Fortunato Brothers Bakery has been hand-making cannolis, cookies, and sfogliatelle in Brooklyn since 1976, using the same recipes the founders brought from Naples, Italy.

On a busy day, the team produces up to 7,500 cannolis or 9,000 cookies, all while sticking to old-school techniques that haven't changed in decades.

Between $90,000 annual insurance policies, $70,000 ovens breaking, and ingredient costs that swing without warning, keeping a 50-year-old bakery alive in New York is a daily fight. But the second-generation owner Biagio Fortunato is determined to keep things running for the next generation.

• Point72 is forming a new executive committee amid a substantial growth spurt.
• Founder Steve Cohen will lead the five-person team.
• Point72 hit $50 billion in assets in April, up from $11 billion in 2018 when it relaunched.

Point72 Asset Management is forming a new executive committee to oversee the hedge fund's increasingly sprawling empire.

Billionaire founder Steve Cohen — the chairman, CEO, and co-CIO of the firm — told staff in an internal memo Thursday that he will lead the new leadership group.

The committee includes four other current executives: co-chief investment officer Harry Schwefel, chief operating officer and chief financial officer Gavin O'Connor, general counsel and chief compliance officer Vincent Tortorella, and chief of staff and head of external affairs Michael "Sully" Sullivan.

The announcement comes as the hedge fund hit $50 billion in assets under management this month. It also puts a formal stamp on a leadership structure that had taken shape as the firm grew from an $11 billion equities-focused fund when it relaunched in 2018 to one of the world's largest hedge funds eight years later. Its head count over that span has grown from 1,200 to more than 3,300.

"As we continue to pursue the growth of existing and new strategies, I want to ensure our management structure matches our current scale and growth ambitions," Cohen wrote in the memo seen by Business Insider. A company spokesperson confirmed the contents of the memo.

Cohen's involvement in the firm — he no longer trades a book personally but runs the firm day-to-day and still convenes its risk calls each morning — is not changing, a company spokesperson said.

Some of the executives' official titles and responsibilities will shift with the formation of the committee.

Here is what Cohen said in the memo:

• Harry will be President and Co-CIO. Harry joined the firm as a PM in 2008, has served as Co-CIO alongside me since 2018, and understands both the synergies and differences across our strategies. Harry will work with Mo Grimeh, Head of Global Macro and Geoffrey Lauprete, Head of Cubist Systematic Strategies to deploy enterprise-wide portfolio analytics (PCAT) resources that are reflective of the unique characteristics of each business and are designed to both support our PMs and aid comprehension at the firm level.
• Gavin will be Executive Vice President, responsible for driving the commercial success of the firm and closer alignment between our investment strategies and the broader organization, ensuring we are positioned to support performance at scale. He will oversee Strategy, Risk, Treasury, Market Intelligence, Technology, and Investor Relations.
• Vinny will be Chief Operating Officer and will lead Investment Services more broadly with a focus on ensuring that the firm operates with strong controls and a scalable, enterprise-wide mindset. In this role, Vinny will oversee Finance, Human Resources, and the CAO organization in addition to Legal, Compliance, Intelligence, and Inclusion & Community.
• Sully will continue in his current role as my Chief of Staff and overseeing Government Relations and Corporate Communications. He will also continue leading the Metropolitan Park project that is developing the land around Citi Field.

In addition to the growth of its calling card fundamental equities business — which was split into two separate brands this year — and its quant-trading division Cubist, the firm's nearly five-fold asset growth has accompanied the birth of several new business units. These include a macro trading unit with 50 PMs, an AI-focused equities fund, Turion, with nearly $4 billion in assets, a private credit fund, and a venture investing team.

Over the last two years, Point72 has added $18 billion in AUM and bested its closest competitors, Citadel, Millennium, and Balyasny, on performance, returning 19% and 17.5% in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

The firm was up 3.8% through March this year, Business Insider previously reported.

Frank Frazier, aka "Bounty Tank," is a bounty hunter from Ohio. He has been a licensed fugitive recovery agent for over 15 years and claims to have made more than 500 arrests.

Frazier talks to Business Insider about how bounty hunters locate, track, and arrest fugitives. He goes into detail about bail agent weapons, gear, and arrest tactics. Frazier also reveals the most important attributes for fugitive recovery agents, how he survives multiday stakeouts, and his de-escalation techniques.

Frazier has filmed himself operating and has created six seasons of "Bounty Tank," a reality show that is streaming on YouTube and Tubi.

His documentary about his recovery, "BARS: Blessings After Real Scars," was released in April.

For more:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Bountytank
https://www.instagram.com/bountytank/

• Netflix is rolling out mobile app changes to get people to think of it beyond the living room.
• Exec Elizabeth Stone laid out how the streamer is trying to help people find a title faster.
• Netflix is also looking to new content types like podcasts to boost daytime watching.

Netflix already conquered your living room — and it wants to make sure you're streaming on your phone, too.

On Thursday, the company rolled out a slew of mobile app updates to help you find something to watch faster and encourage streaming throughout more parts of the day. These changes build on a TV homepage redesign in 2025 that aimed to cut down decision fatigue.

The biggest change is a new "Clips" button that opens to a vertical feed of personalized clips. The Clips feature also includes genre cues, synopses, and a progress bar.

"Members are able to explore the breadth of our catalog in a more snackable and streamlined way by simply swiping through the feed," Elizabeth Stone, Netflix's chief product and technology officer, told Business Insider. "We've also made it easy to jump directly to watch titles or add titles to MyList for later."

Netflix faced a challenge in figuring out the type of vertical video feed subscribers would like.

One important insight the streamer learned: It couldn't just copy TikTok.

Netflix members had gotten used to the streamer's classic rows, and on tapping to get more information before committing. In testing, a design that served people video instantly didn't resonate. The solution was to retain a vertical feed that didn't default to autoplay and kept the iconic rows as a scrolling option.

"As members use the Clips feature over time, and as we add more types of content to the feed, we'll be able to further personalize the experience so the most relevant entertainment for that member surfaces at the right moment," Stone said.

Netflix is also giving top real estate to new buttons promoting its recently added podcasts and "New and Hot," a feed featuring coming titles that used to be at the bottom of the page.

Netflix stressed that these new mobile updates are the first in a coming series.

Later this year, Netflix plans to introduce themed collections of popular genres such as romance, action, and reality TV. It will also emphasize different forms of entertainment that might appeal to people on the go, such as podcast clips, reality TV snippets, or behind-the-scenes content.

Netflix hopes to capture more of people's viewing time during the day, when its engagement has historically been lower. That was one of the reasons behind adding podcasts to its catalog this year.

'Engagement time needs to improve'

Netflix has tried mobile feeds of clips before, with experiments ranging from 2021's Fast Laughs comedy feed to the aptly named "Kids Clips."

Nailing the mobile experience feels more pressing in the current marketplace, though.

Netflix has a wide lead over other traditional entertainment streamers like HBO Max and Disney, capturing about 9% of people's time spent watching TV in the US. However, the time people spend on Netflix per person declined last year, per a Gabelli Funds note.

The phone is also a key to appealing to younger generations who prefer social media content over TV and movies.

Rival streamers, including Disney and Paramount, are likewise trying to level up their mobile experiences.

Jamie Meyers, a senior securities analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments — a Netflix shareholder — said a better app could help Netflix capture passive viewing that's now happening on TikTok and YouTube.

"We think the engagement time needs to improve," he said. "Quality is at an all-time high, pricing power's holding up. At the same time, as they get bigger, it's hard to grow off that base."

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is no longer sold on universal basic income.
• Altman said fixed cash payments may be "useful," but they are not what's truly needed.
• In the age of AI, Altman is much more interested in some sort of collective ownership model.

Sam Altman once spent $14 million of his own money to study universal basic income. Now, the OpenAI CEO says he's not sold on it.

"I no longer believe in universal basic income as much as I once did," Altman told The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson during an interview for his "The Most Interesting Thing in AI" series.

Altman said that while a fixed cash payment may sound nice, it won't meet what society will truly need as AI adoption rises, sparking a potential upheaval in the labor market.

"I think just like a fixed cash payment, although useful and maybe a good idea in some ways, does not get at what we're really going to need for this next phase and the kind of collective alignment of shared upside as the balance between labor and capital shifts," Altman said.

As interest in UBI exploded in 2019, Altman helped raise $60 million, including $14 million of his own money, to fund the largest-of-its-kind experiment giving low-income participants $1,000 a month for three years.

"It's impossible to truly have equality of opportunity without some version of guaranteed income," Altman said when announcing the project.

Researchers ultimately found that while overall spending increased among those who received the cash payments, there was no "direct evidence of improved access to healthcare or improvements to physical and mental health."

Over time, Altman has focused more about twists to the traditional UBI of direct cash payments. The OpenAI CEO has repeatedly suggested the possibility of giving people a portion of AI compute, which could then be used, sold, or traded.

"I'm much more interested in ways where we think about kind of collective ownership that could be in compute or in equities or something else," he said.

OpenAI recently proposed a slightly different model in a white paper outlining an industrial policy for the AI age. In the paper, OpenAI proposed creating a Public Wealth Fund that would provide "every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth."

Both approaches would give society a stake in AI and its future development, perhaps alleviating what Altman and many of his peers now openly acknowledge: AI is becoming less popular.

"I think what people really want is prosperity, agency, the ability to have an interesting life, and to be fulfilled and have some impact," he said.

Altman said that in the end, it's about getting AI into the hands of as many people as possible.

"I think if it's limited and hard to use and not well integrated, then the kind of existing rich people are going to bid up the price," he said, and it's going to lead to further stratification."

• David von Rosen, a German billionaire who founded Lottoland, has lived on six continents.
• After living in locations including the US, South Africa, and Australia, he chose two places to call home.
• Von Rosen now lives between Switzerland and the UAE, a combo he calls "unbeatable."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David von Rosen, 50, the founder of the online lottery company Lottoland. Business Insider has verified his residences and net worth. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

Ever since I was a teenager, I've played a game of imagining all the places I'd like to live.

I grew up in a very small town in central Germany, a rural and safe place, but I knew very early on that I didn't want to stay there. I wanted to explore the world.

Now, I've traveled widely and lived on six different continents. Eventually, in my 40s, I found the perfect combination of two places to call home.

I lived in North America as a teenager

In 1991, when I was 15, I did an exchange trip to Walla Walla, Washington. I stayed with a loving family, and it was a great experience. That's where my love for the US grew, and I thought I wanted to live there forever.

That changed at 19, when I started an undergraduate degree at Northwestern near Chicago. It quickly felt like I was relearning things I already knew, and I felt socially out of place.

I left after a semester, returned to Germany, and enrolled at the European Business School near Frankfurt in 1996, which had a strong emphasis on studying abroad.

Buenos Aires was beautiful, but too far from family

As part of my studies, I spent time in Buenos Aires, a beautiful city. I learned a new language and visited places like Patagonia. Argentina was out of the ordinary, but I was never tempted to live there. It was simply too far away from my family in Europe.

Interning in Australia made me fall in love with Sydney

I also got the opportunity to live in Sydney while at EBS, interning for a bank from late 2000 to early 2001. I lived on Bondi Beach and fell in love with the city's casual vibe. After work, we'd often have a beer on the beach.

Everyone was friendly and relaxed, and I loved the combination of city and beach life. I wanted to live in Sydney again one day, but that never happened.

I still think about owning a small beach house in Cape Town

After graduating in 2001 and working in the US for a short while, I came up with a business idea to launch in Germany. I moved to Munich in 2002 and launched my student loan company, CareerConcept.

In 2008, when I sensed CareerConcept was coming to an end, I wanted to try something new.

My then-girlfriend, now wife, lived in Cape Town, South Africa, for almost six months. I loved the city, especially the morning runs where I could smell and see the ocean.

I never moved back to South Africa, but I still think about one day owning a small beach house in Cape Town.

When I started doing well financially, we explored more of the world

In 2012, I already had the idea for Lottoland, the online betting company. It made sense to launch it in Gibraltar, where I worked with regulators to get a gambling license. We moved there in 2013, and the company did very well, significantly changing my financial circumstances.

By 2018, I had stepped back from day-to-day operations. My wife and I decided to spend a few months each year in different places with our two children.

We spent time in Costa Rica, where the kids attended an American school, and I surfed and explored Central America.

We also went to Dubai for a semester. I got to know the city well. There are a lot of business opportunities, as well as money and ambition. It's what I imagine New York was like in the 1920s. I really fell in love with it.

The combination of Switzerland and the UAE is unbeatable

We'd lived in a lot of warm places. In 2020, at 45, we decided to go somewhere colder. We found a school in Verbier, Switzerland, and moved that January. We'd only planned to stay a couple of months, but when COVID-19 hit, we ended up staying longer.

Verbier is an international community, with a small-town vibe that reminded me of where I grew up. In the winter, we got to ski, and in the spring, we discovered so many other new sports, like mountaineering and downhill biking. By summer, we'd decided to stay for good.

I came to realize that there's probably no single place to live that ticks all the boxes. That's why, if you have the freedom to live in more than one place, it can be a wise decision.

We split our year between Dubai and Verbier, and decide how long we spend in each based on the weather, work opportunities, and the kids' schooling.

Verbier is a small town that's all about outdoor activities. Dubai, by contrast, is a buzzing city full of energy and opportunity. The combination of the two places, I realized, was unbeatable for us.

It's no secret that both are low-tax jurisdictions, but that should never be a deciding factor on where to live. I'd rather pay more tax and live in the best place possible. It just happens that these offer a great quality of life without exorbitant taxes.

Together, Dubai and Verbier offer the best lifestyle combination I could ever imagine. I hope that they will be my family's bases for many years to come.

• Real GDP rose at an annualized rate of 2% in the first quarter of 2026, just short of the expected 2.2%.
• That's higher than the 0.5% rise in the fourth quarter of 2025.
• Investment in software and computer equipment was high, reflecting the ongoing data center boom.

The US started 2026 with a comeback.

US real gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 2% in the first quarter, short of the 2.2% expected but above the 0.5% rise in the fourth quarter of 2025.

"Compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, the acceleration in real GDP in the first quarter of 2026 reflected upturns in government spending and exports, and an acceleration in investment that were partly offset by a deceleration in consumer spending," the new release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis said. "Imports turned up."

Federal spending bounced back after the record-long government shutdown, rising at a 9.3% annualized rate after the 16.6% drop in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Private domestic investment rose 8.7%, far surpassing the previous 2.3%. Investment in the data center boom is still going strong. Information processing equipment investment, which includes AI and data center investments, rose 43.4% after a 37% rise in the fourth. Investment in software grew at a 22.6% rate, up from 4.8% in the fourth.

Consumer spending slowed again but is still growing, rising 1.6%, with goods dropping 0.1% and services rising 2.4%.

Personal consumption expenditures price index rose 4.5%, up from the previous 2.9%.

Other data releases show how the economy was shaping up at the start of the year. The job market continued to fluctuate between job growth and job loss. The US added 178,000 jobs in March, largely driven by healthcare and leisure and hospitality. That comes after a 133,000 loss in February due to weather and a healthcare strike. Unemployment is still hovering around 4%.

The effects of the Iran war showed up in the recent consumer price index report, with CPI rising 3.3% over the year, the largest increase since May 2024, due to a surge in energy prices. The effects haven't really shown up in core prices yet, which excludes volatile food and energy prices.

Atsi Sheth, the chief credit officer at Moody's Ratings, described the economy ahead of the GDP report as "fragile resilience" because the US isn't in a recession, and both business and consumers are still holding up. The economy has also been fairly resistant to trade shocks, she added. However, she said the pillars holding up the economy are increasingly thinning as more shocks emerge.

"On the employment side, for instance, there's just now a narrower range of sectors that are actually adding jobs, healthcare being a big one among them, not that many other sectors are adding jobs," she said.

Jason Draho, the head of asset allocation for the Americas for UBS Global Wealth Management, told Business Insider before the new GDP release that the figure was expected to be noisy, as it has been because of the effect of trade policies. "What I would focus on is the private sector final demand in the US economy, because that kind of ignores inventory effects and ignores net exports, which can be volatile," he said.

"Once you strip out some of the volatility and noise from some of these factors that are still being buffeted by the tariffs and then later in the quarter by the Iran conflict, that mechanically, again, can distort import prices, export prices, and the value of it based on moving commodity prices," Draho added.

The new GDP report comes one day after the Fed's decision to keep interest rates steady. That was the last meeting with Jerome Powell as Fed Chair.

"He's had to deal with just what is seemingly never-ending string of massive shocks to the economy, from the pandemic to the Russian war and Ukraine, to the tariffs, to the immigration policy, and now to the Iran war," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

In the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, the first sign of the "bursting" came when the leaders — like Amazon.com — started missing projections. Flash forward some 26 years, and we learned Monday that OpenAI is missing revenue and user projections, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So the question for the OpenAI community — and the much broader community fueling and feasting on the AI market bubble — is whether OpenAI's problems are limited to OpenAI… or a sign that this first jaw-dropping era of AI euphoria and growth is coming to an end.

Playing catch-up

The Journal's story reported that OpenAI "recently missed its own targets for new users and revenue." Specifically, OpenAI missed its internal goal of reaching 1 billion weekly users (an eighth of the people on the planet) by the end of last year — and still hasn't reported hitting this milestone. It also missed its revenue targets last year and in the early months of this year, after Google Gemini and Anthropic caught up in terms of capability and began eating into OpenAI's market share. The company pushed back on the report, but the news still knocked the Nasdaq down a bit, with companies exposed to OpenAI getting the worst of it. But the bigger issue coming out of the Journal report is less about the exact targets and more about the reality that the market is finite and that other AI companies are "catching up" to OpenAI.

When a benchmarking firm announced a few months ago that Google's Gemini had surpassed OpenAI's ChatGPT in some performance metrics, I suggested that OpenAI was "in trouble." My logic was that many of those who remain euphorically bullish about OpenAI despite its almost-trillion-dollar valuation and woozifying cash burn often justify their optimism by saying, "OpenAI is the Google or Amazon of AI." Maybe it will be. But it's worth noting three things:

1. The Google of the internet — Google — barely existed during the dot-com bubble. Back then, Yahoo and AOL were the "Googles of the internet." Everyone thought they would be the "Googles of the internet" forever. Turned out, they weren't.

2. The Amazon of the internet — Amazon — grew like a bat out of hell in the latter half of the 1990s, and its stock exploded to levels that were, at the time, astonishing. Then growth slowed, and the stock dropped more than 90%. So, even if OpenAI does go on to become "the Amazon of AI," it may still go through a brutal fight-for-survival period. This period will be painful, and its valuation may collapse.
3. Even as Amazon's growth slowed and stock tanked, no other company ever "caught up" to Amazon. At its lowest, it was still leaving Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and all other challengers in the dust. OpenAI cannot say the same.

What it means for OpenAI to be the "Amazon of AI"

It's worth spending a bit more time on this Amazon comparison, because the trajectory of the e-commerce behemoth can give us some perspective on where OpenAI stands now.

Let me take you back to the end of 1999, the last euphoric year of the early internet bubble. Amazon's stock peaked in early December. Then, the company reported its fourth-quarter earnings in early January 2000. The numbers were "very good but not spectacular," according to a Merrill Lynch analyst named Henry Blodget, as quoted by Saul Hansell in The New York Times. Specifically, Amazon's revenue fell short of Wall Street's "whisper number," a sort of informal projection among the analysts watching the company. The pace of revenue growth, while still otherworldly, slowed to a mere 157%, and Amazon lost $323 million that quarter, more than expected. (Couch change compared to AI losses, but meaningful in those days.)

There were, of course, excuses. I remember that one of them was that Amazon had bought too much toy inventory for its new toy store. Amazon said it would learn from the experience and get better at inventory management. Amazon did get better, but despite the operational tweaks, that was the top.

The Merrill Lynch analyst, Henry Blodget, should have downgraded the stock and sold his own position. Alas, he didn't. Instead, he rode it all the way down until it almost went bankrupt a year later. Fortunately, Amazon didn't go bankrupt. It went on to become "the Amazon of the internet" — one of the few leaders of that era to ever regain and then blow past its bubble high. In so doing, Amazon generated so much shareholder value that it made up for the zeroes in all the other internet bets that many internet investors — including this one — incurred.

Maybe OpenAI will do that.

But maybe we've just gotten the reminder that all markets are finite, even in the age of incredible technology like AI. And that, in finite markets, valuation does eventually matter.

At some point, if OpenAI wants to make its shareholders money, it will have to generate, say, $20 billion of annual profit to justify its current ~$1 trillion valuation (which would equate to 50 times earnings). To bring the comparison back, Amazon generated $77 billion in profit last year — more than 30 years after its founding — and only started showing signs of sustainable profit in the early 2000s. So, a long march to big returns is possible.

On the other hand, some of Amazon's internet 1.0 competitors, like AOL and Yahoo, generate almost no profit these days. Given that OpenAI is expected to burn around $200 billion of cash before it starts generating profits, following the Amazon path will require a major change in the company's financial trajectory, and missing revenue and user benchmarks is a serious misstep toward that goal.

Even if the troubles are limited to OpenAI, reality will eventually catch up with the euphoric AI economy. When it does, most of the current crop of AI startups will die, and valuations across the sector will compress, as they have in prior innovation bubbles (the internet, railroads, etc.). Then, if past is prologue, a handful of AI companies should survive the Darwinian shakeout and go on to inherit the earth. Does OpenAI's slowing growth mean the AI shakeout has begun? We'll see. But the innovation-boom pattern is as old as the hills.

As one of my cynical veteran colleagues back in the internet days was fond of saying: "Many turtles hatch. Few make it to the sea."

A version of this piece originally ran in Regenerator; it is reprinted here with permission.

Henry Blodget is the cofounder and former CEO of Business Insider. He now writes the Regenerator newsletter and hosts the Solutions podcast. He has a range of investments, including shares of Amazon.

