SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry has agreed to a two-year, $116 million contract extension, tying the franchise legend to the only organization he has ever played for through his 20th NBA season, league sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania on Friday.

The deal includes a player option for the final season, covering 2028-29, according to those sources. The extension pushes Curry’s career on-court earnings to $652 million, making him the first player in NBA history to surpass $600 million in career salary.

Curry had been eligible since August 29 to sign an extension worth up to two years and $136.7 million, the full maximum available to him under the league’s salary cap rules. The Warriors presented Curry with several contract options in recent weeks, including the possibility of waiting to sign, but Curry ultimately chose a modest pay cut and long-term security over either the full maximum contract or the uncertainty of delaying his decision for additional flexibility or information, according to team sources.

Under the new deal, Curry’s salary will decline from his current $62.6 million to $55.7 million for the 2027-28 season, followed by a player option worth $60.2 million for 2028-29. That structure is expected to provide the Warriors with approximately $10 million in additional projected salary cap space next summer, positioning the team to be a more significant participant in free agency or the trade market over the coming year.

Golden State’s broader salary cap picture is shaped by several other expiring contracts alongside Curry’s new deal. Both Jimmy Butler III, on a contract worth $56.8 million, and Draymond Green, at $27.6 million, have deals expiring next summer. Veteran center Kristaps Porzingis has only $3 million of his $20 million salary guaranteed for next season. According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, those combined factors could leave the Warriors with somewhere between $38 million and a projected $55 million in cap space, depending on how the team handles Brandin Podziemski’s own extension eligibility; Podziemski, who has not yet signed an extension, carries a $17 million cap hold heading into next summer.

Curry took nearly a month to weigh his options, deciding among signing for his full maximum salary, accepting a modest pay cut, or waiting before committing to a new deal. Speaking to ESPN earlier this week, before finalizing his decision, Curry described the complexity of weighing those competing considerations. “We’re in a very interesting situation,” Curry said. “All the different salary cap conditions of whether I sign for a max or less or whatever it is, I want to be on a competitive team. I want to have an opportunity to have some flexibility because we haven’t had that in years past, the recent past. … This team should have flexibility to make necessary moves if things happen. Those are always just the considerations.”

Curry elaborated further on the broader context shaping his decision, pointing to both his own career stage and the team’s competitive urgency. “For me, information and patience is key,” he said. “It’s just a very unique situation all the way around based on where we’ve been the last four years, where I’m at in my career, what our team looks like this year and the absolute desperation to win. Trying to balance all that.”

Curry, who has said he wanted “no drama” surrounding his contract negotiations heading into training camp, ultimately settled on the pay cut and security just three days before the Warriors’ first practice of the season, resolving any lingering uncertainty about his future with the franchise before camp began.

The 39-year-old guard missed 39 games last season due to a persistent right knee issue, but said he feels physically ready heading into the new campaign. “The idea of getting back to work is exciting,” Curry said. “I feel like I’ve taken advantage of the offseason. I feel like there’s no hesitation about where I’m at physically going in. … But I’m excited about getting back to work.”

Curry’s decision to accept a reduced salary in exchange for greater roster flexibility reflects a broader pattern seen among some of the league’s most accomplished veteran stars in recent seasons, as players increasingly weigh the value of maximizing team competitiveness against securing the largest possible individual contract, particularly late in their careers when opportunities to win championships may be more limited.

With Curry’s extension now in place and the Warriors entering the season with a clearer picture of their salary cap situation for the coming years, the team is positioned to pursue additional roster upgrades over the next 12 months, even as questions remain about how Golden State will ultimately address the expiring contracts held by Butler, Green and Porzingis, and how Podziemski’s own extension situation will factor into the team’s broader financial planning.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, remains missing nearly eight months after her disappearance from her Tucson home, as investigators continue processing tens of thousands of tips and an unverified online claim about an FBI search near her daughter’s neighborhood has generated fresh public attention.

