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Peec AI analyzed fan-out queries from 10M+ ChatGPT prompts and found 43% of background searches ran in English, even for non-English prompts. The post ChatGPT Search Often Switches To English In Fan-Out Queries: Report appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

When Apple released the first beta for iOS 26.4 this week, testers immediately got to work looking for each and every new feature and change. To their credit, there's more new here than in iOS 26.3, including an AI playlist generator for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption with RCS (finally). But one update slipped under the radar, since it's not actually available to test in this first beta: CarPlay support for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. AI assistants are coming to CarPlay in iOS 26.4As spotted by MacRumors, CarPlay's Developer Guide spills the beans on this upcoming integration. On page 13, the entitlement "CarPlay voice-based conversational app" is listed with a minimum iOS version of iOS 26.4. While it doesn't specifically mention integrations with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, the documentation does suggest that voice-based conversational apps are a supported app type in iOS 26.4. As such, MacRumors is reporting that companies that make chatbots (i.e. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) will need to update their apps to work with CarPlay. According to MacRumors, drivers will be able to ask apps like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini questions while on the road, but they won't be able to control functions of the car or the driver's iPhone. You also won't be able to use a "wake word" to activate the assistant (e.g. "Hey ChatGPT," or "OK, Gemini"), so you'll need to tap on the app itself to talk to the assistant. Apple is issuing guidance to developers on how to implement these assistants in CarPlay starting with this latest update. On page seven, Apple notes that voice-based conversational apps must only work when voice features are actively being used, and avoid showing text or imagery when responding to queries. It's the first time Apple is allowing developers of "voice-based conversational" apps to develop for CarPlay. While the company has allowed other developers to make apps for its in-car experience, it has obviously put limitations on what types of apps can get through. It makes sense for Google to develop a Google Maps CarPlay app, but TikTok has no business offering drivers a CarPlay-version of its algorithm. Install the iOS 26.4 at your own riskThis addition is coming to iOS 26.4, but likely in a future beta. Don't install the beta at this time expecting to try this feature out—though, you should think twice before installing the beta at all. Betas like iOS 26.4 are temperamental, as Apple is currently testing the software for bugs and stability issues. By installing it early, you risk dealing with those issues, which could impact how you use your iPhone, or even result in data loss. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A new software update for recent Garmin watches adds “glances” for types of data that weren’t previously viewable from the watch face. These include battery usage stats, lifestyle logging, sleep alignment, and even a few extras like sports scores. The update also includes features other than glances, including, notably, fitness coaching. The features I’m writing about are now available in the Forerunner 570, Forerunner 970, and Vivoactive 6, as well as the Fenix 8 series, Venu 4, and X1. (The watch in my photos here is a Forerunner 570.) New glances for Garmin watches Credit: Beth Skwarecki Glances are those little strips of data that you can see when you scroll up (or down) from the main watch face—things like the weather and your training status, for example. Garmin’s newest stable update for the Forerunner 570 and 970 is numbered 16.28, and has been rolling out slowly over the past week. (I just got it on my 570.) Here are my favorite new glances: Battery usage: The new battery widget has the charge level, of course, but tapping it shows you a graph of your battery life, including its long-term history, and a list of which apps or functions have been using the most battery. Lifestyle logging: If you’ve been using the new Lifestyle Logging feature in the Garmin Connect app, you can now do it from your wrist. This is where you select a few health-related habits to track every day. The glance will tell you how many items you’ve logged today, and you can quickly answer these yes or no questions without opening your phone. Sleep alignment: The sleep glance has been around a while, but it now includes more data, including your optimal sleep window and whether you’re aligned with it. Sports scores: You can select a handful of your favorite teams to receive up to date scores on your wrist. This was surprisingly easy to set up without even unlocking my phone: You just choose a league (MLB, NFL, NCAA men’s or women’s, to name a few) and then scroll until you find the city name for your favorite team. Alphabetizing by city rather than team name is smart, especially if you’re going through the menus picking all your hometown teams. This widget seems to show the next upcoming game if your chosen team hasn’t played a recent game. Weight tracking: From this glance you can see your current body weight, and tap through to see trends and history. Other new features Garmin added in its latest update Credit: Beth Skwarecki Besides the glances, Garmin added a bunch of other features to its watches. According to the release notes, Garmin says that pace readings (presumably during runs) have been improved to be more responsive. I look forward to trying that out. There are also color filters—instead of just turning on a red shift for nighttime, you can choose other colors as well. Training plans also get more capabilities. In addition to the usual running and cycling plans, there’s now a fitness coach, similar to what launched on the Venu 4. This lets you set up a plan that gives you a mix of cardio and strength workouts, though I found that the coach's endurance workouts don’t actually specify the activity. Typically, when selecting my “basic endurance” workout that’s planned for today, the watch prompts me to select from my usual list of endurance activities: run, trail run, treadmill run, indoor bike, and so on. The coach, however, will simply tell you to do "endurance" or "cardio" for 20 minutes. You could choose to run, but you could also hike or use the elliptical, for instance. For the strength workouts, I told the coach that I have access to a full gym, so my next strength workout will include deadlifts and squats. It looks like a pretty solid plan for somebody who wants well-rounded fitness without committing to running a race. View the full article

TransUnion projected moderate growth in 2026 for mortgages, projecting purchases and refinances to increase 4% and 4.2% year over year. View the full article

Big Tech chief takes stand in legal case over whether company’s products are addictive to childrenView the full article

New residential construction in the US rose to a five-month high in December, as homebuilders boosted production to take advantage of lower borrowing costs. View the full article

Google Ads now surfaces Performance Max (PMax) campaign data in the “Where ads showed” report, giving advertisers clearer insight into placements, networks, and impressions — data that was previously unavailable. What’s new. The update makes it possible to see exactly where PMax ads are appearing across Google’s network, including search partners, display, and other placements. Advertisers can now track impressions by placement type and network, helping them understand how campaigns are performing in detail. Why we care. This update finally gives visibility into where PMax campaigns are running, including Google Search Partners, display, and other networks. With placement, type, and impression data now available, marketers can better understand campaign performance, optimize budgets, and make informed decisions instead of relying on guesswork. It turns previously opaque PMax reporting into actionable insights. User reaction. Digital marketer Thomas Eccel shared on LinkedIn that the report was historically empty, but now finally shows real data. “I finally see where and how PMax is being displayed,” he wrote. He also noted the clarity on Google Search Partners, previously a “blurry grey zone.” The bottom line. This update gives marketers actionable visbility into PMax campaigns, helping them understand placement performance, optimize spend, and identify which networks are driving results — all in one report. View the full article

