world, a form of augmented reality. 

As one might expect, the device was the centerpiece of Microsoft's keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress.

But in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment that may have gone overlooked, chief HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman made another, related announcement that has much larger implications for the industry: Microsoft committed to allowing anybody to operate their own app store for the HoloLens or any Windows-powered headsets like it.

It's a commitment that comes among a broad discussion about the economics of smartphone app stores. Apple, in particular, has come under scrutiny for requiring developers to fork over 30% of most App Store transactions, while also disallowing competitors to open their own alternative iOS app storefronts.

Microsoft's commitment to openness seems to have already won over one of its fiercest critics, as Tim Sweeney, the CEO of "Fortnite"-creator Epic Games, actually made an appearance at the keynote event to announce the company's commitment to HoloLens as a platform.

Read more: Microsoft reveals the HoloLens 2, its new $3,500 holographic headset that seems to improve on the original in every way

That's especially notable, as way back in 2016, Sweeney decried the Windows 10 app store as "the most aggressive move Microsoft has ever made," and a play at making the Windows PC an iPhone-style "walled garden." 

At the event on Sunday, Sweeney announced that HoloLens 2 will get support for Epic's popular Unreal Engine 4 game design software, and more broadly, that the company will consider HoloLens a part of its strategy going forward — though he said he wasn't prepared to announce more specifics at this time. 

Sweeney specifically called out Microsoft's commitment to this kind of openness as a reason behind the alliance and tied it to his broader principles. 

“We will resist efforts to build walled gardens around our lives," Sweeney said on stage at the Microsoft event. 

Read more: The creator of ‘Fortnite’ is leading a battle that could throw the entire video game industry into disarray, and it's likely to be terrible for Google and Apple

To that point, Epic has spent much of the last year campaigning against the major platforms. In late 2018, flush with new funding, Epic launched the Epic Games Store, a PC games storefront that's challenging Valve's leading Steam store by offering game developers a more favorable share of the revenue. Before that, Epic courted controversy by skipping the Google Play store on Android, instead asking players to download the game directly from the web.

In so doing, Epic has used the incredible popularity of "Fortnite" to start a conversation around the economics of digital stores like Apple's, Google's, and Steam's. For its part, at least, Steam has changed some of its revenue split model in recent months, though Apple and Google are so far sticking to their guns. In a recent call with shareholders and analysts, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that he believes the Google Play store offers value for developers. 

Microsoft's HoloLens is a far more nascent platform than Android or Apple's iOS. When the second version launches later this year, it'll cost $3,500, and only be available to businesses.

At the same time, much of the industry — including Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft itself — believe that augmented reality tech, like the HoloLens, is the next big thing after the smartphone. By declaring this commitment early, Microsoft seems to be hoping that the next generation of devices allows for healthy competition between app stores.

And by getting Epic on board, Microsoft has a powerful ally in the fight. The two companies had previously teamed up to make it possible for "Fortnite" players to play together across Xbox, the PC, and smartphones — an alliance that got Sony to allow that kind of cross-platform play for the PlayStation 4.

Together, the two might have enough juice to keep putting the pressure on Apple and Google around how they do business in their app stores, perhaps convincing them to make some kind of change. 

Beyond the stores, too, Microsoft at its event actually showed how a HoloLens 2 wearer could interact with holograms placed by someone with an Apple iPad using the camera to project augmented reality imagery, indicating the company's further commitment to keeping the platform open.

However, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that Microsoft doesn't have a lot to lose here, either. Despite Sweeney's earlier fears, the company hasn't had a lot of luck with any of its Windows app stores, and no longer maintains any kind of smartphone operating system at all. By picking this fight, Microsoft can only make itself look better to developers, without having to worry much about the economics of its own Windows app store businesses. 

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This is a preview of a research report fromBusiness Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence,click here. Current subscribers can read the reporthere.

Virtual reality (VR) offers immersive experiences in which users can hear, see, and interact with 360-degree digital environments using head-mounted displays (HMDs) and handheld motion devices. The technology has been historically associated with consumer-facing gaming, but it’s been gaining traction in the enterprise over the past year.

In fact, companies such as Macy’s, Lowe’s, Walmart, and UPS, among others, have all launched new VR programs since 2017. And as more businesses look to tap the technology, this will drive enterprise VR hardware and software revenue to jump 587% to $5.5 billion in 2023, up from an estimated $800 million in 2018, according to Business Insider Intelligence estimates.

This shows that retailers and brands should look into implementing VR as early as possible to better compete with other industry players who’ve started to use the tech, especially in three key areas: sales, employee training, and product development. All of the companies mentioned above are using VR to in at least one of these areas, enabling them to increase product sales, reduce product design costs, or speed up employee training processes, for instance.

In the VR In The Enterprise report, Business Insider Intelligence explores how VR can provide value to retailers and brands in three areas: sales, employee training, and product development.

