Mid-Year Outlook: What's Next for the US Economy, Inflation, and the Fed?

On this episode of the View From Apollo’s Allocation Insights series, Alex Wright and Diana Sands are joined by Partner and Co-Head of Apollo's Sponsor & Secondary Solutions business Steve Lessar to discuss how private market secondaries have evolved from a niche liquidity tool to a core allocation of modern private market portfolios, which can offer immediate exposure to mature assets and attractive risk-adjusted return potential.

In 1964, a group of economists and policymakers warned the White House that a new technological revolution—what they called “cybernation”—would usher in an era of near-limitless production with progressively less need for human labor. The implication was clear: mass unemployment was not just possible, but inevitable. Sixty years later, the language has changed, but the fear has not. Artificial intelligence is more sophisticated, the technology more powerful, and the capital behind it more substantial. But the core question remains the same: will AI fundamentally displace labor, or reshape it?

Credit markets are entering a period of transition. At Apollo’s 2026 Credit Annual Meeting, partners across the firm discussed the technological disruption, refinancing pressure from higher rates and geopolitical uncertainty that are beginning to drive greater dispersion across sectors, borrowers and capital structures.