Nancy was last seen at her home on the night of January 31 and was reported missing the following day, after having had dinner earlier that evening with her daughter, Annie Guthrie. Authorities say Tommaso Cioni, Annie’s husband, brought Nancy home following that dinner, making the couple among the last people known to have seen her before her disappearance. Authorities have since said they believe Nancy was taken from her home by force.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said investigators have received approximately 40,000 to 50,000 tips over the course of the investigation, alongside ongoing DNA analysis, review of surveillance footage and examination of electronic evidence, with laboratories across the country assisting in the forensic work. No suspect has been publicly identified as of the most recent update.

Despite persistent online speculation surrounding Annie Guthrie and Tommaso Cioni given their proximity to Nancy on the night of her disappearance, Sheriff Nanos has said the broader Guthrie family, including siblings and their spouses, has been cleared as suspects and has cooperated fully with investigators throughout the case.

The latest wave of online attention stems from a claim made by Jonathan Lee Riches, who identifies himself online as an investigator using the handle JLR. Riches asserted that the FBI searched an area near where Annie Guthrie and Tommaso Cioni live while looking for a discarded prepaid phone, a claim he connected to ransom communications sent after Nancy was reported missing. In a separate post, Riches wrote that “it appears the person used a prepaid smartphone to send the electronic Nancy Guthrie ransom notes.” Neither claim has been independently confirmed by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department or any other official source, and authorities have separately said the ransom notes connected to the case have been determined to be fabricated.

A separate unverified claim involving a purported sighting of Annie Guthrie and Tommaso Cioni, reported by a tipster from North Carolina, has also circulated online without confirmation from law enforcement regarding either the sighting itself or any connection to Nancy’s disappearance.

Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has continued offering her own public analysis of the case, advancing what she has described as a “wrench ring” theory suggesting the complexity of the investigation points toward experienced, organized operators rather than isolated individual suspects. Coffindaffer has questioned why investigators and digital forensic experts have reportedly struggled to trace ransom-related emails or cryptocurrency trails connected to the case, suggesting that organized groups involved in cryptocurrency-related extortion often rely on advanced anonymization techniques that make digital tracing considerably more difficult. She has also pointed to similarities between communications sent to media outlets in this case and patterns seen in other known extortion cases as a possible sign of a broader operational pattern. Separately, Coffindaffer dismissed continued speculation surrounding the unidentified “Porch Guy,” referring to him dismissively as “a mope” and suggesting that larger criminal organizers may remain hidden behind lower-level individuals, a term she used to describe what is known in law enforcement circles as a “wrench attack,” in which suspects use violence or coercion to force victims to disclose passwords or other sensitive information.

The investigation’s timeline shows a case that has continued expanding in scope since Nancy’s disappearance was first reported. Police launched a large search operation in early February, with the FBI joining the investigation shortly after. Surveillance footage from the surrounding area was collected during the first week of February, and a masked individual seen near Nancy’s home was flagged in mid-February before later being ruled unrelated to the case. Genetic genealogy testing was introduced in March to help analyze unidentified DNA samples, and by April and May, the investigation had expanded to include thousands of videos gathered from traffic cameras and home security systems, still without identifying a suspect. A second ransom note connected to the case emerged in reports in June, and in July, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department publicly released redacted versions of the ransom notes in hopes of identifying their author. Public attention intensified further on August 17, when human remains were discovered in a desert area roughly 15 miles from Nancy’s home, though authorities said the following day that there was no indication the remains were connected to her disappearance, noting they appeared to have been at the location for an extended period predating her disappearance.

As the investigation approaches its eighth month, law enforcement continues examining forensic evidence, tips and footage, while Nancy’s whereabouts remain unknown. The scale of information gathered in the case has produced both potentially valuable leads and a considerable volume of unconfirmed online speculation, underscoring the continued need to distinguish confirmed statements from investigators, including Sheriff Nanos’ own public updates, from the unverified theories and claims that have continued to circulate widely across social media throughout the case.

Adam Kirby is co-founder and CEO of EvaluateLocate, a London geospatial AI company training its own models to predict how places across the UK change over time.

