Visual CapitalistModify

2026-01-05 03:10:14

Visualized: AI Safety Report Card of Leading Companies

This graphic was first posted on Voronoi. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

AI systems are moving from novelty to infrastructure. They write, code, search, and increasingly act on our behalf.

That speed has put a spotlight on a harder question: how seriously are AI companies managing the risks that come with more capable models?

This graphic visualizes and compares the safety scores of major AI companies using data from the AI Safety Index published by the Future of Life Institute, which scores companies across six key metrics.

Which AI Companies Prioritize Safety Most?

Based on the scores across six key metrics of AI safety, Anthropic, the creators of Claude, scored highest overall with a C+.

Anthropic was the only company that scored an “A” grade in two categories, with an A- in both governance and accountability along with information sharing.

The table below shows the overall grade of each AI company in terms of safety, along with their grades in specific safety categories.

Following Anthropic was OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, which received a C grade overall. The only category it scored higher than Anthropic in was in the current harms category, partially thanks to the fact that OpenAI was the only company with a published whistleblowing policy at the time of the report’s publication.

Chinese companies Zhipu.AI and DeepSeek both received failing grades overall, though the report notes that China’s stricter national AI regulations may explain their weaker performance on Western-aligned self-governance and transparency metrics.

Understanding “AI Safety” and Why it Matters

A useful AI safety program is more than a promise to “be responsible.” It shows up as concrete processes: documented evaluations, clear thresholds for when to pause or limit deployment, and a trail of public reporting that lets outsiders understand what was tested and why.

Companies that score well tend to communicate more about how they handle model behavior, misuse risks, and incident response.

In contrast, lower-rated firms often appear opaque—either disclosing less overall or providing safety statements that are hard to verify.

In highlighting companies’ weak points when it comes to AI safety, the report from the Future of Life Institute notes that the AI industry is both fundamentally unprepared for its stated goals of reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Along with this, it states that AI capabilities are accelerating far faster than risk management practices, and the lack of a regulatory floor means companies can cut corners on safety in order to get ahead in the race towards AGI.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about AI companies, check out this graphic on Voronoi that charts the skyrocketing revenues of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.

2026-01-04 23:46:57

Mapped: Each State’s Favorite Fast Food Restaurant

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Fast food is one of the most familiar parts of American eating culture, but the fast food restaurants people love can be surprisingly different by state.

This map shows the single most popular fast food chain in every state (and Washington, D.C.) using data from FinanceBuzz which tracks Google Trends scores and normalizes them for the number of restaurant locations per 100,000 people.

America’s Favorite Fast Food Restaurants by State

Wendy’s is the most common state favorite in the dataset, finishing #1 in six different states. Sonic, the largest drive-in restaurant chain in America, is right behind as the favorite in five states.

The data table below shows the favorite fast food restaurant of each U.S. state:

While the states that prefer Wendy’s are spread out from Montana to Pennsylvania, the five that choose Sonic are all clustered around Oklahoma, its home state.

After the top two, three fast food chains are tied as favorites in three states each: Jack in the Box, Subway, and Jimmy John’s.

Home-State Pride Can Give Restaurants the Edge

Beyond the leaders, these fast food preferences highlight the incredible amount of variety in terms of fast food favorites, with 28 different chains appearing as a state favorite.

This long tail reflects a patchwork of local loyalties rather than dominance by one brand, often reinforced by home-state advantages: Whataburger in Texas, Wendy’s in Ohio, and Shake Shack in New York show how proximity to a chain’s roots can translate into lasting popularity.

That dynamic helps explain why the U.S. fast food landscape can feel both national and deeply local at the same time. When a chain’s “hometown” becomes part of its brand story, it can turn everyday convenience into something closer to regional tradition.

Notably absent from the map is McDonald’s, which could be partially due to the fact that it had the highest average menu-price inflation among major U.S. fast food chains from 2014 to 2024, with prices roughly doubling over that period.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about the fast food industry in the United States, check out this graphic on Voronoi that breaks down America’s most popular fast food brands by sales.

2026-01-04 21:07:29

Life Expectancy vs. Healthcare Spending (1970-2023)

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

As Warren Buffett popularized: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”.