• A Jet2 flight from Turkey to London diverted to Bulgaria due to a disruptive passenger.
• The airline said it wants a national database to ban disruptive passengers from all UK airlines.
• Such incidents have become more common since the pandemic, causing a headache for carriers.

A British airline is calling for a database to help ban disruptive passengers from flying.

"We are lobbying for the creation of a national database so that as well as being banned from flying with us, disruptive passengers will also be banned from flying with other UK airlines," Jet2 said in a statement shared with Business Insider.

As well as its impossibly catchy, memeable ads, Jet2 is known for its vacation packages and no-frills flights to destinations around Europe. Its statement comes after one of its flights had to divert on Monday due to unruly travelers.

The Airbus A321neo was flying from Antalya, Turkey, to London, when a pair of passengers began misbehaving.

Footage circulating on social media showed a man threatening other passengers and shouting abuse, before being escorted off the airplane by military police.

Data from Flightradar24 shows how the jet U-turned over Romania and diverted to Sofia, Bulgaria.

"As a family-friendly airline we take a zero-tolerance approach to disruptive passenger behavior, and we can confirm that we have banned these two passengers from flying with us for life," Jet2 said. "We will vigorously pursue them to recover any losses that we incurred as a result of their behavior — and we will not hesitate to use the courts."

Such incidents have also become more common compared to before the pandemic. Statistics from the Federal Aviation Administration show how unruly passenger reports jumped from about 1,000 to 6,000 between 2020 and 2021. The numbers have dropped off since, but still reached over 1,600 last year.

Diversions are not only a nuisance for passengers and crew alike, but can also be costly for airlines.

Passengers may need to be paid compensation, and their journeys could be well delayed, especially if the pilots turn back to the airport where they started. A diversion can also leave an airplane in an unexpected location and have a knock-on effect on an airline's schedule.

Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, has often sought to recoup such costs from passengers. In 2025, it sued a passenger it alleged had forced a flight to divert, claiming over $15,000 in damages. Later that year, the budget carrier also asked the Spanish courts to fine or potentially imprison another disruptive passenger, who tried to take a seat that wasn't his and caused the flight to take off late.

• The Met Gala takes place on the first Monday in May each year.
• Anna Wintour has tapped celebrities to co-chair since taking over the event in 1995.
• Co-chairs help promote the event and plan its theme, dinner, and performances.

Being invited to the Met Gala is one thing, but being named a co-chair of the annual event is an even bigger honor.

In 1995, then-Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour began cohosting the event alongside fellow editors, socialites, and even European royalty. In more recent years, she's passed the job on to designers, actors, musicians, and even athletes.

But what do the Met Gala co-chairs do, and who's previously held the title?

While Wintour has never revealed their exact role, it's rumored that co-chairs help plan the event's dress code, dinner, and performances.

They're also among the first stars to arrive on the red carpet each year, helping exemplify the night's dress code, and their names are used to promote the annual event in the months leading up to it.

The 2026 Met Gala co-chairs are Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, Wintour, and honorary co-chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.

Here's a look back at who's held the honor in the past.

2025: Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, and ASAP Rocky

LeBron James was named an honorary co-chair, but he was unable to attend the Met Gala due to a knee injury.

The theme was "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," with a dress code of "Tailored for You."

2024: Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya, Chris Hemsworth, and Bad Bunny

The theme of 2024's celebration was "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion," which brought back vintage looks and styles that hadn't been seen in years.

2023: Michaela Coel, Dua Lipa, Roger Federer, and Penélope Cruz

The theme honored Chanel icon Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, with "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty."

2022: Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Regina King

The 2021/2022 Met Gala was a two-part event, with the first part held in September 2021 and the second in May 2022.

In 2022, the Met Gala returned for the culmination of the American-themed two-part celebration.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who missed out on the chance to co-chair in 2020, helmed the event alongside husband-and-wife duo Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and overall icon Regina King, who didn't walk the carpet at the big event.

2021: Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman, Timothée Chalamet, and Naomi Osaka

Part one of the two-part Met Gala, which was held in September 2021, was sponsored by Instagram and themed "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion."

2020: Meryl Streep, Nicolas Ghesquière, Emma Stone, and Lin-Manuel Miranda

The 2020 Met Gala was, of course, canceled due to the pandemic. But had it taken place as scheduled on May 4, the theme would've been "About Time: Fashion and Duration," sponsored by Ghesquière's Louis Vuitton.

2019: Serena Williams, Harry Styles, then-Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele, and Lady Gaga

2019's theme was "Camp: Notes on Fashion," and it was sponsored by Gucci. It was another legendary Met Gala, with many iconic looks still referenced today — and at least a few memes we still use.

2018: Donatella Versace, Amal Clooney, and Rihanna

Rihanna's Met Gala looks had long earned her the title of "Queen of the Met Gala," and in 2018, she added the title of co-chair. The year's theme was a bold one: "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination." It was sponsored by Versace and Christine and Stephen Schwarzman, who also served as co-chairs.

Stephen Schwarzman is a cofounder and CEO of The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that has a stake in Versace.

2017: Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Pharrell Williams, and Katy Perry

The 2017 theme was "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between," celebrating the Japanese brand, and was a joint sponsorship between Apple, Condé Nast, Farfetch, H&M, and Maison Valentino.

2016: Idris Elba and Taylor Swift

The event, fittingly sponsored by Apple, was themed "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology."

The evening's honorary hosts were returnees Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Miuccia Prada.

It's believed that Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn met at the 2016 Met Gala. A lyric in Swift's song "Dress" describes each of their looks from the event. Swift and Alwyn's relationship would last for six years.

2015: Jennifer Lawrence and Gong Li

In addition to the actresses, then-CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, and entrepreneur/movie producer/third wife of Rupert Murdoch, Wendi Murdoch, also hosted the event, plus honorary chair and Hong Kong billionaire Silas Chou.

2014: Bradley Cooper and Sarah Jessica Parker

The other hosts for the "Charles James: Beyond Fashion"-themed night were Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Aerin Lauder, and Oscar de la Renta.

2013: Former Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, Rooney Mara, and Vogue editor Lauren Santo Domingo

This year's theme, "Punk: Chaos to Couture," remains one of the most iconic Met Gala themes. In addition to these four, Beyoncé was an honorary co-chair.

2012: Carey Mulligan

"Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" was the theme of 2012's Met Gala, which was also chaired by Miuccia Prada.

2011: Colin Firth and Stella McCartney

That year's theme was "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" to honor McQueen after his death in February 2010.

2010: Former Gap Vice President Patrick Robinson and Oprah Winfrey

The night, which was sponsored by Gap, was themed "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity."

2009: Justin Timberlake and Kate Moss

The 2009 Met Ball was themed "The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion."

2008: Julia Roberts and George Clooney

The gala's theme was "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy."

2007: Cate Blanchett and Nicolas Ghesquière, Balenciaga's creative director

The evening was themed "Poiret: King of Fashion," dedicated to legendary designer Paul Poiret.

2006: Burberry design legend Christopher Bailey and Sienna Miller

Fittingly, the Burberry and British-heavy night was themed "AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion."

2005: Nicole Kidman and Karl Lagerfeld

Of course, as the night's theme was "House of Chanel," no one but Lagerfeld could've been a chair.

2004: No co-chairs

The 2004 Met Gala had no co-chairs beyond Wintour. The year's theme was "Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century."

2003: Tom Ford and Nicole Kidman

The evening's theme was "Goddess: The Classical Mode."

2001: Oscar de la Renta and his wife, Annette, and designer Carolina Herrera

L'Oréal CEO Lindsay Owen-Jones and his wife, Cristina, also chaired the "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years"-themed event, as L'Oréal was the night's sponsor.

The Met Gala was canceled in 2002 in the wake of 9/11, and next occurred in 2003.

1999: Estée Lauder's style-and-image director, Aerin Lauder, and Tommy Hilfiger

The last Met Gala of the 20th century was themed "Rock Style." There was no Met Gala in 2000, so the first Met Gala of the 21st century wasn't held until 2001.

1998: Designer Miuccia Prada and socialite Pia Getty.

The theme was "Cubism and Fashion," and it was sponsored by Prada, the brand.

1997: Socialite Julia Koch and W and Women's Wear Daily editorial director Patrick McCarthy

That year's theme was "Gianni Versace," dedicated to the designer after his death in July 1997.

1996: Harper's Bazaar editor in chief Elizabeth Tilberis, Marie-Chantal, the Crown Princess of Greece, and philanthropist and socialite Helene David-Weill

The theme of the 1996 Met Gala was simply "Christian Dior."

1995: Annette de la Renta and Clarissa Bronfman

The first Met Gala that was chaired by Anna Wintour occurred on December 4, 1995. Legendary designers Gianni Versace and Karl Lagerfeld were honorary chairs that year, and the theme was "Haute Couture."

Annette de la Renta was the wife of designer Oscar de La Renta (who died in 2014), while Bronfman is the wife of Edgar Bronfman Jr., a legendary businessman, producer, and former CEO of Warner Music Group.

• Mark Cuban said AI is reshaping work, and how you use it could make or break your career.
• The investor said workers who use AI to do their work without learning themselves will struggle.
• AI researchers have warned that overreliance on the tech could erode critical thinking.

Mark Cuban says artificial intelligence is already reshaping the workplace — but how you use it could determine whether your career accelerates or stalls.

Speaking on the Big Technology Podcast at the Dallas Regional Chamber's Convergence AI event on Wednesday, the billionaire investor drew a sharp line between two types of workers emerging in the AI era: those who use the technology to deepen their learning, and those who use it to cut corners.

"I think right now we're bifurcating into two types of ways or two types of people that use AI — people who use AI so they don't have to learn anything and people who use AI so they can learn everything," Cuban said.

The difference could be career-defining.

"If you're just using it just so you don't have to do the work and it's your drunk intern, you're going to struggle," he added, referencing his earlier analogy that AI can function like a tireless assistant handling repetitive tasks.

Cuban's warning echoes a broader concern among AI researchers that overreliance on the technology could erode critical thinking.

Vivienne Ming, chief scientist at the Possibility Institute, said AI is creating a growing divide between workers who use it to sharpen their thinking and a much larger group who rely on it to think for them — a shift she warned could lead to long-term cognitive decline.

John Nosta, an innovation theorist and founder of NostaLab, said AI is also reshaping how people think by flipping the natural learning process, delivering polished answers before workers have time to question or understand them, which can weaken judgment.

Others like Rebecca Hinds, head of the Work AI Institute at workplace search company Glean, have said that AI can create an "illusion of expertise," making workers feel more capable even as their underlying skills erode.

On the Big Technology Podcast, Cuban warned that using AI as a shortcut instead of a learning tool could backfire.

"People get nervous when people just use it without caring or trying to learn," he said.

Instead, Cuban believes AI's real advantage lies in its ability to accelerate curiosity. Workers who use it to explore topics, challenge assumptions, and build deeper knowledge will gain a lasting edge.

"Those people who are curious and just want to keep on learning more, AI is phenomenal. You will always have an edge over everybody around you," he said.

That edge matters because, despite the hype, Cuban doesn't see AI replacing all jobs. Rather, he expects it to eliminate routine work while increasing demand for critical thinking.

"If all you're doing is reformatting, you know, or you're answering a question yes or no, then you know you're there's a good chance you're going to be replaced by AI," he said.

"If you learn how to use these tools, and you know how to think critically, you're curious, so you're always learning, you're always going to have a job because AI doesn't know the consequences of its action," he added.

• My family of five moved in with my parents earlier this year.
• Seeing my parents get everyday moments with their grandkids has been so much fun.
• Multigenerational living has plenty of benefits, but the time they spend together is priceless.

My mom has always been a barrel of fun. She has one of those vivacious personalities and is full of high-spirited energy. It's hard to feel glum when she's in the room, because she just ups the vibe, even at 77.

One of my favorite new sounds is her very distinct laugh mixed in with the laughter of my three children through the floorboards in her house. Usually, mom's playing "cocoon" with the kids, whereby she rolls them up in her doona, then yanks one side and sends them shooting across the bed. They love it.

Hearing my children having fun with Nana has become a daily occurrence in our household. In January, we moved from regional Victoria, in Australia, to the Gold Coast, to be closer to my parents. To save money, my folks offered us the downstairs of their double-story house.

There are pros and cons to multi-generational living, but so far, the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives. For me, the biggest positive is the time my kids are spending with their grandparents, and vice versa.

My folks are actively involved

Living with my parents means they're actively involved in the kids' lives. They help with school pick-ups and drop-offs, as well as getting them off to gymnastics or football practice.

For my folks, I think being hands-on in the kids' day-to-day lives has given them a stronger sense of purpose. They know that at 81 and 77, they're still very much needed and appreciated.

It's also really helped my husband and me to juggle work and family commitments. Having that extra set of hands or wheels has been a huge help. We might even sneak in a long-overdue date next month, though we're careful not to treat my folks like live-in babysitters.

It's less rushed, more authentic

Rather than limiting catch-ups to the occasional visit once or twice a year, my parents get to see the everyday moments that make up our kids' lives.

Most nights, my mom bathes the girls, who are 3 and 7, and helps my older daughter with her homework while my dad watches football with my 10-year-old son. They share in the little triumphs, whether at school or on the sporting field, and help us navigate the challenging times, like the occasional toddler meltdown.

All of these tiny moments add up to build a deeper, more authentic relationship between our kids and their grandparents.

More adults means more attention, love, and support

Our kids have always been close to my folks. I think for them, having two extra people who love them on hand to offer support has been a real benefit.

If my son comes home with friendship troubles, he now has four role models to turn to for advice. I often overhear him asking Mom about all sorts of different topics, and I smile to myself. They share a special bond, and living together is only enhancing their connection.

When our 7-year-old wants to show off her gymnastics tricks, she always has a captive audience in Nana and Pop. Meanwhile, our 3-year-old has my poor dad wrapped around her tiny, little finger. All she has to say is, "More lollies, please, Pop," and he's at her service.

There's a stronger sense of family identity

Mom and Dad are both great storytellers. They've had interesting lives, traveled all over the world, met some incredible people, and lived on their own terms.

Storytelling has become part of our daily household life. At the dinner table, they share tales about their childhood, what it was like to grow up in Africa (Mom), how they came through tough times, and nuggets of wisdom they've discovered along the way.

These stories are so important, because they're giving our children a sense of family identity. These are the people who shaped my life, and I'm so glad our kids will grow up knowing them and understanding their roots.

There are so many benefits to multi-generational living, from the financial advantages to the logistical support. But by far my favorite thing about it is the deep connections my kids are forming with their grandparents.

Rather than fleeting visits a few times a year, they're spending quality time together. I know that in the long run, those memories, like our mornings together on my parents' veranda, will be golden.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

There's no official leaderboard for AI spending in Big Tech, but companies are competing like there is one.

Tech giants' intent to pour billions of dollars into their AI bets remains unwavering. Microsoft jumped ahead this time, announcing plans to spend $190 billion in capital expenditures this year.

With four companies and more than $12 trillion in market cap reporting in one day, there's a lot to unpack.

Amazon: AWS enjoyed its best growth since 2022, with sales jumping 28% last quarter. And there are more opportunities ahead. Amazon hinted it could start selling its Trainium AI chips to external customers within the next two years.

Amazon didn't adjust its capital expenditure plans — last quarter it said it planned to spend $200 billion this year — but there was a noticeable drop in its free cash flow. Like … a 95% drop compared with the same quarter last year.

CEO Andy Jassy said it takes time for the value of those investments to manifest, but acknowledged the short-term pain.

"However, in times of very high growth, like now, where the capex growth meaningfully outpaces the revenue growth, the early years, free cash flow is challenged," he said.

P.S. to the shoppers: The Prime Day sale is moving from July to June.

Google: Subs are on the rise at the search giant, and executives are crediting AI. CFO Anat Ashkenazi said Google One subscriptions "benefited from increased demand for AI plans." The company's subscriptions, platforms, and devices business grew 19%, and Google says it has 350 million paying subscribers across its services.

It's an interesting twist for a company whose bread and butter is advertising. Google isn't straying too far from the path, though.

Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said Google was open to including ads on its Gemini App.

"If done well, ads can be really valuable," he said.

Google would know!

Meta: Does Mark Zuckerberg love anything as much as spending big on AI? It's tough to say. Yet again, the Meta CEO told investors its capex spending will grow to keep pace in the AI race.

But Meta CFO Susan Li isn't sweating it. She said the company runs "a very sort of ROI based process to make sure that we are funding all of the ads initiatives that we think will drive growth in future years."

One thing Li hasn't cracked the code on: How many employees Meta actually needs.

Li said she "doesn't really know" what the company's ideal headcount looks like. "I think there's a lot of change right now, with AI capabilities advancing rapidly," she said.

That's tricky considering the company has already committed to cutting 10% of its workforce next month.

Microsoft: It's not letting up on spending, but headcount is another story. CFO Amy Hood expects to reduce employee headcount in the coming quarters.

"We continue to evolve how we operate to increase our pace and agility, and therefore we expect headcount will decrease year over year," Hood said.

That's in line with what Hood said in an internal memo viewed by BI's Ashley Stewart. The CFO praised Microsoft workers' "increased pace" and "tighter, more accountable squads."

• Ukraine has shifted from aid recipient to a security provider.
• Allies want its battlefield tech, tactics, and production know-how.
• Ukrainian troops and experts are now helping train NATO forces.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many predicted that Russia's far greater military might would secure it a swift victory.

Instead, Ukrainian forces drove the Russians away from the capital, forcing them into a brutal yearslong fight in the east. And throughout its fight, Ukraine has developed weaponry, tactics, and defense production processes that partner nations now want.

"In the last two years, in particular, it's been very obvious that Ukraine has developed technologies as well as battlefield tactics that are of use to other military organizations," former Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist, told Business Insider.

Now, partners want access to Ukrainian weaponry, to learn from its production techniques, and to integrate Ukrainian tactics into their own militaries.

Ukraine's armed forces are now "undoubtedly the most combat-hardened and the best at the moment in Europe," Michael Clarke, a former UK security advisor and now a defense analyst, told BI. And allies are paying attention.

Ukraine is teaching allies

Partner countries have long trained Ukrainian troops to fight Russia, but increasingly the roles are being reversed, with Ukrainians sharing their expertise with NATO militaries and joining their training programs, particularly on drone warfare.

NATO last year opened the Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) to integrate Ukraine's battlefield lessons into the alliance.

Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of NATO's Military Committee, said this week that the alliance has been increasingly using Ukrainian drone operators to act as the adversary in training exercises for the alliance, to test NATO readiness. He said that Ukraine has transitioned from a security consumer to a security provider.

German army chief, Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding, told Reuters in March that Ukraine was sending military instructors to German army schools to teach them lessons they learned in the war, explaining that "the Ukrainian military is currently ⁠the only one in the world with front-line experience against Russia."

Denmark is also using Ukrainian drone specialists for counter-drone efforts, and Poland on Monday announced a new drone fleet backed by Ukrainian expertise

Western training for Ukrainian troops is continuing. Western militaries often have decades of experience and training in types of warfare and weapons with which Ukraine's military is less familiar. But increasingly, these training sessions are serving as an exchange of tactics and combat approaches, not a one-way street.

Ukrainian troops have at times pushed back on Western training, explaining why some tactics are unlikely to work against Russia while also feeding front-line experiences back to their instructors. That know-how is reshaping how partner militaries train their own forces, trainers in a UK-led program told Business Insider.

On the opening of a new training camp for Ukrainian soldiers in Poland last year, Poland's defense minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said, "This is not a one-way process," sharing that "we will be drawing on Ukrainian experiences."

Ukrainian tech is in demand

Officials across NATO say Ukrainian defense tech is crucial for future warfighting. Secretary General Mark Rutte said last year that "Ukraine is a powerhouse when it comes to military innovation and anti-drone technology" and that Ukraine's willingness to share expertise with allies is "very important."

Ukraine says multiple allies have expressed interest in buying its weaponry, but exports remain limited as the war takes priority.

Foreign interest accelerated with the start of the Iran war, as the US and partners faced drone threats similar to those Ukraine has fought for years.

Those threats drove demand for Ukraine's cheap interceptor drones and its expertise in countering such attacks. Ukraine said its technology is now being used in the region, with its experts advising partners on air defense.

Ukraine's defense industrial base has a "world-first advantage," Clarke said, calling it "the best and only supplier of short-term anti-drone technologies that are proven and can be produced very quickly."

"Ukraine has become a center of expertise," Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Program, told Business Insider. The war, he said, "has significantly strengthened Ukraine's position globally."

Ukraine is also producing weapons in partner countries to speed output and reduce risk from attacks, a process that exposes Western firms to its methods.

Partners want to learn from how Ukraine makes weapons, acknowledging that Ukraine is often able to do it faster and cheaper, with different processes, less red tape, and more collaboration with soldiers. NATO officials have praised Ukraine's speed and innovation and said Western firms should take note.

Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark's defense minister, previously told BI that he wants his country's defense firms to learn from Ukrainian ones, to "get some of the lessons learned from the defense companies in Ukraine back to Danish defense companies."

He also said producing Ukrainian weapons in Denmark would give its military access to newer technologies and combat experience.

Norway's defense minister said this week that a deal to produce Ukrainian drones in Norway "strengthens Norway's defense industry."

Western companies are also teaming up with Ukrainian ones to work in Ukraine, seeking to benefit from their battle-driven innovation.

Ihor Fedirko, the CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, a body that represents more than 100 companies, told BI that foreign companies working in Ukraine engage with Ukrainian local specialists, so that allies "have the opportunity to get this battlefield experience and expertise directly from our army."

Ukraine is increasingly making more of its own weaponry, but it still relies on advanced Western hardware. The US, for example, makes key weaponry like air defense systems that Ukraine has no replacements for.

Kyiv aims to decrease its dependence on foreign technology and lean more on funding and partnerships, using its growing expertise to deepen long-term ties with partners.