In August 2025 the business closed a £300,000 seed round from angel investors under the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, at a reported £2.75m valuation, and launched its UK subscription app, powered by its proprietary GSP-1 model and more than 100 location metrics. Kirby, a physics graduate, founded the company in 2024 with Duncan Lamb after the pair spotted how little attention investment proposals paid to location. He tells Business Matters why AI needs to think in space and time, what Thomas Edison taught him and why starting a business is always harder than you expect.

What do you currently do at EvaluateLocate?

I run a company building a new type of “spatial intelligence”: an AI that thinks naturally in space and time to predict how any place on Earth changes and evolves.

This ambition is part of an important next trend in AI: going beyond language-based intelligence. We are also a rare breed of European startups training our own models rather than purely building on top of outputs from American firms. Our first model, GSP-1, powers our UK app, which rates places on more than 100 metrics.

My role covers everything from leading research on our proprietary AI architecture to overseeing the operations of the business and supporting the team sharing our latest capabilities with clients. On an average day I might be deep in code, updating investors, talking to a housebuilder or retailer about site selection, or speaking to a local government about how economic growth is trending in their region.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

Whether or not the decision is literally about a building, bridge or piece of land, or whether a transaction itself happens online, everything in business and government has major exposure to different people and places. Location is opportunity, risk and differentiator for so many organisations, yet it is so often unmeasured.

Once upon a time my co-founder Duncan Lamb and I were reading an investment proposal worth tens of millions. This was from a well-known investment organisation, in our previous roles with the asset management industry. There were pages and pages on the building and its tenants, but half a paragraph of vague text on the surrounding area.

I suggested we should create a system to continuously measure that “location factor”. The rest was, if not history, then certainly a quest. Then it became a system, a codebase, eventually a company, and now a novel family of spatial AI models.

My love of a map and a technical challenge combined with Duncan’s knowledge of the people and businesses who have enormous value riding on location decisions.

Who do you admire?

Thomas Edison is a distant relative as well as a general inspiration. While you might know him for his hits such as the lightbulb, I admire two particular aspects of Edison.

First, he used the almost total deafness he had lived with since childhood as an advantage to concentrate better, not accepting that it should slow him down. Second, he had a seemingly unlimited capacity for new ideas, and when most failed he just kept going. Edison seemed to see further ahead than anyone else, researching efficient rechargeable car batteries in the 1890s.

Speaking of cars, Ron Dennis, who led McLaren for three decades, is a local hero where I live in Woking, and often a more practical type of engineer than Edison. Alongside an infamous attention to technical detail, he is admirable for managing a company from challenger to behemoth.

Back to family connections, I admire my own child, who helps me see the world with all the curiosity of a Thomas Edison or a three-year-old looking for frogs.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Start sooner, go faster, be bolder.

That said, if we started again with the answers from our apparent mistakes, we might never learn the right questions.

What defines your way of doing business?

Internally we have a mantra of “truth, trust, grit”, which is my best attempt to capture in words what motivates me: the kind of team and technology we are building, and the kind of service we provide to our clients.

Truth means we are honest with each other, obviously. But it also relates to what our product does: we are aiming for a way to measure reality on the ground as closely as possible, with practical metrics that describe real places. It sets us apart slightly from language models that can claim something different every time. That is not what we do. Trust is similar, and it is basically the personal responsibility we have to each other and to our clients in the same respect.

Grit is what is required to achieve the other two, but it also sums up what I describe as “never walking past a problem”. It could be a dirty cup left on a desk (hello, Ron Dennis) or it might be a piece of code or marketing copy that just does not look right. It is the responsibility of everyone to look out for each other and the shared mission.

More prosaically, I believe in a ruthless attention to detail when it comes to the work itself, but the kindest attention to your colleagues.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

I have learnt again and again that starting a business is harder than you expect. And then harder again. And then again, just like the rule on budgets and time estimates: even when you account for it being harder than you expect, it is still somehow harder again.

Personally, I think this “optimism bias” is a massive benefit of human nature, because it allows you to do things that might otherwise be irrational. Voting, in terms of personal impact on the result. Signing up for a marathon, in terms of immediate comfort. Starting a family, in terms of finance and sleep. We do these good things anyway. We persevere with them for reasons we  struggle to explain but would never change.

