The artificial intelligence (AI) race is intensifying as developers push for increasingly capable AI tools and companies race to deploy AI tools to take advantage of its efficiency gains and reap financial benefits – but a new report warns companies lack sufficient governance for AI tools.

This week saw a high-profile incident involving AI, in which an internal test of AI models by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI resulted in the models exploiting a software flaw, escaping containment and hacking into Hugging Face, which operates a platform for developers to collaborate on code for AI models, to cheat on a cybersecurity evaluation.

While the two companies contained the incident, it demonstrated the rapidly growing capabilities of AI models to go beyond their guardrails and pose cybersecurity threats, with leaders from both companies noting the significance of what occurred.

EqualAI CEO Miriam Vogel, whose organization released a white paper on AI governance and deployment this week, told FOX Business, “Innovation is going at an unprecedented pace; the problem is governance is not matching that pace.”

“What we want to make sure people recognize from this incident is, across the board, we need to have stronger expectations in place if we’re going to start to build trust and ensure these systems deserve our trust,” she said.

OPENAI CO-FOUNDER WARNS AI MODELS ARE BECOMING HARDER TO CONTROL AFTER ITS MODEL HACKED ANOTHER FIRM

A lack of safeguards around AI poses risks for companies without appropriate governance structures. (iStock)

Vogel noted that most consumers’ touchpoints with AI are through companies that have deployed some sort of AI solution. She added that the World Economic Forum found fewer than 1% of companies have strong governance in place for AI systems, while McKinsey found last year that fewer than a third of companies have any AI governance in place.

“I think too many people are assuming it’s someone else’s problem, you know, that it’s the developer’s problem or just not understanding that this is their problem,” she said.

“While this is, in this instance, an issue for a development company, a lot of where this is playing out and will continue to play out is with the deployer – is with the healthcare, finance, social media, infrastructure – all the other ways [companies are] using agentic AI,” Vogel said.

She said that courts are increasingly applying liability to companies that have deployed agentic AI for work with customers or businesses, rather than the company that developed the underlying AI model or tool.

“A lot of this becomes the liability of the person who had the last touch on it, whose data is involved, whose customer is involved. They are often the one who owns the liability,” Vogel added.

ANTHROPIC CALLS FOR INDUSTRY-WIDE AI SAFETY STANDARDS TO KEEP MODELS FROM WREAKING HAVOC

Companies need to have visibility into the AI tools being used at all levels of a business and across its various divisions to establish governance, Vogel said. (iStock)

“While good governance takes a while to really put in a solid foundation, the best practices are really aligned with the leading organizations who care about this work across the world. They’ve all come to this independently, and there is really a lot of consensus on what the best practices are,” Vogel said.

“The other thing that’s good news is most of this is not rocket science, it’s leadership and good governance just applied to AI,” Vogel said.

EqualAI sees five main areas for companies to take into account when establishing governance around agentic AI. Those include having visibility into what AI tools are being used across organizations, as leaders may not understand their firm’s AI footprint and what opportunities or risks that may present; as well as accountability across leadership levels and divisions of a company.

Operationalizing AI principles is another component – which Vogel said entails bringing principles laid out in documents like a PDF into practice in terms of things like communicating about problems that arise, and is dependent on internal trust that there is shared accountability in the organization.

WHITE HOUSE MONITORING INCIDENT AFTER OPENAI MODELS ESCAPED CONTAINMENT AND HACKED HUGGING FACE SYSTEMS

AI literacy is a key component of AI governance, Vogel explained. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Another aspect of AI governance is ensuring there are feedback loops that can be leveraged on a recurring basis as AI tools and models iterate and improve to stay ahead of issues like model drift. This can take the form of having a plan and cadence for routine testing.

AI literacy is the fifth pillar of the overarching AI governance framework Vogel suggested, which she linked to “increasing distrust of AI” and sees contributing to fears overshadowing enthusiasm about AI tools in the public’s perception.

“I think that squarely lands not only on the overall governance infrastructure that’s lacking in most organizations, but this fundamental piece of AI governance which is AI literacy,” Vogel explained. “Most people don’t know that they’re using AI, they don’t want to use AI, don’t know how to use it.”

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“AI literacy is just a key variable in making sure people understand how to use it, that they know how to avoid risks because they don’t want to cause harm or bring a liability for themselves or their organization,” she said. “Making sure that your workforce and your consumers understand how you’re using AI, how you will not be using AI, and how it can benefit them is a key variable.”

Shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific jumped Thursday after the life sciences giant reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results and raised its full-year financial guidance, reversing a multiday slide that had followed disappointing results from industry peer Danaher earlier in the week.

Thermo Fisher shares closed Thursday at $572.32, up $45.86, or 8.71%, on the day. The rally began well before the opening bell, with shares adding roughly 5% in premarket trading after the company released its results.

A strong quarter across the board

Thermo Fisher reported second-quarter revenue of approximately $12.0 billion, roughly 10% higher than the same period a year earlier and about $300 million ahead of Wall Street’s consensus expectations. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $6.03, surpassing analyst forecasts by roughly $0.30. Bloomberg reported that the results were driven by stronger-than-expected spending from biotech and pharmaceutical customers, along with a broader rebound in demand for laboratory instruments.

The clearest signal of that demand recovery came from Thermo Fisher’s Analytical Instruments segment, which posted its fastest growth rate in two years. Segment revenue rose 6.9% to $1.8 billion, according to Bloomberg, a notable turnaround after the segment had remained flat in the first quarter. According to earnings call commentary reported by Yahoo Finance, all three businesses within that segment posted growth, led by electron microscopy, with adjusted operating income up 30% and adjusted operating margin expanding by 420 basis points to 23.0%.

Thermo Fisher’s Specialty Diagnostics division also contributed to the strong quarter, with revenue increasing 6% on a reported basis and 5% organically, driven by growth in the healthcare market channel, immunodiagnostics and transplant diagnostics. Adjusted operating margin in that segment rose 70 basis points to 27.7%.

Raised guidance for the year

Building on the stronger quarter, Thermo Fisher raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $47.4 billion to $48.1 billion, representing 6% to 8% reported revenue growth over 2025. The company also lifted its adjusted earnings-per-share guidance to a range of $24.93 to $25.33, an increase of $0.25 at the midpoint from its previous guidance range of $24.64 to $25.12.

According to GenomeWeb, Thermo Fisher’s chief financial officer, Stephen Meyer, said the revised earnings midpoint reflects $0.30 from second-quarter outperformance and an additional $0.05 from a higher second-half revenue outlook, partially offset by roughly $0.05 tied to the pending divestiture of the company’s microbiology business. That transaction, announced in April, is expected to close during the third quarter and will reduce full-year 2026 revenue by approximately $200 million and adjusted earnings per share by $0.05.

Recovering from a rough week

Thursday’s rally marks a sharp reversal from a stretch of weakness that had weighed on Thermo Fisher’s stock in the days leading up to its earnings report. According to Seeking Alpha, shares had declined over multiple sessions following a lower-than-expected outlook from peer company Danaher, which had raised broader concerns among investors about demand across the life sciences tools and diagnostics sector. Danaher shares themselves rose roughly 5.5% on Thursday, benefiting from the same wave of positive sentiment following Thermo Fisher’s results.

Analyst reaction

Thursday’s earnings beat prompted several Wall Street firms to raise their price targets on Thermo Fisher shares. Baird lifted its target to $652 while maintaining an Outperform rating, according to StocksToTrade, while the broader Street’s average price target sat near $595 to $603, still implying room for further upside from Thursday’s closing price, according to multiple analyst compilations. Deutsche Bank had issued a short-term “Catalyst Call: Buy” rating on the stock ahead of the earnings report, with a $630 price target, characterizing recent negative sentiment around the stock’s growth trajectory as an attractive setup heading into results.

Thermo Fisher management also announced it would hold its quarterly dividend steady at $0.47 per share, while separately expanding an advanced-therapy manufacturing partnership with Arcturus Therapeutics, a move analysts pointed to as reinforcing the company’s longer-term growth strategy beyond the immediate earnings beat.

A closely watched name in life sciences

Thermo Fisher describes itself as the world’s leading company serving the science industry, with annual revenue exceeding $45 billion and a portfolio of well-known brands including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Gibco, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and Patheon. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company supplies instruments, reagents, diagnostics tools and pharmaceutical services to research institutions, hospitals, biotech firms and pharmaceutical manufacturers globally.

Given that scale, Thermo Fisher’s quarterly results are often closely watched as a broader indicator of spending trends across the life sciences and diagnostics industry as a whole, making Thursday’s strong showing, coming just days after Danaher’s more cautious outlook, a notable signal that demand across the sector may be stabilizing after a period of softer instrument spending among biotech and pharmaceutical customers.

