Sweetgreen just introduced caramelized garlic steak to its menu.
Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Sweetgreen introduced caramelized garlic steak, which is now the most expensive protein on its menu.
Its CEO said the steak should boost its dinner sales and expand its customer base.
"There's a lot of fast-casual customers that won't go somewhere unless there is a meat option," he said.
Sweetgreen just added steak to its menu for the first time, which it says could attract new protein-hungry customers and boost its evening sales.
The salad chain, which has over 225 locations, added caramelized garlic steak on Tuesday. It features in three new set entrées and can also be added to custom dishes.
Axios reported that it's the first red meat Sweetgreen has sold. The only other meat it currently sells is chicken. It also sells salmon.
Sweetgreen says the steak is seasoned with a garlic spice blend and roasted to get a "deep caramelized char on the outside and a juicy center on the inside," before being finished with olive oil and herbs. It's "reminiscent of classic steakhouse flavors," Sweetgreen said in a press release.
At a Sweetgreen in Manhattan, the three new entrées featuring the steak cost between $16.15 and $17.15.
And it's the chain's priciest protein yet.
It costs $6.45 to add the steak to another set entrée or to a custom bowl at the Manhattan location. In comparison, Sweetgreen charges $2.75 to add roasted tofu, $3.75 to add blackened or roasted chicken, and $6.15 to add miso glazed salmon.
Cofounder and CEO Jonathan Neman told investors on Thursday that during its test of the steak in Boston in February, it became a "dinnertime favorite" and was included in nearly one in five dinner orders. Customers returned to order it, and the test exceeded Sweetgreen's expectations, he said.
"Incorporating steak into our menu provides customers with something they've been seeking for years," Neman said. "A lot of the surveys, consumer insights that we had is there's a lot of fast-casual customers that won't go somewhere unless there is a meat option."
Neman said that Sweetgreen introduced steak to boost its dinner sales and expand its customer base. The chain generates most of its revenue from its lunchtime trade, with dinner orders accounting for about 35% of its business. It revamped its protein plates range in the fall to help drive evening sales.
But it's unclear how the steak fits into Sweetgreen's sustainability goals, The New York Times reported. Sweetgreen says that it plans to become carbon neutral by 2027, and beef has a massive carbon footprint.
Sweetgreen says that the cows used for the steak are grass-fed and pasture-raised. A spokesperson for the chain told The Times that the steak is mostly sourced from farms in Australia and New Zealand that are "rooted in regenerative farming principles."
Lexis Czumak-Abreu said being an electrician is physically demanding.
Courtesy of Lexis Czumak-Abreu
Lexis Czumak-Abreu started doing engineering jobs on the side while studying pre-med in college.
She told Business Insider she enjoyed the problem-solving and physical elements of the job.
Czumak-Abreu ultimately abandoned plans to be a surgeon. and now works as an electrician full-time.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lexis Czumak-Abreu, a 27-year-old electrician in New York state. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I became interested in medicine because my mom is a physician's assistant. I went to pre-med school, intending to become a surgeon. But now I work as an electrician.
It's extremely rewarding. At the end of a job, you can turn the electricity on and see the whole system work right in front of you.
I grew up around electricians. Several of my male family members, including my dad, are electricians. I did an apprenticeship with an electrician company in 2015 and kept up electrician jobs on the side when I needed money for my family.
I'd work between 20 and 25 hours a week as an electrician. It was second nature to me.
I wanted to become a surgeon but changed my mind
In pre-med school, I chose to specialize in phlebotomy to get my foot in the door. But I had to work in a hospital drawing people's blood all day. I absolutely hated it.
I thought: "I'm not a people person. I'm not meant to be here."
While at college, I got several personal trainer certifications and worked as a trainer on the side. But again, it didn't work for me. I'm good at speaking to people, but I'm quite antisocial. I like to work alone.
I kept up some electrical work on the side, too. I finished my degree with an associate's in pre-med in 2019, but I decided not to continue in medicine.
