The Chicago Bears moved one significant step closer to potentially relocating across state lines after an Indiana House committee unanimously approved legislation Thursday that establishes the framework for financing and building a new stadium in Northwest Indiana.
Bears founder George Halas (right) with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle
The Indiana House Ways and Means Committee voted 24-0 to advance an amended version of Senate Bill 27, which creates the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. This body would have the power to issue bonds, acquire land, finance construction and oversee a lease agreement with the team. The bill, which previously passed the Indiana Senate in late January, now heads to the full House for consideration before the legislative session ends Feb. 27.
The proposed site centers on an area near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana, in Lake County. House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers), who sponsored the bill in the House, announced during the committee meeting that the Bears have committed to investing $2 billion toward the project. Huston described the development as a “shared commitment” between the team and state leaders, calling it a “transformational investment” for northwest Indiana and the state.
In a statement released Thursday, the Bears called the committee’s action “the most meaningful step forward in our stadium planning efforts to date.” The team expressed readiness to complete site-specific due diligence and affirmed its vision for a “world-class stadium near the Wolf Lake area in Hammond, Indiana.” The Bears thanked Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, Speaker Huston, Sen. Ryan Mishler and other lawmakers for establishing a “critical framework and path forward” to deliver a premier venue serving Chicagoland fans and visitors.
The momentum comes amid stalled progress in Illinois, where the Bears have played at Soldier Field since 1971. An Illinois House committee meeting scheduled Thursday to discuss stadium funding was canceled, heightening speculation about an out-of-state move. Reports indicate Bears leadership paused Illinois negotiations earlier in the week to allow for bill adjustments.
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Senate Bill 27 sets parameters for a potential deal, including bond issuance, a long-term lease and creation of a Northwest Indiana Stadium Development District and Professional Sports Development Area in Hammond. While it outlines authority powers, key financial specifics—such as exact public contributions, tax mechanisms or total project costs—remain subject to final negotiations and due diligence.
The Bears have long sought a modern facility to replace aging Soldier Field. Previous efforts focused on Arlington Heights, Illinois, but those plans faced hurdles. Indiana’s aggressive push, backed by bipartisan legislative support, positions Hammond as a viable alternative just across the state line, offering proximity to Chicago while providing new economic development opportunities.
Local leaders in northwest Indiana have welcomed the proposal, viewing it as an economic boon through jobs, tourism and infrastructure upgrades. Critics in Illinois argue losing the Bears would hurt Chicago’s sports identity and tax revenue, while some in Indiana question public funding for professional sports venues.
NFL insider Conor Orr, citing sources, described the Indiana move as feeling like an “inevitability” barring major changes from Illinois. The Bears’ statement stopped short of exclusivity but placed clear pressure on Springfield to advance competing legislation.
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If the full House approves SB 27, the stadium authority could begin formal talks, land acquisition and environmental reviews. No timeline for groundbreaking or completion has been set, but passage would mark a pivotal advancement in years of stadium uncertainty for the franchise.
The Bears, owned by the McCaskey family, have emphasized a facility that enhances fan experience, community integration and global appeal. A move to Indiana would mark the first NFL team relocation since the Rams and Chargers shifted in recent years, though cross-state shifts remain rare.
As the Indiana House prepares to vote, attention turns to whether lawmakers can finalize the bill before session’s end. The Bears continue exploring options but have signaled strong interest in the Hammond vision.
For Chicago fans, the prospect of road trips to Indiana raises mixed emotions—loyalty to the city versus excitement for a state-of-the-art home. For northwest Indiana residents, it promises revitalization in a region long seeking major investment.
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The coming days will determine if the Bears stay in Illinois or cross into Indiana for a new chapter.