Google I/O 2026 is nearly upon us. This is Google's annual opportunity to showcase the software features (and perhaps some of the hardware) the company has been cooking up behind the scenes. Like other big tech keynotes, anyone can tune in live and catch Google's latest announcements as they happen. Here's when Google I/O 2026 will kick off, and what we know about the conference at this time. When and what time is Google I/O 2026?Google tends to kick off its I/O event in May of each year, and 2026 is no different. This year, Google I/O will run May 19 through May 20. If you're used to watching one single livestream, that two-day schedule might come as a surprise. But I/O isn't just an announcement: It's a developer conference, spanning keynotes, demos, and product sessions. But if you're only interested in the company's main keynote, you'll want to get May 19 on your calendar. Google hasn't announced the exact time for its presentation, but it usually starts at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET), based on previous years. How to watch Google I/O 2026While Google invites a select group of journalists to watch its presentations live, and encourages developers to register to attend its various events, you can tune into the livestream wherever you are in the world. Google hasn't confirmed where its livestreams will be hosted this year, but looking to the past, you'll likely be able to stream the keynote from the official I/O website, as well as Google's official YouTube channel. What will be announced at Google I/O 2026?The short answer? We don't really know! Google is keeping I/O news close to the vest, and rumors haven't been particularly prolific this year—at least, not yet. Seeing as it's only February, it's entirely possible we'll hear more about Google I/O 2026 as we get closer to May. That said, there are some things you can expect to see regardless of leaks and rumors. Android 17 will almost assuredly take center stage at Google I/O this year. Google just released first beta for the OS on Wednesday, though it doesn't change all that much about Android 16 at this time. That said, I suspect beta testers will discover a number of new features and changes between now and May, as Google continues to add new things to its test software ahead I/O. Like the past couple of I/O's, this year should also be all about AI. Google seems to come out with new AI announcements multiple times a week, including adding its Lyria 3 AI music model to Gemini, or adding an agentic bot to Chrome to browse the internet for you. I expect Google I/O 2026 to be full of AI features—perhaps more than some of us would like to hear about. I/O 2026 could also show off some hardware, but that's no guarantee. Google did just announce the Pixel 10a, the company's latest "budget" phone, and it could reveal other devices in May, but I/O really is more about the software than the hardware. (It is a developer conference, after all.) View the full article

Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said in comments Wednesday that the central bank plans to publish its Basel III endgame capital proposal for public comment before the end of March. View the full article

Some market sectors face growing challenges related to a K-shaped economy as servicers play an increasingly important role in keeping customers. View the full article

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about setting up an integration to sync Wrike with Asana using an automated flow from Unito. This integration supports Wrike tasks as well as Asana tasks, projects, and portfolios. Since Unito is a completely customizable platform with a no-code interface, you can set up this integration without any technical resources or extensive routine maintenance. No troubleshooting complex automations or relying on expensive consultants, either. Overview Tools: Wrike and Asana Use cases: Task management, project reporting, marketing reporting Great for: Project managers, consultants, marketers Unito’s two-way sync integration for Wrike and Asana allows users of any technical background, from product managers to software developers and team leads, to sync Wrike tasks with Asana tasks, projects, and portfolios. This integration syncs updates back and forth between both tools, creates new work items, and can even automate repetitive actions. This in-depth guide shows you how that’s done. Step 1: Connect Wrike and Asana to Unito Sign up for Unito. Click +Create Flow in the Unito app. Click Start Here to connect Wrike and Asana. Click +Choose Account for each tool and complete the authorization process. Click Confirm. Connecting tools to Unito for the first time? Here’s a quick guide to doing that. Step 2: Choose flow direction for new work items With flow direction, you determine where Unito automatically creates work items to match the tasks you open manually in Wrike or the work items you create in Asana. You have three flow direction options: 2-way: Both Wrike tasks and Asana work items are automatically created by your Unito flow to match the items you create manually in each tool. 1-way from Wrike to Asana: Asana work items will be automatically created by Unito to match the Wrike tasks you create manually. Unito won’t create new Wrike tasks. 1-way from Asana to Wrike: Wrike tasks will be automatically created by Unito to match the Asana work items you create manually. Unito won’t create new Asana work items. Want to know more? Here’s a guide to flow direction. Step 3: Build rules to sync specific work items Unito rules can do two things: Filter out work items you don’t want synced. For example, you could create a rule that only syncs Wrike tasks with a certain status. Automate certain actions. For example, you could create a rule that automatically assigns new Asana tasks to a certain person on your team. To start building your rule, click Add new rule, then choose a trigger and action. Need to learn more about rules? Check out this guide. Step 4: Map fields between Wrike and Asana When you map fields, you pair fields in Wrike with fields in Asana so data goes exactly where it needs to. Unito can usually map most fields automatically, whether they’re exactly the same (Assignee→Assignee) or just compatible (URL→Text). You can also choose to map fields manually to fully customize your flow. Here’s what you’ll see when Unito maps your fields automatically. You can add a field mapping by clicking +Add mapping, then Select a field. When you choose the field you want to map in one tool, Unito automatically recommends compatible fields in a dropdown under the other tool. Some fields have a cog icon. They can be customized once they’re mapped. For example, a Status field can be customized so its options match those in another field. Step 5: Launch your Wrike-Asana integration That’s it! You’re ready to launch your flow. Unito will automatically keep Wrike tasks and Asana work items in sync. This will allow your teams to collaborate more effectively without copying and pasting data or constantly switching tools. Ready to optimize your workflow? Meet with our team to see what Unito can do for your workflows. Talk with sales FAQ: Wrike-Asana integration Why should I integrate Wrike and Asana? Syncing Wrike tasks with Asana work items allows your teams to collaborate more efficiently without needing to constantly switch back and forth between tools. This allows: Leaders who plan strategies in Asana projects and portfolios to dispatch tasks to Wrike projects where individual collaborators work. Teams working in Asana can sync updates to Wrike so stakeholders have up-to-date reports in the platform they use regularly. Project managers working in Wrike can collaborate with freelancers and consultants using Asana. How do I add a Wrike task to Asana? While many teams transfer data between Wrike and Asana manually by copying and pasting or using spreadsheets, the best way to add a Wrike task to Asana is to use Unito’s two-way integration. A single flow can turn tasks in Wrike projects to work items in Asana automatically, syncing any updates between tools as you work. How much does a Wrike-Asana integration cost? The cost of a Wrike-Asana integration depends on the platform you use. Unito’s plans, for example, start at $49 a month, scaling up in price for custom enterprise plans. Other integration solutions, like Workato, can cost thousands of dollars a year or more. Why should I use Unito’s Wrike-Asana integration? Unito integrations offer the best of both worlds: deep two-way integrations with a setup that only takes minutes. When you connect Asana with Wrike, Asana work items become Wrike tasks and vice versa. That means everything from comments to due dates and assignees can get synced across with no extra work. Eliminate copying and pasting, reduce data entry errors, and never miss an update again. A Unito integration is as close as you can get to working in a single tool with forcing anyone out of their preferred platform. What’s next after integrating Wrike with Asana? Need to integrate Wrike or Asana with other tools in your stack? Check out our other guides: Syncing Smartsheet with Asana Syncing Wrike and Microsoft Excel Integrating Jira and Wrike Integrating Asana and Rovo Connecting Wrike and Salesforce Connecting Asana and Salesforce View the full article

