What's on Your Mind?

Not sure what to order on your next Starbucks run? Now ChatGPT can help. Starting April 15, users will be able to turn to ChatGPT for help deciding on their next Starbucks order through a new integration with the coffee chain. To activate the feature, users simply tag @starbucks within a chat with the AI agent to trigger the new in-platform beta Starbucks app. Users will be able to prompt ChatGPT to offer drink order advice based on mood, cravings, or even an image. For instance, a user might prompt ChatGPT with “@starbucks I’m looking for an iced pick me up,” with the LLM then suggesting an Iced Dragon Energy Drink alongside 5 additional options. “Over the pa…

It’s a brutal hiring market for new grads. Hiring has slowed across multiple industries and competition is especially fierce given AI has recently begun to take on tasks usually associated with entry-level roles. According to a recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 is up, hitting 5.8 percent at the end of 2025. Overall, hiring is down 7% year over year, and still well below pre-pandemic levels, says Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s Head of Economics. In an effort to help new graduates manage the intimidating start to their career journey, LinkedIn just released its 2026 Grad Guide, which analyzed …

The organizer behind SantaCon, a Santa-themed crawl that raises money for local charities, is being charged with defrauding ticket-buyers and establishment owners. On Wednesday, 50-year-old Stefan Pildes was arrested in New York and charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison. Prosecutors claim Pildes, who served as the president of and controlled the nonprofit entity that organizes the event called Participatory Safety, Inc. (“PSI”), diverted funds that were meant to go to charity to his own accounts. Per the indictment, from November 2019 through April 2026, Pildes allegedly defrauded tens of thousands of participants …

When Pokémon launched in 1996, the brand offered just a pair of video games, a single region within its world for players to explore, and 151 creatures for them to capture and train. 30 years later, Pokémon mania is stronger than ever. The most recent mainline games in the series, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, sold 10 million copies in their first three days, while the accompanying Pokémon Trading Card Game printed 10.2 million new cards between 2024 and 2025. The franchise now features 1,025 Pokémon across its more than a hundred video game titles under the Pokémon umbrella, including the mobile gaming phenomenon Pokémon Go, which ranks among the highest-grossing mobil…

The fall of former direct-to-consumer darling Allbirds has taken a very weird turn. Allbirds, the sustainable shoemaker that caught fire with the Silicon Valley set about a decade ago, will start selling silicon itself. The company said in a press release that it will transform itself into a business focused on leasing GPUs – the powerful graphics chips underpinning the AI boom that are in short supply and high demand, much to the chagrin of gamers and tech CEOs. The husk of the shoe company that once was will “pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions …

Did you know that December is spelled with an X? Neither did we—until one influencer’s viral video showed the pitfalls of relying on AI for answers. AI is growing less and less popular by the day. A recent Gallup survey found a 14% decrease in excitement among Gen Z about AI since 2025, with 48% of working Gen Zers saying that using artificial intelligence in the workforce isn’t worth the risk. As anti-AI sentiment grows, anti-AI creators are finding a new niche. That includes Husk, an influencer whose videos showing ChatGPT’s frequent mistakes have gone viral over and over again. Take Husk’s most recent video. Pretending to be studying for a test, he asked C…

At first blush, it sounds too good to be true: a learning experience that’s precisely tailored to a child’s needs, strengths, and struggles, speeding up or slowing down as the moment demands, with infinite patience. For a decade or more, that’s been the promise fueling the education technology industry—customized learning that fuels rapid progress. Yet, for the most part, it was too good to be true. Not because the ambition was wrong, but because the prevailing vision has had it backwards. A FAILED PERSONALIZED LEARNING APPROACH? The vision of AI in education that has drawn the most attention and investment centers on personalized learning. Think Khan Academy’…

I had a student visit my office hours recently looking for career advice to help him marry his scholastic endeavors with his extracurricular activities as a student athlete. He began to expound upon his experiences in and out of the classroom here at the University of Michigan, the high expectations of the business school, and the pace of the classes. But what captured my attention most was the way he described the complexities of being a gymnast. Of course, it was more nuanced than just jumping and flipping; there’s the full-body physical conditioning of the sport and the mental fortitude it commands. All the things. However, as the student gave me a peek into his world …

When Tiffany Davis has a question about a symptom from the weight-loss injections she’s taking, she doesn’t call her doctor. She pulls out her phone and consults ChatGPT. “I’ll just basically let ChatGPT know my status, how I’m feeling,” said the 42-year-old in Mesquite, Texas. “I use it for anything that I’m experiencing.” Turning to artificial intelligence tools for health advice has become a habit for Davis and many other Americans, according to a West Health–Gallup Center on Healthcare in America poll published Wednesday. The poll, conducted in late 2025 and backed up by at least three other recent surveys with similar findings, found that roughly one-quarter of U.S…

For years, companies have assumed the internet was built for people. Websites were designed to attract human attention, explain, persuade, reassure, and eventually convert. Search engine optimization, user experience, digital merchandising, and checkout design all rested on the same basic premise: the user was a person sitting in front of a screen. That premise is beginning to crack. Not because people are disappearing, but because they are starting to delegate. More and more often, the first system reading your site, comparing your offer, interpreting your policies, or even initiating a purchase will not be a human being. It will be a software agent ac…

On Wednesday, April 15, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel announced in a letter to employees that the company would lay off about 1,000 people, including 16% of its full-time employees. “We believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel said in the letter. That message could have been pulled from a number of tech CEOs recent bold statements that AI will replace employees. Spiegel joins the ranks of CEOs like Block’s Jack Dorsey who have been unabashed in citing AI in their decisions to lay off their staff. In his February letter …