The report begins by discussing potential pain points the technology addresses for each use case, examining in-depth case studies to illustrate how companies have implemented the technology, and outlining the broader takeaways each use case presents for brands and retailers.

Finally, it looks at some of the potential barriers to further enterprise adoption and how both companies and VR incumbents are actively addressing those obstacles.

The companies mentioned in the report are: Audi, Lowe's, Macy's, McLaren Automotive, Walmart, and UPS, among others.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• VR enables consumers in brick-and-mortar stores to make more informed purchases, which could increase sales conversion rates.
• Brands and retailers looking to ramp up their employees quicker should consider bringing VR into their training processes.
• The tech can shorten brands' and retailers' product development life cycles by cutting down on the time associated with building expensive physical prototypes.

In full, the report:

• Identifies key VR vendors and device form factors for businesses to consider.
• Discusses key benefits the tech brings businesses for their sales, training, and product development processes.
• Illustrates those key benefits by discussing real-world case studies from companies and the takeaways from those implementations.

SEE ALSO: When it comes to VR hardware, consumers are balancing price point and experience

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• HBO's newest tease for the final "Game of Thrones" season comes by way of a 2019 programming video.
• The newly released footage shows Drogon flying over Daenerys Targaryen's Unsullied army in a wintery landscape. 
• Then we see Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) looking towards the sky with an awestruck expression as people around her seem to be panicking.
• HBO has yet to release a full trailer for the coming eighth season of "Game of Thrones." Read more on everything we know about the last six episodes here.
• Watch the latest teaser below. The "Game of Thrones" section begins about 48 seconds into the video.

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

The voice app ecosystem is booming. In the US, the number of Alexa skills alone surpassed 25,000 in January 2018, up from just 7,000 the previous January, in categories ranging from music streaming services, to games, to connected home tools.

As voice platforms continue to gain footing in homes via smart speakers — connected devices powered primarily by artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled voice assistants — the opportunity for voice apps is becoming more profound. However, as observed with the rise of mobile apps in the late 2000s, any new digital ecosystem will face significant growing pains, and voice apps are no exception. Thanks to the visual-free format of voice apps, discoverability, monetization, and retention are proving particularly problematic in this nascent space. This is creating a problem in the voice assistant market that could hinder greater uptake if not addressed.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explores the two major viable voice app stores. It identifies the three big issues voice apps are facing — discoverability, monetization, and retention — and presents possible short-term solutions ahead of industry-wide fixes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The market for smart speakers and voice platforms is expanding rapidly. The installed base of smart speakers and the volume of voice apps that can be accessed on them each saw significant gains in 2017. But the new format and the emerging voice ecosystems that are making their way into smart speaker-equipped homes is so far failing to align with consumer needs. 
• Voice app development is a virtuous cycle with several broken components. The addressable consumer market is expanding, which is prompting more brands and developers to developer voice apps, but the ability to monetize and iterate those voice apps is limited, which could inhibit voice app growth. 
• Monetization is only one broken component of the voice app ecosystem. Discoverability and user retention are equally problematic for voice app development. 
• While the two major voice app ecosystems — Amazon's and Google's — have some Band-Aid solutions and workarounds, their options for improving monetization, discoverability, and retention for voice apps are currently limited.
• There are some strategies that developers and brands can employ in the near term ahead of more robust tools and solutions.

In full, the report:

• Sizes the current voice app ecosystem. 
• Outlines the most pressing problems in voice app development and evolution in the space by examining the three most damning shortcoming: monetization, discoverability, and retention. 
• Discusses the solutions being offered up by today's biggest voice platforms. 
• Presents workaround solutions and alternative approaches that could catalyze development and evolution ahead of wider industry-wide fixes from the platforms.

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• Some of the most popular Android manufacturers are launching phones with a dedicated Google Assistant button on the handset.
• The buttons will simply launch Google Assistant, which can also be triggered by voice.
• LG, Nokia, Xiaomi, and Vivo are all bringing out new devices with the button, but Huawei and Samsung are holding out.
• You probably won't be able to remap the dedicated Google Assistant button to perform other tasks.
• It isn’t clear how popular the move will be after users complained about Samsung pulling a similar move with its own assistant Bixby.

Google has struck deals with some of the biggest Android phone makers to include a dedicated Google Assistant button on their new handsets — whether users want one or not.

The upshot is that new devices such as LG's new flagship, the LG G8 ThinQ, and Xiaomi's 5G Mi Mix 3 will have a dedicated button on the side of the devices which launches Google's AI helper.

Read more:Check out Huawei's 5G foldable phone, the Mate X

Google said it had also struck deals with Nokia, TCL, and Vivo. Nokia's new 3.2 and 4.2 models will have the new Assistant button, as well Xiaomi's Mi 9, Vivo's V15 Pro, and LG's mid-range K40.