• Charlie Javice was convicted of tricking JPMorgan Chase into buying her startup for $175 million.
• Javice has worn a GPS monitoring ankle bracelet while appealing her 2025 conviction.
• She is now asking to ditch the device over "health matters."

Charlie Javice is trying to ditch her GPS ankle bracelet again.

Javice has been free on $2 million bail since March 2025, when a federal jury in Manhattan found she used wildly inflated data to trick JPMorgan Chase into buying her student financial aid platform, Frank, for $175 million.

The Miami resident has worn an ankle monitor since then as an appeal delays her seven-year fraud sentence.

Defense lawyers have argued since 2024 that the ankle bracelet impacts her health and makes it difficult for Javice to work as a Pilates instructor. Her judge approved the bracelet's removal later that year, but ordered it back on last March, after her conviction.

This latest bid to be sprung from monitoring doesn't mention Pilates. Instead, it vaguely references "health matters" and cites her perfect compliance with the court and probation officers while out on bail.

But she'll have to fight federal prosecutors, who want the ankle monitor to stay put as she seeks to overturn her March 2025 fraud verdict.

Her dual US-France citizenship has been a sticking point for prosecutors. During bail arguments and at sentencing, they said the US does not have an extradition agreement with France, should she flee there.

"The Government has indicated its opposition to this application," Javice's lawyer wrote in asking this week for the bracelet's removal.

This latest ankle monitor battle may drag on for another three weeks or more: On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who presided over her Manhattan trial, gave prosecutors until May 19 to file their response.

"In the immediate aftermath of the verdict and the approach of sentencing, Ms. Javice was confronting pressing personal and health matters that required her immediate attention, and she focused on those issues," Javice's attorney, Ronald Sullivan, wrote the judge in asking this week for the bracelet's removal.

"Accordingly, she has endured the GPS ankle monitor for more than a year," Sullivan wrote.

Javice's Florida probation officer now supports the bracelet's removal, and the judge himself noted at sentencing that "I am convinced that she will not flee, that her life is here," Sullivan argued, quoting Hellerstein.

"That was seven months ago," Sullivan added. "Since then, Ms. Javice has remained in full compliance with every condition of her release."

The Frank platform helped students fill out federal financial aid applications. During acquisition negotiations, Javice claimed Frank had 4 million Gen Z users — college-ready young adults the bank hoped to pitch for credit cards and checking accounts.

Javice was a Forbes 30-under-30 honoree at the time, and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon had taken a 30-minute meeting with the young entrepreneur during negotiations for the purchase.

In fact, Frank's user base never exceeded 300,000, something missed by some 300 of the bank's in-house diligence officers who had vetted the acquisition.

"Audacious, multi-faceted, fueled by greed," prosecutor Micah Festa Fergenson called the fraud during sentencing.

Since her conviction, Hellerstein has denied a motion by Javice and Frank cofounder Olivier Amar for a new trial. She remains embroiled in a battle with JPMorgan over more than $78 million in legal bills, which Javice says the bank is contractually obligated to pay.

• This month has provided more than a few twists and turns for markets.
• Stocks embarked upon a torrid rally back to record highs, while oil saw a V-shaped bounce above $120.
• Detailed below are three market moves that show just how wild April was.

A lot has happened since the beginning of April. The US sent a spacecraft around the moon and back. They had Coachella (twice) and also Stagecoach. Spirit Airlines was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, and now the US government wants to bail it out. Life comes at you fast.

When you include the Iran war and its assorted developments, we really packed a lot into a single month.

And that doesn't even include the madness in markets, which churned out historically impressive superlatives seemingly on a daily basis. There have been streaks galore in stocks, which rallied off multi-month March 30 lows with a rarely seen ferocity. Markets have had a moment in April, and the moves to go along with it.

It was difficult to pick just three stats to highlight, but ultimately, the three below best embody where investors' heads are heading into May. (Note that we are pacing for these superlatives as of the April 29 close. Monthly figures are subject to change, especially with so many tech companies reporting earnings.)

1. The S&P 500's best month since 2020

The benchmark index's roaring more-than-9% gain in April can best be attributed to one simple pivot: investors started looking past Iran-war headwinds and towards accelerating earnings growth.

Once traders got comfortable with the progress being made during peace talks, it was an easy choice to pile back into depressed stocks. Profit growth is historically the primary engine of returns, and earnings revisions were coming fast and furious.

2. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index's best month since 2000

Normally, dot-com-adjacent superlatives are a red flag. But in this case — based on how the index is hanging in there after an epic winning streak — it can be viewed as a sign of strength.

That streak ended up capping out at 18 days, the longest-ever for the index. During the period, the SOX got a major lift from strong earnings (and earnings forecasts) from chipmakers like TSMC, ASML, and Intel. Signs are positive right now that demand is staying strong for these crucial components of the AI trade.

3. Oil falls 24% before rallying to flat for the month

If you pull up a monthly return history for Brent crude, you'll see an essentially unchanged return for April to date. That's just about the most misleading stat I can imagine.

Underneath the surface, crude saw a 24% monthly decline through April 17. From there, it's been a straight shot upward. Through Wednesday's settlement, Brent was up eight straight days, erasing the April loss in no time.

The resurgence of oil back to Iran-war highs sends one major signal: investors are tired of vague promises of peace talks. They want progress, and they're tired of waiting for it.

• Paul Tudor Jones likens investing to boxing, seeking strategic market opportunities to strike.
• The investors said he sees potential in the Japanese yen under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
• "You're looking for something that's underowned, undervalued, way out of whack," he said.

Paul Tudor Jones says his investing career has been like a boxing match.

Every day, he enters the ring against a tenacious opponent, the market. Most of the time, he's studying his opposition, biding his time, and looking for an opportunity to strike. And when that time comes, he takes a big swing.

"Every now and then, you'll have a great opening, and you take a big shot, and you may land one," he told the "Invest Like The Best" podcast in an episode published April 28. "You have these incredible opportunities at times if you just sit and wait the whole time in the interim."

A couple of recent examples of big swings he's landed are his 2020 bet on bitcoin, and his short bet on short-term interest rates in 2022 amid the inflation flare-up.

Now, Tudor Jones says he's eyeing up another potential uppercut: the Japanese yen, particularly relative to the US dollar.

Japan has around a $4.5 trillion net investment position in foreign assets, he said, with 60% of that being in the US, giving it a dollar liability. The yen's value relative to the dollar has fallen by more than 50% since 2012. Over the last 12 months, it's down 10.7%.

But the catalyst for a rebound in the currency, Tudor Jones said, is Japan's newly elected prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi has a pro-business, protectionist approach, which should boost the currency, he said.

"They just have this massive dollar liability, and all of a sudden we've now got the most dynamic leader in certainly half a century in Japan, who's Japan first," Tudor Jones said.

He pointed to the pound sterling and the US dollar jumping around 10% after similar-type leaders were elected in the UK and US, like Ronald Regan, Margaret Thatcher, and Donald Trump in his second term.

"You're looking for something that's underowned, undervalued, way out of whack, people have gotten complacent on it," he said. "And then you're looking for that catalytic moment."

The Invesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY) is one way to gain exposure to the yen relative to the dollar.

• Kun Chen, a former Meta manager, said that just 2% of engineers use AI "very effectively."
• Chen said companies will allocate the most impactful projects to that subset.
• He said developers need to have urgency in figuring out how to become more effective with AI.

Tech companies are slashing jobs left and right, leaving many workers wondering if their role is next.

In an episode of Steve Huynh's, "A Life Engineered" podcast released Monday, Kun Chen, a former engineer at Microsoft, Meta, and Atlassian, said that only about 2% of engineers are getting outsized results from AI — and that gap could make a difference in terms of who gets left behind.

"Mastering agentic engineering has proven to lead to a massive boost in productivity, but this is only achieved by a small number of developers," Chen told Business Insider.

Based on conversations with CTOs he had in his most recent role, Chen said most companies are seeing just a 10% to 15% productivity boost from AI. That's because the majority of employees are using AI in a "shallow way," Chen said, which may make the technology seem less transformative than it is.

"When these CTOs zoom in, what they see is that in their company there is maybe 2% of people who actually figured out how to use AI very effectively," Chen, a former engineering manager at Meta said.

The 2% are experiencing a "massive shift" in how they work, he said.

Chen said that in past technological revolutions, like the industrial revolution or the rise of the internet, change started on a small scale before it "took over the entire world." AI will be the same, he said. For those wondering whether to embrace AI, there's an urgency to figure out how to get value from it now, he said.

"Otherwise they may indeed fall behind," Chen told Business Insider.

Chen said that in the current moment, companies are reallocating the most impactful projects to the 2%. Those are the workers getting tokens to "charge ahead," and they're executing projects much faster. By contrast, Chen said CTOs are seeing large, slow-moving teams take months to make small changes, like renaming a button or tweaking a line of text. That's now how CTOs like to operate, Chen said.

"At some points the CTOs will say 'Hey why do we have these teams here,'" Chen said. "And they will try to double down on the 2% more and more."

That's a risky position for developers, Chen said. His comments come as major tech companies like Meta and Amazon have laid off workers and reorganized into smaller, leaner teams.

Chen told Business Insider that growing that 2% number also depends on more collective work around educating and building awareness within the global engineering community.

Given how quickly the landscape is shifting, Chen said in the podcast that developers should develop a mindset of continuous growth. He said he wouldn't advise engineers to invest too much time in specific tools, as they can quickly become outdated. Instead, he said developers should lean into a completely new approach.

"We should invest time in a different mindset of continuous learning," Chen said.

• The Big Four professional services firms have invested billions in AI tools for their workforces.
• But how are senior staff at the biggest consulting firms using those tools?
• Business Insider asked leaders from EY, PwC, and KPMG how they use AI in their day-to-day work.

AI is rapidly reshaping the consulting industry. From hiring and pricing to the day-to-day work of consultants, the biggest firms are rethinking how they operate — and investing billions in AI tools to do it.

In interviews with Big Four leaders this year, Business Insider has asked how they see that transformation playing out. But we've also been curious about how the people at the top of these multibillion-dollar firms are using AI themselves.

So recently, we've closed every interview with a simple question: How are you using AI in your day-to-day work?

The answers ranged from faster industry insights and automated scheduling to business strategy and even AI-created visuals of dolphins.

Errol Gardner, EY

Errol Gardner is global vice chair of consulting at EY. His job involves traveling the world to meet with EY's teams and support them with client interaction.

The way he most often uses AI is to mine information about clients and organizations that he speaks to and generate "ultra-fast briefings" to prepare for meetings, he told Business Insider.

For example, ahead of a recent meeting with the CEO of a life insurance company in Japan, Gardner said he used AI to research the context of the industry, asking questions like: "How does it play with all the international players? What are the key issues they have market-wise? What are they trying to solve for? What's their strategy saying?"

Three years ago, it would have taken a whole team of people a couple of weeks to gather that information and answer back-and-forth questions to help Gardner prepare. Now with four or five different prompts, you have a brief and "you sound like you know what you're talking about," he said.

"That is probably the most frequent, but also the most valuable use for me because, in terms of that client interaction, it makes a substantive difference to the impact I can have," said Gardner.

Matt Wood, PwC

Matt Wood, PwC's chief technology and innovation officer (CTIO), joined the Big Four firm in 2024 from Amazon Web Services, where he was vice president of AI.

A year ago, Wood said his best use case for AI was as a thought partner, helping with "brainstorming and that creativity of solving a problem in a new way."

While that remains valuable, he said he's now working with several dozen personal agents that can perform tasks on his behalf.

His favorite use case is simulating outcomes, he said. Rather than just brainstorming ideas, Wood uses agents to test different approaches to a problem, asking them to map out how a given strategy might unfold and what the likely results could be.

"That can be as simple as, 'Hey, I'm about to send an email to a group of senior partners. How are they going to react?' Or it can be a more technical specification document," Wood told Business Insider.

"That's an extraordinary net new capability that just has never existed before," he said.

He asks the agents: "What are the different scenarios? What are the things that might cause us to trip over ourselves? What are we not thinking about in enough depth? What do we overanalyze that we didn't need to for next time?"

Sam Gloede, KPMG

As KPMG's Trusted AI leader, Sam Gloede is leading her firm's efforts to build AI systems that incorporate ethics and trusted frameworks.

Gloede said she focuses on "constantly being a student" of AI and encourages others to do the same. "I want to make sure I can understand this technology deeply so that I know how to control it," she told Business Insider.

"A lot of my everyday activities are now a whole lot better because I've got great tooling to help me," said Gloede, adding that the automation around emails, teams, and meetings is getting better all the time, and helps all the pieces of her day fit together.

Her favorite tool is KPMG's deep research agent, she said. "That helps me really go deep into a topic or a certain market that I'm thinking about. That's really, really helpful."

Gloede said that there are exciting upcoming advances in the firm's agentic AI capabilities that will further integrate it into everyday workflows at KPMG and make it feel more collaborative with users. The tools "will start to learn me and my voice, and that is just going to provide more personalized outcomes," she said.

The goal is to use AI to do more sophisticated work at a greater volume, she said.

Joe Voyles, PwC

Joe Voyles is an AI and emerging technology partner at PwC. In his day-to-day, Voyles jokingly told Business Insider he's mostly using AI "to fill a personal deficiency," meaning organizing the thoughts and ideas he has on the go.

"I built a second brain," he said. "I forget everything. I used to write stuff down and carry it around in notebooks. So all my notes now are digitized, and then I have my assistant on my desktop," he said.

In his role at PwC, Voyles helps to lead the research, development, and adoption of emerging AI techniques and applications to industry use cases, which means he's seeing a lot of the new ways AI is being applied at the firm, like how partners are starting to work side-by-side with agents.

For example, a non-technical partner recently showed him their coding assistant performing a task. "This was somebody who typically uses Excel files to perform a diligence. They've rethought how they're performing financial diligence work with a coding assistant-first approach that's completely changed their workflow for them."

It's replaced the analog process of keying in numbers within a spreadsheet and making formulas appear and work, he said. It was an "eye-opening moment" that really showed how people will work differently in the future, he added.

Dan Diasio, EY

Dan Diasio, EY's global consulting AI leader, told Business Insider that he uses "a whole concert of agents" on a day-to-day basis.

They help him track and monitor a variety of things, he said, but their most significant impact is helping him shape the business strategy, one of the key responsibilities the aforementioned Errol Gardner has given Diasio as AI leader for the firm's consulting division.

"I have a couple of agents that continuously mine news that is happening or other points of view or new research, and then I ask them to pressure test the document and find any holes in the strategy or any new opportunities that I need to start to think about and explore," said Diasio.

He gets them to look at things like which technologies the team should invest in, which new businesses the firm can move into, and anything to indicate where the business can move next, he said.

Diasio reviews the agents' responses with his team each week, he said, but emphasized that it's a continuous process. "I don't assume that strategy is now finished at any point in time," he added.

Rob Fisher, KPMG

Rob Fisher, global head of advisory and vice chair of KPMG US, had one of the more unique responses to how he uses AI.

Fisher's background is in banking, but he now oversees tens of thousands of employees across different industries and works with clients in 11 sectors. He said that AI has been "incredible as a turbocharger" for helping him quickly get up to speed in sectors he's less familiar with, and cutting through jargon and acronyms in documents.

"I feel like I can be a better leader to people who are in parts of our business further away from where I grew up," he said.

Before a meeting, Fisher said he often pulls together sources in a Notebook LLM and asks it questions about the topic. "I'm not an expert, but I'm also not going to be a complete dummy when I show up for that meeting," he said.

The head of advisory also said he's been collaborating with KPMG's tax business recently, and has used AI to create visuals to better illustrate how the two divisions could work together.

"The fun you can have with creating silly visuals of tax and advisory playing together. We were doing an ocean thing, and we were two dolphins swimming in the sea together, because dolphins have a way of communicating with each other," he told Business Insider.

"It's just fun to visualize creatively," he said. "You can create your own fun stuff right there on the fly, limited only by your imagination."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at pthompson@businessinsider.com or Signal at Polly_Thompson.89. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Trump's federal student-loan repayment changes could drive more borrowers to private lending.
• Major private lenders said they're prepared to compete for the new business.
• The influx is expected to begin in July, when new federal borrowing caps go into effect.

Private student-loan lenders have big things in store for federal borrowers.

During earnings calls in late April, the leaders of major private lenders, including Sallie Mae and Navient, said that they're ready to compete for federal borrowers once President Donald Trump's sweeping repayment changes take effect in July.

One major change is new caps on borrowing. Trump's "big beautiful" spending legislation eliminated the Grad PLUS program, which let students borrow the full cost of attendance, and put new borrowing limits on advanced degrees. Private lenders anticipate that federal borrowers will turn to them for additional financing.

"There is certainly a keen interest coming in, just created, because of the elimination of Grad PLUS," said David Yowan, Navient's CEO, during the company's April 29 earnings call. He added that the company is prepared to "surprise and delight" borrowers with its customer service and the flexibility and ease of its loan products.

Sallie Mae's CEO, Jonathan Witter, also emphasized the opportunity the federal changes are creating. He said during the company's earnings call last week that while Sallie Mae has a strong foundation to support an influx of federal borrowers, its credit models and marketing channels will need to be expanded "to get after the grad opportunity."

"We haven't seen anything that leads us to believe it's not achievable, but we're going to continue to soldier away and make sure we put ourselves in the best position we can to win," Witter said.

The Trump administration has not commented on how the federal changes will affect private lending and said the changes are intended to curb excessive borrowing and encourage schools to lower tuition.

Borrower advocates and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that a growth in private lending could harm borrowers due to minimal oversight over the industry.

Some private lenders have already announced new programs to supplement federal financing gaps. One of them, College Ave, announced a new STEM Graduate Loan that would cover the full cost of attendance for graduates pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math.

It's intended to provide "a solution to the changing financing needs grad students may now face in fully funding their degree," College Ave's press release said.

Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• Estate managers and agencies race each spring to staff the Hamptons summer homes of the ultra-rich.
• That means hiring chefs, nannies, drivers, trainers, and often providing them with housing as well.
• Estate managers said the ultrawealthy are trying to recreate Manhattan-level convenience and luxury.

If Kristen Reyes does her job well, her clients should barely notice it.

When they arrive at their summer home, the fridge will be stocked with their favorite foods, the pool will be heated to the perfect temperature, and the house will be prepped to host the exact number of expected guests.

"When people ask, 'What do you do for a living?' I say problem solve, because that's 90% of what I do," Reyes told Business Insider.

Reyes is an estate manager for ultra-high-net-worth clients, generally worth at least $30 million, but she said she's more like a concierge, handling a wide range of tasks for the families she works with, especially during the "Hamptons rush."

Every spring, estate managers and luxury staffing agencies kick into high gear in order to staff the homes of the ultrawealthy in the Hamptons, the favorite getaway destination for New York's elite. A stretch of pricy towns located around 100 miles from the city, the Hamptons pose a unique challenge for the ultrawealthy, whose many-million-dollar estates can't run themselves.

For the wealthiest clients, summering in the Hamptons is less like opening up a vacation home and more like a major logistical operation that starts months before they arrive. For many, the goal is to recreate the same level of convenience and luxury that they expect in Manhattan, said Erica Jackowitz of the lifestyle management service Roman & Erica.

"You create a paradise for yourself and a playground for yourself so you never have to go anywhere," she told Business Insider. "That's true luxury for these clients."

Competition for staff is steep

Anita Rogers, founder of British American Household Staffing, said demand for staffing in the Hamptons increases every year. Her agency helps place every position an estate might need: house managers, housekeepers, private chefs, nannies, laundresses, governesses, chauffeurs.

Part of the trick is knowing how to staff a home just right.

"We can't have one housekeeper for a 15,000-square-foot estate," she said. "We know how to structure estates properly so you can have a lot of staff and you won't even know they're there."

Rogers said that because help is in such high demand, the staffing process for the summer begins as early as January, with housekeepers and chefs among the most sought-after roles. Top staff are scooped up quickly, and the scramble intensifies as summer gets closer.

The vetting process is elaborate. Rogers said candidates go through a screening process that includes background checks, calls to references, practical tests — like watching someone make a bed —and even personality tests if a client so chooses.

"They are discreet. They are top quality," she said, adding, "If you could see a laundress work, they'll take 30 minutes per shirt."

The ultrawealthy want the best and will pay for the best, she said. A director of residence can make up to $700,000 a year, a housekeeper $100,000 a year, and a governess $180,000 a year. Staffing agencies are typically paid a percentage of the staff's pay, ranging from 20% to 30%, depending on the role.

The population in the Hamptons explodes in the summer, with some heading to second homes while others rent multimillion-dollar estates. For those who own, they may keep a ghost crew on salary year-round to take care of the home in the offseason. Come summer, they'll often need temporary staff as well.

Reyes said that since the pandemic, more and more clients are using their second homes more often year-round. When staffing up for the summer, she said she's gotten more proactive because it's increasingly a scramble every year. She tries to lock in staff by the end of summer for the next year and reaches out to her clients in January to ask what help they might need, rather than waiting for them to come to her.

"We have so many candidates, but we also have so many clients who want them, that the candidates now have their pick," Reyes said.

Recreating luxury services away from the city

Because the work is so seasonal, the Hamptons are so expensive, and demand for help is ever-increasing, it's not always possible to find local staff. The lack of affordable housing poses a real challenge, and clients are often responsible for arranging housing for their staff.

Reyes said some clients will buy or rent a smaller home nearby, where they will house several staff members, shuttling them to and from the estate each day. Others will rent out a block of rooms at a hotel. If the house is large enough, some staff might live on-site or in a cottage on the property.

Increasingly, clients are coming to expect a wider variety and standard of services while they're away from the city, Jackowitz said. That includes things like trainers, tennis pros, music teachers, hair and makeup stylists, and facialists. "They have it at home, so they also want it when they're out east," she said.