Wal-Mart De Mexico S.A.B. de C.V. ADR (WMMVY) Q4 2025 Earnings Call February 19, 2026 8:00 AM EST
Company Participants
Salvador Villasenor Barragan – Investor Relations Director Paulo Garcia – CFO and Senior VP of Administration & Finance Cristian Barrientos – Interim President, CEO & Director Paul Lewellen
Conference Call Participants
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Benjamin Theurer – Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division Fernando Froylan Mendez Solther – JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division Ulises Argote Bolio – Santander Investment Securities Inc., Research Division Felipe Rached – Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division Alvaro Garcia – Banco BTG Pactual S.A., Research Division Antonio Hernandez – Actinver Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V., Research Division Melissa Byun – BofA Securities, Research Division Miguel Ulloa Suárez – BBVA Research SA Alejandro Fuchs – Banco Itau BBA SA, Research Division
Presentation
Salvador Villasenor Barragan Investor Relations Director
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Good morning, everyone. I’m Salvador Villasenor, Head of Investor Relations at Walmex, and I want to thank you once again for joining our live Q&A session following our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings release, which was published yesterday. As always, we will make an effort to answer as many questions as we can in the 45 minutes we have scheduled for this call. [Operator Instructions] Joining me today is Cristian Barrientos Pozo, President and CEO; Paul Lewellen, our Chief Omnichannel Operating Officer; and Paulo Garcia, our Chief Financial Officer. We’ll now go right straight away to the first question.
Question-and-Answer Session
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Operator
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Mr. Ben Theurer from Barclays.
Benjamin Theurer Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division
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Can you guys hear me, see me?
Salvador Villasenor Barragan Investor Relations Director
Yes.
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Benjamin Theurer Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division
So I wanted to get a little bit your sense as you look at the market in Mexico. And in the presentation yesterday, it was very clear
An awkward on-stage moment stole attention from discussions on artificial intelligence’s future at the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei conspicuously avoided holding hands during a group photograph with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other tech leaders.
Dario Amodei
The incident, captured on video and quickly going viral across social media, highlighted the long-simmering rivalry between the two former colleagues now leading competing AI companies. While most executives linked arms and raised them in a show of unity for the ceremonial photo at Bharat Mandapam, Altman and Amodei — positioned next to each other — raised their arms separately, opting for fists instead of clasped hands, and appeared to avoid eye contact.
The summit, running February 16-20 under India’s IndiaAI Mission, has drawn global attention as a platform for debating AI’s opportunities and risks, with India’s “MANAV” vision emphasizing human-centric development. Thursday’s events included keynotes from industry heavyweights, but the brief photo op became the day’s most talked-about clip.
Prime Minister Modi initiated the gesture, holding hands with Google CEO Sundar Pichai on one side and Altman on the other before raising arms. The chain extended across the stage to include leaders like DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith and others. Altman and Amodei, standing adjacent, broke the link by not connecting.
Altman later addressed the moment lightly, telling reporters he “was sort of confused and didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing” during the orchestrated pose. No formal comment came from Amodei or Anthropic on the incident, but the optics fueled speculation about deeper tensions.
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The two men share a complicated history. Amodei, along with his sister Daniela Amodei and other researchers, left OpenAI in 2020-2021 citing concerns over the company’s shift toward commercialization and away from its original nonprofit mission focused on safe AGI development. They founded Anthropic in 2021 as a direct counterpoint, prioritizing AI safety through approaches like constitutional AI in models such as Claude.
Tensions escalated publicly in recent months. Anthropic reportedly ran attack-style advertisements during the Super Bowl earlier in 2026, subtly critiquing competitors’ approaches to AI risks without naming OpenAI directly. Altman has defended OpenAI’s path, emphasizing rapid innovation balanced with safeguards, while Amodei has positioned Anthropic as more cautious on existential threats.
Both companies compete fiercely for talent, compute resources and market share in the generative AI space. OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains a household name, but Anthropic’s Claude series has gained traction among enterprises valuing interpretability and safety features. The rivalry reflects broader debates in the AI community over speed versus caution in pursuing advanced systems.
The India AI Impact Summit provided a rare in-person convergence of these leaders. Altman arrived emphasizing India’s potential as a “full-stack AI leader” — not just an adopter but a builder of the technology. He highlighted collaborations, including partnerships with Indian firms for AI infrastructure. Amodei, in his keynote, praised India’s role in balancing AI opportunities with risk mitigation, aligning with the summit’s themes.