With guidance now raised and momentum building in its Analytical Instruments and Specialty Diagnostics segments, investors will be watching Thermo Fisher’s execution through the second half of the year, particularly as the pending divestiture of its microbiology business closes in the third quarter. The company’s next major update is expected with its third-quarter results later this year, which will offer a clearer picture of whether the demand recovery highlighted in Thursday’s report continues to build or proves to be a more temporary rebound following a period of softer instrument spending across the broader life sciences sector.

Wyze users began reporting problems accessing their smart home cameras and devices Friday morning, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, adding another disruption to a company that has struggled repeatedly with service reliability and security incidents in recent years.

Downdetector said user reports indicating problems with Wyze began climbing at 7:27 a.m. Eastern time, with the hashtag #WyzeDown circulating on social media shortly after as affected users sought to determine the scope of the disruption. As of Friday morning, Wyze had not issued a public statement addressing the reports.

What users typically experience during Wyze outages

Based on Wyze’s history of similar disruptions, affected users during an outage generally lose the ability to view live camera feeds, receive motion notifications, or access cloud-stored recordings, effectively creating a temporary security blind spot for anyone relying on the devices for home monitoring. Even Wyze cameras equipped with local microSD card storage typically cannot be accessed remotely once the device goes offline, since the Wyze app relies on an active connection to the company’s cloud infrastructure to retrieve footage.

A company with a recurring pattern of outages

Friday’s reports continue a pattern that has affected Wyze users repeatedly over the past several years. According to outage-tracking service IsDown, Wyze experienced two separate incidents over just the past 90 days, with a median resolution time of roughly 40 minutes, suggesting that while individual outages have often been relatively brief, they have also been recurring.

Some past disruptions have proven far more severe and prolonged. In February 2024, Wyze users experienced a major service outage that began appearing around 4 a.m. Eastern time before peaking after 9 a.m., according to reporting from TechRadar at the time. That incident left users unable to access the Wyze mobile app, disconnected numerous camera models entirely, and in one particularly alarming case, resulted in a user receiving a live video feed from a camera that was not their own, located in a completely different time zone. Wyze’s official Discord and forum channels showed company representatives posting hourly updates as the issue was gradually resolved, though some device types, including certain smart light bulbs, remained affected by extended loading issues even after camera connectivity was restored.

An earlier, similarly disruptive outage left some users without full access to their devices for more than 24 hours. According to Notebookcheck’s coverage of that incident, Wyze attributed the extended disruption to a problem with its cloud infrastructure partner, Amazon Web Services, stating at the time, “We are aware of an issue with our AWS partner which has impacted device connection and caused login difficulties. We are taking steps to mitigate the problem on our end as we work with AWS to resolve the issue.” Even after Wyze declared the issue resolved, Notebookcheck reported that many users continued experiencing problems more than a day later, contributing to broader frustration with the company’s communication during outages.

A history that extends beyond outages

Beyond service disruptions, Wyze has also faced a series of security-related incidents that have compounded concerns about the reliability of its camera platform. The February 2024 outage notably coincided with reports of a data breach in which some users were shown camera thumbnails and, in certain cases, live feeds from other customers’ homes, an issue the company attributed to a third-party caching client library. According to Notebookcheck, that incident came just five months after a separate security lapse had allowed unauthorized access to other users’ camera footage.

Wyze’s security track record dates back further still. The company took until January 2022 to formally discontinue its original WyzeCam v1 model, despite cybersecurity firm Bitdefender having flagged a serious vulnerability in the device roughly three years earlier. In December 2019, separate research from Twelve Security found that a major security lapse had exposed data belonging to approximately 2.4 million Wyze customers. That accumulation of incidents contributed to a decision by The New York Times’ product recommendation arm, Wirecutter, to withdraw its prior endorsement of Wyze security cameras.

Why summer weather can compound the problem

Beyond company-side outages, Wyze cameras are also particularly vulnerable to connectivity loss during summer months due to power and network disruptions unrelated to the company’s own infrastructure. Because most Wyze camera models depend on a continuous power supply and an active Wi-Fi connection to function, even a brief home power outage, common during summer heat waves as increased air conditioning demand strains electrical grids, can knock cameras offline independent of any issue on Wyze’s servers.