As a result, some New York-based businesses have also opened up in the Hamptons, and some individual service providers have rearranged their lives to follow their clients, living in New York during the year and the Hamptons in the summer.

"There are people that have really gotten into the rhythm and the patterns of Manhattanites," Jackowitz said, adding it's "a very lucrative and smart move because their clients can rely on them and that loyalty both at home and when they're in their summer home."

When staffing homes for the ultrawealthy, Reyes said, if you do your job well, the client doesn't see the amount of work that went into it: they make a request and see the results. They don't see you working around the clock to make it happen.

She said there's always a "crazy, behind-the-scenes hecticness" when staffing up for summer in the Hamptons.

"Most clients have no idea."

• Chemical prices have seen a historic rise during the Iran war.
• Petrochemicals are in more than 95% of finished goods, leaving consumers exposed to price shocks.
• Investors are underestimating the inflationary impact on the global economy, Goldman Sachs said.

A key input for clothes, beauty products, and other consumer goods has seen a historic price spike due to the Iran war.

Petrochemical prices have recorded an unprecedented rise during the war and it's increasing the costs of making consumer goods across industries. Goldman Sachs warned that the chemical price shock is a serious global inflationary pressure that investors are overlooking.

Unprecedented prices spikes hit the "foundation of global manufacturing"

Goldman calls the chemical market the "foundation of global manufacturing." The bank noted that historic price shock will impact global inflation in a way that investors aren't accounting for.

"The global chemical supply disruption resulting from the Middle East conflict is transmitting faster and at a greater magnitude than we had anticipated," the analysts wrote.

Chemical prices have jumped more than 60% in recent weeks, the fastest rate on record, according to Goldman.

Petrochemicals are derived from oil and natural gas and make up plastics and synthetic materials. They make up a $5 trillion global market and are found in more than 95% of finished products.

These chemicals are used across an array of consumer products including clothing, furniture, healthcare, beauty, cars, pharmaceuticals, electronics, food, and beverages.

Clothing, furniture, and healthcare are among the most areas most exposed in regard to cost and retail prices, but Goldman estimates that US and European companies face an average 11% increase in cost of goods sold.

They noted that the estimate only accounts for chemical-related cost increases, not others like energy, transport, and others also driven higher by the war.

They added that there is already evidence of margin compression, production cuts, and demand destruction with 20% of global chemicals supply already offline.

"The pace at which these are materializing suggests that the downstream impacts remain underappreciated by the market," they wrote.

Vikas Dwivedi, a global oil strategist at Macquarie Group, told Business Insider the the demand destruction is "huge."

"It's way bigger than what anybody is analyzing way bigger than I think the market is giving credit to that has also held the [oil] futures prices in check."

Best case scenario is bleak

Even if the conflict ends soon, the supply chain disruptions could persist into 2027, Goldman predicted.

"We do not expect physical supply relief for EU/Asia chemicals until 3Q26, which raises the risk for another leg higher in chemical prices, further supply chain disruption, and deeper demand destruction."

The analysts noted that even when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, chemicals will be prioritized behind oil, fuels, and fertilizers when clearing the shipping backlog.

Goldman expected the peak impact to hit the US and Europe in the second half of 2026, though they noted that some companies may get ahead of inflation with price increases.

Global shock is amplified by Asia-focused market

The impact of broader supply shocks caused by the war in Iran had been most prominent in Asia. The global chemical market is centered in Asia it only intensifies the market impact.

More than 60% of global chemical produced in Asia and the continent is responsible for 50% of global manufacturing.

"The extent of the disruption is significant," the analysts wrote, noting, "Asia, as the manufacturing hub of the world, could face a supply shock without recent parallel."

Goldman used the 2022 European energy crisis to gauge the impact, but says that today's chemical market is seeing "pricing hikes twice as fast, twice the magnitude, and more global."

• Taco Bell is testing new AI features in its drive-thrus, with plans to roll them out nationwide.
• Parent Yum Brands, which also owns KFC and Pizza Hut, is expanding its use of AI across the board.
• Yum Brands posted a strong first quarter, led by Taco Bell's 8% same-store sales growth.

Your Taco Bell drive-thru experience is getting tailored to you thanks to artificial intelligence.

The fast-food chain is testing an AI-powered drive-thru menu in the US and plans to roll it out nationwide this year, parent company Yum Brands Inc. said Wednesday. The dynamic menu can change its layout, content, and visuals from car to car.

CEO Chris Turner told analysts on the first-quarter earnings call that the new technology is all about "driving growth and getting a better consumer experience out there faster."

It's part of the company's wider plan to integrate AI across its business.

For example, Kentucky Fried Chicken in the UK has at least 10 different AI agents playing roles within the organization, including one that helps with permitting for new units, Turner said. Yum Brands' learning and development team also has a virtual coworker named Judy who helps build training programs and boosts productivity.

Turner said to expect more AI-driven features to be tested and scaled across the company's brands "to drive loyalty, adoption, and growth."

The company has also been rolling out voice AI ordering in drive-thrus. The effort hasn't entirely been smooth sailing. In light of some viral hiccups, its chief data and technology officer told The Wall Street Journal last year, "We're learning."

Yum Brands is far from the only fast-food company experimenting with new technology. Restaurant chains from Burger King to Starbucks are rolling out new AI tools for customers and workers. Some competitors have also hit snags in the push to bring in more AI. McDonald's, for example, removed its AI order-taking technology from over 100 restaurants in 2024 after complaints about its flaws went viral.

That hasn't stopped Yum Brands from leaning into AI. "We are excited about the potential that AI provides to our business," Turner said.

The company is off to a strong start to the year with 3% global same-store sales growth in Q1, driven by Taco Bell's 8% same-store sales increase and KFC's 3% growth.

• Disney is encouraging its employees to use AI with milestone badges and check-in messages.
• Staffers are using the company's AI Adoption Dashboard to see how they stack up to their peers.
• One software engineer said they hadn't "written any code in months" by themselves.

If you're a Disney employee who doesn't regularly use AI, you might get a "check-in" message from your boss.

That's what happened to one high-ranking software engineer who had used AI tools only once in the previous month.

"I want to make sure the investment we've made in these tools actually translates into support for you," the engineer's manager said in a message viewed by Business Insider.

Disney has been exploring various ways to encourage AI usage among its employees.

In recent months, Disney has given certain tech staffers access to its "AI Adoption Dashboard." Some AI aficionados are using chatbots like Claude and Cursor hundreds of thousands of times a week by invoking AI agents and so-called agent swarms.

One streaming tech staffer referred to the AI dashboard as a "leaderboard." Disney has gamified the dashboard with "milestones" for employees to unlock, including "streaks" based on how many consecutive workdays staffers use Cursor or Claude.

A person familiar with Disney's strategy said the company isn't trying to incentivize high usage or waste. Instead, they said the dashboard is intended to help staffers use AI tools efficiently and effectively.

Staffers strive for AI 'streaks'

Disney has implemented a version of the streaks feature popularized by Snapchat.

A screenshot of Disney's AI dashboard viewed by Business Insider showed that a 10-day streak of using AI tools was viewed as an "uncommon" milestone, achieved by about 12% of users; while a 20-day streak was "rare," with less than 5% reaching it; and a 30-day streak was an "epic" milestone, at 2% of users.

There's also a "Max Vibes" milestone for users who are "delivering ROIs and Max Vibes," though it's unclear what that means.

Disney doesn't directly reward employees for using AI. Still, some employees say they feel pressure to "tokenmaxx," since some tech workers see heavy AI usage as a sign of skill or proficiency. Tokens are basic units of data processed by AI models, and companies are billed based on how many they use.

"I wanted to see where I was in comparison, token-usage wise," one software engineer said of the AI dashboard.

"Initially, I wanted to be higher, but now I don't really care," they added.

Ensuring 'everyone feels equipped' on AI

Not all Mouse House tech staffers are aboard the AI train.

The manager who sent the message about the engineer's AI usage said it was part of "a broader check-in" on "how people are using the Al tools we've invested in."

"Adoption has been uneven across the organization, and I want to make sure everyone feels equipped and supported to get real value from these tools — not just access to them," the manager's note said.

The note asked the software engineer to share the following details:

• Which Al tools you currently have access to
• How you've been using them — or what's made it hard to get started
• Any barriers you've run into (skills, workflow fit, trust in the output, unclear policies, etc.)
• What would make it easier for you to use them more regularly

"I think there's a genuine opportunity for you to use Al to make your work faster, higher quality, and higher impact," the manager said. "My goal is to make sure nothing is quietly getting in the way of that."

'No handwritten code'

Four Disney tech employees said the company is increasingly exhorting staffers to use AI, particularly for coding.

"No handwritten code — that was the push," one software engineer said. "I haven't written any code in months."

They said that "watching out for costs and optimizing for tokens feels secondary."

Two other streaming staffers said they weren't worried about how many tokens they used. One said their manager told them that if they hit their budget, they should request more.

Another longtime tech staffer, who described themselves as a "middle of the pack" AI user, said these tools had helped them save time and knock out small tasks they might not otherwise have time for.

"I don't trust AI to work fully unsupervised, but plans are to replace a lot of manual tasks I do to automate tests with agentic skills," this person said.

Although the engineer said AI was boosting their productivity, they said they still felt "buried in work."

• Lindsy Jolley, a stay-at-home mom of two, started multiple online side hustles in 2025.
• She typically makes $500 to $1,500 a week from focus groups, affiliate marketing, and more.
• Jolley chooses her own hours while avoiding childcare costs, but she struggles to find balance.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lindsy Jolley, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom from Utah. It's been edited for length and clarity.

In 2025, we had just had our second baby when my husband totaled his car.

My doggy day care business had been slowing down quite a bit, and my husband's orthodontics job wasn't bringing a ton in for our family of four, so we needed to make more money. At the same time, I didn't want to leave my kids to get a job, and I plan on homeschooling soon. I needed a non-traditional role.

One night, I went to Instagram and searched for side hustles for stay-at-home moms, and I came across a page about just that. I bought some courses and decided to take a chance on some of the suggestions. Now, I typically make anywhere from $500 to $ 1,500 a week doing work in the moments when my babies sleep.

Some online courses were worth it — others weren't

If you have the free time to spend on figuring out how to get into a side hustle, you absolutely do not need to buy a course. However, as a busy mom, it was worth it to drop some money.

I started with a roughly $100 digital course on focus groups, and it was gold. It went over best practices about how to set yourself up to be selected for as many focus groups as possible and keep track of the money you owe for taxes. It also offered a master list of vetted sites for focus groups. It would've taken me forever to figure it out and sift through scam sites, so it was really worth it.

I also took an Amazon Influencer course for about $150, which felt like a lot of fluff. Looking back, it's something that I could've figured out on my own pretty easily.

Focus groups are my favorite, but there's a caveat

I spend about 30 minutes every day on focus group websites filling out screeners, which are quick questionnaires to see if you qualify for studies.

I usually get selected for a few focus groups a week, which take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. Some are written questionnaires, while others are private or group Zoom sessions. They usually pay me anywhere between $50 and $200.

I haven't filled out screeners for several days, but when I was doing them every day, I was making over $1,000 a month. The caveat is that I get paid in Visa gift cards.

The actual focus groups are really fun. I've tested products, given feedback, and even provided input on commercials that popped up on my TV months later. The funniest one that I ever did was helping a company choose a mascot. I've also done some boring ones. The other day, I did one on purchasing tires for my car.

This is definitely my favorite side hustle, and it pays the most for the time put in.

The Amazon influencer program has become oversaturated

As an Amazon influencer, Amazon pays me to post video reviews of its products to my Amazon storefront. I can message sellers to try their products, or they can reach out to me on social media.

I also pay $70 a month for a Chrome extension for the Amazon influencer program, which helps me identify products with strong earning potential. I feel like the Amazon influencer program is more saturated and competitive now, so I don't think it's worth doing without an extension that can help identify products.

I made $800 in my second month, without many videos posted, but my earnings have gone up and down since then.

Referral links don't bring in much, but are easy to share

I post on Instagram and TikTok about my side hustles, so I put referral links in my bio. I currently have links for things like the Chrome extension I use and the high-yield savings account I have. I've been really diligent about looking to see where I can share a referral link.

The earnings are often pretty low and capped, but they're easy to add to my social media profiles.

I make the most money from affiliate links

I do affiliate marketing for the side hustle courses that I took, meaning if someone buys a course through my link in my social media bios, I receive a percentage of the sale.

My income from affiliate links ebbs and flows. I only sold one course one week, so I made about $50. But a few weeks before then, I made over $800 in a week when a TikTok video of mine gained traction.

I never want to be the type of person who's pushing courses onto my audience. It's really nice that I can share my experience and just say, "If you're interested, here are the courses I took." It's as simple as that.

I get to control my time as a side-hustler, but it can still be hard to find balance

The best part about my side hustles is that they don't require a lot of time invested. I can make money while staying home and mitigating any childcare costs — and I choose when I work.

I try to save work for when the kids are napping or in bed, but in the moments when I'm trying to get work done while they're awake, I end up getting really frustrated, and it's not fun for anybody. It's been hard to find a balance between the two.

As a mom, I always hear people say that if you are excelling in one aspect of your life, you're usually failing in another. For me, it's been about juggling multiple responsibilities and being OK with letting something else slip momentarily.

My advice is to take on side hustles one at a time

It can be really daunting if you jump into multiple side hustles at once and try to learn them all. I was overwhelmed with information in the beginning, and I wish I had started with one.

My advice is to pick one side hustle, master it, then move on to the next. Pretty soon, you'll be able to juggle however many you want.

Additionally, a lot of people expect their side hustles to replace their full-time income. It's possible, but it might not happen. You may have to stack side hustles if you really want to do them full-time. I've learned that a side hustle that works for one person might not work for another, but you get what you put in.

Do you have a story to share about making money from side hustles? If so, please reach out to the reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.

• Ira Brown, 73, raised her children and granddaughter, and is now raising three great-grandchildren.
• She and her husband live close to paycheck to paycheck, and are exhausted from caretaking.
• More older adults like Brown are caring for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren nowadays.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ira Brown, a 73-year-old great-grandmother in Texas who raised her children, her granddaughter, and her great-grandson. She recently took in two other great-grandchildren as a temporary guardian. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

After I retired in 2016, my husband and I had planned to travel all over.

Then, my granddaughter became pregnant at 20. When her baby was about a month old, I got a call from her, saying that CPS was going to take her baby and put him in foster care. My husband and I went to get him. It was either us or the system.

I cried and cried. It felt like for all my life, all I ever did was parent.

I had raised my children alone, I had just finished raising my granddaughter, and now I suddenly had a baby at 64. I wanted to just be a grandmother without raising any more children.

I raised my children after separating from my husband

I started working at 16. I got married and had three kids. I worked as a deli manager for 20 years, which was a hard job with long hours that kept me away from home a lot.

My husband and I separated when my kids were still young, so I raised them by myself. I'd plan special days for my children and me to do things together so they wouldn't feel neglected because of my long hours at work.

I was pretty strict on my children; I'd hold them accountable for things, and they never missed school — they were good kids. After the deli, I worked for a brokerage firm for about 17 years.

My oldest daughter, who had a two-year-old daughter, died at 23 from an enlarged heart. I'd gotten remarried, and she'd told me before she died that she wanted my husband and me to take care of her baby, so we raised her. I was in my mid-40s at that time, so it wasn't too far-fetched to have a baby at that age.

I wasn't as strict on my granddaughter as I had been on my own children. She had some behavioral issues after losing her mom and then her dad when she was five.

Then, when she was 20, she came home pregnant with our great-grandson.

Our life revolves around our great-grandson

I had to go back to work a year after we got him, working at the YMCA. The extra money helped with school clothes and supplies, as we were responsible for his schooling.

He's 10 now, and we can't imagine life without him. People always say that he's keeping us young, and it's true because we get around pretty well for old people.

However, we're also more lenient and let him get away with more because we're tired. We've gotten to a certain point where we just don't have the energy to chastise much.

We're up at 6 a.m. every morning, and my husband drops him off. Most days after school, he has tutoring or baseball practice, and he also has training on weekends.

We're the only grandparents sitting in the stands to support a child whom they're taking care of. Still, he is proud when we come to the school. We go to church together on Sundays.

Now we're also raising his siblings

Six weeks ago, we started taking care of our granddaughter's two other children, who are 5 and 4, as well. Before, we just helped watch them on the weekends. They've been so happy being with us because it's stable.

My husband and I pick them up from three different schools. My daughter and my niece sometimes step in and help take them. It's a village right now. The past six weeks have made me completely exhausted.

We get Social Security, and my husband gets a pension. We didn't get any financial support when we first got our great-grandson, but I receive about $1,591 a month from my Social Security now, after deductions. Our house is paid for, and we don't have a car note. I tried to put aside a little for a 529 plan, but I had to stop due to medical costs.

It's OK for us financially right now, though everything is out of pocket. We now have two more mouths to feed. Between my husband and me, if one of us goes, then so does one of our incomes. We've tried to work things into our budget. We live week to week and close to paycheck to paycheck.

I've come across so many other grandparents who are doing the same thing. It is much more difficult being a parent at my age. You don't get nearly as much, if any, assistance if it's not your biological child. So much falls on you.

I'm 73 now, and my husband is 80. We don't know if we'll live to see these babies grown. We have people who can step in, but for our great-grandson to have been raised by us and then lose us would leave a gap. I know time is against me now, but I ask God to leave me here as long as possible so I can see them all have a good life.

• Alex Cohen, CEO of Xander Marketing, switched to primarily using Claude over ChatGPT for work.
• He said Claude challenges him more, but he keeps ChatGPT as a backup due to Claude's outages.
• ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI, has missed revenue and user growth goals, according to reports.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alex Cohen, a 42-year-old CEO and founder of Xander Marketing, based in Kent, UK. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I started using ChatGPT in December 2022. When I tried Claude about 10 months later, it was mostly out of curiosity.

Even early on, there was a clear difference. Claude has always been a better writer, in my opinion. I run a small marketing firm, and we write a lot of content for brands. When I gave both systems the same prompt with context, Claude got it closer to what I envisioned the first time.

That started to change how we work. Last year was when I really started predominantly using Claude. It doesn't feel like a chatbot. It feels like an entire operating system.

At this point, we work with Claude for 80% to 90% of our usage, and maybe 5% each for Gemini and ChatGPT.

It was a gradual switch, but now my company does almost everything with Claude

My company saw right away that Claude could capture our client's brand voice and place it into content better than ChatGPT. So, we started using Claude for a lot of our writing content, but we kept using ChatGPT.

The one thing we still consistently use ChatGPT for is image generation, since Claude doesn't generate photos or illustrations. I built a co-CEO in the projects tool in Claude as my sounding board for strategy help, so I only occasionally use ChatGPT for strategy or as a backup.

Slowly, I began to prefer Claude's output. It asked me more questions, pushing back on my prompts rather than always agreeing with me, as I've found ChatGPT does.

Claude feels more like talking to a human instead of just telling me what I want to hear. It's changed my business a lot. Content that we would've previously given to a copywriter, I now trust to do directly with Claude.

The biggest operational difference was that Claude's features, like the projects and skills, allowed me to reuse context across chats, and that's when it became central to how we work.

ChatGPT had an early advantage

When AI first went mainstream, I only thought of ChatGPT when AI was mentioned. Now there are more choices.

As Claude keeps introducing more updates to its projects and skills, it feels like ChatGPT is playing catch-up. I think it's easier to set up and use projects and skills in Claude. With skills, especially, I've already built my operating system in Claude.

One of the best things we did was build a human writing skill into Claude to remove overused AI phrases that we flag. It gets closer on the first try, so we're not going back and forth, prompting as much and burning through tokens.

Some things ChatGPT can do, like making an ROI calculator, or vibecoding a website or app, I didn't start doing until I used Claude.

I've kept my ChatGPT subscription as a backup for when Claude goes down

Besides using ChatGPT for images, I also switch over when Claude has an outage or experiences issues. It feels like Claude goes down fairly regularly, which is frustrating, but it also makes me realize how much I rely on it when it's gone.

I have some projects and workflows built into ChatGPT, but I've tailored Claude more extensively to work the way I need it to.

Occasionally, even if Claude isn't down, I'll run the same question through both Claude and ChatGPT to compare answers. I still use ChatGPT in my personal life, but for business use, I trust Claude to challenge me more.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, seems to get me answers faster than Claude.

I think Claude could win the enterprise space

I've spoken to a lot of people who use ChatGPT and have also gone to Claude for a business use case. That's key if it's happening on a larger scale.

It seems like the big money play for these huge AI companies will be winning the enterprise space, and for me, Claude is the winner at this stage.

At the same time, we're thinking about how to structure files and workflows so they can be moved between platforms if something better comes along.

Do you have a story to share about which AI tool you prefer? Contact this reporter, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Business Insider has found that redemptions in private credit have spread beyond retail investors.
• Some institutions are reducing or reassessing their private credit position in BDCs.
• Some, like CalPERS, have increased private credit investments despite broader redemption pressures.

In March, a representative of Blue Owl, the embattled private-credit fund manager, dialed into a meeting with local officials in Columbia, Missouri.

The city's police and firefighters' retirement fund held a stake in one of the firm's investment funds, Blue Owl Technology Income, representing around 1.5% of its portfolio.

After a wave of negative attention tied to requests from investors to withdraw their money, the representative sought to inject calm. "There are no forced asset sales, no credit deterioration, and no disruption to normal operations," the representative said, according to the meeting minutes.

The message didn't fully land.

Officials voted to stop reinvesting future dividends from the fund, opting to direct tens of thousands of dollars in annual payments on the $3.2 million stake to a short-term bond manager.

The Columbia, Missouri decision is one of several moves made by institutional investors in recent months to reduce their exposure to business development companies, a type of investment fund that makes direct loans to small and mid-sized companies. BDCs have become a backbone of private credit's push to woo retail investors.

