The Editor's Desk - Thurs 5 Feb 2026: AI’s software apocalypse and the derangement of propaganda

In today’s analysis, I’ve unpacked how Anthropic’s new AI tools are dismantling the corporate software world and why the latest Epstein disclosures have the British establishment—and Peter Mandelson—under fire. I also take a look at the "derangement" in Zimbabwe, where government propaganda about bumper crops is being met with the reality of empty shops..Don't miss out on future episodes of The Editor's Desk. Subscribe to BizNews Premium and get the podcast delivered to your inbox daily..Listen here.Edited transcript of today's Editor's Desk episode.Hello and welcome. I’m Alec Hogg. By now, you’ve likely scanned the headlines on BizNews.com or caught the interviews on our business news radio and business TV channels. But the real story often lives in the margins—the context that doesn’t make the corporate press releases and the whispers that we pick up after the record button has been switched off. Whether it’s the shifting sands of geopolitics or the political currents that are shaping our economy, that is what we do here. We strip away the polish to tell you the backstory and why it actually matters. This is the Editor’s Desk exclusive analysis for our premium members.It’s Thursday, the 5th of February 2026. Let’s take a look behind that curtain.If you’ve been following the BizNews Daybreak show, you’ll know the reason why I have a 5:00 a.m. start. Thank heavens I’m an early morning person, because I’d hate to think about having to do that by rule. I do it by design and because of love, but being forced to get up that early... well, I’m up and about and listening and focused. The Daybreak show has been very popular amongst the tribe, and I hope you are amongst those who listen to it every day.You would have heard in the last few days about the "software apocalypse"—the collapse of stocks in the software field. The reason for this is a startup company (not so little anymore) based in San Francisco called Anthropic. Today, we have an article from the Financial Times, our partner in London, explaining what Anthropic has done that has given everyone so many reasons to panic. In 2025, Anthropic released something called Claude Code, which sent shivers down the spines of coders around the world.Developers—those people who used to get paid lots of money to put software together—are facing a new reality. As the former Chief Technology Officer of Dropbox put it in that article: "We will never create code by hand again." Anthropic then threw another grenade into the world of technology in January when it released Co-Work, which automates work tasks, summarizes documents, and rewrites legal briefs. It is changing what advertising agencies are doing by stepping between the content providers they pay and the customers on the other side.Claude Code has been flagged as a major disruptor for the advertising industry, with companies like WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis highlighted as the big losers. Another big loser is the legal profession, where the ability now exists for anybody to use Anthropic's tools to do their own legal documentation.But that happened in January. So what happened on Friday to send the fear of God into software investors and spark this "software apocalypse"? They introduced another addition to Co-Work, providing tools for sales, finance, marketing, and customer support. It isn’t just targeting general work; it is targeting individual industries. Think about Xero, which we use for our financial products. Anthropic is saying, "We’ve got something better for you, and you won’t have to pay Xero a couple of thousand Rand a month for the license fee."The same applies to Salesforce, marketing CRM tools like Monday.com—all these companies are under enormous pressure because AI has made it so much easier. You don’t need to have experts in whom you’ve invested huge amounts of money to create software; it can now be done by people who are literally coding-ignorant. It’s a great story in the Financial Times, republished on BizNews. If you do one thing today, go and read it.Our other London-based partner is The Economist, and they have a completely different story today headlined: "The UK’s Biggest Political Scandal in the Past Century." That is saying something, considering the Profumo scandal or the various dramas involving Boris Johnson. This one involves Peter Mandelson. A year ago, as the soon-to-be British Ambassador to the United States, he was asked by the FT about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose inner secrets are now being made public.You can go to the US Department of Justice website and use their search engine. Some of our tribe members on the premium WhatsApp groups have clearly searched "Cape Town" or South African names, and they’ve appeared in Epstein’s "little black books." There has also been the exposure of Jacob Zuma and a high-level Russian escort—an area Epstein specialised in, alongside the trafficking of underage girls.When the FT asked Mandelson about this a year ago, he responded—and I’ll quote him verbatim, so please forgive the language: "It’s an obsession. And frankly, you can all just fuck off." Mandelson lost his job in September after it was disclosed that he and Epstein were giggling like schoolboys in emails about prostitutes. I’ve seen this kind of "schoolboy giggle" behaviour before. Years ago, at a dinner in Davos, I sat at a table with a young British politician called Ed Miliband. He and his partner spent the whole time sending each other direct messages and giggling, never engaging with the rest of us. It seems this behaviour occurs regularly within that establishment. Mandelson is now in even deeper trouble because of the latest trove of information.We close today with one of our favourite columnists from Zimbabwe, Cathy Buckle. Cathy has stayed in Zim no matter the difficulties. She writes a weekly letter about the ridiculous levels of propaganda in the country. She explains that while Harare is telling the nation they had a bumper maize crop in 2025, the reality is that silos are empty and shops have run out of maize.The government also announced a bumper wheat crop—the biggest since 1966. But Cathy tells us that's impossible because masses of wheat are being imported. When challenged, the government claimed they produce "soft wheat" and must import "hard wheat" to make bread. However, Trevor Ncube’s NewsDay looked at the numbers and found that the required combination would only account for one-seventh of the imports they are seeing.Finally, Cathy points to a "big pork pie" from the Minister of Finance, who announced that inflation is down to 4.1%—the lowest since 1997. Nobody believes this because prices in US dollars are rising rapidly. The "ZiG"—the sixth currency attempt in 20 years—is a controlled exchange rate that nobody can actually get their hands on. Cathy tried to use it for change at a local store, and the storekeeper laughed, saying they hadn't seen that currency "ever."It seems the only people who believe this are those in government. It reminds me of Richard Tedlow’s book Giants of Enterprise, where he explains "derangement"—when you reach a certain level in society, you don't realise what is happening on the street because you don't want to know, and those around you ensure you only receive good news. They sweep the traffic away with blue lights and keep you behind a security cordon. Such is the insanity that has gripped our northern neighbour.I’m going to leave it there for today. Thanks for trusting us with your time. I’m Alec Hogg; until tomorrow, cheerio.

The Editor's Desk - Thurs 5 Feb 2026: AI’s software apocalypse and the derangement of propaganda

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