Just because someone pays the most, doesn’t mean that they extract the biggest payoff from a product or service.

Today’s visual from Our World in Data that compares life expectancy with healthcare spending per capita hints at exactly this paradox.

Interactive Version

First of all, here’s an interactive version of the chart above to play with:

You can add and subtract countries by clicking on “Select Countries and Regions”. You can also edit the years shown.

The Data on Life Expectancy vs. Healthcare Spending

Below is the data for 51 countries for the year 2023:

Rank	Country	Life expectancy (2023)	Health expenditure per capita (2023)
1	Japan	84.71	$4,806
2	South Korea	84.33	$4,055
3	Switzerland	83.95	$7,930
4	Australia	83.92	$5,778
5	Italy	83.72	$4,046
6	Spain	83.67	$3,901
7	France	83.33	$6,036
8	Norway	83.31	$7,424
9	Malta	83.30	$4,941
10	Sweden	83.26	$6,204
11	Iceland	82.69	$5,228
12	Canada	82.63	$5,981
13	Ireland	82.41	$5,689
14	Israel	82.41	$3,154
15	Portugal	82.36	$3,906
16	Luxembourg	82.23	$6,078
17	Netherlands	82.16	$6,273
18	Belgium	82.12	$6,123
19	New Zealand	82.09	$4,938
20	Austria	81.96	$6,361
21	Denmark	81.93	$5,823
22	Finland	81.91	$5,375
23	Greece	81.86	$2,943
24	Cyprus	81.65	$3,869
25	Slovenia	81.60	$4,118
26	Germany	81.38	$7,248
27	United Kingdom	81.30	$5,413
28	Chile	81.17	$2,964
29	Costa Rica	80.80	$1,565
30	Czechia	79.83	$3,943
31	United States	79.30	$12,023
32	Estonia	79.15	$2,921
33	Poland	78.63	$3,125
34	Croatia	78.58	$2,751
35	Slovakia	78.34	$2,672
36	China	78.20	$1,086
37	Peru	77.74	$817
38	Colombia	77.73	$1,537
39	Argentina	77.40	$2,850
40	Turkey	77.16	$1,846
41	Hungary	77.02	$2,613
42	Latvia	76.19	$2,494
43	Lithuania	76.03	$3,224
44	Romania	75.94	$2,373
45	Bulgaria	75.64	$2,612
46	Mexico	75.07	$1,244
47	Brazil	74.87	$1,661
48	India	71.70	$290
49	Ukraine	71.63	$1,429
50	Indonesia	71.15	$376
51	South Africa	65.45	$1,218
--	Average	79.74	$3,986

The clear takeaway is that while most high and upper-middle income countries cluster around the same trajectory, the United States is a clear outlier.

On average, the countries on the above list have a life expectancy of 79.74 years for a cost of $3,986 per person, while the U.S. has a life expectancy of 79.3 and spend of $12,023 per person.

Peer countries (Canada, UK, Germany, Japan, France, Italy) spend about half of what the U.S. does on healthcare per capita on average, but all have better life expectancy outcomes.

Why is the U.S. an Outlier?

While the U.S. excels in advanced and specialized medical care, life expectancy outcomes are held back by lifestyle and social factors rather than clinical capability.

Higher rates of obesity, chronic disease, opioid overdoses, gun violence, and traffic fatalities all weigh on average lifespan.

At the same time, healthcare access is uneven, with large gaps by income, race, and geography. As a result, additional spending often goes toward higher prices and end-of-life care, producing diminishing returns in overall life expectancy.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

View the highest and lowest life expectancy rates around the world in this map.

2026-01-04 02:51:37

Charted: The Decline of Global Wine Production and Consumption

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Wine production and consumption have entered a sustained decline over the last decade. This chart tracks how global wine output, consumption, and trade have evolved since 2015.

The data for this visualization comes from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). It tracks production, consumption, and imports from 2015 through 2024, measured in billions of liters.

Wine Production Hits a Decade Low

Global wine production peaked intermittently during the late 2010s, reaching nearly 30 billion liters in 2018.