A Business Insider investigation found that a wave of private-credit redemption requests, largely attributed to retail investors, has now spread to include smaller institutions. This suggests that there's more to the redemption rush than flighty retail investors scared by bad headlines; rather, it reflects a change in how some institutions are investing in private credit. If both groups start to pull back, even slightly, it could further strain a market that depends on fresh capital to fund loans.

Fifteen institutional investors accounted for 17% of the $4.3 billion in redemption requests from Blue Owl's Credit Income fund, a non-traded BDC, according to a person familiar with the figures. Ares — whose Strategic Income Fund is also facing a wave of redemptions — said a majority of its redemptions were coming from smaller institutions and family offices, not retail investors.

The shift is also showing up in how industry leaders describe the outflows. Blackstone CEO Jon Gray said the recent redemption wave is being driven by larger allocators moving bigger chunks of capital.

"The great mass, by number of small investors, tends to stick with the product over a long period of time," Gray said on Blackstone's April 23 earnings call. "It's sort of the bigger boulders as opposed to the pebbles where you get more movement in terms of redemptions."

The current redemption wave is concentrated in non-traded BDCs, which let retail and institutional investors seek periodic liquidity through monthly or quarterly share repurchase programs, usually subject to caps. That is different from publicly traded BDCs, whose shares can be sold on the open market, and from closed-end funds, where investor money is locked up for years.

When repurchase requests in non-traded BDCs exceed the cap, fund managers often limit how much cash investors get back, turning what was marketed as a relatively flexible product into one with more constraints. Business Insider previously reported that investors sought to withdraw $19.5 billion from 17 of these funds in the first quarter amid mounting concerns over software loan exposure and private-market valuations in the age of AI. Firms paid out just 53% of requests — or $10.4 billion.

So far, there hasn't been a full accounting of how many institutional investors are exposed to BDCs — or how many have tried to pull money. A Business Insider review of public disclosure and separate filings of 49 pensions, foundations or endowments, including the 10 largest in the US, found at least $3 billion invested in these funds, including $2.7 billion in equity and $311 million in investment-grade bonds.

That figure is likely an undercount, as it captures only a slice of the hundreds of US pensions, and, in many cases, the size of individual investments wasn't disclosed.

The sweep included funds managed by Blue Owl, as well as Ares, Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, and others, and turned up the Columbia, Missouri investment as well as those of more than a dozen other pensions, foundations, and endowments.

Only a minority of the assets in the private credit industry, or about 20%, are held in public or private BDCs, Tomasz Piskorski, a finance professor at Columbia Business School, wrote in a recent paper.

And for now, the institutional cracks are small. Columbia's $205 million pension is tiny compared with more than 250 US plans managing over $5 billion.

Nonetheless, if pensions find themselves on the hook for losses, some of them may say "'Look, it's still early, and we can try to exit," Piskorski said in an interview.

Moving away from BDCs

Over the last several years, many institutional investors have changed their approach to BDCs. If they once treated them as a tactical way to deploy cash while preserving an exit, they've embraced longer-dated closed-end funds in recent years.

"We have had a couple of clients participate in these funds where they have been able to drive unique economics or terms," said Oliver Fadley, head of private debt at pension advisor NEPC, referring to nonpublic BDCs. "Where we have also seen it a little bit is in public BDCs with folks that are looking to park capital for a shorter amount of time. It's either a bridge or they're waiting to move money somewhere else."

Two other pension funds told Business Insider they were monitoring or reducing their positions in Blue Owl's publicly traded BDCs.

The Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island told Business Insider it was evaluating its investment in Blue Owl Capital, traded publicly under the ticker OBDC. The $14.6 billion pension fund held almost $39 million at the end of April, according to a spokesperson.

"We are aware of the recent issues and criticisms facing the private credit market," the spokesperson said in a statement. "We continue to actively monitor our OBDC position and evaluate developments across the broader private credit asset class."

The Maine Public Employees Retirement System, which manages about $21 billion on behalf of state employees, initially invested in two private Blue Owl funds in 2017 and 2020 and now owns shares of OBDC, according to a spokesperson.

The pension fund has been reducing those holdings since the funds went public, in 2019 and 2025 respectively, and expects to continue "reducing our position over the next few years," the spokesperson said. It currently owns about 6.15 million shares of OBDC, valued at about $68.6 million around March 24.

MainePERS, while reducing its exposure to publicly-traded BDCs, said last year that it was increasing its overall exposure to so-called alternative credit, which includes private credit, to 15%.

Institutional fundraising continues

Maine's move reflects a broader dynamic. Institutional money has continued to flow into the private credit industry, with Blackrock saying that institutional fundraising is "stronger" in the face of recent redemptions. Blackstone's Gray said the first quarter was "one of our best quarters ever" for raising money from institutions for private credit.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS, is doubling down on its Blue Owl exposure. CalPERS has increased its allocation to private credit over the last several years, and in February bought loans Blue Owl sold to meet redemption requests.

CEO Marcie Frost said at an April board meeting that CalPERS' decision to "buy loans that had good collateral," has attracted public attention because "we seem to be going against some of the current thinking."

"As long-term investors, we don't need to run scared the minute the market experiences some turmoil, whether that be in the public markets, as we've seen over the last couple of weeks, or in private credit over the last month or so," Frost said during the board meeting.

CalPERS' smaller cousin, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, counts Blue Owl as the 10th largest manager for its $390 billion fund, with a $2.9 billion total exposure.

And the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio appears even more tightly linked to Blue Owl. In 2024, it formed a joint venture with Blue Owl's BDCs, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the end of December, the joint venture held $2.3 billion in investments, largely financed with debt.

Spokespeople from CalPERS and CalSTRS declined to comment, while the Ohio teachers' pension did not respond to requests for comment.

Second thoughts about private credit

Despite public votes of confidence from some large pensions and their managers, Kent Collier, CEO of credit intelligence platform Octus, said he has seen some funds reconsider their exposure to private credit. He said the broader impact of the redemptions might come when they decide to write new checks.

"Going into the end of 2025, a big pension may have said that by the end of 2026 it would target an 8% allocation of private credit," Collier said. "That has since come down."

For pension managers and the retirees who count on their investment performance, the issue is less about immediate losses but whether liquidity constraints and mounting scrutiny make private-credit funds harder to hold or explain to retirees.

Collier and Piskorski said the implications could be huge if institutional investors ultimately sour on private credit.

"My expectation is it could be, potentially if it continues, quite a few lean years at best for private credit," Piskorski said. At worst, he said, there could be a complete crisis of confidence. "I don't think we will get there, but I think there is a non-trivial risk."

• Alaska Airlines launched its first-ever flight to Europe on Tuesday.
• It's part of a broader push into long-haul flying from Seattle, a market Delta dominates.
• Alaska plans to connect Seattle to at least a dozen long-haul markets by 2030.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has been a chessboard between Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines for years.

Alaska Airlines is the hometown carrier, with a dominant domestic network and a loyal local customer base that gives it roughly half of the airport's market share. Delta Air Lines has a smaller domestic footprint, but has spent more than a decade becoming the biggest international competitor from Seattle.

But Alaska is now pushing into that territory.

The airline launched its first-ever flight to Europe on Tuesday, flying a Boeing 787 Dreamliner 11 hours from Seattle to Rome. The seasonal flight will run through October 23 and is part of Alaska's broader effort to bolster its transoceanic connectivity from the West Coast and Hawaii.

For customers, this means more choice on long-haul flights — and it could lead to better prices.

Alaska's Rome route follows its 2024 merger with Hawaiian Airlines, which brought widebody aircraft, including Boeing 787 Dreamliners and Airbus A330s, into its fleet and accelerated its push into long-haul markets. The airline has more than a dozen more 787s on order.

Cirium data shows Alaska has about 2,300 scheduled flights from Seattle to Europe and Seattle to Asia in 2026, a nearly fourfold increase from 2025. The carrier launched Tokyo and Seoul service last year and plans to add London and Reykjavik in May; it expects to offer at least 12 international flights by 2030.

Almost all of Alaska's new international routes overlap with Delta's network. Delta, however, is reinforcing its own position. It will begin service to Rome in May, followed by Barcelona. It already serves London, Tokyo, Seoul, Amsterdam, Paris, Shanghai, and Taipei from Seattle.

"Delta is deeply committed to Seattle, and we look forward to expanding our global footprint with the launch of our latest international flights to Rome and Barcelona," Jeff Arinder, Delta's vice president for international network planning, told Business Insider. "With continued investments in our fleet and state-of-the-art airport amenities, including two new premier lounges in SEA, we're providing a premium, elevated experience for Seattleites."

Delta built its ultra-high-end Delta One Lounge in Seattle for its highest-status and highest-paying customers. It also has locations at New York-JFK, Boston, and Los Angeles, with plans for more.

Alaska did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Delta has strengthened its presence in Seattle since the 2010s by leaning into the city's West Coast geography and building on the Pacific network and Tokyo hub it inherited through its 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines.

It followed with investments in terminals, lounges, and corporate contracts, and added domestic connections to support international flying — steadily pulling high-yield business traffic into its global network and becoming the main global option in a market where Alaska did not operate long-haul flights.

Cirium shows Delta operated about 5,000 long-haul international flights annually from Seattle in the years leading up to the pandemic and is scheduled to operate nearly 6,000 in 2026.

"This is healthy competition," aviation expert and former Alaska captain John Nance told the local NBC affiliate King 5 Seattle. "The question is, are there that many people who want to go nonstop between Rome and Seattle? I think there are, and I think Alaska has bet on that, too, as has Delta."

Delta's decision to match Alaska on the new Rome route underscores the competitive stakes in the market.

Data from the airport shows Delta holds about 25% of Seattle's international market, compared with Alaska's 15%, while the other top carriers each hold roughly 4%.

Google Flights data shows fares on Alaska and Delta vary widely — typically between $1,000 and $2,000 to Rome, Tokyo, London, and Seoul — with peak summer periods at the top of the range.

Alaska can now tap into booming premium demand

As Alaska pushes further into long-haul markets, it is also capturing the surging demand for premium cabins that comes with it.

The 787 operating the Rome service includes its new business-class suite with sliding doors, designed to compete directly with legacy carriers and attract premium travelers who have increasingly defaulted to Delta and other global airlines.

Alaska's A330s on the Tokyo route still feature older interiors, though a full retrofit is planned to begin in 2028.

The Boeing 737 Maxes flying the Iceland route will have Alaska's usual domestic first class, but the lack of lie-flat options and seatback screens on the up to eight-hour journey could frustrate some flyers.

In its first-quarter earnings call, the airline said premium cabins continue to outperform economy, with premium revenue rising about 7% in 2025.

The premium-heavy Airbus A330neo and A350 planes that Delta flies from Seattle all have door-equipped business class and updated premium economy and coach cabins. Its previous-generation A330s are set to receive a retrofit over the next few years.

• Amazon's latest feature creates a one-to two-minute AI-generated audio clip discussing a product.
• Two AI "hosts" talk podcast-style about the user reviews and description, and can take your questions.
• This is possibly one of the funniest endpoints of human civilization.

Amazon has launched a new feature that uses AI to generate a short, podcast-like audio segment where two "hosts" discuss the merits and reviews of a specific product.

I think it could be one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization we've seen yet in our new AI-enabled world.

If this sounds a little confusing, here's an example. I tried it out for diaper rash cream, and, voila! A podcast! (Sound on.)

As you could hear, you can even submit questions about the product, and the "hosts" will answer them.

This, to me, is the funniest possible content that AI and Amazon could create. A format so immaculately conceived and devoid of human touch (except for the free labor of the customer-reviewers, from whose text much of the "podcast" is pulled) that it blows the doors off any earlier concept of "dead internet theory."

A spokesperson for Amazon told me that the information the "podcasts" are based on is not just the product listing description and customer reviews, but also other online sources. That means it could potentially pull in information from, say, a review here on Business Insider into its discussion of the merits of various toasters. The AI technology is powered by "several AI technologies working together, including Amazon Bedrock," Amazon said.

Meanwhile, QVC, which feels like some sort of spiritual foremother to this feature, filed for bankruptcy this month. (It's still operating and expects to reorganize.)

The effect of turning the text on a webpage or document into a casual podcast-like discussion isn't new. Google's NotebookLM had this feature for at least two years, allowing you to do things like upload PDFs or send a long Wikipedia page, and get a chatty podcast version to listen to. This is actually kind of cool if you're someone who prefers learning by listening or wants to turn some truly dry and boring text into something engaging.

Amazon is leaning into AI to help customers shop

I can see the utility for Amazon here. Sometimes, when I'm looking at a product, the page is so bloated with information — the description, maybe a sizing chart, company information, and then potentially hundreds of user reviews — that it can be hard to parse or get the exact answer I want.

In 2024, Amazon added an AI chatbot called Rufus to its app to help with this problem — you can ask questions about products or ask to compare to similar ones. Although I didn't particularly enjoy it, Amazon had predicted it would generate $700 million in operating profits for the year. So, not bad.

But listening to a mini AI podcast episode? I don't know, maybe? Maybe there are people out there who would rather listen to this than read?

I couldn't get it to make me a podcast discussing toilet paper

There are some shortfalls. For example, I tried it out on the Bissell Little Green mini wet vacuum — one of the products Amazon's PR suggested as an example of the new feature. I own the full-size version of this vacuum and am curious whether the mini version is just as effective, so I asked the podcast about the differences.

Although the hosts quickly got to my answer, the male voice said that they didn't have information on the specs of the larger one to compare, and if I wanted to compare, I should check out the page for the full-size version. Harumph.

For now, not all products have this feature, and it's not clear why some products do or don't. (Amazon wouldn't give me a clear answer on this, and presumably the "podcasts" will expand over time.) I can make some guesses, such as that products with few or no reviews might not get ones, or that certain product categories might not. I attempted to get an AI podcast for toilet paper, wet wipes, and sex toys because I thought any of the above would be funny, but I couldn't find a product in those categories that offered the feature.

Ultimately, is this worthless or useful? I have no idea. If you hear any good or interesting product podcasts on there … let me know.

• DTE Energy is betting on revenue from a new data center project to lower customer bills.
• The utility expects Oracle and OpenAI's Michigan site to create $300 million in savings.
• Customers could see future power rate freezes — if the data center uses enough electricity.

OpenAI and Oracle are building a massive data center in Michigan — and residents' power bills are hinging on it.

The data center is part of OpenAI's Stargate project, originally a joint venture between Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI. If it performs as expected, the Michigan electric utility DTE Energy says it will freeze rates for its entire customer base.

Driven largely by Big Tech's sweeping AI data center buildout, electricity bills are rising nationwide. DTE is one of many local utilities that have sought to raise customer rates across the board as it builds new power plants and transmission lines to keep up with unprecedented demand.

DTE expects the 1.4 gigawatt data center campus, a $16 billion Oracle-backed project meant for OpenAI, to generate an additional $300 million in savings, allowing it to keep customer bills steady.

OpenAI will have to use enough electricity to generate that revenue. DTE Energy said in a Michigan Public Service Commission filing this week that it will pause rate hikes for at least two years if the data center comes online as scheduled.

OpenAI may be struggling to meet its targets as it prepares for an IPO. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the company fell short of its goal to reach 1 billion weekly active users last year, and CFO Sarah Friar warned executives that OpenAI needs to grow revenue to keep up with its massive data center spending.

Meanwhile, consumer advocates and public officials — including President Donald Trump — are calling on utilities, regulators, and Big Tech to ensure that residential homeowners and small business owners don't bear the burden of the buildout costs.

Michigan's utility asked for rate hikes

DTE says it will need to spend tens of billions on new infrastructure to power Oracle and OpenAI data centers.

It's also asking state regulators to approve a plan that would raise its average customer bill by 9.7% monthly, nearly triple the pace of inflation, beginning next year.

It's a significant hike, though the utility says it could also be the last increase its customers will have to absorb in the near future, thanks to the additional revenue from data centers.

"As long as the first data center project we're supporting comes online as planned by the end of 2027 and we're able to receive other regulatory approvals, we will refrain from filing another rate request until at least 2028," DTE president and CEO Joi Harris said in a press release last week.

Oracle and OpenAI face hurdles

Many factors could foil this plan.

Data center projects face rising opposition from local Michigan communities, including in Saline Township, where Oracle and OpenAI plan to build their data center. Construction delays due to labor, power, and equipment shortages also slow development.

Oracle also faced challenges securing financing for its data center projects. This week, Related Digital finalized its agreement to back Oracle's Michigan data center, with help from Blackstone and Pimco. The site is part of OpenAI's Project Stargate and has been in the works for months.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel slammed the utility's move to tie a potential rate freeze to the performance of a data center, citing the many unknowns surrounding Oracle and OpenAI's Michigan site and other massive AI data centers planned across the country.

"This isn't a commitment — it's a ransom note," Nessel said this week in a press release.

Nessel said she is skeptical of DTE's claim that the additional revenue the utility gets from its data center customers will help keep bills affordable for everyone. Her office has filed an appeal of DTE's data center contracts with Oracle and Google's data center in another part of the state.

"DTE cites 'affordability benefits' associated with their secret data center contracts that have never been proven, or even reviewed by consumer advocates," Nessel said.

• A gold-rush mentality for Anthropic stock has gripped Silicon Valley in recent weeks.
• With a very limited supply, holders of Anthropic shares have been flooded with offers.
• One large VC firm offered to hire a tech founder as a partner in exchange for his Anthropic shares.

When one tech founder hinted on X that he might sell his Anthropic shares, it was like throwing bread to seagulls. Within minutes, Jesse Leimgruber was fielding hundreds of offers, from wire-ready cash to offers of a VC partnership, all from investors scrambling to get a slice of one of AI's hottest companies.

A gold-rush mentality for Anthropic stock has gripped Silicon Valley in recent weeks, as investors have been wowed by its torrid revenue growth and momentum around its AI-powered coding assistant, Claude Code. There was also a wave of support after Anthropic's dispute with the Pentagon.

"The demand is off the charts," he told me when I got him on the phone after assuring him I was not yet another buyer. "Every VC in Silicon Valley is racing to get Anthropic into their portfolio."

Some investors offered to wire millions of dollars in cash in 48 hours, while others sent him unsolicited screenshots of their bank accounts and proof-of-funds letters. Offers also flooded in from "very well-known growth equity funds," and requested to buy his stake at valuations exceeding $1 trillion for Anthropic.

"That's not something people usually send without an NDA, but people have to be so aggressive," he said. "It's kind of crazy."

Leimgruber started a CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, to track the myriad of offers. He says the most unusual was a large VC firm that offered to make him a general partner in return for forking over his shares, but he quickly passed.

"They had no intention of making me a partner on their fund had it not been for the pledging of my Anthropic shares," he said. "That's how badly some of these people want in."

Tracking down shares in Anthropic has become a herculean task, with one banker offering up his $4.8 million Marin County estate in the hope of enticing early employees to part with a small portion of stock.

Since Anthropic has yet to go public, the vast majority of investors are forced to buy via secondary markets, where existing stock is sold by current or former employees or early investors. With the stock soaring, few are willing to part with their shares, and there have been a bevy of deals with high fees and byzantine ownership structures. (Anthropic declined to comment for this story. On its website, it warns against unauthorized stock sales and scams.)

"The problem is there are no sellers," said Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, a merchant bank focused on private securities transactions. "There's an imbalance in the market."

That disparity makes those holding legitimate shares the bell of the ball.

"We receive daily offers from the ridiculous to the sublime," said Bradley Horowitz, a general partner at Wisdom Ventures, which was an early investor in Anthropic. "People are trying all kinds of shenanigans."

While Horowitz is unwilling to sell his shares, Leimgruber, who is the founder of AI hardware company OpenHome, is ready to take his chips off the table. He originally acquired his stake through the FTX bankruptcy in 2024, when Anthropic was valued at $18 billion, and says he is not an investing savant.

"I actually thought it was already overvalued then," he said. "No one could have predicted this."

With a 5,400% gain over two years, he sees limited upside from here and does not want to be concentrated in a single stock.

"I have a large portion of my assets in this one investment," he said. "Some diversification seems prudent."

• After moving to Canada to study and be with her boyfriend, Vaishali Gauba started to feel lost.
• She had to rebuild her professional identity to feel less like a "trailing spouse."
• Gauba now feels like she has a fulfilling career, while being physically present with her partner.

I'd known my boyfriend for 14 years, but I felt butterflies in my stomach at the thought of reuniting with him after a year of long-distance dating.

We met in India at Montessori school and got together at the age of 13. In February 2021, he moved to Canada for his MBA. I decided to join him in August 2022, and a few months later, we were married and thrilled to be starting a life together in Toronto, both of us age 28.

Clouded by excitement, I didn't fully comprehend the challenges that come with moving for love.

After leaving my family and friends behind and recalibrating my career, having built up five years of professional experience in India, I began to feel a loss of identity. I saw myself as the "trailing spouse" — adjusting my career and location for my partner — and even resented him for those adjustments at times.

It took a while, but after living in Canada for 3½ years, I can confidently say I've rebuilt my professional and personal identity in a new country. These were the three steps that helped me do it.

First, I built my professional identity in Canada as an entrepreneur

Before moving to Canada, I'd spent two years working as a self-employed public relations consultant in India. I came to Canada on a student visa, pursuing a master's in digital media at Toronto Metropolitan University. I'd been wanting to do further studies for a while, and options in Canada made sense since my boyfriend was already there.

While I was still studying, I landed a Toronto-based communications job, but after starting it in 2023, I realized it felt misaligned with my identity and goals. I'd already worked for myself in India, so autonomy and flexibility were vital to me. That said, the idea of working for myself in a new country was daunting. I had no knowledge about how to reach out to potential clients, build a network, or even file my taxes.

After only three months in my job, I began trying to land some of my own clients in PR, so I'd have more flexibility than a full-time job offered.