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Other attendees included Meta’s Chief AI Officer (noted in some reports as Alexandr Wang, though typically associated with Scale AI; clarifications pointed to Meta representatives), Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, HCLTech Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra and Adani Group executives. The event aimed to showcase India’s ambitions in AI under the government-backed mission, including compute access, talent development and ethical frameworks.
Social media erupted with memes and commentary. Users on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit noted the “AI cold war” playing out visibly, with some joking about the need for “better prompt engineering” in group photos. Others saw it as symbolic of fractured unity in an industry facing regulatory scrutiny worldwide.
The moment underscores how personal and philosophical divides persist even amid global cooperation calls. AI leaders often stress collaboration on safety standards, yet competitive pressures — from funding rounds to model releases — keep rivalries sharp.
No escalation followed the photo. Sessions continued with panels on AI’s economic impact, workforce transformation and governance. Altman is scheduled for a student interaction at IIT Delhi on Friday, while the summit wraps up with more policy-focused discussions. For India, hosting such figures signals its growing clout in global tech. The government’s push for sovereign AI capabilities, data centers and skill-building programs drew praise from attendees, even as the viral awkwardness reminded observers that tech’s brightest minds don’t always align seamlessly.
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As AI advances rapidly, moments like Thursday’s hand-holding snub serve as a reminder: behind the algorithms and valuations lie human egos, differing visions and unresolved questions about who shapes the technology’s trajectory.
FOX Business Lauren Simonetti takes viewers deep inside a working coal mine as officials push to expand production to meet surging electricity demand driven by data centers, EVs and electrification.
The Trump administration is stepping up its push to reinvigorate the U.S. coal industry as it pursues its goal of boosting energy security.
Last week, the Department of Energy announced that it would provide $175 million in funding for projects to modernize, retrofit and extend the useful life of six coal-fired power plants that serve rural and remote communities.
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The agency said the move is intended to keep dependable sources of energy online, while also strengthening the reliability of the electric grid and keeping electricity costs low for American households and businesses.
The funding came from a previously announced $525 million plan to extend the life of coal plants and increase efficiency, as the administration views modernizing existing plants as a fast and cost-effective way to provide reliable power while preserving high-wage energy jobs.
The Trump administration is providing funds to support coal power plants as part of the nation’s energy mix. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
“For years, previous administrations targeted America’s coal industry and the workers who power our country, forcing the premature closure of reliable power plants, and driving up electricity costs,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
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“President Trump has ended the war on American coal and is restoring common-sense energy policy. These investments will keep America’s coal plants operating, keep costs low for Americans, and ensure we have the reliable power needed to keep the lights on and power our future,” Wright added.
The administration’s will fund projects to extend the life of coal-fired power plants. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
The coal-fired power plants that were selected as part of the $175 million project include:
Appalachian Power Company’s facilities in Letart and Winfield, West Virginia
Buckeye Power’s plant in Brilliant, Ohio
Duke Energy Carolinas’ plants in Sauaratown Township, North Carolina
Kentucky Utilities Corporation’s facility in Ghent, Kentucky
Monongahela Power Company’s power plant in Maidsville, West Virginia
Ohio Valley Electric Corporation’s plant in Cheshire, Ohio
Electricity demand is surging amid the artificial intelligence (AI) race, as data centers that consume vast amounts of energy become a bigger drain on the grid.
Coal’s share of electricity generation has declined rapidly in recent decades. (Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Trump administration’s push to boost coal as a part of the nation’s energy mix comes after years of decline as coal power plants closed. Coal’s decline came amid the rise of natural gas and renewable energy sources as energy sources.
Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that coal’s total output for electricity generation peaked in 2007, when it was the source of 2,016 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
That figure declined to 675 billion kilowatt-hours as of 2023, when coal’s share of electricity generation was 16.2%. Coal last generated over half of the nation’s electricity in the early 2000s and peaked as a proportion of the energy mix in the 1980s.
Natural gas surpassed coal as the country’s largest source of electricity in 2016, and EIA data showed natural gas generated 43.1% of the nation’s electricity in 2023.