I became a full-time electrician instead of continuing in medicine
I could no longer work as a personal trainer under the COVID-19 restrictions. Electricians were considered essential workers. I couldn't just stay unemployed. I started working as an electrician full-time.
I'd go on jobs solo, including running my own jobs, or with another person. Once the pandemic was over, I realized I wanted to keep doing it.
No 2 days are the same
I work a 40-hour workweek. My shifts are normal 9-to-5 working hours, but sometimes our hours change. We get told in advance, though.
Unlike in an office job where you go to the same building every day, I work somewhere different every day. I experience different things and see different people every day.
When a job is finished, I feel a sense of accomplishment and closure. I can finish the job and move on to another one. It doesn't feel like one long job forever.
There are challenges and dangers
I've gotten small electrical shocks, but that comes with the job. I've had an electric shock from an outlet before. That woke me up.
Early in my career, I got a shock when I accidentally put my hand on a panel. Someone else had to pull me off the panel. I was slightly shaken after that, but it made me much more cautious.
I've never been seriously injured. When working with more dangerous equipment, you wear more protective equipment.
It's physically demanding
The more experienced you get, the higher the voltage you can work with because you need to be experienced to work with deadly voltage. I mainly do commercial jobs now, such as pole lighting or utility generators for towns or businesses, though sometimes I still do residential work in people's homes.
I prefer commercial work, but it can be tricky to troubleshoot and solve a problem when it's something I've never learned before. Moving heavy copper wire and big pipes can be labor-intensive, physical work.
I have to train in the gym to keep up with the men in the industry. Handling heavy equipment that is double my body weight can be more taxing on my body than theirs. There are days when I come home exhausted, but it's better than a repetitive office job.
I've experienced sexism
I mostly work on my own.
Sometimes, when running jobs, I feel like people aren't taking me seriously. I haven't had many negative comments, but sometimes, I can tell from people's body language that they're uncomfortable.
The worst was an older lady who asked my company if a male colleague could replace me. It used to upset me, but I don't take that stuff too seriously anymore. I know some people in the world just aren't used to that.
Once they see my work, there's no issue. Most people in the area of upstate New York I work in know me now anyway.
I'm glad I became an electrician
I'm glad I gave myself the opportunity to try other career paths to figure out they don't work for me.
I'm happy where I am and excited to move into working with even higher voltage in the future.
Microsoft is adding an AI feature to its Edge web browser in an apparent bid to win more users.
Rival web browsers Chrome and Safari are far more popular than Edge, StatCounter data shows.
Google added AI features for its browser in January, and Apple is rumored to roll some out too.
Microsoft might be the most valuable listed company, but it's failed to get very many people to abandon Chrome or Safari in favor of its own web browser.
However, Edge may become a little more enticing with the addition of a new AI feature.
Microsoft plans to launch an "AI theme generator" next month that will let users create their own browser themes by using a text prompter to create images.
"Applying the theme includes setting the generated image on the Edge new tab page, and applying the image's dominant color to the browser frame," according to an update to its 365 road map.
Microsoft Edge launched in 2015 to rival web browsers Google Chrome and Apple's Safari. It was intended to replace Internet Explorer, which was retired in 2022.
Chrome is the web browser for most internet users. Data from StatCounter shows the Google offering had a global market share of more than 65% in April. Safari had more than 18%, with Edge lagging behind on about 5%.
In January, Google announced three new generative AI features for Chrome. They include a browser theme generator, a tab organizer that suggests and creates tab groups based on a user's open tabs, and a tool called "Help Me Write" to assist users in writing pieces such as reviews.
According to Apple Insider, Apple is gearing up to launch an AI browser assistant called "Intelligent Search" that can automatically generate summaries of web pages by identifying subjects and key phrases. It's expected to be announced with the rollout of its latest iOS 18 update at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month.
Microsoft didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
The persistence of inflation caught economists, analysts, and, most importantly, members of the Federal Reserve by surprise.
Tyler Le/BI
What a difference three months makes.