This was around the same time I received my Canadian permanent residency. The stability of this new status made starting a business feel more straightforward. After researching federal and provincial business laws and consulting an accountant, I officially launched my boutique PR agency and consulting business, Vaishali Gauba Media.

Although being an entrepreneur comes with countless challenges, from understanding finances to dealing with self-doubt, it's allowed me to harness a professional identity that feels true to myself and that I'm proud of.

Had I gone down a traditional 9-to-5 path and not made this career move, I think I would've held my husband responsible for me having to give up my more flexible self-employed status in India.

I actively pursued my creative and social interests

My husband and I have different interests. I enjoy reading, meeting new people, and writing, while he prefers to play sports and read about history. When I moved to Canada, the friends he made on his MBA course quickly became my friends, and while this felt easy, I couldn't make time for hobbies that enriched me.

After roughly a year in Canada, I actively sought out activities and clubs that stimulated me intellectually and socially. I joined a book club and a gardening community, and also made new friends at strength training and yoga classes.

These communities allowed me to have my own social life independent of my husband and his friends, which furthered my sense of personal identity. I felt more enriched when I could connect with others with similar interests, and it also felt more like I was carving my own path, rather than trailing behind my partner.

My husband and I establish a middle ground wherever possible

As an entrepreneur, my professional life and routine is quite flexible, whereas my husband's job is more structured. Early on in our marriage, we accepted that we'd likely decide where to live based on where his career took him.

I've grown to love my life in Canada, but I also really love to travel, and at one point, I worried I'd miss out on it after following him to a new country. I prefer doing longer workcations, spanning a few weeks, as they help me manage my work schedule while also thoroughly exploring new cultures. But my husband doesn't always have that liberty. I opened up to him about how important travel was to me, and after a few discussions, we decided to find a middle ground wherever possible.

At the end of last year, my husband was able to work remotely for two weeks, and we spent that time in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, away from the brutal Canadian winter. When he can't join me on trips, particularly to visit our families in India, I travel alone. In 2024, I also took a solo trip to Vietnam for three weeks. Doing things independently helps me feel that my identity and decisions aren't always defined by my husband's career or schedule.

Unlike me, my husband enjoys shorter vacations and utilizing long weekends, which I can usually do because of my flexible work schedule. Openly communicating our preferences while having an adaptable mindset has allowed us both to enjoy what we like without feeling resentful.

Moving for love has been an empowering experience

Although my confidence and identity were in flux when I first moved to Canada, building a business, seeking social and creative experiences, and having clear communication with my partner about my preferences have been key to a fulfilling journey.

Being a "trailing spouse" bothered me at first, but over time, I've realized it has been an empowering choice, allowing me to pave a path to a meaningful career while also being physically present with my partner.

• Josh Vintner-Jackson was 29 when he first felt discomfort in his left hip.
• Doctors thought he was constipated, but he was eventually diagnosed with colon cancer.
• Young cancer cases are rising but a significant number are diagnosed late.

Josh Vintner-Jackson first felt some discomfort in his lower left hip in March 2020.

At the time, Vintner-Jackson, who is from the UK, was 29 and worked at a startup in Austin. He balanced his time between work, hanging out with friends, and his active hobbies. He loved running marathons, including one five-day ultramarathon through the desert in Jordan.

Over the next four months, he would occasionally feel a pang of discomfort in the area. By the end of May, he had started to become severely constipated, despite eating what he considered a healthy diet.

After not pooping for eight days, he went to urgent care in June 2020, where an X-ray revealed a buildup in his colon.

His doctor presumed it was poop, gave Vintner-Jackson some laxatives, and told him it was "nothing to worry about," he told Business Insider.

The medication helped for a few days, but shortly after, the constipation came back. "My stomach started to swell," Vintner-Jackson said. He returned to urgent care in mid-June and was given laxatives a second time.

His constipation persisted, and his abdomen became painful, prompting him to go to urgent care for a third time in early July. He was given laxatives and told to come back the following day if his symptoms remained.

"I thought my stomach was going to implode. It had pushed out. I couldn't sleep, I didn't manage to sleep, I think, for 36 hours," he said.

The doctor took one look at him and sent him for a CT scan

The next day, he made the 300-meter walk to the urgent care center closest to his apartment, which he said was "the longest 300 meters I'd ever done."

The doctor on duty took one look at him and his inflamed abdomen, and sent him straight for a CT scan. It showed that Vintner-Jackson had a tumor blocking his colon. The doctor sent him straight to the ER, where oncologists told him he needed urgent surgery to remove the tumor.

The next morning at 9 a.m, surgeons removed a golf ball-sized tumor from his colon, as well as 15 inches of his colon and 15 lymph nodes, seven of which were cancerous. His oncologists confirmed that he had stage 3 colon cancer.

Colon cancer has been rising in people under 50 since the '90s and is now the deadliest cancer in this age group. Around three in four young colon cancer patients are diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease. National survey data involving 1,000 nationally representative US adults found that in 2025, 45% of Americans who were diagnosed with colorectal cancer under 45 said that their stomach or bowel symptoms were dismissed by a doctor.

"Your age acts as a disguise when you walk in. You just assume you're young and healthy. It's probably a cold. Well, no, it might be something way more extreme," Vintner-Jackson, who is now 34, said.

Researchers still aren't sure what's behind the rise, but antibiotic use in childhood, microplastics, weedkiller, and changes to the gut microbiome from high-sugar, low-fiber modern diets are all being explored as possible causes.

The common symptoms of early-onset colon cancer include blood in the stool, abdominal pain, weight loss, loss of appetite, and constipation. He urges young people to get symptoms checked by a healthcare professional, and wants young cancer patients to know that there is support out there for them.

"If you get the diagnosis and you're young, we are all out here and it is important to reach out," he said.

The cancer spread to his lungs

Eight weeks after the surgery, Vintner-Jackson started chemotherapy, which he had biweekly for six months.

After 12 rounds of chemo, he was told there was no evidence of disease in his bloodwork. "I thought, 'OK, this is great. I can go back to living normally,'" he said.

But nine months later, a blood test revealed that there was 0.1% evidence of cancer cells in his body, and the doctors didn't know where they were located.

It took almost a year of scans and investigation for his medical team to ascertain that cancer cells from his colon had spread to his lungs. In October 2022, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Adjusting to life with a chronic disease

Vintner-Jackson moved back to the UK, where he has since been on an almost constant cycle of chemotherapy treatments, which have so far kept the cancer from advancing.

"It is really unlikely I'll ever get rid of it because it's spread to the lungs, but if you can slow it down and keep it chronic rather than terminal, then you can go on and live as normal with the disease," he said.

Sometimes Vintner-Jackson feels great, and other times the simplest tasks are a struggle. This means he is no longer able to work full-time. He has freelanced between treatments, but is currently not working.

He has adapted his lifestyle to work around his new reality. Last August, he moved from London to Cambridgeshire in the English countryside. His mom and brother live there, and he thought the pace of life would be better for his health.

Vintner-Jackson has also trained as a life coach, specializing in helping people living with chronic illness, and started a community support group for young people diagnosed with cancer called Chat Cancer.

"Now life is very much like gardening, going for dog walks, taking a very peaceful approach," he said.

• Starbucks and In-N-Out have recently announced plans to build corporate offices in Tennessee.
• The moves are part of a broader southern expansion across the fast food industry.
• New and legacy brands are expanding in the South due to demand, lower costs, and easier hiring.

Starbucks is planting a corporate flag in Nashville. In-N-Out is building an Eastern hub in nearby Franklin, Tennessee. And across the South, a long list of fast-food names — like Whataburger, Cava, and Jersey Mike's — are expanding.

From Texas to Florida, burgeoning and legacy fast-food companies are clustering their offices and growth bets in the region, chasing lower operating costs, easier hiring, and a customer base that's clamoring for more options.

Recruiters and consultants who work across the restaurant industry say the move has been building for years, but is now accelerating.

"It's the old adage of follow the money," Mike Vigna, president at the recruiting firm RestaurantZone, told Business Insider.

A quieter shift south, years in the making

Post-pandemic population growth, suburban expansion, and new development are creating a new territory for chains to scale. As workers leave hubs like Silicon Valley and Seattle, restaurants follow — and so does the corporate infrastructure.

Whataburger is actively expanding across the region, with plans to open over 50 new locations in Georgia and 30 in Alabama by 2028. Jersey Mike's is also growing rapidly in states like Florida and Texas as part of its plans to open between 400 and 450 stores this year.

Cava, Dave's Hot Chicken, and smaller chains like Huey Magoo's Chicken Tenders are following suit.

For franchise operators, the math can be stark.

"You could really be opening up two locations somewhere in the South for the same cost as it would be for one location out in California," said Austin Titus, president of Accurate Franchising.

Wages and the cost of living also show "a dramatic difference" compared to the West Coast, Titus said, lowering the barrier to expansion and making it easier to operate profitably.

At the same time, the South offers another factor that's just as important: clear signs of demand.

"It's a relatively untapped market," Ray Camillo, founder and CEO of Blue Orbit Restaurant Consulting, said of the Southeast, compared with more saturated coastal regions. He added that "there's an awful lot of unmet demand" since chain expansion hasn't kept pace with soaring population growth.

According to 2025 Census data, among counties with populations of 20,000 or more, nine of the top 10 fastest-growing counties were in the South, as were 45 of the top 50.

Why Nashville — and why now

Nashville and the broader Tennessee market have become a magnet thanks to a combination of business-friendly policies and a high quality of life, making relocation easier to sell to employees.

"There are a couple of things that make Tennessee attractive for employers and businesses," said Melissa Montero, a recruiter at Goodwin Recruiting whose own family relocated to the state five years ago to follow her husband's job.

She pointed to no state income tax and a "pro-business tax environment" as particularly compelling reasons for corporations to move. For workers, she said, it's simply a better place to live.

"It's a significantly easier place to live in so many ways," Montero said, citing lower costs, quality schools, and strong infrastructure — factors that can help companies move talent without losing them.

Before the pandemic, companies often struggled to convince employees to leave major coastal hubs. Now, that dynamic has flipped.

"I don't have anybody who wants to move to New York City or California," Vigna said. "Everybody either wants to move out of there or move around in the South."

Remote and hybrid work have accelerated that shift, widening the talent pool and making it easier to build teams outside traditional headquarters cities.

Not all employees are convinced of the benefits of moving South: Three Starbucks corporate staff members who spoke to Business Insider said the mood in their office was somber in the wake of the company's announcement that it would open a satellite office in Nashville.

"It's just confusing because last year the message was to be in the office in Seattle for office culture, and now they've introduced this new mini HQ," one Starbucks corporate staff member said.

In July 2025, Starbucks required many remote employees to relocate to Seattle and return to the office four days a week or be fired, Business Insider previously reported. Company executives have said the Nashville location will support "in-office cultures across our geographic footprint."

The economics of moving south

For fast-food chains — which operate on thin margins — the South's cost structure is hard to ignore.

As other companies consider expansion, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and lower buildout costs all factor into their decisions. So do rising costs elsewhere.

Operators in higher-cost states are dealing with "higher regulation, higher policies, higher food costs, higher inflation," said Matthew Rodgers, CEO of RestaurantZone. Moving or expanding south can help offset that pressure.

And once companies plant a flag, they tend to double down.

"They set up their hub, and then they start to really onboard and flesh out their corporate support teams," Roberts said, adding that he has seen hiring demand in parts of the South jump as much as 50% or more in the past year.

That creates a feedback loop: more companies move in, more talent follows, and the region becomes more attractive for the next wave.

None of this means companies are abandoning places like Washington, where Starbucks remains headquartered, or In-N-Out's California home.

"It's not like a divestment," Titus said. "There's still a lot of business to be done in California."

Instead, companies are shifting where they expand — and where they base operations — to balance costs and growth opportunities.

In other words, they're spreading out.

"They're going into regions where they're following the population," Vigna said. "It's not a fad."

That doesn't mean every chain will move, or that every move will pay off, but the direction of travel is clear.

As Camillo put it, companies are looking at the region and asking a straightforward question: "Why not go ahead and pitch a tent here?"

For an industry built on thin margins and constant expansion, the answer is increasingly pointing south.

• Strategy, marketing, and compliance personnel were targeted in staff cuts at Paloma Partners.
• Led by Ravi Singh, the $1.1 billion hedge fund completed a company overhaul earlier this year.
• Paloma was about flat in 2026 through mid-April, after an 8% gain in 2025.

Paloma Partners is cutting nearly a dozen personnel, including its strategy and marketing execs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The staff reductions follow a broad revamp of the multistrategy hedge fund, founded decades ago by Donald Sussman, which included a leadership overhaul, a technology and operations rebuild, and outsourcing processes to streamline the firm. Paloma, whose assets have declined in recent years amid redemption requests, completed the project in the first quarter this year, a source close to the firm said.

The firm now manages about $1.1 billion, according to a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"After doubling our manager roster and completing a full overhaul of our investment infrastructure over the past year, streamlining the organization is the natural next step toward a leaner, more efficient platform for our investors," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. They declined to comment on individual personnel or performance.

Among the departing employees are chief strategy officer Kristin Cohen, chief marketing officer Louis Molinari, and deputy chief compliance officer Anjali Kamat, the people said.

Cohen previously worked in business development at Walleye Capital and joined as head of business development in 2024, a role involving sourcing, vetting, and recruiting investment talent. She transitioned to the top strategy role later that year and helped lead the firm's transformation.

Molinari, a longtime Barclays exec focused on hedge fund consulting and capital raising, and Cohen's father, joined a year later.

Kamat, a former Securities and Exchange Commission compliance professional, joined from PwC in 2019.

Paloma has 110 employees, including 22 investment teams, according to a person familiar with the firm.

The firm was down 2.9% through March in 2026, according to an HSBC investor report, but had clawed back to 0.1% in positive territory through mid-April, a person close to the firm said. It gained 8% in 2025, the report said.

Reboot: Take two

Paloma is one of the oldest names in hedge funds, founded 45 years ago by Sussman and known for some prescient bets on investment firms including D.E. Shaw, Squarepoint Capital, LMR Partners, and Sona Asset Management.

It's had its share of misses as well, including the backing of Jonathan Graham's Aquatic Capital, a 2019 quant launch that has struggled to produce returns, and which Paloma is in the process of redeeming its capital from.

After a failed reboot in 2023 with Neil Chriss at the helm, Paloma overhauled the C-suite again in 2024, bringing in CEO Ravi Singh, an alum of Credit Suisse's asset management division and Goldman Sachs. Singh was joined by ex-WorldQuant chief operating officer Mike DeAddio at the end of 2024.

The pair has retooled its investment team, which includes both internal and external money managers, pruning some teams and adding 11 new managers in 2025. The firm has been looking to drum up more investor capital, Business Insider previously reported.

Paloma targets established investors with growth potential and takes a more PM-friendly approach than larger multistrategy firms, offering greater flexibility and greater ownership of intellectual property.

Additions to the Paloma stable over the past year include nVerses Capital, a systematic fund from ex-Jump Trading quant JB Kim, Avicene Asset Management, a long-short equity fund from Citadel alum Moiz Khan, and Castiglione Capital, a London-based systematic trading firm.

"This model has supported a strong track record of successful launches and reinforced our reputation as a founder-friendly capital partner," Singh told Business Insider earlier this year.

• Renee O'Drobinak accepted a marketing job in Dubai at the end of last year.
• Despite rising tensions in the region at the time, she and her husband moved to Dubai at the end of March.
• She says she received a 45% salary increase and doesn't regret the move.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Renee O'Drobinak, director of marketing and communications at PMKConsult, a construction and project management consulting firm based in Dubai. Her words have been edited for length and clarity.

I've been in Dubai for about a month, and my husband and I are really enjoying the city — but the move from London couldn't have been more dramatic.

We flew Emirates and landed in a thunderstorm with heavy turbulence. I even saw lightning strike one wing. Within two hours of landing, we got our first missile alert on our phones at around 2 or 3 a.m.

Outside the airport, the roads were flooded. Dozens of people were waiting for taxis, and it took us about four hours to reach our Airbnb.

I was terrified. I looked at my husband and thought, "What have I dragged us into by accepting this job?"

Settling into our new life

The first week of our life in Dubai was quite disconcerting. We were woken up early, around 3 a.m., by missile alerts, but apart from that, we felt safe.

These days, Dubai is much quieter than when I visited last year in November. Understandably, there are now fewer people in the city, but they are getting on with their lives. There seems to be a concentrated effort to make everything look like business as usual.

But hospitality is struggling with lower footfall. You notice that when you go to a restaurant, there are a lot of open seats, but we don't feel as if we are in any particular danger.

We got used to the alerts fairly quickly.

Our first few weeks in Dubai

Aside from the quiet start, traffic has picked up as people who left Dubai are returning. In the last week, life feels mostly normal — just a bit subdued.

I started working out within five days of arriving, which has helped.

I grew up in Tokyo — my father is American, and my mother is Japanese — and moved to the UK for university. I ended up staying for 23 years and married a British man.

In London, I was head of communications at an architectural practice. I liked my job and wasn't planning to leave, but about a year ago, an opportunity in Dubai came up.

After a few visits, I was drawn to the people and the role more than the city itself. My husband, an architect, and I weren't looking to leave the UK, but we were open to the right opportunity.

I accepted the job in November 2025 and gave three months' notice. Then, about four weeks before my move, the war started. It was scary — people kept asking if I would pull out.

What convinced me to go anyway was how my future boss handled it. He acknowledged the situation but reassured me that the authorities were managing it well and that my safety was a priority.

HR also said I could start remotely from the UK if needed. It made the decision feel much easier, and I chose to move forward despite the uncertainty.

Life here is very different

Back in London, my husband and I owned a small one-bedroom flat in southeast London, and I commuted to Marylebone three to four days a week.

My job involved a lot of travel, and I'd often go to the gym after work, getting home around 9 p.m. We'd eat quickly and go to bed. On Sundays, we batch-cooked for the week because eating out in Marylebone was so expensive.

Every day, I carried my lunch, gym gear, and laptop in a huge bag. We weren't poor, but the cost of living in London was incredibly high.

Over six years, I rose to the position of head of marketing and communications. Even with the higher salary, our lifestyle didn't really change.

We stayed in the same flat, packed lunches, and dealt with the same commute. I felt financially stagnant — not because of my employer, but because everything in London had gotten so expensive.

An easier way of life

Life in Dubai feels much easier. My salary is about 45% higher than in London, and I rent a two-bedroom apartment near a major train station in the Dubai Marina area.

My commute is around 30 minutes, and there's sunshine nearly every day — the gray weather in London really got to me.

After work, I return to Dubai Marina, where my husband and I usually go for a walk. People tend to leave the office at 5 p.m., and with the shorter commute, I have so much more time than I did in London.

There's a gym in our building, and I can afford to eat lunch out. I carry a much lighter bag and don't bring my laptop everywhere.

I was surprised by how Dubai was portrayed in Western media and by people telling me I'd hate it or that it was tacky. I don't find that at all — I enjoy it here.

Despite what I'd heard about tensions in the region, people here have just been getting on with life. I've really appreciated that.

• Charlize Theron, 50, says she may never want to share a home with a partner.
• "I would love for you to be close, like buy the house down the street," she said.
• The single mom of two, who adopted her daughters in 2012 and 2015, said her family comes first.

Charlize Theron, 50, says she's unsure if she'll ever share a home with a partner again.

On Tuesday's episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show," Theron spoke about her love life and how she's grown used to having her own space as a single mom.

"My kids are at an age now where they actually enjoy that I'm dating because they want to be involved," Theron told host Drew Barrymore. "It's really funny how I was scared they'd be threatened by it, and now they're like, 'Mom, is he texting you? Like, go on the date, mom.'"

The actor said she often talks to her two daughters, whom she adopted in 2012 and 2015, about her romantic experiences.

But when it comes to taking the next step in a relationship, Theron said she's unsure she'd ever want to live with a partner again.

"I really mean this — people think I joke — I don't think I could ever live with somebody again," she said.

"I would love for you to be close, like buy the house down the street. But I don't know if I can, maybe it's because I still have my daughters in the house, and maybe that will change when I'm an empty nester, but I'm looking for something very specific," she continued.

At the end of the day, her priorities remain centered on her family. "Your kids come first, they always come first," Theron said.

Theron has previously been open about embracing single motherhood and building a life on her own terms.

In July, she said that being a single mom was "one of the healthiest decisions" she ever made, despite the stigma around it.

"With women, it's always like, something must be wrong with her. She can't keep a man. And it's never part of the discussion of like, 'Wow, she's really living her truth. She's living in her happiness. This is actually a choice that she made,'" Theron said.

She isn't the only Hollywood celebrity who has spoken about about valuing independence over traditional relationship setups.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2016, Whoopi Goldberg — who has been married three times in the past — said she's "not that interested" in dating or having a relationship at this stage of her life.

"I'm much happier on my own. I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I'm not looking to be with somebody forever or live with someone. I don't want somebody in my house," Goldberg said.

During an appearance on the "Today" show in February, Keke Palmer said she isn't interested in living with a partner. "I like my alone time," she said.

• Andrej Karpathy said AI-written code is "bloaty" and "brittle."
• Karpathy coined the term vibe coding in February 2025.
• Security flaws have raised concerns about AI-generated code despite its popularity.

He coined the term "vibe coding," but he's not blown away by it.

At a talk at Sequoia Capital released on Wednesday, former Tesla AI head and OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy said that code written by AI can still be messy and needs human supervision.

"Right now, the answer is that the agents are like these intern entities," he said. "You basically still have to be in charge of the aesthetics, the judgment, the taste, and a little bit of oversight."

That's because the AI-constructed code is far from perfect, he said.

"Sometimes I get a little bit of a heart attack because it's not like super amazing code necessarily all the time," he said. "It's very bloaty, and there's a lot of copy-paste, and there's awkward abstractions that are brittle, and it works, but it's just really gross."