Business Improvement Districts say ‘this is too complex an issue to be rushed’
Bill Addy, who runs Liverpool’s business improvement district, has responded to the Government’s consultation alongside Vaughan Allen of CityCo in Manchester
Hospitality bodies in Liverpool and Manchester have joined forces to urge the Government to take its time over plans for a national “tourist tax” to avoid another u-turn.
Last week hotels and holiday companies around the country – including many in the North – signed an open letter calling for the Government to scrap plans for a visitor levy. The policy, which a number of Northern mayors have indicated they want to take up, allows areas to levy a small charge on overnight stays to raise money for infrastructure improvements and projects that benefit the tourism sector.
Industry body UK Hospitality says it has “serious concerns about the timing and impact of the plans”, warning that the industry is also struggling with rising costs from other Government measures.
Now the Accommodation Business Improvement Districts (ABIDs) in Liverpool and Manchester have issued a joint statement that calls for the introduction of the levy to be at least slowed down.
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The statement says: “This is too complex an issue to be rushed and we would urge the Government to slow down and think this through. There has been limited opportunity to speak to the business sector it directly impacts; hotels and hospitality.
“The reason the ABID model and visitor levy works so well in Manchester and Liverpool is because it is private sector led, it puts the hotel industry at the heart of the strategy and it gives them a voice. It took years of work, consultation, talking and planning to get this right. This is a ground-up approach that is generating real economic results for both cities because it has empowered the industry to have a say in the visitor economy.
“Over the next 2-years, the two ABIDs are forecast to invest upwards of £17 million in Manchester and Liverpool, making the cities more appealing to visitors and improving local prospects with more investment, more jobs, greater opportunity and increased pride.
“Instead, as we have said to the government as part of this consultation exercise, the plans for a so-called national “tourist tax” have not given the industry a voice and are too vague, currently. Instead it burdens them with another layer of bureaucracy and taxation. This is a sector that is at the forefront of business rates increases. There is a real risk that a proposal that is not planned out, that disregards the complexity of the situation ends up hitting a city driven regeneration policy and undermines two years of good work.
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“We cannot afford another u-turn, we need solid and sound plans to be put in place before any decisions are made.
“We are working with our stakeholders across the UK but we would say slow down, let’s do this right the first time, not have to pick up the pieces further down the road.”
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Capital deployment into property technology took a major jump to start 2026, even though overall deal volume didn’t change much, according to a new report. Fifty prop tech and adjacent companies raised approximately $1.7 billion globally during the month, according to a monthly report from the Center for Real Estate Technology and Innovation. That’s a 176% gain from January 2025, when 48 deals closed totaling $615 million. “The comparison highlights a critical dynamic shaping the current venture environment: deal count has remained stable, but capital deployment has accelerated sharply,” wrote Ashkán Zandieh, founder and managing director at CRETI. “Early-year data suggests that investor appetite has not broadly expanded across all stages, but rather concentrated around fewer, larger, and more established platforms.” The average dollar amount per deal rose from roughly $12.8 million in January 2025 to about $34 million in January 2026. A small number of very large transactions clearly had their impact, suggesting that there is not a general inflation in early-stage funding, but more willingness among big investors to make bigger bets. Seed, pre-seed and Series A funding made up only a small share of total investment. Venture and corporate rounds made up $459 million, “reflecting sustained support for companies beyond initial product-market validation,” according to Zandieh. Examples of that in January included Mews, Property Finder and Span, which saw infusions from large, multi-investor syndicates that included growth equity firms, corporate venture arms and institutional asset managers. “One of the factors driving the increase in prop tech spend is that generative AI is accelerating the functional obsolescence timeline of many technologies that large real estate companies only recently integrated,” said Brendan Wallace, co-founder and CEO of Fifth Wall, a venture capital firm focused largely on property technology that has roughly $3 billion in assets under management. “AI native enterprise software is already beginning to unseat established solutions, and the traditional advantages of incumbency and high switching costs are eroding quickly,” Wallace said. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen before at Fifth Wall.” At the same time, Wallace said, real estate-specific models are reshaping where organizations invest. Investment funding that previously went to data warehousing, business intelligence and large-scale consulting is being both rethought and reallocated to AI models that can deliver the same insights much more quickly and at lower cost. “As a result, real estate organizations are scrambling to reconceptualize their core technology infrastructure to keep pace with the unprecedented change that generative and agentic AI will bring to the industry,” Wallace said. Private equity investments in January accounted for $320 million, according to the CRETI report. Structured growth, strategic, and non-traditional instruments represented $444 million. This highlights the increasingly diverse and non-linear nature of the prop tech capital stack at the start of 2026, the report found. While the global run on prop tech was widespread across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, European and Middle Eastern companies were particularly active in both early-stage and later-stage transactions. They favored construction technology, energy infrastructure, and real estate, according to the report. One month does not a trend make, but the sharp move does suggest that there is much more active capital favoring prop tech, especially as AI takes over the investment narrative. Bigger commitments are overshadowing startup investment. “For founders, this environment rewards clarity around business model durability and capital requirements. For investors, it reinforces the importance of distinguishing between headline capital totals and underlying deal composition,” said Zandieh.