At the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, it appeared that the US was on a glide path to what I termed "economic nirvana": Growth would stay steady, if not spectacular, as inflation cooled off to a more manageable pace. This combination would not only let America continue its four-year expansion but also allow the Federal Reserve to ease up on its attempts to rein in the economy — and maybe even cut interest rates.
The data released over the past couple of months has forced me to reconsider my expectations for that nirvana, or at least the timing of its arrival. Recent signs point instead to an inflationary boom: a slightly hotter economy in which growth has stayed strong while inflation has sped back up. The labor market has been resilient, with recent jobs reports mostly coming in ahead of expectations and the Employment Cost Index, a widely followed measure of employee-compensation growth, picking up.
But perhaps the most eye-catching development has been the persistence of inflation, which caught economists, analysts, and, most importantly, members of the Federal Reserve by surprise. The core personal consumption expenditures index — the Fed's favored inflation gauge that excludes volatile categories such as food and energy — has accelerated, undoing much of the progress from the previous six months. This inflationary-boom dynamic has pushed out expectations for rate cuts, caused some more alarmist analysts to suggest that the US is about to be gripped by another bout of high inflation, and left some wondering whether the Fed's next move will instead be to hike rates.
It is, of course, fair to reevaluate one's expectations when new data is presented. Sticking with one's projection just to avoid being wrong is a sign of poor analysis. But after carefully examining the underlying inflation dynamics that have driven the recent freak-out about renewed overheating, I estimate the worries are overdone.
In the lead-up to 2024, the pace of price hikes was falling back to earth — or at least the Fed's goal of 2% year over year. Core PCE rose at an annually adjusted rate of 1.9% in the six months ending in December. It seemed like "mission accomplished." But in the first three months of this year, the measure heated back up: Core PCE surged to 4.4%. Typically, price increases are a slow-moving process, so it is rare to see core inflation accelerate this much this quickly. When I started digging into the data, however, I had a hard time explaining the reversal based on the fundamentals.
I think of inflation as a triangle: Each leg helps explain our overall price picture. The first leg is expectations — various surveys help gauge the degree to which inflation has become embedded in the minds of consumers and businesses. If these expectations start to creep up, that could be an indication that inflation is soon to follow. The second element is aggregate demand: If people suddenly have more to spend, that can push up spending and cause prices to rise along with it. One way to measure this is unemployment — if there is a sudden surge in Americans getting new jobs, demand is likely to jump as well. The final piece is supply shocks: How much have one-off disruptions helped raise prices on things like imported consumer goods or oil? Using this framework, it's difficult to pinpoint why inflation has strengthened so much.
The Survey of Professional Forecasters has found longer-run expectations for inflation have leveled out at 2% — the Fed's target. The unemployment rate is up modestly from 12 months ago, which suggests that price hikes aren't being driven by a sudden surge in consumer or household demand. And there have been no widespread supply bottlenecks to speak of. The ISM vendor-deliveries index, which measures the amount of time purchasing managers have to wait to get the goods they need, indicates that the supply chain is running smoothly.
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On a deeper level, it appears that the acceleration in inflation is somewhat random, with much of the recent pickup being driven by industry-specific factors as opposed to overall economic conditions. Healthcare-services inflation is a notable example. PCE inflation includes both what consumers pay out of pocket for their care and payments made on behalf of individuals by employers or the government. Well, because of government rule adjustments in the first quarter, Medicaid payments surged, helping to drive up the overall index. Similarly, the cost of financial services went up as fees paid to financial advisors increased, but this is simply a lagged response to the strong performance of the stock market at the end of 2023. Since fees are a set percentage of a person's portfolio, the big run-up in equities at the end of last year meant that people may have paid more in total dollars to their advisor, but that's only because the value of their investments was also soaring.
These one-offs have had an outsize impact on the overall inflation picture. Ahead of 2024, the contribution from acyclical components to core inflation was essentially zero. Over the past three months, it has swelled to 4.4%. By contrast, the impact of cyclical components — those elements that are correlated to the overall health of the economy — on inflation has slowed marginally since last year.
