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Home remodelers have always served two different markets, but the current state of housing is now pulling them opposite directions. First, people tend to remodel when they move, but high interest rates, high home prices and weak consumer sentiment have put the housing market in a deep freeze. Homeowners also tend to renovate when they are unable or don’t want to sell. So which way will the remodeling market shift?

Annual spending on home improvements and repairs is expected to remain relatively flat through late 2027, according to the latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) from the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. It puts spending growth on renovation and repairs at just 1.5% year-over-year by the third quarter.

“Retail spending on building products has been flat to negative, and remodeling permits have stagnated, which points to continued sluggish renovation activity,” said Rachel Bogardus Drew, director of the remodeling futures program at the Center, in a release. “We expect annual spending to hover around $525 billion through the third quarter of next year.”

The U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly read on single-family housing starts for September came in well below expectations, as did building permits, an indicator of future construction. Pending home sales, measured by signed contracts, also plunged beyond expectations, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“These ongoing headwinds could slow growth in remodeling spending even further in the quarters ahead,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the center in the release. 

A separate October report from the National Association of Home Builders on sentiment among home remodelers was slightly more positive, but also did not forecast big growth in 2027. 

“Remodeler sentiment remained stable in the third quarter, although remodelers in certain parts of the country continue to report issues with high material costs and finding enough labor to finish projects on time,” said Elliott Pike, national chair of the NAHB remodelers council and a remodeler from Homewood, Alabama. “Remodelers also report that economic uncertainty is making some potential customers hesitant to move forward with projects.” 

Finally, another October report from Houzz, an AI platform for construction and design professionals and homeowners, showed an improved outlook, with some caveats.

“Construction pros are closing out 2026 with optimism, as expectations reach their highest level since early 2022 following a rebound from a long stretch of slow activity. Design firms are more…

When Shelley Carr matched with a new guy on Tinder last fall who spoke eloquently about art, politics and theatre, she thought she’d found someone she could really connect with. 

“I’m sort of an artsy person. I watch theatre, and I go to plays and I go to art galleries, and so I’m looking for someone similar, right?” she said. 

“It was like we had the same interests and it’s very rare to have that happen.”

So, she asked him to meet in person to see if they’d hit it off in real life. 

But as soon as Carr saw him in person, as he got off the bus in Hamilton to meet her for their date, she had a feeling “that there’s just no way that the person I’ve been talking to was the person that got off that bus.” 

That feeling was confirmed minutes later, when Carr’s date told her that those eloquent messages weren’t written by him, but by ChatGPT.

Carr, who’s 56, said she was shocked. 

“I’ve dealt with a lot of different things, but never dealt with that.”

Carr’s story is just one example of how AI is changing online dating. But whether that’s for better or worse depends on who you talk to. 

Companies have been keen to jump on the AI bandwagon, unveiling new features using AI that promise to help users level up their dating game. But some users, particularly women, say it’s making it more difficult to tell fact from fiction, and making the quest for love more difficult as a result. 

AI tools now part of the dating app experience 

Regina Hay, a 24-year-old woman living and dating in Toronto, said she’s been using dating apps for years. But in recent months, she said it feels like the use of AI seems to be everywhere from people’s profiles to the messages they send.

This February, she said she was having a conversation with a potential date through an app that was going well, until he sent her a complex hypothesis on Spotify Wrapped that didn’t seem to be written by him. 

Hay says he admitted to using AI when she pointed out the change in tone, which made her feel cheated.

“If I wanted to have an automated conversation, I can use ChatGPT, I can get it myself. But I talked to him because I wanted to talk to that individual,” she said. 

Along with the proliferation of ChatGPT-generated messages and third party applications like RIZZ, nearly every major dating platform is incorporating AI into their apps in a bid to improve user experience and combat swipe fatigue.

Bumble unveiled its AI-suggested profile guidance feature in February designed to give users “personalized, actionable feedback” on their bios. Facebook also claims the AI