Similarly, starting a business will not make you feel younger, sleep better or get “rich quick”. It changes you in some other, deeper way. Perhaps that is my only real piece of advice: choose an idea you love.

DUBAI — Iran has added a new concession to its proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, offering to allow nuclear inspectors into the country as part of a seven-day plan to end the monthslong crisis, even as the critical waterway remained effectively closed to commercial shipping and violence continued along the strait heading into the crisis’s 208th day.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would permit nuclear inspectors to enter the country as part of its proposal to reopen the strait within seven days, according to CBS News. The concession represents a significant addition to the reopening plan Iran had previously floated, which had centered primarily on the United States easing military pressure and lifting its naval blockade on Iranian ports. Separately, the BBC reported that Iran’s foreign minister had offered the United States a deal to reopen the strait within the same seven-day window.

Despite the expanded offer, the proposal remains just that, an offer rather than a finalized agreement. Iran’s security chief said separately that the strait would remain closed until Tehran’s full set of conditions are met, and no formal response from Washington had been reported as of the latest update. Notably, just a day before Pezeshkian’s nuclear inspection offer became public, Iran’s president had rejected a separate reopening proposal at the United Nations, illustrating the volatile, back-and-forth nature of the diplomatic track even as both sides continue signaling some openness to a negotiated resolution.

Reports have indicated that a phased U.S.-Iran deal to reopen the strait is being explored through Qatar, which has served as a mediator in the negotiations. Bloomberg has reported on the discussions, while Fox Business has separately reported that skepticism remains about whether the rumored arrangement will ultimately come together.

On the ground, the Strait of Hormuz has remained almost entirely closed to normal commercial traffic. According to IMF PortWatch data, just a single vessel transited the strait on September 20, compared with a pre-crisis daily baseline of approximately 85 transits, underscoring how severely the crisis has disrupted one of the world’s most critical oil shipping corridors. Independent tanker-tracking estimates from Tankertrackers.com and Bloomberg, drawing on AIS ship-tracking data and satellite imagery, have put current daily oil flows through the strait at roughly 3.7 million to 8 million barrels per day, representing about half of pre-war volumes or less, figures that stand in sharp contrast to the U.S. Central Command’s own claim implying flows closer to 16.4 million barrels per day.

Violence along the strait has continued even as diplomatic talks proceed. A cargo vessel identified as the bulk carrier Cape Dao was struck by projectiles off the coast of Oman on September 23, catching fire and resulting in the death of one seafarer, according to tracking data. Separately, a 94-kilometer oil slick was detected roughly 10 kilometers off eastern Musandam on September 22, drifting north into the strait, with modeling suggesting between 10% and 15% of the slick could reach shore by September 25, threatening reef systems and fishing harbors in the Lima and Ras Musandam areas. Houthi forces in Yemen also fired six missiles at the Taif and Yanbu area on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, a key terminal along the kingdom’s overland pipeline route that serves as an alternative to shipping oil through Hormuz.

Oil prices have continued reflecting the ongoing uncertainty, with Brent crude settling at $106.60 a barrel on September 24, up 3.4%, before easing to around $104.37 by early September 26, a decline of roughly 2.2% over 24 hours as markets weighed the competing signals from Iran’s expanded diplomatic offer against the continued absence of any confirmed agreement. As of the latest available tracking, 422 AIS-visible vessels were holding position away from berth within the Strait of Hormuz and broader Gulf watch box, a count that does not include ships already within 25 kilometers of a working port.

Specialized risk-tracking services monitoring the crisis have continued to characterize the overall situation as highly volatile. One tracker’s Crisis Pressure index, a composite measure based on physical transit deviation from normal levels, remained in its most extreme classification band as of the latest update, while a separate Escalation Forecast measure sat in an elevated risk category, with both metrics showing little change over the preceding 24 hours.

The current crisis traces back to February 28, when Iran effectively closed the strait in response to a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iranian targets. The United States subsequently launched its own aerial campaign in March aimed at reopening the waterway, followed by a naval blockade imposed in April, a brief attempted reopening effort in May known as Project Freedom, renewed strikes in July, and a reinstated naval blockade that has remained in place since, alongside repeated rounds of diplomatic talks that have raised and then dashed hopes of resolution at various points throughout the year.