At SuiteConnect 2026 in New York, I caught up with Craig Dubitsky—Founder and CEO of happy®—for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to scale a fast-growing consumer brand. While happy is known for its cold brew lattes, pods, and whole bean coffee, Craig’s story goes far beyond the product lineup. He’s built high-growth brands before, and he shares a memorable (and painful) lesson from his previous company, Hello: when your systems can’t keep up with rapid expansion, the business can grind to a halt. In this interview, Craig explains why he chose to build happy on NetSuite from day one, how real-time visibility helps his team make faster decisions, and what operational pressure points show up first when you expand to tens of thousands of retail locations. We also dig into practical topics every growing business faces—inventory complexity, supply chain surprises, deductions and chargebacks, and using data to decide which products to push (and which to stop chasing). And as the conversation closes, Craig shares the deeper mission behind happy’s name: a serious commitment to supporting mental health and helping remove stigma through its partnership with NAMI. Here is a transcript of the interview: Leland McFarland All right, I am here at SuiteConnect 2026 in New York with Craig Dibbsky. Craig Dubitsky Dubitsky. Dubitsky. Yes, it’s like, don’t, don’t, no, no, it’s good. You haven’t had enough coffee yet. That’s okay either was I and now I’m in it. Leland McFarland I’ve got to try yours. do have to try yours. you know, it’s free out there. Craig Dubitsky So. Yeah, we have a happy camper out there. Leland McFarland All right, he is the founder and CEO of Happy, a coffee cold brewed, is it cold brewed? Craig Dubitsky Cold brew lattes dry coffee. We have ground coffee whole bean coffee Pods aka k cups for those who celebrate. Yeah Leland McFarland All right, so in the press release, it was said that elevating the everyday requires a system that can keep up. What was the moment that you realized your old system just kind of keep Craig Dubitsky Well, true story. Prior to happy, I was the founder of another company called Hello. It’s an oral care brand and oral care and some personal care as well. And we were on another system that shall remain nameless. And basically it didn’t it didn’t just implode. We grew so quickly and ferociously in a friendly way. that the system completely crashed. We broke it. And when I say we broke it, you know how there things that to like Defcon 5, like internal tech companies will have like a SWAT team that’s, know, like, they’ve never seen this before. We gotta bring in the SEALs, you know? We had that level of attention and they hadn’t seen anything like we had inadvertently caused to their system before. So we realized in a very painful way we had to make a move. And frankly, because someone asked me like, well, didn’t you know that? like, no one would plan for that. Like no one plans for like, let’s totally decimate a technology platform. Like, no, that was not the idea. And it was not, by the way, sold to us. Like, by the way, this stuff is great until you get to this magic moment where your business hits an incredible reflection point and then it’s going to shut down. It was really this unforeseen thing. So we had made this move over a weekend. went. the old business that I’m referring to, which is an amazing brand, and I hope you try it. It’s called Hello, in oral care products. And we have this moment where we went from 18,000 doors of retail distribution to 55,000 doors in just a couple of months. And it went wild. Now, with that growth, with great growth comes great responsibility. With great growth comes a whole bunch of other things that just happen. Systems. need to change, your team might need to grow. There are a lot of things that come with growth. And we had to literally migrate from this other system to another system over a weekend because our entire business was paralyzed. supply chain, inventory, all the componentry, all the retailers, ERP, everything, ARAP, every acronym you could think of. And we added in this other acronym, was WTF. So we were in dire straits. We made the move to NetSuite over a weekend, a full migration over a weekend, which was incredible. Talk about a Herculean task. It was a big deal. And it worked and we just never looked back. So when we got to a point where, you know, going to start another company, try to build another brand from day zero, we started with NetSuite because we’d had this incredible experience and the platform grew with us. It wasn’t just like, it’s one and done, like here it is and it works. like, no, was more like, instead of just fixing a problem, it’s going to help us see other solutions. We’re going to be able to see around other corners and we didn’t even know what corners. So it was incredible given our growth of Hello, but also incredible when you’re starting a new business, you’re able to tap into the fact that you have a platform that’s going to Move and grow with you not limit you as you grow nice And by the way, just sorry for the record. I’m not a spade a paid I don’t think I’m spade either I’m not a paid spokesperson just on the record I’m not a paid spokesperson for NetSuite. I I’m a super fan Leland McFarland Well, they haven’t bought you yet. Craig Dubitsky No, but you know, they can buy some coffee. Leland McFarland Well, they have, in terms, of bought your glowing reviews by just doing this. Craig Dubitsky Yeah, well, they do a great job. So I thank them on the daily. Leland McFarland So Happy grew fast across 70,000 distribution points. What operational challenges showed up first? Craig Dubitsky The four touch touch touch wood The biggest operational challenges have not really been around how are we managing our ERP Again, I can throw every acronym right every financial acronym. It’s been about how do we get additional awareness? Because we have a lot of distribution. So our awareness is growing. We just started doing some Leland McFarland if you had any. Craig Dubitsky really, really exciting marketing. There’s a lot more coming. And after this little bit of testing that we did in about seven states, our sales at a certain retailer went up 28%, a certain online retailer, 32 % physical, 28 % online with two different players. And our awareness amongst women nationally doubled. So for us, the biggest challenge has been, all we have this great product, how do we get people to know that? Because operationally, we’re in good shape. The products are great, they’re winning awards, which is great. Great reviews, great being able to ship on time and in full. Great being able to manage our inventory because we’re dealing with product that has shelf life in many cases, right? So when you’re dealing with freshness and componentry, and manufacturing schedules and a lot of retailers, and being able to integrate into EDI systems and manage payroll and do everything else we have to do. The challenge has just been keeping our heads down. Just the signal-to-noise ratio, we try to keep that in check because the operational bits are rock solid. It’s a combination of the platform and the team we have. because we’ve been through this, we built another business together and watching it really accelerate on NetSuite has given us this leg up from day zero with this thing. Leland McFarland So the release also says that NetSuite helped maximize visibility across the business. What does that look like in practice? What can you see now that you couldn’t before? Craig Dubitsky Short answer everything Everything so we see where every every moving part now is visible and when we start to play around with the AI Functionality bits which may be another question you have in there. I don’t know. I might be combining questions We can see around corners that we didn’t even know we’re there to look at and we’re getting we’re getting information Proactively as opposed to always having a search for it, you know, it’s this idea. I think of moving from Just using AI and getting the intelligence part to getting to a deeper level of understanding and I think understanding is I think a higher order versus intelligence in a lot of ways So we use the platform or using AI to help us analyze things in real time Like what’s working? my god. Look at that I didn’t know that retail was blowing it out. Like how did we miss that so fast? You know, there’s there’s positive things that we see and then we have to react differently to the positive things, which is a good problem to have. And sometimes it’s things that need a little more attention. So being able to have things highlighted for you as opposed to just having, you know, there’s some dashboard, I have to look at it interpret everything. It’s like having a freaking genius with you all the time who’s minding all your numbers for you is way more evolved than just, yeah, I simplified my tasks. Tasks are great. Understanding and figuring out things that you didn’t even know you needed. help figuring out before you know you need to figure it out. That’s miraculous. That’s incredible. It’s just incredible. Leland McFarland So what’s one decision that you made faster because NetSuite gave you the numbers and records? Craig Dubitsky Let’s see. There are probably a couple of things. One is figuring out which areas of the country to market in when we were going to spend marketing dollars. Because obviously, any time you’re about to spend money on something, there’s ROI. You’re thinking about, how is this thing going to pay off? So you want to make sure you’re mindful about where you’re putting your dollars. So we use NetSuite to figure out where are we seeing the largest bump and where are we seeing the valleys where we wanted to see them. And we wanted to fine tune our marketing to see what worked in different regions of the country and what worked in different states of play in those regions, given retailer penetration, promotional activities we might have been working with and leveraging. So the first thing that comes to mind is that, like where are the parts of the country where we wanna apply marketing dollars based on performance in the marketplace, good and less optimized, it’s a nice way of putting it. So that was great to have. insight into where we should play. That to me was probably number one. Yeah, let’s go with that. That was a biggie. The other thing is kind of an obvious one, which is what’s working, what isn’t working? Which products are running? I used to be in a prior life, I was a futures trader, a derivatives trader. just in old adages, you want to let your winners run and your losers, you want to take care of those quickly. Not everything’s gonna work all the time. That’s just life. And as a founder and as someone who’s had a couple of trips around the sun, you can’t fall in love with your own stuff and you can’t fall in love with your inventory. So being, I think, informed enough and hopefully emotionally secure enough to know that not everything’s gonna work and use tools like NetSuite has to figure out where the winners are and where the ones that aren’t quite. living up to your fantasies are and knowing how to sort of like decrease your exposure on the ones that aren’t working and increase your spend and your profitability on the ones that are working. That’s amazing. It’s great. Because intuition can only take you so far, right? Intuition can get you started, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to sustain you. So having tools that will take your intuition and back it up with data that will let you win, that’s a magical math, if you can pull that off. Leland McFarland I like that idea of letting go of products because so many people are attached to the products that they make. sometimes letting go of something that just isn’t working is going to be one of the hardest things. But being able to see data that says, no, the rest of the country doesn’t like your product. It’s niche. Craig Dubitsky Right and you know, there’s there’s riches in the niches as they say And all that stuff is great right if it rhymes it’s right it’s true I I applaud anyone who has an idea and works hard to make it into something real. That’s great. I think the challenge is How do you go from being? An entrepreneur people like oh you have an idea to like a good entrepreneur someone has an idea and they make it real But they also make it real and profitable and able to grow Like that’s really important and having the right tools in terms of platform, yes, and in terms of people and partners is everything. Because at the end of the day, we only have so much time as humans. I hope we have a lot of it, right? But we have to make really sound decisions and we have to be emotional because that’s what got us to start things in the first place as entrepreneurs. And as part of our team, I say like everyone’s a fan. Robert Tangi and I are the co-founders. Everybody on our team is a founder because everyone’s touched it and made it better. So we set it up that way. We want people to help us make it better. And if we are mature about it, we can say, well, that worked and that didn’t work and why didn’t it work and how do we make it better? We have the tools that help us isolate and analyze the stuff that’s working or not. That is how you get better. That’s how you get to a place where you can be profitable and where you can grow and where you can scale. So all these things are It’s like the professor is legally giving you the answers to the Sure, but they’re teaching you so much. It’s not like I just got the cheat code, know I can get a good grade. It’s multiple choice and I know what all the You know, I know what all the answers are ready. They gave me a copy of the test. No, it’s much more than that It’s kind of like you’re getting all the all the knowledge all the intellect all the magical thinking behind why the decisions could be made better That’s That’s unbelievable. We didn’t have tools like that. There was a lot of trial and error before. There still is. But now, again, you can let your trials accelerate, and you can extrapolate really quickly and figure out what’s working in a small way so that you can scale the good stuff and nuke the bad stuff. data is really helpful with that. Leland McFarland Definitely is so the release mentioned improving the speed and accuracy of financial reporting What’s? specifically changed in your clothes Craig Dubitsky Well, Adam, our finance guy, if he were here, I’d probably make him blush. It’s also part of my job. I have to make Adam blush. Adam is a machine. And for him to have tools to let him close out the month, like quickly, I cannot under-appreciate. No, I can’t over-appreciate. No, what’s the best way to put it? Overstate. I can’t overstate. can’t oversimplify. I can’t express. Just in words, I’ll have to do it in song How invaluable it has been to get people more time back in their life That’s a big deal so to give Adam the ability to close out the month and share that with our team Share that with our we have investors by the way most of the team everybody at happy is an equity stakeholder and a whole bunch of our team Myself included we’re investors in the business as well. So to be able to have visibility Yes, but also have a very concise clear tight beautiful by the way looking Instead of of of Metrics and data points that can tell us like here’s where the month closed. Here’s you know, here’s what we have Here’s what we don’t have. Here’s what we need like that’s important because you can’t run a business just on hope you have to have you know You have to have the data. have to know what’s going on in your business. So to be able to do that quickly and give people time back in their life, by the way, which then gives them the ability to think and read what the hell happened. What do we do? What’s working? What isn’t working? Now, how do we use some of the AI tools that are embedded in these systems to help us make better choices and do it quicker? Quicker is better because it gives you more time to then think about other aspects of your business. It’s amazing. I’m trying to think if I’ve really answered your question sort of like, you know being able to close out the month on time Is great, but it’s not just about finishing it on time. It’s finishing it on time with really accurate and pertinent and Like intellectually robust information. It’s not just like here’s the books Yeah, we close you made this much you didn’t make this much. There’s how much we have in the bank There’s so much we have an inventory the end like That’s okay. That’s a snapshot in time. That doesn’t tell you what’s working, what isn’t working. That then leaves that to you to interpret. This helps provide a much clearer picture on a monthly basis at speed with a lot more information. And that’s really cool. It’s really helpful. It’s really helpful. And also, because I’m an investor person, there’s nowhere to hide. I don’t want to, I don’t, you we’re not looking to hide. We’re looking to learn and grow and move fast. So yeah. Those are the big wins for us. It’s like no pride of authorship, pride of ownership and in sharing and being able to make good decisions again at pace with the best information we can get. That’s the magic of this stuff. Leland McFarland All right, so where did errors or delays usually come before channel data or deductions or chargebacks? Craig Dubitsky Don’t get me started on charge backs and deductions and you know, look these I don’t want to sound untoward, but we know Some of those areas For some are profit centers, right? You know, so Having again a clear picture as to what you have when you shipped When you shipped it how it’s sold through is very helpful because sometimes look mistakes happen I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s intent, but we’ve had we’ve had know retailers before that’ll tell us about a certain thing that requires a deduction will be like no actually we we did what we said we did and we actually sent you all the stuff and arrived when it was supposed to and we have all the information that’s sorry Mistake, I mean mistakes happen. I don’t want to again paint a picture that there was any You know negative intent on everybody’s part Accurate information helps you avoid some of these things. It’s part of it’s part of life when you’re operating at scale. It’s a lot of moving so things can happen. So being able again to have accurate reporting is extremely helpful, extremely helpful. Leland McFarland So distribution and logistics can be quite brutal. What was the hardest part of your scaling up to like that 70,000? Craig Dubitsky It’s a great question. What was the hardest part? Hardest part? Well, at one point, it was very, very difficult to get cans, believe it or not. Cans were in very short supply. that was tricky. Managing componentry was tricky. We were making these. These are custom containers. this whole thing is curbside recyclable. Even the label is a custom substrate. You don’t have to peel this off. Sometimes you get something that’s like, Remove the label. No, it’s custom label. Even this could be recycled as the curb. Well, this was being made. And by the way, coffee, and this dates the story, but there were these things called tariffs that were going on. So talk about an interesting wrinkle. So all of a sudden, you had components made in certain parts of the world. had coffee grown. And we were sourcing from seven countries and every other. pick a point in time, there was a new tariff or not a tariff and a tariff and a different tariff. there were a lot of moving financial parts as well as moving parts. So where cans were coming from, where they were going, getting filled, where componentry for primary packaging was coming from, how that was getting filled, how that was getting sealed, how cans in the beginning before they were printed aluminum cans, they were sleeved cans. So there was just logistics involved with everything. because you had to get your hands on the cans. You had to fill the product. You had to bring the product back to get it sleeved in a different place because the same place I was filling it didn’t have a sleeving mechanism. Oh, you got a Costco order. That’s great. We don’t palletize product like that. We don’t create case packs. There’s so many moving pieces. I could talk to you and you for hours at end. Yeah, this stuff, it’s not for the faint of heart. So again, having tools that can help you keep track of all this stuff and having a team of people that are very comfortable using those tools, that’s some secret sauce. Yeah. I don’t know if I’m really answering your question, but. All right, thank you. Yeah, it’s tough. So supply chain logistics, moving stuff from point A to point B, when you have a lot of point Bs and a lot of A, lowercase a, uppercase A, Leland McFarland That was good answer. Craig Dubitsky A.1, A.2, A.3. Having a platform that lets you keep track of all that stuff in the process is really great. Really great. Because again, there are a lot of components. We’ve called these blends. There are multiple beams. This stuff comes out of the ground. Like, you know, working to make sure you’re creating something that’s consistent. Because, that’s right. It goes in people’s mouths. It has to taste great. It has to be consistent. managing all the aspects of your manufacturing. with your partners to make sure that your product quality is ACES. All these things are dependent on a whole bunch of factors coming together. So again, it’s Herculean task management, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. And if you have the right tools, you can do it. Leland McFarland All right, so that’s what I got for you today. So why don’t you tell everyone where they could learn more about your drink and where maybe they could buy it. Craig Dubitsky Sure. Well, you can learn more at happyproducts.com. So please come by. If you’re not near a Walmart, a Target, a Kroger, an Albertsons, a CVS, an HEB, a Meyer, probably leaving a whole bunch out and I apologize, a Sheetz, you can certainly find us at amazon.com slash happy. There’s some fun videos up there as well you can check out. And obviously on our website, you can come and and see everything we have and order everything. And I thank you for listening. I hope that you give our products a try, that you love them as much as we love bringing them to life. And the thing that I want to point out is we’re called happy because coffee makes people happy and now happy is going to make their coffee. But the bigger point of this, as big as that is, is that we know not everybody’s happy. So we… wanted to reimagine the relationship between entrepreneurship and philanthropy. And we want to help people. We want to do our best to remove stigma from mental health, which is at epidemic levels here and abroad. Mental health doesn’t care how much you do or do not have in your bank account, what your native tongue is, where you’re from. It plays no favorites. It impacts everybody. depending on which study you look at, one in four or one in five people in this country have some form of mental illness. How can we remove stigma from that? Suicide rates have gone up 30 % in the past 20 years Number one killer teens used to be car accidents all by leukemia now number one is handguns and number two is death by suicide often one and two are Connected so we want to remove stigma. We partnered with NAMI the National Alliance on mental illness we have a QR code on every product we make toll-free number there’s free professional help and Call somebody, you know Call somebody you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Just tell them you’re thinking about it. Text them. Tell them I said to give them a call. You can call me if you want. My cell is 917-392-1000. If you need help, there’s 988. NAMI helped create 988, which is the 911 for mental health. And we gave NAMI a piece of the company. So NAMI’s on our cap table. This isn’t a performative thing. you know, let’s do a thing with mental health. No, this is a serious thing that we’re involved with as humans. And we want to try to remove stigma. So that’s the important thing. Supply chain. Got it. Making sure our balance sheet is tight as a drum. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. NetSuite for all of that. I mean that sincerely. You know, we’re in the happy business as much as the coffee business. So give some a try. The coffee’s epic. I promise. You know, two to five acre small grower farms, 40 % of them are run by women. pretty amazing and they represent less than half of 1 % of all available commercial coffee growers. So really picky about the coffee. Coffee is amazing, chefs kiss stuff. But do something kind for somebody, say hello to somebody and that’s it. That’s what I got. Be in the happy business. Leland McFarland All right, well thank you for coming on and sharing happy and also all about NAMI and mental health. Craig Dubitsky Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Good to meet you. Leland McFarland Thanks. Bye. Craig’s story is a reminder that growth is exciting—but it can also expose every weak link in your operations. From packaging constraints and shifting supply chain realities to the constant need for accurate reporting and clean data, scaling isn’t just about selling more—it’s about staying in control as complexity multiplies. What stood out most was Craig’s focus on visibility: not just seeing the numbers, but using better tools (and increasingly AI-driven insights) to spot what’s working faster, react sooner, and make decisions with confidence instead of guesswork. Just as important, Craig makes it clear that happy is building more than a coffee brand. The company’s partnership with NAMI and its push to normalize mental health conversations reflect a bigger goal: connecting entrepreneurship with real-world impact in a way that isn’t performative, but embedded into the business itself. To learn more about happy or to find where to buy it, visit happyproducts.com or look for happy in major retailers and online marketplaces mentioned in the interview. This article, "Interview with Craig Dubitsky – Founder and CEO of happy" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Organic search clicks are shrinking across major verticals — and it’s not just because of Google’s AI Overviews. Classic organic click share fell sharply across headphones, jeans, greeting cards, and online games queries in the U.S., new Similarweb data comparing January 2025 to January 2026 shows. The biggest winner: text ads. Why we care. You aren’t just competing with AI Overviews. You’re competing with Google’s aggressive expansion of paid search real estate. Across every vertical analyzed, text ads gained more click share than any other measurable surface. In product categories, paid listings now capture roughly one-third of all clicks. As a result, several brands that are losing organic visibility are increasing their paid investment. By the numbers. Across four verticals, text ads showed the most consistent, measurable click-share gains. Classic organic lost 11 to 23 percentage points of click share year over year. Text ads gained 7 to 13 percentage points in every case. Paid click share doubled in major product categories. AI Overviews SERP presence rose ~10 to ~30 percentage points, depending on the vertical. Classic organic is down everywhere. Year-over-year classic organic click share declined across all four verticals. Headphones saw the steepest drop. Even online games — historically organic-heavy — lost double digits. In two verticals (headphones, jeans), total clicks also fell. Headphones: Down from 73% to 50% Jeans: Down from 73% to 56% Greeting cards: Down from 88% to 75% Online games: Down from 95% to 84% Text ads are the biggest winner. Text ads gained share in every vertical; no other surface showed this level of consistent growth: Headphones: Up from 3% to 16% Online games: Up from 3% to 13% Jeans: Up from 7% to 16% Greeting cards: Up from 9% to 16% In product categories, PLAs compounded the shift: Headphones: Up from 16% to 36% Jeans: Up from 18% to 34% Greeting cards: Up from 10% to 19% AI Overviews surged unevenly. The presence of Google AI Overviews expanded sharply, but varied by vertical: Headphones: 2.28% → 32.76% Online games: 0.38% → 29.80% Greeting cards: 0.94% → 21.97% Jeans: 2.28% → 12.06% Zero-click searches are high — and mostly stable. Except for online games, zero-click rates didn’t change dramatically: Headphones: 63% (flat) Jeans: Down from 65% to 61% Online games: Up from 43% to 50% Greeting cards: Up from 51% to 53% Brands losing organic traffic are buying it back. In headphones: Amazon increased paid clicks 35% while losing organic volume. Walmart nearly 6x’d paid clicks. Bose boosted paid 49%. In jeans: Gap grew paid clicks 137% to become the top paid player. True Religion entered the paid top tier without top-10 organic presence. In online games: CrazyGames quadrupled paid clicks while organic declined. Arkadium entered paid after losing 68% of organic clicks. The result? We’re seeing a self-reinforcing cycle, according to the study’s author, Aleyda Solis: Organic share declines. Competition intensifies. More brands increase paid budgets. Paid surfaces capture more clicks. About the data. This analysis used Similarweb data to examine SERP composition and click distribution for the top 5,000 U.S. queries in headphones, jeans, and online games, and the top 956 queries in greeting cards and ecards. It compares January 2025 to January 2026, tracking how clicks shifted across classic organic results, organic SERP features, text ads, PLAs, zero-click searches, and AI Overviews. The study. Search Isn’t Just Turning to AI, it’s being Re-Monetized: Text Ads Are Taking a Bigger Share of Google SERP Clicks (Data) View the full article