The two biggest Android phone makers, Huawei and Samsung, don't seem to be involved with the tie-up. Samsung already has dedicated buttons on its handsets for its own rival assistant, Bixby.

Assistant is Google's powerful rival to Apple's Siri. Pressing the dedicated button variously lets users quickly find their calendars, map directions, open up music and podcasts, as well as tailored information based on previous activity with the Assistant. 

It’s easy to see how a dedicated handset button is a win for Google, which has been pushing Assistant hard over the last year. CEO Sundar Pichai famously demoed Assistant making a terrifyingly human call to a hair salon worker to make an appointment — although the demo may have been faked.

It's less obvious that a dedicated Google Assistant button will be popular with users, not least because it's relatively easy to launch it with a simple voice command: "OK Google."

One indicator might be the Samsung Bixby fiasco. Samsung released its Galaxy S8 flagship in 2017, with a button dedicated to its own Bixby assistant. Users rebelled, complaining that the button couldn't be "remapped" to do any other task.

Samsung eventually capitulated with the 2019 launch of the Galaxy S10, allowing users to remap the dedicated Bixby button for other apps.

In a statement, Google said it expected 100 million phones to launch with the dedicated Assistant button.

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NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear

The healthcare industry is facing disruption due to accelerating technological innovation and growing demand for improved delivery of healthcare and lower costs. Tech startups are leading the way by seizing opportunities in the areas of the industry that are most vulnerable to disruption, including genomics, pharmaceuticals, administration, clinical operations, and insurance.

Venture funds and businesses are taking notice of these startups' potential. In the US, digital health funding reached $1.6 billion in Q1 2018, according to Rock Health — the largest first quarter on record, surpassing the $1.4 billion in venture funding seen in Q1 2016. These high-potential startups provide a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrate how we’ll get there.

In this report, a compilation of various notes, Business Insider Intelligence will look at the top startups disrupting US healthcare in four key areas: artificial intelligence (AI), digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics. Startups in this report were selected based on the funding they've received over the past year, notable investors, the products they offer, and leadership in their functional area.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Tech startups are entering the market by applying the “Silicon Valley” approach. They're targeting shortcomings and legacy systems that are no longer efficient.
• AI is being applied across five areas of healthcare to improve clinical operation workflows, cut costs, and foster preventative medicine. These areas include administration, big data analysis, clinical decision support, remote patient monitoring, and care provision.
  
• Health tech startups, insurers, and drug makers are rapidly exploring new ways to apply digital therapeutics to the broader healthcare market that replace or complement the existing treatment of a disease.
• Health insurance startups are taking advantage of the consumerization of healthcare to threaten the status quo of legacy players. 
• Genomics is becoming an increasingly common tool within the healthcare system as health organizations better understand how to extract the value from patients’ genetic data. 

 In full, the report:

• Details the areas of the US health industry that show the greatest potential for disruption.
• Forecasts the industry adoption of bleeding edge technology and how it will transform how healthcare organizations operate.
• Unveils the top five startups in AI, digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics, and how they're positioned to solve big issues that key players in healthcare face. 
• Explores what's next for the leading startups, providing a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrating how we’ll get there.

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

	This report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports
	Access to all future reports and daily newsletters
	Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
	And more!

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Drones — also commonly referred to as unmanned aircraft — are no longer a cool, new novelty that companies in only a handful of industries are testing.

Businesses across various industries and levels of government in the US are utilizing at least a handful of drones. But more importantly, drone users are now realizing a deep return on their investments from the aircraft's ability to help save hours of time and labor.

However, to successfully get a drone program up and running, businesses need to have an idea of what they want the aircraft to do, and the value they hope to create. To that end, companies need to know what their competitors are doing with the aircraft so they can plan their own projects accordingly.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence details how unmanned aircraft are disrupting a slew of different industries, including agriculture, construction and mining, insurance, media and telecommunications, and the public sector. We also size the market for global enterprise drone shipments, and pinpoint the features that make drones useful tools within different industries. Lastly, we make predictions for how drone use in these industries will evolve over the next five to 10 years and to what extent their impact will be magnified over this period.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented its Part 107 regulations for unmanned aircraft in August 2016, the commercial drone industry in the US has taken off. 
• Companies across the US have rushed to deploy drones to cut costs, boost operational efficiency, and open up new streams of revenue. Meanwhile, firms elsewhere in the world have taken notice and ramped up their own drone projects.
• Unmanned aircraft have the potential to create the greatest business value in the construction, mining, and agriculture industries. The agriculture industry was a relatively early adopter of drones, and today one-third of farmers in the US plan to use at least one drone this year. Meanwhile, drones will have a less significant, yet noticeable, impact on media, telecommunications, and insurance businesses.
• Drones will lead these industries to become highly data-driven in the coming years, making the aircraft a must-have for companies to keep pace with their competitors. They will allow businesses to synthesize and analyze trends in their workflows to bolster their operational efficiency and predict problems before they happen.