With Iran’s expanded offer now on the table and Qatari-mediated talks reportedly continuing, market participants and regional observers are likely to watch closely in the coming days for any formal response from Washington, even as the strait’s continued closure to normal commercial traffic and the persistence of violent incidents along its waters underscore how far the crisis remains from an actual, verified resolution more than seven months after it first began.

Generation Z adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as “religious,” even as many in the same age group also regularly engage in spiritual practices that sit outside traditional Christian teaching, according to a new survey released this week.

The Harris Poll released the survey Thursday, based on responses from 2,136 U.S. adults collected between July 1 and July 4. Respondents were grouped into four generational categories: Generation Z, ages 18 to 29; millennials, ages 30 to 45; Generation X, ages 46 to 61; and baby boomers, age 62 and older.

Gen Z adults emerged as the generation most likely to describe themselves as religious and the least likely to identify as neither religious nor spiritual. Thirty-three percent of Gen Z respondents described themselves as “religious,” compared with 22% of Generation X adults, 19% of millennials and 18% of boomers. Conversely, 19% of Gen Z adults said they considered themselves neither religious nor spiritual, the lowest share among the four generations, followed by 20% of millennials, 21% of Generation X adults and 23% of boomers.

Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll, said the survey results complicate the standard narrative of generational religious decline. “Gen Z self-identifies as the most religious generation in America, with the practices to back it up,” Rodney said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “But that doesn’t show you the whole story, because they aren’t choosing religion instead of everything else. They’re stacking it. Church on Sunday, manifestation on Wednesday, tarot on Friday. The old assumption was that each generation picks faith less than the last. Gen Z picked more of everything.”

That pattern held across several specific measures of religious and spiritual engagement in the survey. A majority of Gen Z adults, 54%, said they had regularly read Scripture or other religious texts over the past year, a figure roughly matched by millennials at 53%, while fewer than half of Generation X adults, 48%, and boomers, 43%, reported doing the same. Nearly half of Gen Z adults, 49%, said they had regularly attended religious services over the past year, compared with 44% of millennials, 43% of Generation X adults and 42% of boomers.

Not every measure favored younger generations, however. Boomers were the most likely to report regularly praying on their own over the past year, at 75%, followed by 72% of Generation X adults, 67% of Gen Z adults and 65% of millennials, suggesting private prayer remains more common among older Americans even as public religious identification and engagement skew younger.

Looking more broadly at spiritual activity, 88% of Gen Z adults said they had regularly engaged in at least one of several practices in the past year, including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work. Smaller shares of millennials and Generation X adults, both at 84%, and boomers, at 82%, reported the same.

The survey also captured a notable generational split around manifestation and spirituality as tools for exerting personal control. Fifty-seven percent of Gen Z adults agreed with the statement that they had turned to manifestation practices or spirituality to feel greater control over their future, with millennials slightly more likely to agree at 59%. Fewer than half of Generation X adults, 46%, and just 30% of boomers agreed with the same statement. Researchers involved with the survey noted the apparent contradiction in these findings directly, saying, “The generation expected to be the most secular is now the most likely to identify as religious.”

The poll also touched on broader questions of community involvement beyond religious practice specifically. Sixty percent of Gen Z adults agreed that they now belong to more real-world, in-person communities than they used to, citing examples such as run clubs, faith communities, or hobby and volunteer groups, alongside 59% of millennials, 42% of Generation X adults and 32% of boomers. Looking ahead, 70% of both Gen Z adults and millennials said they wanted to belong to more such in-person communities, compared with smaller shares of Generation X adults, 62%, and boomers, 48%.

The Harris Poll’s findings arrive amid a broader, sometimes conflicting body of research on Gen Z’s relationship with religion. Barna Group’s 2026 State of the Church initiative found that Gen Z was the generation most likely to believe a spiritual revival would occur within the next 12 months, while separate Barna research released in 2025 identified Gen Z as including the most frequent churchgoers among current generations. At the same time, other Barna research from 2025 found that nearly 40% of Gen Z women identify as atheist, agnostic or having no religious faith at all, underscoring how differently religious identity and practice appear to be distributed within the generation depending on the specific population and measure examined.