Given the nature of the recent hot inflation readings, the fundamental case for a return to the path of nirvana is strong.
For one thing, economic growth is not getting away from the Fed. If growth were materially accelerating, it would drive up the demand leg of the inflation stool, increasing prices as Americans went out and threw around their newfound cash. But that's not what's happening. Real GDP rose at a 1.6% annualized pace in the first quarter, with private demand — which excludes company inventory buildups, government spending, and net exports — climbing 3.1%. The strong growth in private demand suggests that second-quarter GDP could be even more robust. Rather than a sudden reignition of the economy, the under-the-hood data suggests that this is simply the US settling into a steady-state economy.
Bringing inflation down from multidecade highs was never going to be a simple or straightforward task — the start of the year has proved as much.
For one, investments in residential real estate surged, adding half a percentage point to GDP in the first quarter. But with borrowing rates rising and building permits declining, that kind of housing contribution is unlikely to repeat. Second, the rise in consumption over the past two months was driven almost entirely by declines in the savings rate. Put another way, Americans were fueling their purchases by dipping into their cash reserves. I would not expect households to dip into their savings quite as much going forward, especially since wage growth is still moderating. The Indeed Wage Tracker, a measure of changes in wages and salaries advertised in job postings on Indeed, has been steadily slowing — down to 3.1% growth over the past year. This measure tends to move ahead of the more widely followed Wage Growth Tracker from the Atlanta Fed by roughly eight months. Add all this up, and it paints a picture of a resilient but certainly not red-hot economy.
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I've been surprised at how quickly equity markets have shrugged off the inflation news. If inflation persists as it has, it introduces real downside risks to growth. Real incomes will slow as inflation remains strong, which will weigh on household consumption and, in turn, corporate earnings. This is not like last year. The labor markets are not in the same place. Thus, instead of reinforcing the inflationary-boom narrative, stronger inflation today implies more of a downside risk to the economy.
The good news is that there are strong reasons to expect the recent pickup in US inflation to fade. Expectations are steady, labor-market turnover remains low, and inflation continues to moderate in many parts of the developed world.
In terms of an outlook for the market, the upshot is that if my analysis is right, the slowing in core inflation and stability in economic growth ought to renew some of the enthusiasm for the prospects of a soft landing. If that's right, I'd take bonds over stocks for the time being, though they should both do well.
Bringing inflation down from multidecade highs was never going to be a simple or straightforward task — the start of the year has proved as much. Expecting inflation to continue its downward trend is not a matter of keeping the faith. It's a clear reading of what the data is really telling us: Nirvana is still possible.
Neil Dutta is head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research.
Arizona established a universal school voucher system to allow kids to switch from public to private school.
An expert told BI that vouchers tend to go to wealthy families.
It's "a cautionary tale" for all the other states expanding voucher systems, he said.
The prominence of school vouchers continues to surge across the country — but they might not benefit the families who need them the most.
Over the past few years, states like Ohio and Arkansas have expanded their school voucher programs to allow most or all parents to receive funding to send their kids to private schools. More than 20 states now have some kind of voucher program with more in consideration. Arizona was the first state to create a universal voucher program in 2022 — and experts have said it's the state to watch when analyzing the impact of vouchers for all.
The modern school voucher movement started to grow in the 1990sunder the idea that the government would give parents a certain amount of money to put toward private school tuition. The programs were means-tested, meaning recipients had to meet a certain poverty limit to receive assistance, with the idea that kids with fewer resources would be able to earn a better education at private schools.
However, gradually, more states began to raise the poverty limit, making nearly any parent eligible to receive the funding — and in some states, it led to the cash going to the wealthiest families. Arizona is "a cautionary tale" regarding the expansion of vouchers, Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, told Business Insider.
"With the Arizona expansion, it's just going into communities that are primarily wealthy," Cowen said. "When this thing stopped becoming a means test 20 years ago, it stopped being an antipoverty device."