In full, the report:

• Analyzes the development of drone use across five different industries.
• Offers a look at how drone use in these industries will evolve over the coming years.
• Sizes the market for enterprise drone shipments over a seven-year period, both in the US and abroad.

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• The White House is reportedly creating a task-force to reevaluate and scrutinize government climate findings.
• The group of scientists would include a range of opinions, including those skeptical of the role humans play in climate change, according to The Washington Post.
• Trump administration officials met Friday to discuss the informal group, which hasn't been finalized yet.

The White House is assembling a team of scientists to reevaluate the government's climate findings, according to a report from The Washington Post.

The informal task-force, a National Security Council-led initiative that wouldn't be subject to the same oversight and disclosure requirements as a formal advisory committee, would include scientists representing a mixture of opinions, including those skeptical of the role humans are playing in warming the planet, sources told the Post. 

A range of government researchers have issued stark warnings about climate change and the risks it poses. That includes the National Climate Assessment released in November by a broad group of federal agencies as well as a report from the national intelligence director last month, each warning that weather-related climate hazards are growing worse. 

Administration officials reportedly met Friday to discuss how best to form a group of federal researchers that could scrutinize government climate reports. 

At the meeting, officials reportedly said Trump was displeased at the release of the National Climate Assessment, the findings of which Democrats have used to push for a Green New Deal that calls for cuts to carbon emissions. 

Plans for the new group haven't been finalized, and it isn't clear what impact or power it might wield.

While some experts told the Post they worried such a group could harm national security by casting doubt on scientific consensus regarding the risks of climate change, others were skeptical the task-force would have a substantive impact given the amount of extant and ongoing research around the world.

"When it comes down to climate change, we are talking about thousands of independent papers, from everywhere, finding exactly the same thing: that the climate is changing, that we are doing it and that most often than not, the impacts are pretty bad,” Camilo Mora, a geographer and environmental professor at the University of Hawaii, told the Post in an email. 

Under Trump, the government's environmental policies have changed substantially. In January, Trump signed an executive order allowing for more logging on public lands. In December 2018, Trump's EPA lifted certain emission restrictions on coal plants. In July 2018, Trump's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rolling back certain rules pertaining to the Endangered Species Act.  

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• A winter storm is sweeping across the Midwestern US.
• It's already left over 100,000 people without power.
• Warnings are now being issued for parts of the Northeast.
• Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris had to cancel an appearance in Iowa because of the blizzard.

A winter storm that has been sweeping across the midwestern US since Saturday will continue to bring blizzard conditions and strong winds across the upper Midwest on Sunday, according to meteorologists at The Weather Channel.

The storm is expected to spread to parts of northern New England on Monday, bringing snow and freezing rain as gusty winds develop in the eastern Great Lakes, meteorologists said.

Sunday afternoon, wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour were reported in northern Ohio, according to the National Weather Service. Strong wind gusts upwards of 40 miles per hour have also been forecasted for parts of the Midwest and Northeast until Monday night.

At the time of writing, hundreds of thousands of people are without power in parts of the Midwest and along the East Coast, with over 150,800 of those reported outages in Ohio alone, according to PowerOutage.US.

As of Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service has issued blizzard warnings for northeastern North and South Dakota, northwestern and southern Minnesota, northern and central Iowa, northern Michigan, and northern Wisconsin.

Read more:Delightful photos show how Seattle residents are taking advantage of their record-breaking snowstorm

Blizzard warnings have also been issued for parts of upstate New York east of Lake Ontario, including the cities, Oswego, Watertown, Lowville, Rome, Utica, and Boonville.

Travel is strongly discouraged in all of these areas, according to the National Weather Service.

According to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, severe weather conditions caused by the storm can result in tree damage, power outages, flight delays due to strong crosswinds, difficulty driving, and more.

On Saturday night, for example, strong wind gusts toppled over trees and caused tens of thousands of power outages in St. Louis, Missouri, Sosnowski reported. Sunday morning, similarly strong winds blew over a semi-truck along Interstate 69 near Indianapolis, Indiana.

Senator Kamala Harris, who is visiting Iowa this weekend as part of her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, also canceled a meet-and-greet and worship event at Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Waterloo, Iowa, on Sunday morning due to weather conditions, KWWL reported.

On Twitter, many people have shared photos and videos of the heavy snowfall and winds in areas affected by the storm.

• Read more:
• Kamala Harris kicks off 2020 campaign, warns of divisions
• New earthquake maps reveal never-before-seen detail about threats to buildings and people — here's who's most at risk around the world
• Natural disasters set records around the world in 2018. These were some of the worst.
•  

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NOW WATCH: Bud Light's 'Dilly Dilly' just made a comeback at the Super Bowl with a weird crossover ad with Game of Thrones — here's what the phrase means

This is a preview of the Influencer Marketing (2018) research report from Business Insider Intelligence. To learn more about the top platforms, as well as strategies for social media influencer marketing, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

The concept of a brand hiring a popular personality to promote a product or service isn't new, and brands know that celebrity endorsements can sell products. In the age of social media, however, brands are finding new ways to leverage popular figures as brand ambassadors, and these people aren't necessarily famous actors, singers, or athletes.