How to check whether it’s a broader outage

For users experiencing problems Friday, distinguishing between a company-wide outage and a local connectivity issue is an important first step. Wyze maintains an official service status page where the company posts updates during confirmed outages, though as with past incidents, official acknowledgment has sometimes lagged behind the volume of user reports appearing on independent tracking platforms like Downdetector. Checking that official status page alongside third-party outage trackers can help users determine whether a broader Wyze-side issue is responsible, or whether the problem is more likely tied to a local power or internet disruption.

What to do if you’re affected

Users experiencing issues are generally advised to first confirm their home Wi-Fi network and internet connection are functioning normally, since local outages can produce symptoms similar to a company-wide disruption. If the connection appears stable and problems persist, checking Wyze’s official status page and community forums, where company representatives have historically posted periodic updates during past outages, remains the most reliable way to track the disruption’s progress and expected resolution.

As of Friday morning, the scope and expected duration of the current outage remained unclear, and Wyze had not issued a public acknowledgment of the reported problems. Given the company’s history of both extended service disruptions and gaps in timely communication during past incidents, affected users may need to rely primarily on outage-tracking platforms and social media reports for updates until Wyze’s own status page reflects the issue and confirms a resolution.

NEW YORK — The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher Friday morning, attempting to stabilize after a sharp technology-driven selloff a day earlier, as investors weighed a new round of global tariffs alongside continued concerns about heavy artificial intelligence spending and rising oil prices.

The Dow stood at 51,762.70, up 51.05 points, or 0.10%, in early trading. The modest gain came a day after the index fell 506.93 points, or 0.97%, to close Thursday at 51,711.65, capping a session that saw the broader market retreat sharply following disappointing earnings reactions from two major technology companies.

A rough Thursday for tech stocks

Thursday’s decline was driven largely by steep drops in Alphabet and Tesla shares following their second-quarter earnings reports. Alphabet fell roughly 7% despite posting stronger-than-expected revenue, as investors focused on the company’s decision to raise its full-year capital expenditure guidance. Tesla shares tumbled even further, falling about 12.6% to $326.75, after the company reported second-quarter results that missed profit expectations and highlighted higher planned spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Both companies posted negative free cash flow for the quarter, a detail that further weighed on investor sentiment.

The S&P 500 declined 1.21% Thursday to close at 7,408.30, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.15% to 25,137.69, marking the index’s steepest one-day decline in roughly a month. According to Bloomberg, a broader gauge of megacap technology stocks suffered its worst session since the tariff-driven market rout in April 2025, a sign of just how sharply investor sentiment shifted following the earnings reports.

Friday’s tentative stabilization

Ahead of Friday’s opening bell, futures pointed to a modest recovery attempt across major indexes. Dow futures rose roughly 0.4%, while S&P 500 futures edged up about 0.2% and Nasdaq-100 futures nudged higher by roughly 0.1%, according to Yahoo Finance. That cautious rebound followed a sharp selloff that had also spread into Asian markets overnight, with South Korea’s Kospi and Japan’s Nikkei both declining in the wake of Thursday’s U.S. tech rout.

New tariffs take effect

Adding to the market’s mixed tone Friday, a new set of global tariffs from the Trump administration officially went into effect overnight. The new levies, imposed under Section 301 trade authority in a bid to better withstand legal challenges, apply rates of 10% to 12.5% on goods from the United States’ top trading partners, according to Yahoo Finance. The tariffs add another layer of uncertainty for investors already weighing questions about corporate spending, inflation and global trade relationships heading into the back half of the year.

Oil prices and geopolitical tensions

Energy markets also factored into Friday’s trading, though in a somewhat calmer direction than earlier in the week. Brent crude futures fell about 2% Friday to trade below $99 per barrel, even as the benchmark remained on pace for a weekly gain after briefly touching $100 per barrel earlier in the week, driven by escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. President Donald Trump has said the U.S. would respond to any Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz by striking Iranian infrastructure, comments that came following the collapse of a prior ceasefire and the deaths of three American service members.

A choppy week overall

Friday’s modest gain caps a volatile stretch for U.S. equities. The market had shown some strength earlier in the week, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all posting solid gains Tuesday as investors reacted positively to an initial wave of corporate earnings. But that momentum reversed by midweek, with markets falling Wednesday ahead of the Alphabet and Tesla reports, before Thursday’s sharper post-earnings decline. TheStreet Pro contributor James “Rev Shark” DePorre characterized the pattern succinctly, noting that Wednesday night’s major earnings reports “confirmed investor concerns about capital spending,” adding that while the underlying results were mostly solid, “the reactions were mostly negative due to” those spending concerns.

