Editor’s note: Welcome to So That Happened, our editors’ takes on things going on in the manufacturing world that deserve some extra attention. This will appear regularly in the Member’s Only section of the site.

46% of US CEOs Can’t Find AI’s value

I keep reading stories about how companies widely deploying software based on large language models (LLMs; see Chat-GPT) are discovering that AI just creates more work.

Hanging on to your human employees who know the ins and outs of all your operations and can be trusted not to hallucinate facts and figures might be a better play than letting people go and “hiring” AI to take over.

So, when I read a new C-Suite Outlook survey from The Conference Board that says 46% of all CEOs in the U.S. say their top priority for AI in 2026 is improving the quality and quantity of their data to measure ROI, I’m not surprised. In other words, almost half the CEOs still don’t really know whether AI is worth it or not.

The survey also says that 38% of CEOs in the US think AI will have a negative impact on their companies, the aforementioned lesson companies deploying AI are waking up to.

The report also presents data on how CEOs feel about general economic concerns (43% considering uncertainty their top threat for 2026), sustainability (38% say investments in this area are not a priority) and workforce (mental health outweighs working conditions and gender equality as the top concern). To read the report, head over to The Conference Board website.

—Dennis Scimeca

Most People Don’t Like Winter or the Late Shift, But They Like Their Jobs

It’s 4 p.m. on a Tuesday in October. You’re about to finish work, and there’s still just enough daylight to play with the kids in the yard, talk a cool autumn walk or get together with friends for an after-work drink or two.

Or, it’s 11 p.m. on a Saturday in February. It was dark when you left for work, and it’ll be dark when you head home. It’s cold, snow is everywhere, and when you climb into bed in several hours, you know that you’re going to be dealing with kids making noise, church bells ringing  and sunlight creeping through the blinds in a way that wakes you up but never provides any warmth.

Which scenario do you think will make you happier?

HappyOrNot, makers of the ubiquitous ‘smiley-face’ feedback terminals used on factory floors, in warehouses and production facilities, analyzed more than 220,000 real-time employee feedback responses from U.S. manufacturing sites in 2025 to uncover when manufacturing employees are happiest and least happy at work.

The results were decidedly not shocking:

• 4pm: The happiest time of day
• 11pm: The unhappiest time of day
• Tuesday: Best day of the work week
• Saturday: Worst day of the work week
• October: Strongest month for employee experience, with 63% positive feedback
• February: Weakest, recording just 54% positive feedback

The good news is that employees were a bit happier in 2025 than in 2024: 59.2% offered positive feedback last year, compared to 56.8% in 2024.

“Employee experience in U.S. manufacturing follows clear shift-based patterns across the working week. Satisfaction tends to dip at points where operational demands increase and teams are transitioning between shifts,” says Miika Mäkitalo, CEO of HappyOrNot. “The lowest scores occur at the start of the third, or graveyard shift.”

—Robert Schoenberger

2025 Equipment Financing Remained Resilient

Year-to-date new business volume (NBV) hit $119.8 billion in 2025, making last year the second-highest year for equipment financing on record, according to the CapEx Finance Index released by the Equipment Leasing & Finance Association (ELFA). This represents a contraction of only 0.5% when compared to 2024’s all-time high.

Cumulative business volume growth over the second half of 2025 was 1.6% higher than the same time frame a year earlier.

“The data show that the equipment finance industry has not only weathered but thrived amid historic uncertainty,” says Leigh Lytle, president and CEO at ELFA. “While we expect some volatility in 2026, all signs point to another year of strong demand and stable financial conditions—especially as markets anticipate additional rate cuts later this year.”

Total NBV hit $10.6 billion in December, an increase of 3.1% from November. Small ticket volume grew by 30% month-over-month to $4.6 billion.

The equipment finance industry Monthly Confidence Index increased 6.3 points to an 11-month high in January of 64.6.

—Anna Smith

Nu Ride Heads Down a New Road

What’s the former Lordstown Motors Corp. up to, you ask?

Well, maybe you didn’t ask but we’ll tell you anyway. The last time we checked in on the electric-vehicle venture that is now Nu Ride Inc., its leaders were moving ahead with several legal claims against the parent company of Foxconn, which had promised millions in investments way back in 2022. Over the past month, however, the company has been putting its cash holdings to work in … billboard advertising.

Nu Ride CEO Alexander Matina and his team have, through two loans, committed more than $7.6 million to affiliates of Phoenix-based outdoor marketing company Foxpoint Media LLC. Foxpoint is using the funding to acquire billboard leases in the Sunshine State.

The investments come several weeks after Nu Ride got some good financial news. In mid-November, a Delaware bankruptcy court judge approved a plan to reduce the company’s reserves against creditor claims to $5.1 million. Nu Ride had been setting aside more than $22 million, which was more than its cash holdings of more than $18 million as of Sept. 30.

The Foxpoint investments come with attractive terms for Nu Ride: The three-year loans carry a 15% interest rate and will give Nu Ride a sizable equity stake in the Florida entities. Even if Foxpoint pays back its loans in the next 12 months, Nu Ride will end up owning about 15% of those ventures. That strikes us as a slightly better investment than EVs these days.

—Geert De Lombaerde