Belby, a district nurse, had hoped to get the money returned in time for Christmas but found the process of trying to secure her refund slow and stressful, especially because she said she was given conflicting information and was quoted two vastly different figures of how much she was owed.
For the first time, Amazon has dethroned Walmart as the company with the largest annual revenue.
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Walmart on Thursday reported annual revenue of $713.2 billion for its most recent fiscal year, shy of Amazon’s $716.9 billion in revenue. The milestone was brewing for months, as Amazon leapfrogged Walmart in quarterly sales for the first time about a year ago.
The shuffle, while largely symbolic, underscores the battle the two retailers have waged both to define and keep up with ever-changing consumer preferences. They are kicking off a new chapter of that rivalry as artificial intelligence reshapes how companies operate, make money and drive sales.
Amazon rose to the top of the revenue pile by doing much more than running a sprawling online webstore and promising speedy delivery. While its core retail unit is its largest revenue generator, its huge cloud computing, advertising and seller services businesses also fuel its sales. Third-party seller services, which include commissions and fees collected by Amazon fulfillment along with shipping, advertising and customer support, accounted for about 24% of the company’s total sales in 2025, according to its latest annual filing. Amazon Web Services was responsible for roughly 18%.
It wasn’t Walmart’s weakness that led it to lose its top spot, as its revenue has more than doubled in 20 years. The retailer has leaned on its more than 4,600 Walmart stores and roughly 600 Sam’s Club locations in the U.S. to power its digital business, which grew by 27% in the U.S. in the fiscal fourth quarter and has posted double-digit percentage gains for 15 straight quarters.
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That expansion came as Walmart riffed off the Amazon playbook and tried to position itself as a tech company as well as a retailer.
There have been multiple signs of its ambitions: Walmart relisted its stock, moving from the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in early December. Its market value surpassed the $1 trillion mark earlier this month, a valuation achieved almost exclusively by tech companies including Amazon, after a more than 21% rise in the last year.
And the big-box retailer’s fourth-quarter earnings, which were boosted by digital advertising and its third-party marketplace, illustrated Walmart’s emphasis on chasing higher-margin businesses and thinking beyond brick-and-mortar retail.
Amazon and Walmart’s AI ambitions
In many ways, Walmart’s recent push to grow its third-party marketplace was an answer to the dominance of Amazon’s platform. Even as it tries to catch up with Amazon in some areas, Walmart is trying to gain an edge in a new frontier.
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Over the past few years, Amazon and Walmart have used different AI strategies to try to make their businesses more efficient and make their merchandise more appealing to shoppers.
Walmart struck a deal with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in October and Google’s Gemini in January to make its products easier to discover and buy. It also has its own AI-powered shopping assistant, Sparky. The virtual assistant, which looks like a smiley face, pops up on Walmart’s app and can help shoppers find items.
Walmart, like many other companies, is in the early days of AI adoption, and it’s unclear how the technology will affect its business long-term.
On the company’s earnings call on Thursday, Walmart CEO John Furner said customers are spending more when they use Sparky. He said customers who use Sparky have an average order value that’s about 35% higher than shoppers who don’t use the tool.