A new report from the Brookings Institution delved further into the implications of Arizona's voucher program. Arizona was the first state to implement a universal education savings account — which the state calls the Empowerment Scholarship Account — to allow parents to receive state funding to send their kids to private school.
While the program initially was capped to students with disabilities, it gradually expanded to include more students, and it's now open to all students — but the wealthiest are disproportionately getting the funds.
Arizona is just one example of the range of programs across over 20 states implementing voucher programs. While they've been championed by many Republican legislators who have argued that the vouchers allow parents to control what their kids are learning, critics have argued that they've diverted funds from public schools and lack accountability measures.
Through an analysis of the 2024 second-quarter report for the program, Brookings found that the lowest-poverty areas in Arizona tend tohave the highest participation in the ESA program, and the area with the lowest median income also has the lowest ESA participation rate.
For example, the zipcodes with the lowest poverty rate, like Phoenix suburbQueen Creek,had the highest participation rate of 75 recipients per 1,000 children under 18.
The report noted that there are a range of reasons families in higher poverty areas might not be participating in the program, including being unaware of the program or unable to get to their preferred school due to transportation barriers. Cost is also a barrier, the report said, since tuition at private schools often exceeds the scholarship amount.
"Regardless, if states that have adopted (or are considering) universal ESA programs are serious about using private school choice to address inequities in school access, they need to take a hard look at these programs," the report said. "The data emerging from Arizona provide plenty of reasons for concern."
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs introduced an effort to boost transparency in the voucher system.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
The complicated future of school vouchers
Arizona's former GOP Governor Doug Ducey made the state's ESAs universal in 2022, later saying during a February interview that during remote learning,"parents were able to see what their kids were being taught or not taught and the level of rigor and expectation from the public schools."
"They also saw that the charter schools opened and the Catholic schools opened and many of the largest public districts chose to stay closed for nearly two years, even when the government was telling them to open," Ducey said.
Republican members of the legislature have supported the expansion of vouchers, emphasizing that parents should have a role in choosing their kids' education.
But Katie Hobbs, the state's current Democratic governor, proposed a plan in January to rein in the program as part of an effort to address budget deficits. Her plan would require students to attend a public school for 100 days at any point in their education before becoming eligible for a voucher. It would also establish transparency measures that would ensure, for example, vouchers do not pay for extravagant field trips.
"My plan is simple: every school receiving taxpayer dollars must have basic standards to show they're keeping our students safe and giving Arizona children the education they deserve," Hobbs said in a statement.
While Arizona got a head start on implementing its voucher program, other states are following suit. At least eleven now have universal programs, and other states, including Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, are considering new laws. Arizona could preview not only budget complications for other states but a rocky outlook for the future of public education.
"You see these vouchers start to cannibalize on public school funds. The most important piece probably is at that state level where you really are talking about taking up a huge portion of dollars that the state can be spending on other things, like public schools, but also other parts of the economy," Cowen said.
"The amount of money that you're spending on this means that at some point, there are real meaningful policy trade-offs, and not all dollars are created equal," he continued. "So for schools, the state aid portion is really, really important. It's the important equalizer at the local level between districts that might have very different tax bases to draw from."
Have you received a school voucher or decided not to participate in your state's program? Are you in a state considering school vouchers? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
Chef Andres Mendez moved to NYC and went from fast-food delivery driver to earning over $3M a year.
Mendez's income skyrocketed when he became a contract chef for Cook Unity, a meal subscription service.
Cook Unity's expansion and increased demand during the pandemic boosted Mendez's earnings from recipe commissions.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andres Mendez, a 31-year-old chef in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When I moved to the United States from Mexico in 2009, I had no idea how much my life would change.
I arrived as a 16-year-old to join my brother and started working as a fast-food delivery driver. 15 years later, I'm a chef who earns seven figures.
Here's a breakdown of all my jobs and earnings and how I got to where I am today.
Food delivery driver, $500 a week
My brother was already working in New York City when I arrived, so he asked if I would like to work at the same fast-food company he worked at. I started earning $500 a week.