Taken together, the Harris Poll results suggest that Gen Z’s relationship with religion and spirituality defies simple characterization as either a return to traditional faith or a continuation of secularizing trends seen in prior generations, instead reflecting what researchers described as a broader, more eclectic blending of traditional religious practice alongside newer spiritual and self-improvement-oriented activities.

From October 1, 2026, that changes for the many contractors who buy leads through Google, and it is pushing more of them towards an AI answering service.

What Google is changing

Google’s August notice to US Local Services Ads advertisers says that from October 1, 2026, a call that goes unanswered during business hours is charged as a lead once the caller has waited more than 20 seconds. In other words, a missed call can now cost a contractor the lead fee as well as the job. Google’s own guidance also says missed calls can count against how responsive an advertiser appears, which is one of the things that decides who is shown first.

An answered call is still a lead that Google charges for. The difference is that the customer is spoken to, and the job has a chance of being won.

How many calls go unanswered

More than most owners assume. Call-tracking company Invoca’s 2026 data on home-services businesses puts the share of calls that never reach a person at about 48%. Its figures for callers who stayed on the line for 15 to 30 seconds suggest that between 27% and 35% of callers waited and still reached nobody, which is exactly the group Google’s new rule counts.

Those calls carry real money. SearchLight’s February 2026 benchmark of Google Local Services Ads, covering 888 contractors, found roughly $416 of paid work for every lead. For a shop with two or three trucks, a handful of missed calls a week adds up to thousands of dollars a month.

The answering service for contractors, rebuilt around AI

The traditional options were voicemail, a live call centre billed by the minute, or an owner answering at midnight. A newer option is an AI answering service: software that answers with a natural voice, asks structured questions and writes the job down, for a flat monthly fee.

One example built specifically for the trades is Wakeman, an answering service for contractors covering plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, restoration and more than 20 other home-service trades. It answers in the business’s own name, tells callers at the start that it is an AI and that the call is recorded, and then asks what a good dispatcher would ask: what the problem is, where the property is and how soon help is needed. It checks the service address and texts a short job summary to the owner or the technician on call.

Calls are sorted by urgency. For hazards such as a gas smell, sparking or flooding near electrics, Wakeman reads the safety steps the business has written in advance and rings the on-call phone. Urgent but non-hazardous calls, such as no heat or an active leak, go out as urgent texts. Spam calls are blocked and are not billed.

Business hours as well as after hours

Because Google’s charge applies during business hours, daytime overflow now matters as much as nights and weekends. Many shops start with an after-hours answering service that answers only when they are closed, then extend it to all-day overflow once they see what comes in while the team is on jobs.

Wakeman offers both. Its After Hours plan costs $149 a month with 300 minutes included, Front Desk costs $349 a month and answers all day, and Dispatch costs $829 a month for larger shops. Every plan is free for 14 days with no card, contractors keep their existing number, and once the owner switches booking on, confirmed jobs can go straight into Jobber.

What owners should check before choosing

Contractors comparing AI answering services should ask a few simple questions. Does it tell callers it is an AI? How does it handle a genuine emergency, and who does it ring? Does it check the address? Which field-service software does it connect to? Are prices published? And can you hear a real example call before signing up?

Contractors who advertise on Local Services Ads can also work out what the new rule is likely to cost them with a missed-call cost calculator for Local Services Ads that uses their own call volume, lead price and miss rate.

Frequently asked questions

Does Google charge for missed calls on Local Services Ads?

From October 1, 2026, Google charges US Local Services Ads advertisers for calls that go unanswered during business hours once the caller has waited more than 20 seconds.

What is an AI answering service for contractors?

It is software that answers a contractor’s business phone with a voice AI, asks trade-specific questions, checks the address and sends the job details to the owner or on-call technician.

What does Wakeman cost?

Wakeman (wakeman.ai) costs $149, $349 or $829 a month depending on the plan, with minutes included. Every plan is free for 14 days with no card, and the first month is refundable.