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About half of Walmart’s app users have used Sparky, Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina said on the earnings call.
“Agentic AI is increasingly embedded across Walmart,” Guggina said. “It’s strengthening our operations. It’s improving associate productivity, and it’s enhancing the customer experience.”
Walmart CFO John David Rainey said AI investments are included in the retailer’s capital expenditure plans for the full year, which are expected to be roughly 3.5% of sales. Those expenses also include the company’s investments in automation and store remodels.
There are limits to Walmart’s tech ambitions.When it comes to AI, Rainey said Walmart will lean on the expertise of tech companies rather than try to create its own products.
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“As you’ve seen from the announcements we’ve made, we’re approaching AI development through partnerships,” he said on the company’s earnings call. “This lets tech companies do what they do best, develop innovative technology, and it provides us clarity to do what we do best, to translate the best of tech to retail experiences that create value for our customers and members and our enterprise.”
Like Walmart, Amazon is also facing new pressure to respond to the rise of agentic commerce. Chatbot makers like OpenAI, Google and Perplexity have introduced automated commerce features that aim to change how people shop online.
While other companies like Walmart, Etsy and Shopify have announced shopping partnerships with AI platforms, Amazon has remained on the sidelines. It’s blocked agents from accessing its site, and doubled down on its own shopping chatbot, Rufus, which is powered by its own models and Anthropic’s chatbot Claude.
The company said Rufus has been used by more than 300 million customers and drove almost $12 billion in incremental annualized sales last year. After slowly rolling out the service in beta two years ago, Amazon has injected Rufus across more areas of its app and website to encourage shoppers to use the tool.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last month that Rufus and other AI tools could assist shoppers with finding products much like an employee in a physical store.
“I think agents are going to help customers with that type of discovery,” Jassy said. “And it’s part of why we’ve invested so much in Rufus, which is our shopping assistant.”
Meanwhile, Amazon is throwing piles of cash at AI infrastructure. Earlier this month, it announced it would spend up to $200 billion this year on AI initiatives, more than any of the other hyperscalers, which have altogether forecast nearly $700 billion in 2026 expenditures. Most of Amazon’s spending is expected to go to data centers, chips and networking equipment.
Wall Street has viewed Amazon’s capex plans skeptically, sending the company’s shares down for nine days straight following its Feb. 5 earnings report and shaving more than $450 billion off of its market value.
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Amazon’s investments aren’t limited to AI compute. The company has also put significant resources and talent behind developing AI tools across all of its businesses. It’s alsorolled out a suite of AI models, and revamped its Alexa assistant. It also has invested $8 billion in Anthropic since 2023.
As the global online language learning market surges toward projected growth of hundreds of billions by the 2030s, two pioneering marketplaces — Preply and iTalki — remain dominant choices for learners seeking personalized, one-on-one instruction via video.
Preply
Preply, the Ukrainian-founded edtech unicorn that hit $1.2 billion valuation in January 2026 after a $150 million Series D round, emphasizes AI-enhanced tools and structured progress tracking. iTalki, the longer-established Hong Kong-based platform launched in 2006, prioritizes vast tutor variety, pay-per-lesson flexibility and a massive user base exceeding 10 million learners.
Both connect students with private tutors for conversational practice, exam prep, business skills and more across dozens of languages. Yet differences in pricing models, tutor vetting, features and corporate offerings make one potentially better suited depending on learner goals, budget and commitment level.
Here are the key points of comparison between Preply and iTalki based on the latest 2026 data, user feedback and platform updates.
Company Background and ScalePreply, founded in 2012 in Kyiv and now headquartered in Brookline, Massachusetts, boasts over 100,000 tutors teaching more than 90 languages to learners in 180 countries. It became EBITDA profitable and achieved unicorn status in early 2026 with backing from WestCap, Horizon Capital and others. iTalki, operating since 2006, connects over 10 million learners with more than 30,000 teachers and community tutors across 150+ languages — including many niche and endangered ones. It has raised modest funding (around $3 million historically) and focuses on organic growth without recent major rounds.