Individual stock movers

Beyond the megacap technology names, several other companies saw sharp moves this week tied to their own earnings reports. Pest control company Rollins dropped roughly 10% after second-quarter results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, while Shutterstock fell about 10% in after-hours trading following its decision to suspend its quarterly dividend, a move that came shortly after the company’s former CEO stepped down and a proposed transaction with Getty Images fell through.

What’s ahead

Investors on Friday are watching a fresh round of economic data, including S&P Global’s flash purchasing managers’ index readings for services and manufacturing activity in July, along with new home sales figures. On the corporate earnings front, American Express, NextEra Energy and Verizon Communications are among the companies scheduled to report results Friday, offering additional data points on consumer spending, utility demand and telecommunications activity heading into the weekend.

With markets still digesting Thursday’s steep technology selloff, the newly implemented tariffs, and ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, investors are likely to remain closely focused on any further signals about the durability of AI-related capital spending as more major companies report earnings in the coming days. Whether Friday’s modest gain represents the start of a sustained recovery or simply a pause before further volatility is likely to become clearer as additional earnings reports and economic data arrive over the next several trading sessions.

Paramount agreed to delay its pending Warner Bros. Discovery merger until next year in order for the lawsuit brought by several state attorneys general to play out in court, according to a Friday filing.

The merger was put on hold earlier this week after a judge granted a temporary restraining order that initially put a 14-day pause on the multibillion-dollar deal with the lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta pending.

“Today’s agreement is a significant win because the result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence,” a spokesperson for Paramount said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached.” 

“Plaintiffs’ market definitions bear no relationship to the realities of today’s marketplace and cannot withstand scrutiny. We look forward to proving our case at trial,” the spokesperson added.

PARAMOUNT-WBD MERGER ON HOLD AFTER JUDGE GRANTS TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER

Paramount agreed to delay its multibillion-dollar Warner Bros. Discovery merger as an antitrust lawsuit is addressed in court.  (AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images / Getty Images)

“Our argument against this illegal merger is straightforward: When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse,” Bonta told Fox News Digital. “Today’s agreement is great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy. We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure this unlawful merger never sees the light of day.

Paramount CEO David Ellison is seeking to acquire WBD in a $111 billion deal that was expected to close during the third quarter of this year, but Bonta is leading a group of 12 state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit challenging the merger. The lawsuit claims the megadeal would “lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.”  

PARAMOUNT ADVISERS PUSH FOR CALIFORNIA EXIT AS STATE SUES TO BLOCK WARNER BROS DISCOVERY MERGER: REPORT

California Attorney General Rob Bonta spearheaded an antitrust lawsuit against Paramount with several other state attorneys general. (Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of California, claims that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal. Both sides argued their case last week but Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín waited until Monday to temporarily delay the merger. 

The merger, which was set to close this year, is now being delayed until at least June 2027.

PARAMOUNT ADVISERS PUSH FOR CALIFORNIA EXIT AS STATE SUES TO BLOCK WARNER BROS DISCOVERY MERGER: REPORT

Paramount CEO David Ellison is seeking to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion, a historic deal that would rock the entertainment industry. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery would be a historic deal merging two major Hollywood studios under one corporate umbrella as well as all of their television networks, including CBS and CNN. Critics of the deal believe such a merger would crush the entertainment industry and lead to mass layoffs — some have also been vocal against Ellison and his billionaire father Larry Ellison, who is heavily financing the deal and a close ally to President Donald Trump. 

Liberal critics in particular also claim that, as a result of the deal, CNN would be given a MAGA-bent to its coverage and it would be run by current CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who has been harshly criticized by some media liberals. The Paramount CEO has previously assured that CNN would maintain editorial independence following the merger.

This deal would follow Ellison’s $8 billion purchase of Paramount, merging the studio with Skydance Media.

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Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report. 

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Prince Harry’s decision to stay at Princess Diana’s ancestral home during a recent trip to Britain has drawn fresh attention to the state of his relationship with the wider royal family, with some royal commentators suggesting the choice reflects both a closer bond with his mother’s relatives and continued distance from the Windsors.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, revealed to her Instagram followers this week that she, Harry and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, stayed as guests of Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire during their recent visit to the United Kingdom, after the family was unable to secure accommodation at Buckingham Palace.