According to a New York Times report, Meta plans to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The feature, called “Name Tag” within Meta, would allow users to identify people and get information about them through Meta's AI. The feature could be rolling out as early as this year. Adding the feature is not a done deal, however. According to an internal document cited by The Times, the company is weighing the “safety and privacy risks" of introducing facial recognition as well as discussing how to navigate the response to a no-doubt controversial feature. A document quoted by The Times suggests Meta is deliberately timing a potential rollout to minimize scrutiny. “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document from Meta’s Reality Labs reads. Meta's long history with facial recognitionThis would not be the first time Meta dabbled in facial recognition. Meta debated adding facial recognition to the first generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2021, but decided against it due to privacy concerns. And Facebook, Meta's social media platform, identified and tagged people as early as 2010, but the company pulled the feature in 2021, citing "many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society.” Concerns also include the risk of doxxing. The ACLU characterized facial recognition used by law enforcement as a "systematic invasion of privacy," though personal use of the technology raises different issues. Facial recognition glasses could enable instant doxxing, linking anyone's face to publicly available information, including social media profiles, addresses, and phone numbers. Meta says it isn't planning to release a universal facial recognition tool. The company is considering glasses that identify only people a user knows based on their connection on a Meta platform, or only identify people who have a public account on a Meta site like Instagram. "While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature—and some products already exist in the market—we’re still thinking through options and will take a thoughtful approach if and before we roll anything out," Meta said in a statement. The upside of smart glasses with facial recognition technologyPrivacy concerns aside, the technology has genuinely beneficial applications, particularly to people with vision problems. According to The Times' report, Meta originally planned to introduce Name Tag to attendees of a conference for the blind before releasing it to the public, highlighting a group that could potentially benefit from facial recognition technology, though that plan was scrapped for unknown reasons. Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, an accessibility technology company that works closely with Meta, said he has been in discussions with Meta about facial recognition glasses for more than a year. “It is so important and powerful for this group of humans,” Buckley told The Times. View the full article