Tutor Network and Quality ControlPreply maintains a network exceeding 100,000 experienced tutors, with structured onboarding, training and AI-assisted matching based on learning style, goals and availability. Tutors often build long-term student relationships for consistent progress. iTalki divides tutors into “Professional Teachers” (requiring credentials like TEFL/certification) and “Community Tutors” (native speakers for casual conversation). This yields greater variety but more variability in quality, as users frequently note on forums.
Pricing and Payment Models Both operate as marketplaces where tutors set rates, typically ranging from $10–$80+ per hour. Preply often features higher average rates and uses a subscription-like package system for bulk purchases, with platform fees of 18–33% (decreasing with volume) plus 100% commission on trial lessons. Learners pay upfront for packages. iTalki offers pure pay-per-lesson flexibility with a flat 15% commission, no subscriptions required, and discounted trial lessons. Many users prefer iTalki for occasional or low-commitment study, though Preply’s model suits dedicated learners planning regular sessions.
Lesson Features and ToolsPreply integrates AI-powered tools for lesson planning, progress tracking, feedback and personalized recommendations, claiming users achieve up to 3x faster fluency gains in studies. It provides built-in materials, satisfaction guarantees and easy rescheduling. iTalki focuses on straightforward video lessons with optional classroom recordings (updated AI features in 2026 policies) but offers fewer integrated progress tools. Users praise its simplicity for casual practice, though tracking relies more on tutor initiative.
Corporate and B2B Offerings Preply Business serves over 1,000 companies with centralized dashboards, reporting, onboarding and custom programs tailored to team upskilling — a key differentiator in 2026 comparisons. iTalki lacks dedicated enterprise features, making it less ideal for structured corporate training despite individual use by professionals.
User Experience and Satisfaction Preply earns high marks (often 4.8+ on app stores) for matching algorithms, progress data and tutor consistency, with 300,000+ five-star reviews. Learners report strong results in 12-week studies. iTalki users value tutor diversity and no-commitment booking but cite occasional quality variance and platform interface datedness in 2026 Reddit discussions.
Trial Lessons and Getting Started Both platforms offer discounted or trial first lessons (often 30 minutes) to test tutors. Preply includes satisfaction guarantees with refunds or rematches if unsatisfied. iTalki emphasizes easy browsing of teacher profiles, videos and reviews for quick selection.
Strengths for Different Learner TypesPreply suits motivated learners seeking structured, measurable progress — ideal for exam prep (TOEFL, IELTS), business English or long-term fluency goals. Its AI enhancements and corporate tools appeal to serious users. iTalki excels for casual conversation practice, niche languages, flexible scheduling and budget-conscious learners who prefer one-off sessions or exploring multiple tutors.
Tutor Perspective and Earnings Tutors report higher potential earnings and more consistent bookings on Preply in some 2026 Reddit threads, though with steeper initial commissions. iTalki offers lower fees and more control over rates, attracting those preferring independence but sometimes lower volume.
Market Position and Future OutlookPreply leads in innovation with AI-human hybrid approaches and rapid scaling post-unicorn funding, positioning it for continued dominance in personalized edtech. iTalki maintains strength through sheer scale, legacy and flexibility in a competitive field including Cambly, Lingoda and others. Both platforms updated policies in early 2026 to address AI recording features amid privacy concerns.
Neither platform universally outperforms the other — choice depends on priorities. Dedicated learners favoring structure and tech aids often lean toward Preply, while those wanting maximum variety and minimal commitment gravitate to iTalki. As AI continues reshaping education, both are adapting to deliver more effective, accessible language mastery in 2026 and beyond.
Gold prices rebounded above $4,900 as investors bought the dip following a two-day slide in thin trading conditions due to the Lunar New Year holiday across Asia.
New York futures rose 0.8% to $4,945.60 a troy ounce in early trading. “In the near term, expectations around rate cuts remain key, as lower borrowing costs would support non-yielding assets like gold,” Soojin Kim from MUFG said.
“Longer term, major banks continue to expect renewed gains, citing persistent geopolitical tensions, concerns about the Fed’s independence, and investor diversification away from sovereign bonds and currencies.”