What the photos showed

Among the images shared by Meghan was one showing Lilibet walking through Althorp’s tree-lined avenue, near the private island on the estate’s lake where Diana is buried. Ahead of her, Harry and Archie can be seen carrying large bouquets of flowers, which the family laid at Diana’s grave and a nearby memorial. Sources confirmed to the Daily Mail that the images were taken at Althorp. According to People magazine, the visit was described as giving Harry and Meghan’s children an opportunity to spend time somewhere closely tied to their late grandmother, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, when Harry was 12.

Expert commentary on the significance of the stay

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail that Harry’s choice to stay with Earl Spencer carries symbolic weight given the broader state of relations between the Windsor and Spencer families. “The Windsors and the Spencer’s have a superficially polite relationship. If you look deeper, there is clearly no love lost, memories of Diana will always influence relations between them,” Fitzwilliams said. “The relations between the Royal Family and the Spencer’s have been marked by politeness but not closeness. However, the Spencers definitely appear to be closer to Harry than William.”

Fitzwilliams suggested that Harry’s ties to the Spencer family could provide him with a reliable base in Britain going forward. “The Sussexes have an ally in Britain which they can use as and when they choose to return,” he said. “This almost certainly means that Harry can rely on a base at Althorp when he needs one and this would undoubtedly extend to Meghan and Archie and Lili.” Fitzwilliams added that he believed Harry’s closeness with the Spencers is “likely to cause concern for the Royal Family.”

A precedent from 2024

This is not the first time Harry has chosen Althorp over royal accommodations during a UK visit. During a 2024 trip for the funeral of Diana’s brother-in-law, Lord Robert Fellowes, Harry reportedly turned down an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace in favor of staying with Earl Spencer. Fitzwilliams said at the time that the decision “throws into sharp relief the apparent breakdown in relations not only with his brother, to whom he has reportedly not spoken for two years, but with his father,” adding that the choice “intentionally emphasises his links with his mother’s family.”

A historically strained Windsor-Spencer relationship

Former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole offered additional historical context, noting that there “never much was love lost between the Spencers and the Windsors.” Cole pointed to Diana’s funeral in 1997, when Harry’s “birth family,” led by Earl Spencer and Lady Jane Fellowes, attended St. Paul’s Cathedral to support Harry while, according to Cole, “the entire Royal Family stayed away.” Cole also recalled a symbolic moment when Diana’s coffin arrived for burial at Althorp, saying Earl Spencer “whipped off the flag that covered it and replaced it with the Spencer standard.” Cole described the moment as illustrative of the lasting divide between the two families, saying “nothing could have illustrated more clearly the gap that will always separate two famous families.”

Harry’s reported consideration of the Spencer name

According to the Daily Mail, Harry previously explored the possibility of changing his family name to Spencer, a move that would have meant dropping Mountbatten-Windsor, the surname used by his children. A friend of Harry’s said he discussed the idea with Earl Spencer during a visit to Britain, but was advised against it. “They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step,” the friend said, citing insurmountable legal obstacles. In the acknowledgments of his memoir “Spare,” Harry thanked Earl Spencer for supporting him through the difficulties he faced following Diana’s death.

A busy and complicated week for the Sussexes

The Althorp stay came during a broader five-day UK trip for Harry centered on Invictus Games events and his charitable work. Harry initially arrived in London alone after a last-minute chaos over his Buckingham Palace invitation, which was reportedly withdrawn hours before his arrival. Meghan later entered the country separately with Archie and Lilibet, amid ongoing security concerns.

Following the family’s European travels, which also included the previously reported stop in Portugal, Harry, Meghan and their children met privately with King Charles and Queen Camilla for tea at Highgrove, the King’s private Gloucestershire residence, marking their first meeting since 2022. Buckingham Palace confirmed the visit only after the family had already left, and no photographs from that reunion have been made public.

Fitzwilliams suggested that future Sussex visits to Britain, including a planned trip for the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, may similarly center around the Spencer family rather than royal accommodations. “Whatever reception they receive from the Royal Family, they can be assured of a warm welcome and moral support from the Spencer’s,” he said, adding that the family “would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to see them again.”

Buckingham Palace has not publicly commented on the arrangements surrounding Harry’s recent stay at Althorp, and it remains unclear how future visits by the Sussexes to the UK might be structured as questions about the broader state of relations within the royal family continue.