After two months of navigating the city's streets on a bicycle, I realized I didn't enjoy it.
Everyone was always in a hurry, and I saw several delivery riders get into accidents. I decided to look for another job.
Chef's assistant, $620 a week
I told a friend in the industry that I was ready to leave and wanted to get into cooking. I'm not trained as a professional chef, but I've always enjoyed cooking. As a young boy, I'd join my grandmother in the kitchen and help her make mixiote, a Mexican dish of meat and spices wrapped in a maguey leaf.
My friend told me Essex World Café was seeking a chef's assistant. I applied and got the job.
I learned a lot about camaraderie and teamwork. I also learned how to work with ingredients, make sauces, and prepare each type of meat.
I worked eight hours a day and earned $620 a week. After three years, I felt I'd gone as far as I could in that position, so I looked for a job in a larger restaurant.
Line cook, $710 a week
My next role put me in the hot seat. Another friend also told me about this job. I became a line cook at Pacific Grill.
Line cooks work as a team. One manages the grill, another manages the fry, and, in the middle, someone handles the pans. I was in the middle in charge of pasta and sautéed vegetables.
I never got bored. I loved the pressure of producing the perfect dish at a certain speed, but that pressure sometimes stressed me out.
I stayed for two years but left when they closed the restaurant to remodel it in 2014.
Line cook, $820 a week
I next joined a restaurant called Extra Virgin in the West Village in 2015.
I was a line cook again, producing desserts and salads for $820 a week. I learned how to make Mediterranean foods and dabbled in making my own dressings.
The owner was also the chef, so everything had to be perfect, well-arranged, and flavorful. I had a fantastic experience working in that restaurant and stayed for three years. The most challenging aspect was having the boss work alongside me in the kitchen.
Dishwasher, $790 for four days a week
My network grew, and another friend told me about a startup called Cook Unity in 2016. I didn't know anything about it and wasn't sure if it was for me, but my friend gave me the owner's number and asked me to call him.
Cook Unity is a chef-to-customer meal subscription platform based in Brooklyn. Customers order ready-to-eat meals from an online menu and see which chef wrote the recipe. The chefs, who are private contractors, earn up to a $3 commission for every dish they sell that's prepared using their recipe.
When I met the owner, he explained they were looking for chefs but didn't have any line cook positions available. I had gained a lot of experience and knew a lot of recipes, but I didn't say I was a chef. The only other job they had available was a dishwasher. I wanted to be part of the company, so I became a dishwasher.
Being a dishwasher is a very tough job, as the chefs want the kitchen to be immaculate at all times. Over the next year, I saw the dynamics of how the chefs and the team worked.
I earned $790 for four days a week of work, so I had extra time for my music hobby. I played in a mariachi band and still play when I can.
Kitchen manager, $45,000 a year
In 2017, I was asked if I would like to become a kitchen manager. My role was to work with the chefs and ensure they had all the ingredients they needed for the dishes.
Each of the Cook Unity chefs has a different menu, so I had to learn about various ingredients from different parts of the world. I worked between 12 and 14 hours a day and earned a salary of $45,000 a year.
I was a kitchen manager until the pandemic hit in 2020.
Chef, $969,000 a year
In 2020, I became a chef for Cook Unity, transitioning from full-time employment to being a contractor. I started creating recipes, and the sous chefs and cooks made my dishes.
At first, my dishes were only sold in New York, but during the pandemic, the need for food delivery services rose. My earnings started to increase.
I receive a commission from the sale of each of my dishes. In 2021, I earned $969,000. Cook Unity expanded to Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, and Seattle. Now, 85 sous chefs and cooks across the country produce my dishes.
Chef,$3,000,000 a year
By 2023, I was earning over $3 million. I sell 10,000 to 11,000 meals weekly in New York and Los Angeles. My goal is to sell that many in each of the other cities and continue to provide job opportunities.
At first, my rise in earnings felt like a dream. It was a big accomplishment for me. My friends are extremely happy for me, and I offer advice to my friends who are chefs when they need it.