How brands are leveraging social media influencer marketing

While brands certainly continue to tap celebrities for endorsement deals, they’re also starting to enlist social media personalities, broadly known as “influencers,” for advertising campaigns. Social influencers generally focus on specific content areas — like fashion, beauty, parenting, or gaming — and cater their content to a specific vertical.

A new report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, identifies the ways brands can find and manage relationships with social media influencers. It notes the most engaging industry verticals, the pitfalls to avoid, and the opportunities to cash-in on. Finally, it explores how major social platforms are increasingly building out tools that enable their most popular users to build their personal brands.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Influencer marketing ad spend is poised to reach between $5 billion and $10 billion in 2022. Taking the midpoint of $7.5 billion as a base case, this represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38%.
• Brands need to fine-balance providing influencers with enough creative freedom, while also ensuring the messaging positively reflects the brand. Nearly 40% of influencers believe that overly restrictive content guidelines are one of the biggest mistakes brands and agencies make when working with them. 
• Influencers tend to have higher user engagement than content generated by brands. The average influencer engagement rate across industry verticals is 5.7%. As a comparison, the average engagement rate for brands on Instagram has fluctuated between 2-3% in the past year. 
• Authenticity is key for influencer marketing messaging. Brands should give influencers sufficient creative freedom to keep posts authentic, as it makes posts less likely to be dismissed by users. Other best practices include repurposing influencer content for multiple platforms, evaluating the audience and following of an influencer, and leveraging data to optimize future campaigns. 

 In full, the report:

• Outlines recent steps the top social platforms are taking for influencer posts.
• Details the best practices brands should adopt when starting out with influencer marketing. 
• Discusses the top verticals that are poised to benefit the most from influencer marketing, and which ones are growing. 
• Highlights the factors that will be critical for compliance with social platforms and the FTC.

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• Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud was appointed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.
• She is the first female in the history of the kingdom to hold such a role.
• The country has received harsh criticisms in the past months, especially in relation to women's rights.  

Saudi Arabia named Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud as its new ambassador to the United States, the first time in Saudi history that a female will carry out the role of ambassador for the kingdom. 

Al Saud will replace Prince Khalid bin Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's younger brother, who has been appointed as deputy defense minister. 

Princess Reema was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1975 to Bandar bin Sultan and Haifa bint Faisal. Her father served as ambassador to the US from 1983 to 2005. During the years she spent in the US with her father, Princess Reema attended Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia and George Washington University, graduating with a degree in museum studies. She is divorced and has 2 children.

An advocate of women's rights in the country, Princess Reema was involved in the inclusion of physical education for girls in schools in 2017 as the Saudi General Sports Authority’s Deputy of Planning and Development. She also worked in the private sector as co-founder of Yibreen, a women's day gym and spa, and is the founder and creative director of Baraboux, a luxury handbag brand.

Women across Saudi Arabia have been seeing many changes over the past few years. In a 2017 royal decree by King Salman, women were given access to government and health services without requisite consent from their male guardians. Last year, women were given the right to drive, open their own businesses without a guardian's permission, watch sports in certain stadiums, and enlist in the military. 

In the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, Saudi Arabia was ranked 141 out of 149 countries measured.

Read more:Saudi Arabian women can now drive — here are the biggest changes they've seen in just over a year

Despite the apparent improvements for women in the country when it comes to women's legal equality, the country continues to receive harsh criticism for what some call human rights abuses.

In 2016 Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was barred from appearing in media in the country and left to continue writing for the Washington Post. Shortly after, he was murdered by a suspected hit team from Saudi Arabia, highlighting issues of press freedom in the country.

Earlier this month, INSIDER reported that the Saudi government has a system called "Absher," an app that contains a log of women in Saudi Arabia and the means to bar them from travel or catch them trying to leave without permission — a clear illustration of equality issues that women still face in the country. 

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NOW WATCH: Meet the three women who married Donald Trump

• Democrats took to Sunday shows to call for the full release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Trump administration and Russian election interference. 
• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Democrats would use subpoena power and Congressional hearings to get all the information if the report wasn't released. 
• Attorney General William P. Barr has indicated that he is taking the investigation seriously but also told lawmakers that he was reluctant to release accusations that didn't accompany charges. 
• Mueller's report is reportedly almost finished, and will reportedly include specifics on why certain will be prosecuted over others. 

Democrats appeared on Sunday TV shows to insist that special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Trump administration and Russian election interference see the light of day. House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) even threatened to subpoena the report and compel Mueller's testimony if the Trump administration attempted to suppress it. 