Karpathy, who now runs the AI-powered education platform Eureka Labs, introduced the concept of "vibe coding" in a post on X in February last year. He described it as a highly AI-assisted style of development in which builders barely touch the code themselves. In November, Collins Dictionary named vibe coding as its 2025 word of the year, cementing its importance in both tech and non-tech circles.

On Wednesday's talk, the OpenAI cofounder said that humans will remain in charge of some high-level development decisions, while the AI does a lot "under the hood."

Karpathy added that there's nothing "fundamental" preventing AI from writing clean code; it's that labs haven't focused on this problem during model training yet.

The vibe coding wave, which took off even before Karpathy coined the term, has disrupted how tech companies hire and reward employees and shaken software stocks. It's prompted an influx of companies building tools for professional and novice developers, and sent the valuations of startups such as Lovable, Cursor, and Replit well into the billions.

Despite this virality, professional developers discourage an overreliance on AI because it can produce messy, untested code. Recent security stumbles that risk exposing company data have also given users another reason to be wary of vibe coding.

Last week, the Swedish vibe coding platform Lovable said it had detected a security error after user backlash on X.

"Unfortunately, in February, while unifying permissions in our backend, we accidentally re-enabled access to chats on public projects," Lovable wrote on X. "Upon learning this, we immediately reverted the change to make all public projects' chats private again. We appreciate the researchers who uncovered this."

• Kim Jong Un said this week that his troops really were killing themselves to avoid capture in Kursk.
• He said on Monday at a memorial opening that some had chosen "self-death" to protect their honor.
• His remarks confirm two grisly tactics that Ukraine said it observed in 2024.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, has praised his soldiers in Kursk for choosing the "path of self-detonation" to avoid capture, confirming a practice that Ukraine said it observed in 2024.

According to state media, Kim made the remarks on Monday during the completion ceremony of a memorial hall for North Korean troops who fought overseas.

Kim lauded his fallen troops in Kursk as "heroes who, in order to safeguard great honor, chose without hesitation the path of self-detonation and self-death."

Per state media, the North Korean leader also paid tribute to soldiers who died "while charging at the forefront of assault battles."

"Those who, though their bodies were torn by bullets and shells, writhed more from the frustration of not being able to fulfill the duty of a soldier who had received orders than from the pain inflicted upon them," Kim was quoted as saying.

Bloomberg first reported on Kim's comments this week.

Western and South Korean officials have estimated that Pyongyang sent between 10,000 and 14,000 elite infantry to help the Kremlin retake areas of Kursk, a Russian region that Ukraine attacked in late 2024.

Kim's speech confirms two tactics or policies that Ukraine previously reported observing among North Korean troops — practices that drew global attention at the time for their insight into the ideological commitment of Pyongyang's full-time soldiers.

For one, Ukrainian forces said they would sometimes encounter wounded North Korean infantry detonating grenades on their bodies to avoid capture.

"We see that Russian military personnel and North Korean supervisors are not at all interested in the survival of North Koreans," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in December 2024. "Everything is done in a way that makes it impossible for us to take Koreans prisoner."

Kyiv also said that, unlike Russian soldiers, who moved more cautiously and in smaller numbers to avoid detection, North Korean troops would engage boldly in high-casualty, frontal assaults.

By the time Russia retook Kursk in early 2025, Ukrainian and South Korean officials estimated that around 6,000 North Korean soldiers were killed or wounded.

Pyongyang's involvement in the war has raised concerns in the West and South Korea that its troops have gained invaluable combat experience, especially in drone warfare, that North Korea could use in other potential conflicts.

Russia and North Korea continue to strengthen their economic and military ties beyond the transfer of troops. Pyongyang has been supplying the Kremlin with dozens of artillery systems and millions of shells, as well as a limited arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles.

Kim made his Monday speech as a visiting Russian delegation, including Moscow's defense minister, Andrei Belousov, attended the ceremony.

• Tsinghua University is China's top computer science school, drawing the country's best students.
• A grind culture fuels long hours and peer pressure to excel, students and experts told BI.
• For many, studying at Tsinghua opens doors to top AI roles and careers.

Felix Gan, a second-year Ph.D. student in computer science, said he is effectively living a "996" routine at Beijing's Tsinghua University. Seven days a week, his days start around 8 a.m., and he leaves campus at about 9 p.m.

Most of those hours go into his research, but he's not just working toward a degree. Gan hopes to develop a technology he can turn into a product and launch a startup after graduation.

That level of intensity is the norm on campus, where writing one thesis isn't enough to stand out. Some students write several.

Tsinghua is China's top computer science university, often likened to Harvard University or Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students are gearing up for a front-row seat in the global AI race.

As China's AI ambitions grow, so does the pressure on the engineers and researchers in training.

Many say the payoff for years of hardcore schooling is worth it. Making it through Tsinghua can mean a golden ticket into the ranks of China's tech elite — a network that includes the likes of Wang Xing, the cofounder and CEO of Meituan, one of China's largest on-demand services companies. Other notable Tsinghua alumni include China's president, Xi Jinping, and his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

Tsinghua alumni have founded more than 1,000 companies, including over a dozen unicorns, according to market intelligence platform Tracxn.

Normalized 'grind' culture

The university is among the most selective in China. To get in, students need top marks on the Gaokao, China's national college entrance exam.

In 2024, only about 0.05% of Gaokao test-takers made it into Tsinghua or Peking University combined — roughly one in 2,000 students, according to national data cited by Chinese media.

Tsinghua's undergraduate student body largely comes from mainland China. Graduate schools have more international students, like Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School. Located about 1,400 miles south of Beijing, the graduate school brings together Chinese and international students in research-driven, industry-linked programs.

Daniyar Kuzekov, a master's student studying data science and information tech at Tsinghua's Shenzhen Institute of Graduate Studies, said most students he meets either have exceptional backgrounds or are relentless grinding.

"I feel the pressure that they were on before, how hardworking they were in order to get here to this level," he added.

Kuzekov, who's from Kazakhstan, described locking into a 22-hour straight coding marathon for his thesis, working alongside an AI assistant on a paper about DeepSeek.

Students told Business Insider that the grind culture comes with learning at the AI frontier. For computer science undergraduate Pau Tong Lin Xu, late nights and seven to eight hours of studying a day are typical.

"You learn a lot, but that comes at the cost of a huge workload, and sometimes that can leave little time for you to do other things or explore some of your own ideas," he said.

He described the peer pressure as a "double-edged sword" — motivating, yet at times overwhelming.

Tsinghua's culture reflects a broader trend in China, often described as "involution" — a cycle of intense competition in which everyone works harder just to keep up.

Some young Chinese people have pushed back by "lying flat," rejecting the grind. But for students at elite universities, opting out is rarely an option.

Publishing early, joining labs, coding as baseline

Beyond the daily grind, many computer science majors join research labs early and work on academic papers.

Some undergraduates go a step further, aiming to publish at top-tier computer science conferences — a signal of research ability when applying to graduate programs.

Zhixun Tan, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering in 2016 and works as a software engineer at Google, said joining research labs and engaging in out-of-classroom activities were the most valuable parts of his Tsinghua experience.

Professors were happy to guide students in research programs. "You can just reach out randomly to professors, and more often than not, they will happily take you," Tan said.

Tan completed a summer research program at Imperial College London organized by his school, which he said broadened his research horizons.

Davenzka Abigayle, a second-year undergraduate student majoring in biomedical engineering, said coding is treated as a baseline skill across disciplines at Tsinghua. Economics students might pick up Python for data analysis. Science and engineering students often go deeper, learning languages like C++ early on, she said.

Abigayle completed her C++ course in her first semester.

"It's useful in the long run," she said, adding that coding has helped in her coursework and projects.

Students also use AI tools daily to supercharge learning.

For Gan, the Ph.D. student, AI tripled his research speed, helping with preliminary checks, drafting code, and early implementations. But the final step remains manual.

"Professors are telling you use the tools, don't resist the tools, but we do still need to validate our code manually at the end because research requires exact precision," he said.

Kuzekov said he uses AI tools in his machine learning course with his professor's approval.

"We have to share our chats and all of these materials with our teacher," he said.

In some classes, students disclose how much of their work involved AI. Professors can also cross-check usage to verify their work, Abigayle said.

Zak Dychtwald, the founder of the Young China Group, a think tank based in Shanghai, said Tsinghua's prestige "comes from being China's most selective, best-resourced, and most symbolically important university, with especially strong engineering and computer science pipelines that translate directly into elite jobs and AI research.

"As China is increasingly recognized as sourcing the world's leading AI talent, the name recognition has even more significance than it used to," he added.

A ticket to the top

For many students, the benefits of enrolling at Tsinghua become apparent quickly.

Bryan Constantine Sadihin, a second-year master's student studying computer science, said Tsinghua's training gives him an edge in highly competitive technical interviews.

A year into his program, he secured a research internship at ShengShu, one of China's leading AI startups, where he worked on multimodal generative AI models. He said Tsinghua's reputation and training make him "optimistic" about his job prospects.

Tech-related roles are the biggest destination. About a third of Tsinghua undergraduates entered IT and software-related industries in 2022, according to the university's data.

Zhao Litao, a senior research fellow with the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said Tsinghua sits at the apex of China's higher education.

"Its prestige reflects not only academic strength but also its historical role in training political, scientific, and technological elites," said Zhao, who researches China's social policy.

Zhao said Tsinghua graduates typically move into "leading tech firms, high-growth startups, or pursue further study." Preferred tech employers include Huawei, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba.

Academia remains a key path, with many staying in China as geopolitical tensions rise and local opportunities expand, Zhao said.

"Notably, a smaller but influential segment moves into AI-focused startups, often linked to university labs," he added.

Front-row seat to China's AI ambition

As China closes the gap with — and in some areas challenges — the US in AI, Tsinghua students know they are in the heart of it.

Tan, the Google software engineer, said it was clear even as an undergraduate in the mid-2010s that China was at the forefront of technology and rapidly producing tech talent.

Zhao, the NUS research fellow, said that China's university system is increasingly structured to channel top talent into strategically important sectors — AI being one of the top priorities.

Backed by strong state support and rapid industry growth, the field is widely seen as the frontier of both scientific progress and economic opportunity.

"This is not purely a top-down process — student preferences, labor market signals, and institutional incentives are reinforcing each other, especially in AI," he added.

For some Tsinghua students and alumni, being part of China's top AI training grounds comes with a sense of responsibility to lead the tech revolution.

"There's nobody to fix the problem except us. So we have to step up and do the most difficult things, and then other people will follow suit," Tan said.

• Business Insider's Lee Chong Ming vibe-coded a custom trainer app in a weekend.
• It replaced his fitness stack and made him question why he should pay for or use multiple apps.
• Vibe coding can make personalization easy and fast — and that should worry big apps.

As a former group fitness coach, I was trained to track my goals in numbers: calories in, hours trained, kilograms lifted. Numbers don't lie.

However, tracking them was messy. I bounced between MyFitnessPal for meals, Apple Watch for workout duration, and the Notes app for lifting logs. When I needed help with the form, I'd scroll through videos online between sets. It took the joy out of the gym.

At a vibe-coding workshop in Singapore in February, I tested a simple idea: What if all of this lived in one place?

I set out to build a personal trainer app that could generate a workout program, log my lifts, and surface exercise cues when I needed them. By the end of the weekend, I had a working version — and I saw why big apps should be worried.

Building the app was simple

I was given about 9,000 credits on the AI tool Manus — worth roughly $40 to $50 — to build an app.

Manus, which Meta acquired only for the Chinese government to block the deal earlier this week, isn't positioned as a dedicated coding tool like Cursor or Lovable. It's a general-purpose AI agent: one that can write code, but isn't built solely for it.

At the workshop, I learned how to kick things off with a simple, plain-English prompt. I told the AI what the app should do, who it was for, and the key features, like recommending exercises based on a user's goals.

Anyone with a clear idea could build something just by describing what they want — no coding experience required. The key was scope: not too broad, not too narrow.

Once I locked that in, Manus got to work. About 30 minutes later, my app appeared. I didn't touch a line of code. I just watched it build.

The result was a web app called "TrainerPro." It came with a grungy black-and-orange interface, which Manus described as an "Iron Forge" industrial brutalist aesthetic.

The app came loaded with a full exercise library of about 200 movements, complete with GIF demos, coaching cues, and filters by muscle group, equipment, or environment.

It could also generate structured eight- or 12-week training programs based on a popular coaching framework — adjusting for goals, fitness level, and starting weights, while factoring in de-load weeks and progressive overload.

There were a few early bugs, like some exercises not loading properly. But fixing them was simple. I just told the AI what was wrong, and it fixed it. By the end of the weekend, I had something usable.

The satisfaction of using something I built

When I stepped into the gym and opened my app, I felt a small jolt of pride.

I'd built this in a few hours. Now I was using it.

I generated an eight-week training plan using the app, mapping out exactly what I should lift each week, complete with cues for every exercise.

On the surface, it wasn't radically different from how I already trained: bench presses, split squats, deadlifts.

The difference was in the structure. The app told me exactly what to lift and for how long on any given day. No more flipping between apps or checking my notes mid-workout.

I could also rely on it for exercise cues, which meant I no longer had to browse YouTube or TikTok to fix my form between sets.

Of course, there were moments I ignored the intensity and dialed it down, especially after a long day.

There were limitations. I couldn't tweak the program to swap in the exercises I preferred, as I had run out of credits to build that feature. I also forgot to integrate a meal tracker, so I still had to rely on the MyFitnessPal nutrition app.

But that was the thing — it all felt fixable. I just needed more credits.

With a few more prompts, a bit more time, I could shape it into something that fit me exactly.

There were also days that I wanted to train with friends and to follow their lead instead of my screen. Sometimes, you just need to unplug.

Vibe coding is a game changer

In the fitness world, giants like Apple Fitness+, Strava, and MyFitnessPal dominate.

They're widely used by fitness enthusiasts and are no longer just tools. Platforms like Strava have become social networks in their own right, where workouts double as content and community.

Here's what I think: Apps that have evolved into full ecosystems aren't going away anytime soon. But the rest of the stack — the more functional, isolated tools — look far more vulnerable.

If a non-technical user like me can build a working, personalized trainer in a weekend, why pay for something off-the-shelf that can't adapt?

To be fair, building an app still costs time and money — but a one-time $50 to $100 could be more economical than paying monthly.

With my vibe-coded app, I also didn't need separate tools to log workouts, generate programs, or even buy training plans from Instagram coaches. It was all there, tailored to me. If something didn't fit, I could change it.

Fitness apps have long been built around scale — one product for millions of users. Vibe coding flips that. It makes hyper-personalization cheap, fast, and accessible.

It also opens up something else: distribution. If you solve a common pain point, your app can become a side hustle or a business, something you share and even sell.

After all, users often understand their own frustrations better than any product team.

There's also a more intangible pull. Using something you built — with your own design choices and logic — feels different.

In a world where everyone is trying to stand out, that kind of customization has value.

Do you have a story to share about vibe coding? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com.

• KPMG cut some 400 US consultants amid slowing demand in key sectors.
• Employee attrition rates have been lower than expected.
• KPMG is still hiring for AI transformation, focusing on engineers.

Big Four firm KPMG laid off about 400 consultants in its US advisory division on Wednesday.

The cuts focused on consultants in regulatory risk advisory, customer operations, and financial services, a person familiar told Business Insider. These divisions have seen slowing demand in recent months, the person said.

Employees were informed of the layoffs during a call at noon on Wednesday. On Reddit, posters who said they were employees reported that they received calendar invites for the call as early as Tuesday.

Russ Grote, a spokesperson for KPMG, said in a statement to Business Insider that the firm's actions "focus on a strategic realignment to make sure our people's skills and capabilities are aligned with future demand."

He added that the firm "will continue to support our people in upskilling for the future, while evaluating the size, shape, and skills of our workforce to best serve the market."

KPMG employs over 276,000 people worldwide, and more than 10,000 people in its US advisory business. That's largely divided between its deal advisory and strategy business, which focuses on how companies can use transactions and acquisitions to drive transformation and has seen strong growth of late, and its consulting practice, which focuses on helping clients transform themselves.

Some parts of the consulting business are thriving, including its cybersecurity, managed services, and forensic departments, along with sectors that deal with AI transformation, the person familiar told Business Insider.

The firm is still hiring in key areas like AI, cybersecurity, and managed services, with a focus on engineers and specialists supporting AI transformation.

Roughly 2% of the 4% who were cut were tied to performance, the person familiar said.

The cuts come as fewer employees are leaving KPMG than the firm expected.

Four years after the "Great Resignation," in which millions of workers quit in hopes of boosting salaries and job satisfaction, workers are now sticking it out where they are. As they seek stability, rapid advances in AI are changing what it takes to succeed at work — and who gets to keep their jobs.

Earlier this year, KPMG launched the "AI Spark Innovation Awards" in its advisory division, which is doling out cash prizes to consultants who can highlight "an incredible thing that they've done with AI," Rob Fisher, KPMG US's vice chair of advisory, previously told Business Insider.

Late last year, the firm introduced a dashboard where employees can see how their peers are using AI and set their own goals.

While KPMG is adopting the carrot approach to AI up-skilling, other consulting firms are taking a more performance-driven approach. More than 90% of employees at the US firm use AI weekly, the person familiar said.

Boston Consulting Group — where AI adoption hit also 90% last September — has been integrating AI metrics into performance evaluation.

KPMG's global AI workforce lead, Niale Cleobury, told Bloomberg in October that the firm is asking employees to explain how they'll use AI in their year-end goals.

The US firm is focused on encouraging more frequent and sophisticated use of AI, Grote told Business Insider.

Tim Walsh, the firm's US chair and CEO, told Business Insider in November that the firm is employees "you need to adopt and use the tools that are being provided because it's critical to your success in the future."

• Elon Musk took the stand and faced nearly three hours of cross-examination from OpenAI's attorney.
• Musk's interactions with Shivon Zilis were scrutinized during the court proceedings.
• Exhibits show that Musk once saw himself as a potential OpenAI CEO.

Elon Musk was grilled for nearly three hours by OpenAI's lawyer on his second day of testimony in a high-stakes civil trial — and he will face more cross-examination on Thursday.

Here are the biggest takeaways from his time on the stand on Wednesday as he was questioned about how much control he wanted over OpenAI; his lawsuit against the company and cofounders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman; and communications with his now-partner Shivon Zilis.

Musk explained why he waited years to sue

One of the biggest questions about Musk's 2024 lawsuit is why he waited so long to sue after leaving OpenAI in 2018. On the stand, the Tesla CEO sought to explain the gap.

During cross-examination, Musk told OpenAI counsel William Savitt that he didn't have a problem with nonprofit OpenAI establishing a for-profit subsidiary "as long as the for-profit is in service of the nonprofit," but later discovered that "the tail is wagging the dog."

Musk told Savitt that he "reacted quite negatively" the moment he became aware of Microsoft's $10 billion investment in OpenAI in the fall of 2022.

"Microsoft would only put $10 billion — which is a huge sum of money — into something if they feel like they will get a return," Musk said. "There's no way Microsoft is just giving that as a donation or any kind of charitable way. That's an amount of money that doesn't make any sense."

"I texted Sam Altman and said, 'What the hell is going on?' — something to that effect," Musk added. "I think I said, 'This is a bait and switch.'"

Altman's lawyer had a lot of questions about Shivon Zilis

Musk's communications with Shivon Zilis — his former chief of staff, senior advisor, and mother to four of his children — came under scrutiny.

Zilis' meeting notes entered into evidence say that in August 2017, after Musk and other OpenAI board members met at his "haunted mansion" in San Francisco, he instructed Zilis to help form an OpenAI C-corporation — which would be a for-profit structure — and "make the next step" with it.

"That's not my recollection," Musk said when asked about the notes.

Savitt also questioned Musk about a message to Zilis in February 2018 in which he asked Zilis to stay "close and friendly" to OpenAI, to "keep information flowing," and seek to "move three or four people" from OpenAI to Tesla.

"Well, I wanted to know what's going on," Musk testified.

Musk rejected the CEO title at OpenAI

In the early days, Musk saw his role at OpenAI as akin to a CEO, along with Altman, newly released exhibits showed. They reveal he rejected the title because he was concerned about the optics.

"In terms of title, what about me as chair and you as CEO or us both as co-chairs?" Musk wrote in a November 2015 email to Altman when discussing the structure of OpenAI. "My main concern about being called a co-CEO, even if that is de facto true, is that it might cause problems at SpaceX and Tesla, where they know I'm already overbooked."

On Wednesday, Musk said Tesla was experiencing financial difficulties between 2017 and 2018.

"Tesla particularly was having a lot of difficulty and was on the verge of bankruptcy," Musk said. "I basically slept on the factory floor until it was no longer on the verge of bankruptcy."

OpenAI compensation plans revealed

OpenAI was a nonprofit, but Musk and Altman planned to pay the staff well and discussed cash salary and bonuses, with an option to convert cash into stock, the evidence shows. Musk suggested giving employees the option to convert cash compensation into Y Combinator or SpaceX stock.

"I'm also fine if they want to convert some or all to SpaceX stock. I can pretty much do what I want on the SpaceX side, as it is private (thank goodness)." Musk wrote in a November 2015 email to Altman.

Savitt questioned Musk about a July 2017 email in which he made the offer to give "free Teslas" — Founder Series Model 3 —to some OpenAI employees. They include John Schulman, now the chief scientist of Thinking Machines Lab, who at that time responded in an email that it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

"To make it clear, I paid full price for the Teslas," Musk told Savitt. "I didn't get a discount or anything."

• Amazon could start selling Trainium AI chips to external customers within two years.
• The company disclosed that its Trainium AI chips now have $225 billion in revenue commitments.
• Amazon is investing aggressively in its AI business with $200 billion in capex planned this year.

Amazon says it could begin selling its Trainium AI chips to external customers within two years, putting the cloud giant in closer competition with Nvidia.