Adobe is rolling out the public beta for its Firefly AI Assistant later this month, turning complex creative workflows into a simple chat interface across applications like Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, or Lightroom. You type what you want, and the AI connects the dots behind the scenes to make it happen. Since it’s a multi-modal interface, it can tune with precision via context-aware control panels when needed beyond the text-based prompt. It’s a first step in what creative apps may become in the future, removing the complexity of user interfaces while keeping powerful control. If the final product works like the demo, the new Firefly AI Assistant will change the…

Igas, Charles, Corey, and Ryan are four characters in a popular TikTok skit series where, over Zoom, they discuss how to “proactively realign” their “cross-functional synergy” and ensure “tighter execution” in the face of looming threats like a “shrinking opportunity aperture”—otherwise known as February coming to a close. The spoofs, posted by startup recruitment firm Verso Jobs, are intentionally drenched in nonsense. All the characters are played by one employee, Seamus Harvey, wearing various face filters and cramming in as much corporate jargon as possible. They resonate because they feel real—particularly for Gen Zers and mid-career millennials complaining o…

The Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday began layoffs expected to lead to 1,000 job cuts across the company. Josh D’Amaro, who in February succeeded Bob Iger as chief executive, announced broader layoffs following a move in January to consolidate Disney’s marketing division. The cuts are expected to fall across the Burbank, California-based company’s traditional television businesses, including ESPN, as well as its movie studio. Employees in product and technology, and in certain corporate functions will also be affected. “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-…

Yesterday was World Quantum Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the physics that powers the quantum computers of tomorrow. But awareness of quantum technology wasn’t the only thing that was rising. So, too, were the stock prices of America’s four major quantum computing companies: D-Wave, IonQ, Rigetti, and Quantum Computing Inc. And today, the stock prices of those four companies are even higher. Here’s why. Quantum computing stocks soar If you’re an investor in any of the so-called Quantum Four quantum computing companies, yesterday was a good day. All four major American quantum computing companies saw double-digit gains yesterday, including: …

Macy’s Inc is moving forward with additional store closures in 2026. According the retailer’s website, 14 stores are closing soon nationwide, with shoppers losing their local Macy’s in 12 states. The development is hardly surprising. In February 2024, Macy’s announced it would shutter 150 “underproductive locations” by the end of 2026, although it has since extended that timeline. The company announced the closures as part of “A Bold New Chapter” that will do three things: strengthen the Macy’s name plate, accelerate luxury growth, and simplify and modernize end-to-end operations. Macy’s also owns Bloomingdale’s, a higher-end department store than its n…

Padel has taken the sports world by storm. In a smaller but growing circle, it’s also become a way to date. Much of that runs through Playtomic, a booking app for racquet sports where players join “open matches” with strangers, chat through the app, and meet people they wouldn’t otherwise encounter. For some, those connections carry off the court. “People are meeting each other on the court . . . [and then] grabbing a beer or coffee from the grounds,” says Pro Padel League CEO Michael Dorfman. That kind of interaction is exactly what the app Playtomic is designed to facilitate, and increasingly, to scale. In 2017, co-founder Pablo Carro set out to solve a …

Disengagement is expensive, and most organizations know it. A 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates that disengagement costs about $5 million a year for every 1,000 employees and that’s before accounting for what’s harder to measure. Teams deliver—narrowly avoiding burnout—but the creativity, the discretionary effort, the genuine spark of someone who truly cares? That’s becoming a rare commodity in today’s turbulent working world as AI continues its disruption. Sure, most AI is exceptional at scale, speed, and synthesis. It learns from what already exists, optimizes from the middle, and produces output that is arguably an average of every…

Today, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, is Tax Day. During trying economic times, the tax deadline can feel like a punishment. It’s difficult to watch money being taken out of hard-earned paychecks when household budgets run on thin margins. To take the sting out of Tax Day, many businesses have special deals to soften the blow. Freebies and deals for Tax Day 2026 Many restaurants are ready to make your stomach happy should you need consoling on Tax Day. If you need the food to come to you, 7-Eleven has you covered. Use the 7NOW Delivery app to get $10.40 off of orders of $25 or more. Just remember to enter the promo code WRITEOFF on April 15. Another d…

At its factory in Illinois, Rivian will soon use more than 100 retired EV batteries in an on-site power system that will help it save money on electric bills. The electric automaker is one of the first customers of Redwood Materials’s new energy storage business, which takes old or discarded EV batteries—in this case, from Rivian’s own vehicles—and deploys them in a second life on the grid. By making it possible to charge when there’s excess energy available and the cost of electricity is low, the project “can generate significant cost savings that directly contributes to a reduction in the cost of our vehicles,” says Andrew Peterman, who runs Rivian’s advanced en…

When the NFL Draft comes to Pittsburgh next week, civic leaders will be using the spotlight to celebrate football’s Steelers—and the city’s growing reputation as a technology and artificial intelligence hub. The events include an AI pitch competition where judges including area native Mark Cuban will award startups from a 1.75 million prize pool—with preference given to companies with a presence in Pennsylvania. There’s a growing number of startups that fit that bill. As the name suggests, VC firm Valley Capital Partners is based in Silicon Valley. But for the past few years, firm general partner Mitchell Kokko has been living across the country in Pittsburgh. …

My first job was an unusual one, but I learned so many lessons from it that I carried with me throughout my career. I was in my last year at Cambridge and was planning to leave the next year for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard when a British publisher approached me. He had seen me at a televised Cambridge Union debate speaking on the changing role of women and he wrote to me asking me if I would write a book on the subject. I replied, “Thank you, but I can’t write.” He replied: “Can you have lunch?” So I took the train to London and ended up getting both lunch and a book contract with a modest advance. That was my first lesson: take risks. People start…