Schiff told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress. We will take it to court if necessary."

On Friday, Schiff and five other Democratic House chairs sent a letter to Attorney General William P. Barr suggesting that not releasing the report, which is under his purview, would amount to a "coverup."

It's been reported that the report is nearing completion, and could be released in the coming weeks. Barr, has said he will let Mueller finish the report and has stated that he doesn't believe Mueller is running a witch-hunt, but ruffled feathers when he said in his confirmation hearing that there was little benefit to releasing allegations that didn't accompany any charges. The Mueller report will reportedly go into detail about why some individuals will be prosecuted over others.

Schiff wasn't the only Democrat to go on Sunday TV to call for the release of the report.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) went on meet the press to call for the release of the report. "Everyone in this country needs to know what happens, and then we decide where to take it from there," said Himes of the report. 

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) indicated on CBS that the House would take action if the Mueller report wasn't released in full, saying, "If the attorney general takes the Mueller report and then sanitizes it and releases that as the answer to a comprehensive investigation, then I think the Democrats in the House and Senate, along with Republicans, have a responsibility to ensure that the American people know what happened in 2016."

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

An increasing number of wealth managers are using new technologies to make their operations more efficient and to increase customer satisfaction.

The technologies they are implementing include robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots, machine learning, application programming interfaces (APIs), and explainable AI.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence analyzes how emerging technologies like RPA and AI are transforming the wealth management industry, on both the front and back end, by increasing efficiency and opening up the space to new demographics. We explain how both incumbents and startups are applying these technologies to different business areas, and how successful they've been at implementation. Additionally, we take a look at the challenges wealth managers are facing as they look to revamp their businesses for the digital age.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Startup wealth managers and digitally savvy technology suppliers are bringing emerging technologies to the fore to make wealth management more time- and cost-efficient. These include RPA, machine learning, and AI. Big players in the space are also beginning to wake up to those opportunities.
• The technologies can improve consumer-facing elements of wealth management, like onboarding and customer service, to increase customer satisfaction.
• Machine learning and APIs can help wealth managers improve functions like portfolio management and compliance, and help them better stay on top of regulations, and increase customer satisfaction by offering improved and additional services.
• However, there are some challenges wealth managers are facing when implementing these tools, ranging from a lack of customer trust in emerging technologies to difficulty finding appropriate talent.

 In full, the report:

• Outlines how the wealth management industry is implementing emerging technologies.
• Details which technologies they are using, and what their specific benefits are. 
• Discusses the potential challenges wealth managers are facing when implementing new technologies.
• Highlights what wealth managers need to do to stay relevant in the field.

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Over the past five years, the world has seen a seemingly unending series of high-profile data breaches, defined as incidents in which unauthorized parties access and retrieve sensitive, secure, or private data.

Major incidents, like the 2013 Yahoo breach, which impacted all 3 million of the tech giant’s customers, and the more recent Equifax breach, which exposed the information of at least 143 million US adults, has kept this risk, and these threats, at the forefront for both businesses and consumers. And businesses have good reason to be concerned — of organizations breached, 22% lost customers, 29% lost revenue, and 23% lost business opportunities.

This threat isn’t going anywhere. Each of the past five years has seen, on average, 1,704 security incidents, impacting nearly 2 billion records. And hackers could be getting more efficient, using new technological tools to extract more data in fewer breach attempts. That’s making the security threat an industry-agnostic for any business holding sensitive data — at this point, virtually all companies — and therefore a necessity for firms to address proactively and prepare to react to.

The majority of breaches come from the outside, when a malicious actor is usually seeking access to records for financial gain, and tend to leverage malware or other software and hardware-related tools to access records. But they can come internally, as well as from accidents perpetrated by employees, like lost or stolen records or devices.

That means that firms need to have a broad-ranging plan in place, focusing on preventing breaches, detecting them quickly, and resolving and responding to them in the best possible way. That involves understanding protectable assets, ensuring compliance, and training employees, but also protecting data, investing in software to understand what normal and abnormal performance looks like, training employees, and building a response plan to mitigate as much damage as possible when the inevitable does occur.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the data breach threat, who and what companies need to protect themselves from, and how they can most effectively do so from a technological and organizational perspective.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• The breach threat isn’t going anywhere. The number of overall breaches isn’t consistent — it soared from 2013 to 2016, but ticked down slightly last year — but hackers might be becoming better at obtaining more records with less work, which magnifies risk.
• The majority of breaches come from the outside, and leverage software and hardware attacks, like malware, web app attacks, point-of-service (POS) intrusion, and card skimmers.
• Firms need to build a strong front door to prevent as many breaches as possible, but they also need to develop institutional knowledge to detect a breach quickly, and plan for how to resolve and respond to it in order to limit damage — both financial and subjective — as effectively as possible.