Google's Jeff Dean explains why latency and cost make Flash Google's production tier for AI search, and why models are built to retrieve, not memorize. The post Why Google Runs AI Mode On Flash, Explained By Google’s Chief Scientist appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Three AI companies—OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity—are on the verge of receiving approval to sell their technology, hosted on their own cloud systems, directly to the government, a person familiar with the matter tells Fast Company. That authorization will be on a “low impact” and pilot level, the person said, but constitutes a major step toward independence. That independence could help those companies avoid some of the complications created by ongoing partnerships between AI firms and longtime government tech contractors. As large language models have gone mainstream, AI companies have often relied on tech firms that have already passed arduous government security reviews—including Microsoft, Palantir, and Amazon Web Services—to host their chatbots for federal users. In the early days, these partnerships made it easier for AI labs to quickly get their tech in front of government officials, but also meant ceding at least some control over when and how their AI was made available. The downside of that kind of dependence is now playing out in the brewing feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which appears to have been fueled, in part, by its partnership with Palantir. The Defense Department is threatening to cancel a $200 million contract after Anthropic requested limits on the use of its AI for certain applications, including autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Anthropic’s Claude model was made available to military officials with the help of Palantir’s systems and was even used in the U.S. operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to reports. According to Semafor, tensions mounted after an Anthropic official asked a Palantir executive how Claude had been used in the operation, prompting concern inside the Pentagon about the company’s willingness to support military applications. This is all to say that not relying on a company like Palantir makes selling to the government far less complicated. In pursuit of that independence, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google applied for, and received, expedited review of their cloud systems last year under a federal security initiative called FedRAMP 20x. Now, Fast Company can report, they’re almost certain to be approved. These approvals are separate from any decision by a specific federal agency to purchase their products, but they show the companies have taken concrete steps to engage the government on their own terms. Anthropic, by contrast, has leaned heavily on partners like Palantir to help sell its technology to government customers. The company does not appear to have participated in FedRAMP 20x, though it’s not clear why. Still, the question of independence is one Anthropic has publicly acknowledged. “We would also like to be able to directly provide services to governments and not necessarily go through a partner at all times,” Michael Sellito, the company’s head of global affairs, told FedScoop in 2024. Neither Palantir nor Anthropic responded to Fast Company’s request for comment. View the full article

