{"slug":"daily-signals","title":"Signals: things worth knowing today","unit":"signals","generated_at":"2026-08-24T23:42:47+00:00","source":{"tier":"A","producer":"DFX Intelligence Observatory, derived from the datasets each signal cites","url":"https://dfxintel.com/observatory/standards","retrieved_at":"2026-08-24T23:42:47+00:00"},"upstream":["business-formation-by-state","ai-in-annual-reports","state-economy-vs-formation"],"transform":"Candidate facts are generated deterministically from each published dataset, scored on nine dimensions by observatory/score.py, ranked, and cut at a fixed score floor. No text is model-written.","verification":{"ok":true,"checks":[{"name":"candidates_scored","passed":true,"detail":"8 candidates from 3 datasets"},{"name":"floor_enforced","passed":true,"detail":"5 of 8 cleared the score floor of 42.0; the product publishes fewer than five rather than padding to five"},{"name":"no_generated_prose","passed":true,"detail":"every signal's text is assembled from values read out of a verified dataset; none is written or paraphrased by a language model"},{"name":"every_signal_cites","passed":true,"detail":"each published signal names the dataset it was computed from"}]},"meta":{"generated_for":"2026-08-24","candidates":8,"published":5,"floor":42,"score_range":[73.7,85.2]},"notes":["Signals are recomputed whenever a source dataset refreshes, so a signal's numbers always match the dataset it cites."],"row_count":5,"rows":[{"id":"formation-rate-leader","fact":"Wyoming received 145 business applications per 1,000 residents last year. The median state received 16.","why":"A filing rate nine times the median is not a measure of local enterprise. It is a measure of how many entities formed elsewhere choose that state's address.","value":"145","value_label":"per 1,000 residents","dataset":"business-formation-by-state","story":"america-business-formation-paper-boom","shape":"ranking","score":{"magnitude":1,"surprise":1,"commercial":0.6,"audience":0.5,"identity":0.95,"visual":0.9,"novelty":0.7,"authority":1,"retrieval":0.7,"total":85.2,"weights":{"magnitude":0.12,"surprise":0.18,"commercial":0.12,"audience":0.08,"identity":0.16,"visual":0.1,"novelty":0.08,"authority":0.1,"retrieval":0.06}},"score_total":85.2},{"id":"wyoming-first-and-last","fact":"Wyoming has the fastest business formation growth in America (+346% since 2019) and the slowest real economic growth (+3.7%). It ranks first of 51 on both.","why":"Removing Wyoming makes the national relationship between filings and output stronger, not weaker. A point that suppresses a correlation is not part of the same process as the rest of the data.","value":"1 and 51","value_label":"of 51, on filings and on growth","dataset":"state-economy-vs-formation","story":"state-formation-and-growth","shape":"scatter","score":{"magnitude":1,"surprise":0.95,"commercial":0.6,"audience":0.6,"identity":0.95,"visual":0.55,"novelty":1,"authority":1,"retrieval":0.65,"total":83.7,"weights":{"magnitude":0.12,"surprise":0.18,"commercial":0.12,"audience":0.08,"identity":0.16,"visual":0.1,"novelty":0.08,"authority":0.1,"retrieval":0.06}},"score_total":83.7},{"id":"formation-growth-leader","fact":"8 states have more than doubled their business filings since 2019. Wyoming is up 346%.","why":"Application growth responds to filing fees and registered-agent marketing as much as to enterprise, which is why the high-propensity subset is the one to watch.","value":"8","value_label":"states have doubled","dataset":"business-formation-by-state","story":"america-business-formation-paper-boom","shape":"ranking","score":{"magnitude":1,"surprise":1,"commercial":0.55,"audience":0.55,"identity":0.95,"visual":0.95,"novelty":0.25,"authority":1,"retrieval":0.6,"total":81.3,"weights":{"magnitude":0.12,"surprise":0.18,"commercial":0.12,"audience":0.08,"identity":0.16,"visual":0.1,"novelty":0.08,"authority":0.1,"retrieval":0.06}},"score_total":81.3},{"id":"filings-track-output","fact":"The ten states adding business filings fastest grew their economies by a median 18.5% since 2019. The ten adding them slowest grew 7.7%.","why":"The cynical reading of the filing boom, that it is paperwork rather than economy, is not what the data supports outside one state.","value":"18.5% vs 7.7%","value_label":"real GDP growth, top vs bottom ten","dataset":"state-economy-vs-formation","story":"state-formation-and-growth","shape":"ranking","score":{"magnitude":0.55,"surprise":0.8,"commercial":0.7,"audience":0.6,"identity":0.95,"visual":0.95,"novelty":1,"authority":1,"retrieval":0.7,"total":81.1,"weights":{"magnitude":0.12,"surprise":0.18,"commercial":0.12,"audience":0.08,"identity":0.16,"visual":0.1,"novelty":0.08,"authority":0.1,"retrieval":0.06}},"score_total":81.1},{"id":"ai-majority-of-10ks","fact":"58% of American annual reports now mention artificial intelligence. In 2015 it was 0.4%.","why":"The number of annual reports fell over the same period, so this is a change in what companies feel obliged to address rather than in how many are filing.","value":"58%","value_label":"of 10-K filings","dataset":"ai-in-annual-reports","story":"ai-in-annual-reports","shape":"time_series","score":{"magnitude":1,"surprise":0.75,"commercial":0.75,"audience":0.85,"identity":0.063,"visual":0.8,"novelty":1,"authority":1,"retrieval":0.9,"total":73.7,"weights":{"magnitude":0.12,"surprise":0.18,"commercial":0.12,"audience":0.08,"identity":0.16,"visual":0.1,"novelty":0.08,"authority":0.1,"retrieval":0.06}},"score_total":73.7}],"attribution":"DFX Intelligence Observatory — https://dfxintel.com/observatory/data/daily-signals.csv","terms":"CC BY 4.0. Attribute DFX Intelligence and link to the story."}