In full, the report:

• Explains the scope of the breach threat, by industry and year, and identifies the top attacks.
• Identifies leading perpetrators and causes of breaches.
• Addresses strategies to cope with the threat in three key areas: prevention, detection, and resolution and response.
• Issues recommendations from both a technological and organizational perspective in each of these categories so that companies can avoid the fallout that a data breach can bring.

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

	This report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports
	Access to all future reports and daily newsletters
	Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
	And more!

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• Emma Stone attended the 2019 Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles wearing a brown and gold dress.
• The sparkling gown was designed by Louis Vuitton and featured large shoulder pads.
• On Twitter, people had mixed reactions to Stone's look.
• While some felt that she looked great, others compared Stone's style to breakfast food, an ice-cream cone, and a Furby, a popular toy from the '90s.

Emma Stone showed up to the 2019 Oscars, held on Sunday at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, wearing a standout brown and gold dress.

Her sparkling ensemble was designed by Louis Vuitton, and featured a criss-cross pattern across the entire gown.

Stone's look also stood out as result of its large shoulder pads, which jutted out almost like wings.

Read more: The best outfits celebrities wore to the 2019 Oscars

On Twitter, people shared mixed reactions to the star's look

Many users felt that her gown was "gorgeous," and compared it to styles from the '70s.

Other Twitter users weren't into Stone's dress, and questioned why she chose to wear brown.

But some people took things a step further, and compared Stone's dress to a variety of foods, including streaky bacon and an ice-cream cone, among other things.

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• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for AMC's "The Walking Dead's" season nine, episode 11, "Bounty."
• Sunday's episode shows "TWD's" new villains leave a baby to be eaten by the undead. 
• The baby ultimately gets saved, but it's a moment that isn't in the comics.
• Episode director Meera Menon tells INSIDER a mix of dolls, animatronic babies, and even a real baby were used to bring the horrific scene to life.

Sunday's "The Walking Dead" had an unexpected moment that was never seen in the comics. When the Whisperers arrived at the Hilltop, they had a baby in tow.  

It may have thrown some fans of the AMC zombie drama off since the Whisperers walk among the undead and a baby would easily put a target on their backs, something which confused Daryl. But once the baby started crying, their leader Alpha (Samantha Morton) signaled for the little one to be left behind for the dead, making for a pretty nail-biting moment as you're not sure whether or not you're about to watch a baby get torn up by a group of walkers. 

"We were kind of always aware that that would be a kind of iconic moment of the episode because it's so horrifying," episode director Meera Menon told INSIDER. "We staged it in a way where we could really kind of build the drama, and these wide frames, and be able to really sell the drama of the most vulnerable thing in the world, being confronted by the most horrifying thing in the world. It was a real opportunity to just play up the shock, and horror, and drama of a moment in a way that only this show can."

Before anything bad can happen though, Connie comes through and saves the baby and manages to sneak it back into the Hilltop safe.

Read more: 'The Walking Dead' showed the zombie apocalypse from the POV of a deaf survivor. Here's how it came together.

"We had dolls, we had animatronic babies, and then we had a real baby for like 30 minutes," said Menon of filming Sunday's Whisperer baby scenes. "We were switching between all these different things, and trying to make it as comfortable for everyone as possible. When we'd actually shoot, and when those takes were actually being recorded, I think everyone felt it."

While watching the scene, you get the sense this is something the Whisperers have done before. Alpha doesn't even blink an eye when she silently motions a young woman to leave the baby for the dead. 

"Yeah. I think that was the intent," said Menon. "The dramatic intention of that moment is about telling the audience, what are the depths and bounds of the rules that these people live by, and how severe and how dangerous are they? I think in this one gesture, it's kind of brilliant about making it just about one thing. I think it tells us everything we need to know about how cutthroat, and how dangerous these people are, and what they're willing to do to survive in the way they've chosen to survive, right?"

"To use a baby as a weapon and bring a baby inside that area just blows his mind," Norman Reedus said Sunday on "Talking Dead.""It's just a whole other level of, 'You evil bas----.' Daryl realizes this lady's real messed up. It's just such a screwed up thing to do."

That's something to keep in mind now that Daryl, Connie, and Dog have gone after Henry who's pursuing the Whisperers. Though they let Alden and Luke go, Alpha made it clear she would have killed them if she didn't need them to get her daughter back. She and the Whisperers may not be a foe who Daryl and company want to cross.

You can follow along with our "Walking Dead" coverage here.

• Read more:
• Sunday's 'The Walking Dead' has a direct callback to another iconic villain moment you may have overlooked
• We finally learned what was in Carl's letter to Enid on 'The Walking Dead'
• 7 details you may have missed on Sunday's 'The Walking Dead'
• 'The Walking Dead' showed the zombie apocalypse from the POV of a deaf survivor. Here's how it came together.
• 'The Walking Dead' showrunner confirms Rick and Michonne weren't officially married, and hints viewers may learn her last name

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• The song "Shallow" from "A Star Is Born" won for best original song at the 2019 Oscars.
• Stars Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga sang the song onstage Sunday at LA's Dolby Theatre.
• They crushed the intimate performance. 