Since then, output has steadily fallen, dropping to just 22.6 billion liters in 2024. That represents an almost 19% decline over the nine-year period.

Extreme weather events, including droughts, heatwaves, and late frosts, have disrupted harvests in major wine-producing regions. At the same time, rising costs and tighter environmental regulations are adding pressure to growers worldwide.

Consumption Declines More Gradually

While production has fallen sharply, global wine consumption has declined at a slower pace. Total consumption dropped from about 24.1 billion liters in 2015 to 21.4 billion liters in 2024, a decline of roughly 11%.

Health-conscious lifestyles, aging populations in traditional wine markets, and younger consumers drinking less alcohol overall are contributing factors.

Global Trade Shows Signs of Softening

Wine imports have also edged lower, falling about 6.5% over the same period.

After peaking above 11 billion liters in the early 2020s, global wine trade slipped below 10 billion liters by 2023 and 2024.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Ranked: Which Country Consumes the Most Coffee? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

2026-01-03 23:09:07

The Fastest-Growing Jobs in the U.S. in the Next Decade

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Which jobs are adding the most openings over the next decade?

This visualization from USAFacts uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to forecast the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. over the next decade.

Data on the Fastest-Growing Jobs to 2034

As the U.S. population continues to age, home health and personal care aides are the fastest-growing profession by far.

In the span of a decade, there will be a whopping 739,800 new positions in this field added nationwide. However, it’s worth mentioning that these jobs have one of the lowest median salaries on the list at under $35,000 per year.

Tech careers, such as software developers and computer and information systems managers, also feature strongly in the mix, though it’s arguable that AI could impact some of these fields tremendously. Big tech companies famously slowed the hiring of developers in 2025.

Finally, it’s worth noting that there are some well-paying careers that make the list.

In terms of jobs with median earnings well over $100,000 per year, there are a few roles that hit the spot: data scientists ($112.6K), software developers ($133.1K), computer and information systems managers ($171.2K), financial managers ($161.7K), and nurse practitioners ($129.2K) are just a few that stand out.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

Which jobs are the safest from AI? See this infographic on Voronoi to see where the most job security lies.

2026-01-03 21:06:55

Ranked: The Great Lakes by Maximum Depth

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

The Great Lakes are one of North America’s most defining natural features. Together, they hold roughly 20% of the world’s surface fresh water and stretch across more than 94,000 square miles. While they are often discussed as a single system, each lake has a very different underwater landscape.

This visualization maps the maximum depth of each Great Lake, highlighting dramatic contrasts shaped by glaciers, geology, and time.

The data for this visualization comes from WorldAtlas, supported by bathymetric data from NOAA and geographic data from Natural Earth.

Lake Superior: The Deepest Freshwater Giant

Lake Superior is the undisputed heavyweight when it comes to depth. At 1,333 feet (406 meters), it is not only the deepest of the Great Lakes, but also the deepest freshwater lake in the United States. Its immense volume means it contains more water than the other four Great Lakes combined.

Why is depth important? Depth plays a critical role in water temperature, circulation, ecosystems, and even shipping routes. Deeper lakes tend to warm more slowly, mix differently, and support distinct aquatic life compared to shallower ones.

Lake Superior’s depth contributes to colder average temperatures and powerful storms, making the lake both ecologically unique and notoriously dangerous for shipping. Its deep basins were carved by glaciers over thousands of years, leaving behind steep underwater cliffs and trenches.

Lakes Michigan, Ontario, and Huron: Deep but Distinct

Lake Michigan ranks second in depth at 923 feet (281 meters). Unlike the others, it is the only Great Lake located entirely within the United States. Its depth supports major commercial shipping lanes and a diverse aquatic ecosystem.

Lake Ontario follows closely with a maximum depth of 802 feet (244 meters), despite being the smallest by surface area. Lake Huron, at 751 feet (229 meters), appears shallower by comparison but still contains enormous volumes of water due to its sprawling size.

Lake Erie stands apart as the shallowest Great Lake, reaching just 210 feet (64 meters) at its deepest point. Its shallow depth allows it to warm quickly in summer and freeze more easily in winter.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The World’s Forests on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.