Loans will continue to be originated and closed in the name of Firstrust Bank but the MortgageCountry will oversee lending end-to-end and provide its leadership. View the full article

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Swedish fintech company Klarna, says the organization is set to drastically downsize. And he says he shares his outlook on the workforce with another CEO: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei. Siemiatkowski made the comments on the 20 VC podcast with Harry Stebbings earlier this week, where the CEO didn’t deny that the company has been steadily shrinking. The CEO said that currently the company has about 3,000 employees. That’s down from 7,000 just four years ago. In another four, he says there will likely be less than 2,000—a reduction of one-third. Siemiatkowski cited both layoffs and the employees leaving the company and not being replaced, and explained that AI’s integration allows for fewer employees. Klarna’s slimming down comes even as buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are booming. Around 30% of Americans say they have used them, according to a 2025 Bankrate report. And in 2025, according to a PartnerCentric survey, 35% said they planned to use the services even more. The popularity is driven by the fact that Klarna, like other BNPL options, allows shoppers to split purchases into interest-free installments, pay within 30 days, or even opt for longer-term financing options. Likewise, thousands of retailers now accept BNPL. Still, the success of such businesses no longer seems to equate to the need for more employees, as AI’s impact looms larger—something some leaders have been increasingly warning about. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei wrote of his gravest concerns about AI in a recent essay that included items like loss of autonomy, “misuse for destruction” and “powerful AI” which he writes is “definitely coming.” Amodei writes: “I think it should be clear that this is a dangerous situation—a report from a competent national security official to a head of state would probably contain words like ‘the single most serious national security threat we’ve faced in a century, possibly ever.’ It seems like something the best minds of civilization should be focused on.” The CEO also predicted AI could cut 50 percent of all white-collar entry-level jobs in the next one to five years, doubling down on a stance he’s warned about previously. Worryingly, Klarna’s CEO doesn’t disagree with Amodei’s stance, acknowledging that he’s “in Dario’s camp” on concerns around AI. “I want to be honest about the fact that I do think there’s going to be a very big shift,” Siemiatkowski said on the podcast. Specifically, he echoed the concerns around job loss. “I’m an optimist at heart, but I also want to be a realist around what’s going to happen in the shorter term, and it’s going to be a lot of turmoil in this.” Regardless, while the CEO seemed to express some major concerns around AI’s rapid advancements, Siemiatkowski has leaned into them heavily. In 2024, he announced that AI could handle a growing number of jobs as the company paused hiring and cut 2,000 employees. But it wasn’t long before customer satisfaction dipped, and the company had to scramble to reassign workers to customer support to handle the fallout. The CEO later took to X to explain what went wrong, writing that he was “tremendously embarrassed” about the turn of events. Fast Company reached out to Klarna to inquire on whether the company would scale back its relationship with AI. A representative said Klarna “did not lean too much into AI,” but its “thinking on human customer service” has changed. The representative continued, “When you automate a large amount of the simpler customer service requests, you are left with the most complex and sensitive cases . . . So we have begun to directly hire a small number of human agents directly employed by Klarna, not at outsourced providers.” View the full article