"A Star Is Born" stars Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga performed an intimate rendition of "Shallow" at the 2019 Oscars.

The co-stars, who play lovers Jackson and Aly in the movie, sang the Oscar-winning song to each other on the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. They walked up to the stage together from the audience. Cooper initially sat on a stool opposite of Gaga but later joined her on the piano bench. 

Read more: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga's chemistry in 'A Star Is Born' is as strong as they say it is

Viewers raved about the emotional and intimate performance.

The performance was much slower than Gaga's rock version of the song at the Grammys. 

"A Star Is Born" was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture, leading actor, and leading actress.

Watch the performance below.

• Read more:
• Chris Evans jumped up to help Regina King to the stage after she won the Oscar for best supporting actress, and it melted viewers' hearts
• Actor Billy Porter made a statement in a tuxedo dress with a voluminous skirt on the Oscars red carpet
• What your favorite celebrities wore to the 2019 Oscars
• Lady Gaga wore a $30 million necklace to the Oscars with a 128-carat yellow diamond last seen on Audrey Hepburn

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• A bipartisan group of 58 former senior national security officials plan to issue a statement Monday rebuking President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency to build a wall at the southern border of the US, according to The Washington Post.
• They say there is "no factual basis" for Trump to declare the national emergency.
• The House will vote Tuesday on a resolution to terminate the emergency declaration.

A bipartisan group of 58 former senior national security officials plan to issue a statement Monday rebuking President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency to build a wall at the southern border of the US, according to The Washington Post.

They plan to say there is "no factual basis" for Trump's proclamation.

"Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border," the statement will say, according to The Post.

Signatories of the letter include Madeleine Albright, former defense secretary under President Bill Clinton; Chuck Hagel, former defense secretary under President Barack Obama; Eliot Cohen, a State Department counselor under President George W. Bush; John Kerry, the second secretary of state who served under Obama; Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser; and Leon Panetta, who was CIA director and defense secretary under Obama.

They point out in their letter that illegal border crossings are at near 40-year lows, there is no terrorism or violent crime crisis at the border, and that a wall is unlikely to stop drug flows because "the overwhelming majority of opioids" come in through legal ports of entry, according to The Post.

On Tuesday, the House will vote on a resolution put forth by Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas that would terminate the national emergency declaration.

Trump's emergency declaration ventured into new territory to circumvent Congress and redirect military funding for other purposes to the border wall.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the declaration as unlawful.

Joe Perticone contributed to this report.

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• Digital trust is the confidence people have in a platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.
• Business Insider Intelligence surveyed over 1,300 global consumers to evaluate their perception of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
• Consumers’ Digital Trust rankings differ across security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance for the six major social networks.

If you feel like “fake news” and spammy social media feeds dominate your Internet experience, you’re not alone. Digital trust, the confidence people have in platforms to protect their information and provide a safe environment to create and engage with content, is in jeopardy.

In fact, in a new Business Insider Intelligence survey of more than 1,300 global consumers, over half (54%) said that fake news and scams were "extremely impactful” or “very impactful” on their decision to engage with ads and sponsored content.

For businesses, this distrust has financial ramifications. It’s no longer enough to craft a strong message; brands, marketers, and social platforms need to focus their energy on getting it to consumers in an environment where they are most receptive. When brands reach consumers on platforms that they trust, they enhance their credibility and increase the likelihood of receiving positive audience engagement.

The Digital Trust Report 2018, the latest Enterprise Edge Report from Business Insider Intelligence, compiles this exclusive survey data to analyze consumer perceptions of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

The survey breaks down consumers’ perceptions of social media across six pillars of trust: security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance. The results? LinkedIn ran away with it.

As the most trusted platform for the second year in a row – and an outlier in the overall survey results – LinkedIn took the top spot for nearly every pillar of trust — and there are a few reasons why:

• LinkedIn continues to benefit from the professional nature of its community — users on the platform tend to be well behaved and have less personal information at risk, which makes for a more trusting environment.
• LinkedIn users are likely more selective and mindful about engagement when interacting within their professional network, which may increase trust in its content.
• Content on LinkedIn is typically published by career-minded individuals and organizations seeking to promote professional interests, and is therefore seen as higher quality than other platforms’. This bodes well for advertisers and publishers to be viewed as forthright, honest, persuasive, and trustworthy.

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Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

The Digital Trust Report 2018 illustrates how social platforms have been on a roller coaster ride of data, user privacy, and brand safety scandals since our first installment of the report in 2017.

In full, the report analyzes key changes in rankings from 2017, identifies trends in millennials' behavior on social media, and highlights where these platforms (as well as advertisers) have opportunities to capture their attention.

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