During Wednesday's earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy said "there's a good chance" the company will start offering full racks of Trainium chips beyond its own cloud "over the next couple of years." That provides a clearer timeline for earlier comments in his April shareholder letter, where he only said expansion could happen "in the future."

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that this is the first time the company has provided a specific timeframe.

Today, Trainium is only accessible as a cloud service through Amazon Web Services. The company rents access to this AI computing power over the internet.

Selling physical racks of Trainium chips would be a radical business model shift, essentially turning Amazon into a chip company. It would also put Amazon in more direct competition with Nvidia. That's a potentially awkward situation, because Amazon still relies heavily on Nvidia supplying GPUs for its cloud service.

"We have such demand from various companies who will consume as much as we make that we have to decide how much we're going to allocate," Jassy said during the call.

Jassy added that Trainium has racked up $225 billion in "revenue commitments" through its cloud service from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Uber, though he didn't specify contract durations. More broadly, Jassy said Amazon is now "one of the top three data center chip businesses in the world," citing its growing portfolio across Trainium AI chips and Graviton CPUs.

"We're really unusually well-positioned for the inflection that we're seeing," Jassy said.

Amazon stock rose almost 3% in after-hours trading, putting it on course for a record on Thursday. The company's quarterly results topped Wall Street expectations, though spending on data center expansion remains high.

Amazon is in the midst of an aggressive AI investment cycle that is expected to cost about $200 billion this year, underscoring how central this new technology has become to the company's strategy.

In February, Amazon struck a new partnership with OpenAI, committing to invest $50 billion in the AI lab. In return, OpenAI agreed to use Amazon's Trainium chips and co-develop customized models and a new AI agent service that will run through Amazon's cloud platform.

At the same time, Amazon deepened its successful relationship with Anthropic. In April, the cloud giant said it would invest up to $25 billion more in the startup, adding to the $8 billion it had already committed. Anthropic has committed to purchasing $100 billion worth of Trainium chips.

In his annual shareholder letter, Jassy said Amazon's chip business is on track to generate more than $20 billion in revenue this year, adding that the figure could approach $50 billion if the unit operated as a standalone business selling to external providers.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at ekim@businessinsider.com or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Meta publicly addressed next month's layoffs during Wednesday's earnings call.
• CFO Susan Li said Meta is committed to operating efficiently amid record AI spending.
• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI isn't going to replace humans, just amplify them.

As Meta employees brace for layoffs next month, the big question is how many humans it actually needs in the age of AI.

In a telling moment during Wednesday's first-quarter earnings call, CFO Susan Li said she "doesn't really know" what the company's ideal head count looks like.

"I think there's a lot of change right now, with AI capabilities advancing rapidly," she said.

That question is causing anxiety across tech, not just at Meta, which is set to cut 10% of its staff on May 20.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't address the layoffs directly during the call, though he pushed back on the idea espoused by other CEOs that AI would cause mass unemployment.

"AI isn't going to replace people," Zuckerberg said. "Instead, I think that AI is going to amplify people's ability to do what they want."

Zuckerberg said that Meta is "streamlining" its teams so they aren't bigger than they need to be — consistent with his preference for small, fast-moving groups.

Because of AI, Meta is seeing more and more examples of one or two people building something in a week that would previously have taken dozens of people months, he said.

Li, for her part, tied the layoffs to Meta's AI infrastructure splurge. The company has doubled its annual capital expenditures to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, far outpacing revenue growth. Meta's stock dropped 6% after it disclosed these details, among others.

"As we grow our infrastructure spend, we remain committed to operating efficiently, and we recently shared internally that we plan to reduce the size of our employee base in May," Li said.

Companies are under mounting pressure to shrink their workforces as AI capabilities expand. Fintech company Block laid off 40% of its employees earlier this year, explicitly citing AI progress. Last week, Microsoft began offering voluntary buyouts to longtime staff.

Internally, Meta has become one of the more aggressive adopters of AI, launching regular "AI Weeks," designating some employees as "AI builders," and reorganizing teams into "AI pods."

Proton VPN has steadily improved to become one of the best VPNs for privacy, and in our testing, it delivered fast speeds and reliably unlocked international streaming across multiple countries. Based in Switzerland, it operates under strict privacy laws and a clear no-logs policy.

Launched in 2017, Proton VPN has quickly become one of the biggest names in the industry, combining strong security features with competitive pricing alongside household names like ExpressVPN and NordVPN.

The service will especially appeal to those seeking a VPN for privacy purposes. On top of that, minimal personal info is required when signing up.

Unlike some other VPN providers, Proton VPN is also fully open source in its apps, allowing anyone to inspect the code. This offers a high level of transparency into what is happening behind the scenes and enables more independent security audits.

Of course, laws and transparency are useful, but when it comes to VPNs, the features on offer are most important. Proton VPN has a wealth of options, comparable to big competitors like ExpressVPN and NordVPN.

Proton VPN is fast, offers a generous selection of global servers, and includes all the security features we've come to expect from the best VPNs. That includes an effective kill switch and an always-on VPN setting that automatically reconnects, so you are never uncovered.

Proton, the company behind the virtual private network, has a whole suite of security features. This includes a secure email service, password manager, and more. However, this review focuses solely on Proton VPN, highlighting everything from setup to its effectiveness in handling a variety of key tasks.

Installation

ProtonVPN can be installed in several ways. You can get it as an app available on Android and iOS, and you can also download it for Windows and Mac on your desktop, or as a Google Chrome extension.

All installment processes are fairly similar and, you'll be glad to hear, quite simple. We installed Proton VPN on an iPhone, an Android phone, a MacBook, a Windows computer, and as a Google Chrome extension.

Once downloaded, you can continue in guest mode on Android or iOS if you don't want to create an account and only use the limited feature set of the free version. If you're looking for the full experience, Proton asks you to create an account. This involves choosing your contract length (one month, one year, or two years), selecting the Proton VPN plan you want, and finally providing an email address and payment method.

Once you've done this, your payment will go through, and Proton will require you to pick a strong password. Then, you're all done. Simply log in to your Proton VPN account on any device using your new login details.

Unless you're using the Google Chrome extension, you will need to download a Proton VPN app for your Mac or Windows desktop. This is only a few extra steps and is explained step by step by Proton.

• See the latest offers at Proton VPN

In the grand scheme of VPNs and security apps, the whole process is kept simple, requiring little personal information and time.

It is worth noting that, compared to some of its competitors, ProtonVPN isn't the easiest to use. While simply connecting to a random country is as simple as clicking one big button, if you're new to VPNs, some of the more complicated features aren't really explained.

This can leave you with lots of options and little understanding of how they work or what they mean. This is by no means the end of the world; advanced users will already understand most of these parts, and basic users won't need them, but if you're looking to get the most out of the VPN, it can take some time to learn how it fully works.

Alternatively, the Google Chrome extension has the opposite problem. It limits a lot of the available features, leaving you with a very basic version of the VPN. If you're looking to use the VPN on your desktop, I would advise downloading the full version instead of the extension to get the full feature set.

Features

When it comes to paid VPNs, most have stepped up their game in terms of features and functionality.

If you're only interested in a VPN for unlocking specific streams from other countries or for the most basic IP address workarounds, we can comfortably say that Proton VPN will do the job.

But how does it compare when you dig deeper into the features? Proton, as a wider company, was built with the intention of providing a suite of tools for privacy and security. These are essentially its two biggest selling points, and it is the focus of its VPN too.

It offers many security features you'll find in most major VPNs, such as a kill switch, split tunneling, DNS leak protection, malware and ad blockers, and options to prioritize speed or add more layers of security.

However, there are a couple of more unique features baked in. Most noticeable is Secure Core. This feature essentially adds a second layer of protection to your VPN.

Normally, a VPN essentially puts one layer between you and the internet. With Secure Core, you are rerouted twice, so if the VPN fails, it won't immediately come back to you; instead, you'll be routed through the first country you routed through.

• See the latest discounts at Proton VPN

This means added security but slower speeds, making it necessary only for tasks that require optimal privacy and security. It's similar to NordVPN's double VPN feature.

If you're especially worried about your privacy, you can also browse via the Tor network through Proton. This is similar to how the Secure Core works, but utilizes functions outside the Proton network.

All of this makes Proton VPN one of the best VPNs for security and privacy, with security as its primary focus rather than streaming or gaming benefits.

Server locations

Proton VPN offers 18,850+ servers from 134 countries, as of its latest public update. That is unsurprisingly a lot of choice. But how does it compare to its competitors?

ExpressVPN doesn't publish this data, but claims to have servers in at least 105 countries. NordVPN has previously claimed to have over 9100 servers in 130 countries, and Surfshark has over 4500 servers in 101 countries.

In other words, Proton VPN has an impressive selection, seemingly leading the way with the largest number of any VPN currently available.

This means that, in almost all cases, you'll find the exact server you require, with locations across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and more.

Proton VPN doesn't have a publicly available list of countries that it doesn't use. However, in our testing, there were only a few countries we couldn't find. For the most part, these were countries that were too small or had political restrictions. This includes (but isn't limited to) Vatican City, Liechtenstein, San Marino, North Korea, and Iran.

• Learn more at Proton VPN

Performance

Proton claims to offer both a powerful and speedy VPN, but how effective is it actually? Before activating the VPN, the base internet speeds we were recording on the test WiFi were 37 Mbps for download, 33 Mbps for upload, and a ping of 34.

On the gaming, P2P, and work profiles, Proton automatically selects the fastest country. When using the fastest server, we recorded a drop in download speed to 27.78 Mbps, but only a small decrease in upload speed to 31.42 Mbps, and even an improvement in ping to 29.

Similar speeds were observed on different occasions and with different fast profiles.

When using the most secure VPN connection via Proton's Secure Core, speeds took a turn. Download speeds only dropped to 34 Mbps, but upload speeds dipped to 25.74 Mbps. Worse still, the ping shot up to 109-328. The drop in speeds will be fine for most users if you need the extra security of a double-hop connection (usually via Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden). The resulting high ping rates could affect the stability of video calls, and most certainly online gaming, but we don't think the latter matters for this use case.

We'd suggest trying a few Secure Core connections, as some are faster than others. Changing one of our US connections to go through Sweden instead of Iceland greatly improved our ping and download speeds.

Ping rates on Proton's regular connections fared much better with only modest dips. It actually comfortably outperformed ping rates on local connections when compared to NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN in our recent round of tests.

For the most part, speeds never fell too far. We tested Proton VPN in a variety of countries, downloading large files and streaming content from different regions. Only in a few cases was the drop in speeds noticeable.

We found some servers that resulted in major speed drops, but only when selecting countries far away; in one case, we saw horrendous load times when connecting to countries on the opposite side of the world by as much as 71% (New York to Australia, for example).

In testing, Proton also passed a DNS leak test. This means that the VPN is safely passing all of your data through a screened system. VPNs can sometimes accidentally reveal what website you are visiting to your internet provider instead of sending a coded version. Luckily, when running tests to examine this, Proton VPN passed multiple times.

Streaming

One of the key benefits of a VPN is the ability to continue streaming home content even when you're away. For example, if you go on holiday and you're halfway through a show you were watching on Netflix at home, that show might not be available in another country.

While VPNs can help you get around this, streaming companies have begun cracking down on it more. Luckily, Proton VPN does still seem to work just fine for streaming internationally.

From the UK, we were able to get US-exclusive shows when connecting to multiple US cities, anime exclusive to Japan, and some shows in Germany, all via Netflix.

Disney+ caused us some issues when we first tried to log in, but it eventually cooperated, greeting us with a message saying "It looks like you're traveling" before letting us watch without any problems.

We were also able to access Australia's 9Now and live stream for free without any issues.

Of course, some regions might offer slower speeds, especially if they are farther from the country you are streaming from, but we found no major issues with this on Proton.

Pricing and plans

Proton offers a variety of plans and pricing. In fact, Proton arguably has one of the best free VPNs on the market right now. While you can secure only one device at a time, it offers medium-speed output and connectivity to 10 countries.

For a lot of people looking to use a VPN, this will be highly limited. Capped at one device and limited to just 10 countries will quickly become annoying. However, there are no limit caps, and the medium speed outputs aren't too bad for simple tasks.

However, the VPN Plus plan is the best choice for most people. This normally costs $9.99 a month, but it can often be purchased at a discounted price if you sign up for a longer term instead of the rolling month-by-month plan.

For example, Proton also offers a one-year plan that brings the price down to $3.99 a month, or you can go for two years at $2.99 a month (prices on these longer plans can fluctuate throughout the year).

• See the latest deals at Proton VPN

Proton offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on its paid plans, and previously only refunded you for the unused days for that period. However, that seemed to change in early 2026 to a full refund, aligning the service with what its competitors offer.

For this review, we tested Proton's VPN Unlimited version. As for the VPN, it is the same as the Plus plan. Opting for this more expensive version instead unlocks Proton's full suite of tools, including a secure email service, a password manager, and encrypted cloud storage.

Privacy and security

One of Proton's biggest selling points as a company is its privacy and security. Proton is based in Geneva, Switzerland. We won't bore you with the ins and outs of Swiss data laws, but what you do need to know is that they are tough.

It is based outside EU and US jurisdiction, limiting the ability of authorities to intervene or apply laws to retrieve your data in extreme circumstances.

Switzerland is also outside the 14 Eyes alliance, a group of countries that actively share data. Again, while rare, VPN companies based within these regions could be forced to share data.

Switzerland also doesn't have data retention laws, limiting Proton VPN's requirements to retain customer data.

But what about Proton itself? The company operates with a no-log policy. That means no records of the pages you visit, no records of session lengths, and no monitoring of your IP addresses. In other words, there is no tracking whatsoever while using the VPN.

Privacy is one thing, but a VPN needs to back it up with a secure system. Like most of the biggest VPNs, Proton offers high-strength encryption, paired with secure protocols like WireGuard and OpenVPN. It utilizes encryption ciphers, such as AES-256 and ChaCha20.

Proton VPN is also open-source. This means that anybody can access its code, test the model, and look for bugs, potential hidden concerns, and more. Given that a VPN essentially acts as a go-between between your device and the internet, it's important that you can trust it.

Proton also has a bug bounty program that pays between $ 1,000 and $100,000 for identifying medium- to critical-level bugs or security vulnerabilities. The Open Source design makes this a much clearer endeavor for white-box testing, meaning there's much less guesswork involved, since the backend is much more accessible to the trained eye of security researchers.

If Anthropic ever unleashes its 'too powerful' AI model, which is apparently frighteningly good at spotting high-severity vulnerabilities, Proton's bug bounty program can expect a wave of ambitious opportunists looking for a payday.

Customer support

Proton VPN has come a long way in terms of customer support. A few years ago, there were plenty of complaints online about the lack of features for contacting them and the slow wait times.

Now you can contact the company via email or use the live chat feature to speak with them. However, it is worth noting that free users don't have access to live chat, and it's available only on the Proton VPN website, not in the app.

To access the live chat, go to your Proton VPN account page and log in. From here, click your profile in the top right corner, then click 'chat with us'. Like most chatbots, you'll go through the usual stage of chatting to a bot first, but will get through to a human once it's realized you need actual help.

On live chat, it took 15 minutes to get a response, and just an extra five minutes to request and get help. They quickly solved a problem with my account not connecting to certain countries on my home WiFi.

When not live chatting, you'll need to fill out a form with your email, the device you are using, and the version of Proton VPN you're on (all of which can be found in the app). This is much slower, and it took Proton two days to respond to the same request mentioned above.

For refund requests, you can do them via either the form or live chat. We did it using live chat, going from the request to the finalization of the process in just three messages.

There are two important notes that Proton doesn't highlight very well here. Firstly, the live chat isn't 24/7; it's 9 a.m. to midnight CET (3 a.m.-6 p.m. ET, 12 a.m.-3 p.m. PT), so it can be harder to get on live chat in the US.

Overall, it is a competent customer service experience, especially via the live chat function. If your request isn't urgent, you can fire over a form and get a response in a couple of days. Proton's responses were helpful and detailed.

Want to check out the competition at the best price? Don't miss our roundup of the best VPN deals.

• Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta reported quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
• Big Tech is spending hundreds of billions in the AI race.
• Microsoft announced the most significant increase in capex spending.

Microsoft is speeding up in the AI race.

The tech giant surprised investors on its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday by announcing plans to spend $190 billion in capital expenditures this year.

It's a big jump from analysts' estimates of $147 billion. Now, Microsoft's capex guidance is nearly as high as the $200 billion its rival Amazon has said it will spend on capex in 2026.

Microsoft's cloud revenue is growing, though not quite as fast as investors would like, especially given power and supply chain constraints that slow the current pace of data center development.

"We remain confident in the return on these investments," Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said.

She added that, with the additional investment, the company still expects short-term revenue growth to be constrained. Microsoft also plans to decrease its head count in the coming quarters.

It reported $31.9 billion in capex this past quarter, up from $21.4 billion the same quarter last year.

Amazon is in a similar boat. While the company did not update its full-year capex guidance, CEO Andy Jassy reassured investors that the investment would be worth it.

"We have high confidence this will be monetized well, as we already have customer commitments for a substantial portion of it," Jassy said.

Amazon spent $43.2 billion in capex for AWS and generative AI this past quarter, up from $24.3 billion the same time last year.

Jassy said the company is prioritizing efficiency and expects that using Trainium, Amazon's in-house chips, will give the company an edge in profit margins.

Google, which is investing heavily in its AI models, updated its full-year capex guidance range to $180 billion to $190 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $175 billion to $185 billion.

The company plans to "significantly increase" capital expenditures in 2027, though it did not provide a specific figure.

Google spent $35.7 billion on capex this quarter, up from $17.2 billion the same time last year.

The company's cloud platform is facing a $462 billion backlog.

"We are compute-constrained in the near term, and cloud revenue would have been higher if we had been able to meet the demand," said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet.

Meta spent $19.8 billion on capital expenditures, up from $13.7 billion in Q1 of 2025.

The company adjusted its full-year capex guidance range to $125 billion to $145 billion. It previously estimated $115 billion to $135 billion.

"Most of that is due to higher component costs, particularly memory pricing, but every sign that we're seeing in our own work and across the industry gives us confidence in this investment," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

He said the company is focused on increasing efficiency through its Meta Compute initiative.

"We are rolling out more than one gigawatt of our own custom silicon that we're developing with Broadcom, as well as a significant amount of AMD chips to complement the new Nvidia systems that we're rolling out as well," Zuckerberg said.

• Microsoft reported quarterly results on Wednesday.
• The company said it expects headcount to decrease in its next fiscal year.
• Microsoft stock suffered its worst quarterly stock performance since 2008 earlier this year.

Microsoft expects headcount to decrease in coming quarters, CFO Amy Hood said during an earnings conference call with analysts on Wednesday.

"We continue to evolve how we operate to increase our pace and agility, and therefore we expect headcount will decrease year over year," Hood said.

She was discussing the outlook for Microsoft's next fiscal year, which starts in July and runs through June 2027.

Before the call, Hood sent out an internal memo to employees touting "increased pace" and "tighter, more accountable squads" amid recent organizational changes.

Microsoft has cut thousands of jobs in recent quarters. The CFO's comments on Wednesday suggest that pressure on employees may continue.

Earlier in April, Microsoft offered buyouts to long-serving employees as a way to cut costs, affecting as much as 7% of its US workforce of 125,000 people, or about 8,750 people. The buyouts apply to employees who want to retire and whose years of service plus age add up to 70 or more.

Quarterly revenue came in at $83 billion, while net income was $32 billion. Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow noted growth of Microsoft's cloud business was below the "significant acceleration" at competitors Amazon and Google during the most-recent quarter.

Hood issued a 39% to 40% growth forecast for the company's Azure business on the call.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shares suffered their worst quarterly stock performance since 2008, on concern about whether the company's AI infrastructure buildout will pay off and AI's software threat.

Microsoft and OpenAI changed their partnership again this week, letting OpenAI work more with other cloud providers including Amazon. The next day, Amazon and OpenAI said the startup's GPT models will be available on Amazon's cloud.

The company recently unveiled a deal with Accenture to roll out Copilot to nearly 750,000 of the consulting firm's employees. Microsoft also recently announced a new software bundle with Copilot built in.

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• Google has not yet put ads in its Gemini AI app. That could change.
• Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said on Wednesday that Google was open to the idea.
• "If done well, ads can be really valuable," he said.

Google has so far not put ads in its Gemini AI app, but it's not ruling it out.

Google is currently focusing on ads in AI Mode — its AI-powered, conversational version of Search — but this could eventually carry over to the standalone Gemini app, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said on Wednesday's earnings call.

"Our focus right now is on AI Mode, but it's fair to say that we really believe a format that works well in AI mode would transfer successfully to Gemini app," Schindler said.

In addition to AI Mode, Google also has some ads in AI Overviews, but the standalone Gemini experience has remained ad-free. Google's VP of global ads told Business Insider in January that there were "no plans" for ads in Gemini.

Speaking on Wednesday's call, Schindler said Google was focused on the Gemini app subscription plans and "creating a really great user experience" — but said ads could play a key role in growing Gemini if executed well.

"But let's also be clear, ads have always been a big part of scaling products to reach billions of people," he said. "And if done well, ads can be really valuable and really helpful commercial information, and at the right moment we'll share any plans as we have said, but we're not rushing anything here."

OpenAI is in the early stages of rolling out ads in ChatGPT to free and low-cost subscription members. Anthropic poked fun at OpenAI's decision in a February Super Bowl ad and said it would not put ads in its own AI model, Claude.

Google, which already has a mammoth advertising business across Search and YouTube, has the luxury of not needing to turn to ads yet for its chatbot.

Instead, the company has packaged more premium Gemini features into paid subscriptions, which bundle in extras such as Fitbit Premium and photo storage alongside its most cutting-edge AI. Google said on Wednesday that its overall subscriptions business had hit 350 million paying subscribers.