When I cofounded Brilliant Earth in 2005, e-commerce was still in its infancy. I believed technology could reshape the jewelry industry entirely—changing how customers find pieces they love, personalizing their own designs, and reimagining the customer experience. We launched as a digital-first venture to do just that. Now, two decades into our pioneering digital journey, I’ve realized something surprising: Our most sophisticated online tools have actually made in-person interactions more valuable. I believe the brands leading the next wave of innovation aren’t choosing between digital and physical. They’re using digital excellence to help create meaningful in-person connections and lifelong brand affinity. BOLSTER HUMAN CONNECTION THROUGH DIGITAL Over the years, Brilliant Earth introduced several industry firsts. Before we launched, buying diamond jewelry online was unheard of; we became one of the first companies to sell engagement rings and fine jewelry through e-commerce, and were early to offer lab-grown diamonds when few knew what they were. We developed online tools for customers to design their own engagement rings and fine jewelry. But we also understood that the future wouldn’t be dominated by digital. Seamlessly integrating online and physical experiences would be key. Even as digital tools get more sophisticated, leading companies aren’t eliminating the in-person element. They’re doing the opposite: harnessing these innovations to make human touchpoints more meaningful. In doing so, they create branded experiences that feel more personal and authentic than traditional retail was doing. This transformation spans every retail category—from IKEA’s Place app that lets customers visualize furniture in their homes to Nike’s data-driven inventory localization, based on neighborhood shopping patterns. Even legacy media companies are getting involved: Condé Nast is preparing to launch Vette, a creator-commerce platform using AI-driven tools to help influencers curate personalized storefronts. It bridges the gap between content discovery and purchase decisions. The key insight for any industry leader is this: Modern shoppers no longer see a divide between online and offline shopping. Both are now intrinsic parts of the customer journey, not opposing concepts. No matter your industry, customers expect each digital tool to serve a dual purpose: enhancing their online experience while creating richer, more meaningful interaction when they choose to engage in person. The companies getting this right aren’t using digital tools to replace human touchpoints. They’re giving their teams better information, so every interaction feels more personal and valuable. 3 PILLARS OF NEXT-GENERATION EXPERIENCE As I look toward the future, I see three fundamental principles driving the evolution of exceptional customer experiences: 1. Invest in tech-powered personalization: Digital tools that recognize customers across all touchpoints are delivering increasingly sophisticated personalization. Take Ralph Lauren’s “Ask Ralph,” which launched last fall. It’s like having a personal stylist in your pocket—one who knows the brand’s entire archive, drawing upon that knowledge to provide personalized styling advice, complete with live inventory. The experience feels like a natural extension of the world Ralph has built for almost 60 years. In the big box world, Walmart is using AI features like a personalized algorithm that can predict and preempt customer needs, including frequency and quantity of orders. It expanded testing of a GenAI shopping assistant to help customers make the best choices for their needs. At Brilliant Earth, we’ve taken this approach into our showrooms where we use dozens of customer data points to curate each appointment and continue that personalized journey long after customers leave our stores. But we’ve also learned to lean into what our customers find most special: the unique guidance and expertise they get from our jewelry specialists. The goal is to build unified systems that remember customer preferences no matter how they shop with you, so every interaction feels personal and connected. 2. Focus on immersive technologies to eliminate friction: Deploying smart technologies to allow customers to experience products before purchasing will fundamentally change how customers interact with your brand world. Released last summer, Warby Parker’s new AI-powered Advisor feature scans customers’ faces to capture style preferences and measurements, then recommends glasses while offering virtual try-on capabilities that calculate frame sizes. And Sephora launched its latest digital extension this fall called My Sephora Storefront, where creators can build their own beauty shops inside Sephora’s website and app, so shoppers never have to leave the platform. These integrations eliminate the traditional friction points between discovery and purchase, and allow customers to experience products virtually before committing. 3. Emphasize human-AI collaboration: The most successful AI implementations preserve authentic human connections while augmenting capabilities. Condé Nast’s Vette platform demonstrates another approach by using AI to handle complex backend operations—like inventory management, product recommendations, and sales analytics. This allows creators to focus on what humans do best: building authentic relationships with their audiences and providing personal curation reflecting their unique voice and taste. The best AI implementations don’t replace people—they make them better at their jobs. Smart companies are learning to use AI to give their teams insights about individual customers, making every interaction more relevant without losing the human touch that builds real loyalty. THE NEXT WAVE OF INNOVATION I’m proud of how far we’ve come in using innovation to enable self-expression and connect with authentic human needs at Brilliant Earth. But more than that, I’m energized by the opportunities ahead. Today’s digital transformation has given us capabilities that seemed impossible just a few years ago. While there are many questions about AI’s future impact on jobs and human connection to be answered, the companies and leaders succeeding right now aren’t using AI to eliminate human contact. They’re using it to make those human moments count even more. Those who get this right will reshape the next generation of retail. Beth Gerstein is the cofounder and CEO of Brilliant Earth. View the full article

Data breach extortion group ShinyHunters used social engineering to steal customer names, addresses and phone numbers from the blockchain lender. View the full article

Mark Zuckerberg and opposing lawyers dueled in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, where the Meta CEO answered questions about young people’s use of Instagram, his congressional testimony, and internal advice he’s received about being “authentic” and not “robotic.” Zuckerberg’s testimony is part of an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children. Attorneys representing the plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM, claim her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled. Beginning his questioning, the plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier laid out three options of what people can do regarding vulnerable people: help them, ignore them, or “prey upon them and use them for our own ends.” Zuckerberg said he agrees the last option is not what a reasonable company should do, saying, “I think a reasonable company should try to help the people that use its services.” When he was asked about his compensation, Zuckerberg said he has pledged to give “almost all” of his money to charity, focusing on scientific research. Lanier asked him how much money he has pledged to victims impacted by social media, to which Zuckerberg replied, “I disagree with the characterization of your question.” Lanier also asked Zuckerberg about what he characterized as extensive media training, including for testimonies like the one he was giving in court. Lanier pointed to an internal document about feedback on Zuckerberg’s tone of voice on his own social media, imploring him to come off as “authentic, direct, human, insightful and real,” and instructing him to “not try hard, fake, robotic, corporate or cheesy” in his communication. Zuckerberg pushed back against the idea that he’s been coached on how to respond to questions or present himself, saying those offering the advice were “just giving feedback.” Regarding his media appearances and public speaking, Zuckerberg said, “I think I’m actually well known to be sort of bad at this.” The Meta CEO has long been mocked online for appearing robotic and, when he was younger, nervous when speaking publicly. In 2010, during an interview with renowned tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, he was sweating so profusely that Swisher asked him if he wanted to “take off the hoodie” that was his uniform at the time. Lanier spent a considerable stretch of his limited time with Zuckerberg asking about the company’s age verification policies. “I don’t see why this is so complicated,” Zuckerberg said after a lengthy back-and-forth, reiterating that the company’s policy restricts users under the age of 13 and that they work to detect users who have lied about their ages to bypass restrictions. Zuckerberg mostly stuck to his talking points, referencing his goal of building a platform that is valuable to users and, on multiple occasions, saying he disagreed with Lanier’s “characterization” of his questions or of Zuckerberg’s own comments. Zuckerberg has testified in other trials and answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms, and he apologized to families at that hearing whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were because of social media. This trial, though, marks the first time Zuckerberg will answer similar questions in front of a jury. And, again, bereaved parents are expected to be in the limited courtroom seats available to the public. The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out. A Meta spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the allegations in the lawsuit and said they are “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.” One of Meta’s attorneys, Paul Schmidt, said in his opening statement that the company is not disputing that KGM experienced mental health struggles, but rather disputing that Instagram played a substantial factor in those struggles. He pointed to medical records that showed a turbulent home life, and both he and an attorney representing YouTube argue she turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles. Zuckerberg’s testimony comes a week after that of Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, who said in the courtroom that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms. Mosseri maintained that Instagram works hard to protect young people using the service, and said it’s “not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for people’s well-being.” Much of Mosseri’s questioning from the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, centered on cosmetic filters on Instagram that changed people’s appearance — a topic that Lanier is sure to revisit with Zuckerberg. He is also expected to face questions about Instagram’s algorithm, the infinite nature of Meta’s feeds and other features the plaintiffs argue are designed to get users hooked. Meta is also facing a separate trial in New Mexico that began last week. —Kaitlyn Huamani and Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writers View the full article

