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🔎 Quick Take

Most of the good AI does is hard to see. It shaves minutes off a flight, or helps you find the numbers that changed in a city budget. A person stays in charge the whole time.

Data centers are the part people can see. On Election Day, three in four voters said they'd oppose one in their own community, and those voters leaned heavily Democratic. That's a problem for anyone who wants AI's benefits to reach everyone.

People aren't wrong to ask about water, power bills and who benefits. Those questions have good answers, and companies have to earn trust by giving them. We can make that case.

Let's get into it.

📰 AI News Roundup

✈️ Lead: AI is helping air traffic controllers beat delays

What happened: The Federal Aviation Administration has a new AI tool called SMART. It pulls 200 streams of data into one place, including weather, flight paths, traffic and staffing. Then it suggests routes that avoid congestion.

The Transportation Department says SMART has helped reroute nearly 180 flights across the U.S. since September. On average, those flights got more than 10 minutes faster and saved nearly 80 gallons of fuel.

In one case, a cargo plane from Tampa was due at Dallas-Fort Worth when demand there was higher than the airport could handle. SMART suggested a shorter route to the south. Controllers accepted it, and the plane landed 12 minutes early, the department says.

The tool started at Washington, D.C.-area airports in September. It now also runs at air traffic control centers in Jacksonville, Miami and Atlanta, and at DFW.

Why this matters: This is public AI doing an unglamorous job well. Shorter flights mean less waiting, and less fuel burned means less pollution. The tool suggests and controllers decide, which is how AI should work in jobs where safety matters. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also says it will "reduce stress on air traffic controllers."

The department hasn't said how often SMART is used for passenger flights at DFW. That's worth watching as it spreads.

🗳️ Data centers were on voters' minds, and we have a case to make

What happened: Voters answered an NBC News exit poll on Election Day. 56% said AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress. Asked about a new data center in their own community, 76% said they'd oppose it.

Look at how those voters split. Voters who opposed a local data center backed Democrats 64% to 34%. Voters who favored one backed Republicans 71% to 28%.

A new site called American Sentiment shows what those worries sound like up close. It collected 10,202 public comments on data centers from 417 local governments this year. Water use was the top concern. Distrust and transparency came up a lot. Many commenters said they didn't believe the promised benefits would show up.

Some findings point to a way forward. Four out of five comments didn't mention AI at all. Red and blue counties opposed at the same rate. And union workers were the only group that mostly supported data centers.

Why this matters: We think AI can do a lot of good, and it needs places to run. Right now, our own voters are the most skeptical. That's an uphill climb, and we can win it.

The worries people raise are real and answerable: water, power bills, honest deals and real local benefits. Most comments aren't about AI itself. Union support points to one path: good jobs, written into the deal. Last issue, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told Semafor, "Data centers will be built." Then she added: "It's a matter of if they're built with good union jobs and a high-standard approach."

🔌 One answer to the power bill question

What happened: OpenAI announced a "Grid Protectors" program on November 2. The company says the data center campuses it builds in the U.S. will cut their power use when the grid is under strain. OpenAI describes the program as an ambition, and it will work out the terms with each utility.

The first site is OpenAI's campus in Effingham County, Georgia. Georgia Power says the campus will need about 3,200 megawatts. OpenAI agreed to provide up to 1,000 megawatts of "flexible demand response" in times of high demand. Under the 25-year deal, Georgia Power can reduce the power it sends to the campus to keep the grid stable.

Georgia Power also says OpenAI will pay the full cost of the infrastructure and electric service for the campus. The utility says the flexible power lets it build fewer new power plants, "providing savings for customers in the long term."

Why this matters: Higher power bills are one of the fears people raise about data centers. A campus that pays its own way and backs off when the grid is strained is a direct answer to that fear. It's also a pledge from the company that benefits, so it needs checking. Utility regulators and local officials can write these promises into contracts.

🛠️ Put AI to Work

Practical ways progressives can use AI this week

Read your city budget before the hearing

A city budget shows where public money goes. It's also long and hard to read, so few people show up to budget hearings ready to ask questions. AI can help you get ready.

This tip comes from The Neuron. Find your city or town's proposed budget and last year's spending report. Upload both to Claude (or another AI tool that reads documents). Then paste in this prompt:

Three ways to use it:

• Your city or town. Find out what changed in parks, libraries, transit or policing before the council votes.
• Your school district. Run the same prompt on this year's and last year's district budgets. Bring the five questions to the school board.
• Your organization's issue. If you work on housing or public health, ask the AI to focus on those lines. Use what it finds in your testimony or your next action alert.

One rule, in The Neuron's words: "Just verify the numbers against the original documents before sharing them." The page citations make that fast. And as they put it, "Even a very smart AI shouldn't get the final say on where your taxes went."

Source: The Neuron, November 10, 2026

🔭 Looking Ahead

Watch SMART spread. The FAA is adding the tool to more air traffic control centers. Watch for data on passenger flights.

Watch the data center deals. Look for contracts that put water use, power costs and local jobs in writing.

Until next time,
Jordan

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