Myles Anderson is the founder and CEO of BrightLocal, the local SEO software company he started with co-founder Ed in Brighton in 2009 to help local businesses get found online. The company says it passed $20m in revenue in 2025, the same year it launched fully managed local SEO services, and in 2026 it is rolling out AI tools that show businesses how they appear when people ask ChatGPT and Google’s AI for recommendations. BrightLocal now employs more than 300 people, with offices in Brighton, Kraków and Davao City and colleagues in Ukraine. He tells Business Matters why he believes people-first and AI-driven belong together, and why he wishes he had taken risks sooner.

What do you currently do at BrightLocal?

As the founder and CEO of BrightLocal, I lead a global team of more than 300 talented people serving more than 100,000 businesses and agencies worldwide in local search. My day-to-day focus is on setting our long-term strategic direction while ensuring our core, people-first values thrive across every part of the business.

That means staying close to our international teams, from our engineering offices in Ukraine and Poland to our team in the Philippines, whom I visit annually. Leading a global workforce takes intention, but keeping our culture connected and supportive across borders is what makes us strong.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

The idea for BrightLocal started at a kitchen table in Brighton with a simple, urgent goal: local businesses deserved an easier, more affordable way to get found online. Back then, local marketing felt overly complex, expensive and cluttered with jargon.

My co-founder Ed and I wanted to change that. We set out to strip away the complexity, give business owners true clarity over their digital presence, and build the tools they needed to thrive and grow.

What began as a humble project has grown into a global platform, but our core mission has not changed. That mission is empowering the heart of local communities to stand out, attract more customers and win online.

How is AI changing the way customers find local businesses?

People now ask AI platforms for recommendations as well as searching on Google, so AI search is becoming part of local visibility. In 2026 we are launching AI intelligence across the platform, starting with Local AI Visibility, which shows how a business appears in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode.

It tracks visibility score, mention rate, share of voice and average position, so a business can see where it is being recommended and where it is not. It is part of how we are evolving into an insight-to-impact platform for local growth.

Who do you admire?

Not only do I admire my four children, who inspire me to be a better CEO every day, but I also admire my co-founder, Ed. Ed inspires me through our shared commitment to building a very different kind of company, one that prioritises people over profits at any cost.

When we started BrightLocal back in 2009, we were driven by a shared vision to build a very different kind of business. Looking back on the journey, I deeply respect what we have created together.

Beyond the software, we built a work culture where individuals feel celebrated and supported. Doing this work alongside Ed has made the entire experience immensely rewarding.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I do not know that I would change the big picture, as the journey brought us exactly where we needed to be. But if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to have more confidence in taking risks earlier.

We started BrightLocal as a modest side hustle, which meant we took a slow, deliberate approach to growth. That steady pacing was crucial in building a remarkably resilient, sustainable company.

When you are starting out, it is so easy to let self-doubt and second thoughts delay your next move. If I could do it again, I would tell myself to trust my instincts sooner and move with confidence from day one.

What defines your way of doing business?

Building a truly people-first culture. From day one, Ed and I wanted to build a company where people do not just work, but genuinely belong. I wanted an environment where everyone feels recognised, valued for who they are and empowered to do their best work.

My greatest ambition is that BrightLocal is the best place anyone will ever work in their career. It is a lofty goal, and we sometimes fall short. It is hard to be perfect for everyone, but that does not stop us trying.

A philosophy only matters if it survives change, and we recently put ours to the test as we moved to a model that is people-first and AI-driven. While some think that using AI comes at the expense of people, I believe the opposite is true. The best way to make an impact today is to use both.

We use technology to strip away repetitive tasks so our team can focus on creative problem-solving, strategic thinking and building real connections.

Even through major tech shifts, the fundamentals do not change: treat people as individuals and keep customer success at the centre. When you build strong team habits and address problems head-on, your business gains consistent momentum.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Start small, solve a real problem and put your people first. As you grow, double down on creating a company culture where individuals are genuinely seen, heard and valued, not just brought on to fill slots on an org chart.

When you take care of your team, empower them to do their best work and relentlessly help your customers succeed, sustainable growth will follow.