A new $7.25 billion settlement between Bayer and a group of cancer patients could wrap up a huge wave of lawsuits against the company over allegations that it didn’t warn consumers about cancer risks associated with the weedkiller Roundup. Bayer faces more than 180,000 claims over Roundup, which contains the herbicide glyphosate – the chemical at the center of the controversy. Most of those claims are from people who used the weedkiller, which is sold at any hardware or garden store, at home. The lawsuits have prompted Bayer to pull glyphosate out of many products under the Roundup brand, though glyphosate is still commonly used by farmers and in the agriculture business broadly. The science around glyphosate is controversial. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in users if applied as directed, and does not require companies selling it to include a warning about links to cancer. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency classified the chemical as a substance likely to cause cancer in humans more than a decade ago, though those findings faced scrutiny a few years later over reports that the published version differed from a draft. Just last month, a landmark study determining that glyphosate didn’t pose a risk to human health was retracted, 25 years after its publication. The retraction, prompted by emails revealing Monsanto’s influence, undermines a longstanding regulatory foundation that has cited the key research for decades. A long battle The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over Bayer’s effort to fend off an onslaught of cancer-related lawsuits over Roundup in April. While the new settlement proposal won’t affect that case, it could help both Bayer and the plaintiffs hedge their bets if the Supreme Court doesn’t side in their favor. Bayer, a German pharmaceutical and biotech giant, is best known for making the common pain reliever Aspirin. The company acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, betting that owning a major player in the agriculture business would diversify its business and pay dividends down the road as farming supplies boomed. That hasn’t come to pass, and Monsanto’s costly litigation has further dragged Bayer’s share price down from its highs around a decade ago. Today, Bayer is worth less than the price it once paid for Monsanto. Hundreds of thousands of lawsuits Out of the cases against Bayer over Roundup so far, only a sliver were decided by a jury, yielding 13 decisions favoring the pharmaceutical giant and 11 siding with plaintiffs. Last year, a jury in Georgia ordered Bayer to pay $2.1 billion in damages to a plaintiff who suffers from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that begins in white blood cells. Some other cases have been resolved in separate settlements, but many remain unresolved. Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Bayer would make payments into a designated fund on a yearly basis for 21 years, which could total up to $7.25 billion, to resolve most of the outstanding Roundup lawsuits. That money would then be doled out to people based on their Roundup usage, age of cancer diagnosis and the severity of their disease. Under the settlement’s terms, agricultural and industrial workers who faced regular exposure to the product’s chemicals could receive an average of $165,000 if they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma under the age of 60. Residential users, those diagnosed later in life, and those with less aggressive cancer could receive tens of thousands in compensation. Bayer has said that it could still cancel the settlement, which does not yet have court approval, if too many plaintiffs decide to opt out and reject its terms. Supreme Court poised to decide Last month, the Supreme Court said that it would hear a case on the issue in order to determine if federal laws protect Bayer, which complies with the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules, from lawsuits filed in state courts. The EPA does not require products including glyphosate to be sold with a cancer warning. Bayer praised the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case, arguing that farmers need regulatory clarity around the widely used product and calling the milestone an important part of its effort to “significantly contain” litigation around Roundup. “It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said. View the full article

JPMorganChase said Wednesday it plans to open more than 160 new bank branches in over three dozen states—and renovate nearly 600 more—as part of a nationwide, multibillion-dollar push for more affordable financial services. Those branches will include locations in rural and low-to-moderate income (LMI) communities in the Northeast, Southeast, America’s “Heartland” or Midwest, and Southwest—including in North and South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Tennessee this year. JPMorganChase tells Fast Company those will include branch locations in: “Greater Philadelphia, Greater Boston, the Tampa Bay area, Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area, Raleigh–Cary metro area/The Triangle, and the Charlotte metro area.” According to The Brookings Institution, the affordability crisis has reached every corner of the country, hitting middle-and-lower income earners the hardest, resulting in a 29% cumulative price increase since 2019 for Americans. Along with opening the branches, Chase plans to invest in local businesses, affordable housing, and job training, help fuel economic growth, and build stronger communities. “Every Chase branch is a reflection of its neighborhood,” Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase consumer banking said in the release. “Each branch represents our promise to stand alongside our customers as partners, helping them navigate and achieve their financial goals.” The expansion is part of Chase’s 2024 strategy to open more than 500 new branches, renovate 1,700 locations, and hire 3,500 employees nationwide over a three year-period. JPMorganChase financials Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) were trading up 1.3% in midday trading on Wednesday at the time of this writing. The company reported strong fourth-quarter earnings last month with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) coming in at $5.23, exceeding estimates of $4.92, and better-than-expected revenue of $46.77 billion versus, $46.20 billion. At the time of this writing, it had a market capitalization of over $847 billion. View the full article

On February 2, wellness influencer Peter Attia stepped down from his role as chief science officer at the protein company David. On February 12, Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler announced her resignation from the company. And on February 13, Hollywood agent Casey Wasserman revealed that he would sell his talent agency. All of these business execs worked in very different spheres, but their sudden departures can be traced back to the same point of origin: their names cropped up again and again in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) latest trove of Epstein files, released in late January. Over the past few weeks, many prominent figures have stepped down from their high-profile positions amidst growing scrutiny over their relationships to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A new tool called “Jwiki” is dedicated to compiling all of that information in one place—on, as the name suggests, a webpage designed to mimic Wikipedia. It’s the latest interface from a team of developers who have spent the last several months converting the notoriously dense and convoluted Epstein files into easily searchable interfaces, condensing about 3.5 million pages of material spread across .txt files, zip files, and Google Drive folders into recognizable formats. With Jwiki, instead of sifting through all of the Epstein files for individual mentions of various public figures (a nearly impossible task for members of the public), users can simply search their name and receive a succinct summary of their involvement with Epstein. How two technologists build the “Jsuite” Jwiki comes courtesy of a team led by technologists Riley Walz and Luke Igel. Walz has previously built several viral websites, including San Francisco’s “Tech Jester” and a tool to track the city’s parking cops. In November 2025, Igel, who’s the CEO of an AI company called Kino, requested Walz’s help with a tool to demystify Epstein’s emails. They built the first iteration in just one night. That initial tool, called Jmail, allows users to wade through Epstein’s seemingly endless email correspondence in a Gmail-style interface. To build it, Walz and Igel used Google’s Gemini AI to run optical character recognition (OCR) on the individual emails and map it onto a simulation of Epstein’s actual inbox. Since then, Walz and Igel have relied heavily on vibe coding to expand the Jsuite into other apps like Jamazon; which tracks Epstein’s Amazon orders through receipts; Jflights, which converts his flight data into a searchable map; and Jphotos, which compiles the files’ thousands of photos into one massive folder. In an interview with the publication Arena on February 12, Walz and Igel said that the Jsuite is receiving an average of 10,000 visitors daily, with a peak of well over a million visitors in a single day. How to use Jwiki According to a post from the official Jmail account on X, Walz and Igel’s team built Jwiki using their existing Jmail data. Upon first opening the site, users are greeted with a homepage that includes sections for a daily featured article, top articles by email volume, and top articles by viewership. The wiki includes entries on people, places, and events referenced in the files. Users can either click on one of these displayed entries or look into their own areas of interest via a search bar. Clicking on Lesley Groff, Epstein’s longtime executive assistant, for example, leads to a Wikipedia-style summary that includes a breakdown of her background, correspondence with Epstein (a whopping 224,747 emails), personal connections, and visits to Epstein’s properties. It also includes a concluding section called “Criminal Exposure Assessment,” which, according to Jmail’s post on X, “cites U.S. codes that people may have been breaking as seen in the Jmail record.” “We believe that the US government has a responsibility to fully investigate the people implicated by these files,” the X post reads. Each Jwiki entry comes with the important caveat that its contents were generated by AI, meaning it’s fairly likely the resource is peppered with some inaccuracies and potential hallucinations. To address that concern, the Jmail team announced on X on February 18 that they’d opened the site for public contributions. Users can now sign in, propose edits to articles, and view the full revision history of every change. The edits are then reviewed and either approved or denied by a team of admins. Ultimately, the team says, its goal is “Wikipedia-style open editing, where the articles self-correct.” As the Epstein files slowly begin to bring powerful business leaders to account (albeit not in a court of law), Jwiki is one of the best tools available to the public so far to understand exactly what the rich and powerful were up to behind closed doors. View the full article

US president says Diego Garcia military base may be needed for strikes on IranView the full article