Good morning. Once in a while, a new product goes viral and changes the world on impact. The iPhone and ChatGPT come to mind. It’s tempting to view those edge cases as the benchmark by which to judge all tech innovation. But that ignores the vast middle between the extremes of adoption, where the path to product-market fit takes time, money, and trial and error.

My column for this week focuses on just such a product, Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. Too pricey for most consumers, the $3,500 device may have found a calling in narrow and deep business applications such as helping train pilots or designing kitchens.

Like the iPhone, but in reverse. The iPhone was the epitome of Apple product migration, gaining a foothold among consumers who fell in love with the device and literally carried it into the corporate world. The Vision Pro is playing out in reverse. This time around, companies are leading the adoption of a transformative new device. These business and industrial applications have completely different economics, in which the high-end device and its advanced immersive audio and visual experiences are right at home.

Over the last few weeks, I had an opportunity to try out Vision Pro applications from Lowe’s, French industrial software company Dassault Systèmes, and Canadian aircraft training company CAE. Such efforts are beginning or about to scale, and they are game-changers, albeit within their specific domains.

The Lowe’s retail model is fundamentally different from those of mass retailers, because transactions are typically larger and more meaningful, and often require a decade of commitment, Chief Digital and Information Officer Seemantini Godbole told me. Significant decisions on projects like kitchen redesigns are often based on small samples of materials, leading to potential disconnects between expectations and reality, she said.

“Spatial computing, particularly the Vision Pro, can bridge this gap, allowing customers to vividly visualize their new spaces and make more confident purchasing decisions,” Godbole said.

It’s likely that fewer than 1 million units of the Vision Pro have been sold since launch, with most  sales occurring in the enterprise market, Ben Bajarin, CEO and principal analyst of Creative Strategies, told me. The market will take years to develop, although the process of figuring out how companies can put it to use is well under way.

The U.S. Army signed a $98.9 million contract with TurbineOne, maker of an AI application that can identify drones and other threats, even when signals are jammed. The WSJ says the deal with the San Francisco startup hints at the military’s appetite for tech from new firms that might help it prepare for future conflicts that scarcely resemble prior wars.

Some investors are getting anxious about when the investments in AI will show up as returns in Salesforce’s balance sheet, WSJ reports. Shares in the business software company fell 6% in after-hours trading after it said Wednesday that it expects revenue in the current third quarter to be $10.24 billion to $10.29 billion. Wall Street was looking for $10.29 billion. 

Software development tool provider GitLab raised its profit outlook for the year after posting double-digit revenue growth in the second quarter, WSJ reports.

Figma, the design software developer that went public in late July, posted a double-digit increase in revenue in its latest quarter, missing. The results missed forecasts, sending its stock sharply lower, Barron's reports.

DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that shocked the world with its advanced AI program, is planning to release an AI agent technology by the end of the year, Bloomberg reports. 

France’s data protection authority fined Google 325 million euros for not properly informing customers of cookie tracking when accessing the tech giant’s services. A Google spokesperson said the company is reviewing the decision.

Mike Liberatore, xAI's CFO since April, left the company in July, one of the latest high-profile departures from Elon Musk's company in recent weeks. On Aug. 7, xAI’s general counsel, Robert Keele, announced he was leaving after just over a year on the job. 

Apple is working on new web search technology to work with its Siri voice assistant. Bloomberg reports that Google may provide the underlying technology.

The Information reports that Nvidia cloud provider partner Lambda has hired Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Citi to prepare for an initial public offering.

OpenAI will give employees the opportunity to sell roughly $10.3 billion in stock in a secondary share sale, CNBC reports. The sale, will be at a $500 billion valuation, CNBC said. 

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Wednesday to quickly hear its appeal of a ruling that rejected the president’s global tariffs, saying the lower court loss already was hurting the White House in ongoing trade negotiations. (WSJ)

The federal government improperly cut off $2.2 billion in research funding from Harvard University and must restore the funds, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, concluding the Trump administration’s actions violated Harvard’s constitutional rights. (WSJ)

Florida is proposing to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including for schoolchildren, which would make it the first state in the U.S. to end immunization requirements. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette, Angus Loten, and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.