During the week, I create recipes and cook, but on the weekends, I spend time with my wife and children.
I bought a farm in Mexico where I employ 20 people. I plan to buy another home in Mexico or Texas. I'm extremely proud of how I can give my family a better life.
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi (left) spent weeks testing OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT (right), per The New York Times.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images; Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images
Apple executives knew they needed to upgrade Siri after they started using ChatGPT.
The company's software chiefs spent weeks using the OpenAI chatbot before making the decision.
Apple is expected to unveil its AI offerings in its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference.
Apple executives realized their digital assistant Siri badly needed an upgrade after they began testing OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT.
The company's software chiefs, Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea spent weeks using ChatGPT before making the decision, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Federighi and Giannandrea oversee the company's software engineering as well as machine learning and AI strategy respectively. Both report directly to Apple's CEO Tim Cook.
Representatives for Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
Speculation about an impending Siri overhaul comes ahead of the Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which is set to take place from June 10 to June 14. The company is widely expected to unveil its AI offerings then.
"We're excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year," Cook told investors on February 1.
Unlike most tech giants, Apple has remained relatively coy about how it intends to compete in the field of AI. The Cupertino-based company hasn't announced any major deals with AI companies like Microsoft or try to scoop up as many AI chips as it can like Meta.
But that isn't to say that Apple has taken its eyes off the wheel.
In addition to its in-house efforts, Apple is also in talks with both OpenAI and Google to integrate their chatbots, ChatGPT and Gemini, in the next version of iOS. In fact, Apple is already finalizing an agreement with OpenAI, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The Sam Altman-led AI company has long been on Apple's radar, with Cook admitting in an interview with Good Morning America last year that he, too, uses ChatGPT.
"Yeah, I'm excited about it. I think there's some unique applications for it and you can bet that it's something that we're looking at closely," Cook said.
McDonald's double cheeseburger with fries and drink.
Aleksandr Zubkov/Getty Images
McDonald's reportedly plans to launch a limited-time $5 meal.
In first-quarter earnings, the company's leadership highlighted how inflation has affected customers.
Other fast food chains are also worried about affordability.
McDonald's is looking to launch a $5 meal in the US in a move to bring back price-sensitive customers.
The meal includes four items, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg and Restaurant Business. Customers would choose between two of the chain's signature burgers — a McChicken or a McDouble — and get four-piece McNuggets, fries, and a drink. The $5 promotion would last for a month, Bloomberg reported.
It's unclear when the promotion would start and if it would apply to the entire US or other geographies.
The discussions about the new deal come two weeks after the fast food giant's first-quarter earnings call, where leadership highlighted how customers are increasingly price-sensitive.
"I think affordability is clearly an area where consumer expectations are heightened," McDonald's chief financial officer Ian Borden said on the call. "Obviously, they're getting hit," by inflation, he added.
The company previewed a value meal on the earnings call without any specifics. CEO Chris Kempczinski said McDonald's has local value meals around the US, but no standard national offering like competitors do.
A $5 meal would be a stark drop from current prices, especially in higher-cost cities, according to a Business Insider analysis.
A meal consisting of the same four items — a McChicken, fries, a drink, and four-piece chicken nuggets — costs $18.26 in downtown New York City. In downtown San Francisco, the McChicken version costs $16.15, and the burger variant costs $17.75.
The new bundle would be priced lower than a Happy Meal, which starts at $6.39 in downtown Manhattan.
The company's stock has fallen about 7% year-to-date as investors worry about rising costs and intensifying fast-food competition.
Fast-food chains across the US are grappling with fewer orders from customers who no longer find their meals affordable. Wendy's, Shake Shack, Starbucks and Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International have all said in their latest earnings call that they will exercise caution on prices.
"We're going to stay careful on pricing," Gunther Plosch, Wendy's CFO, said in its earnings call earlier this month. "I don't think we're going to get too greedy."
Fast-food giants have also been hit by California's new minimum $20 hourly wage for limited-service restaurants. Franchisees that have raised prices are worried they may lose customers to sit-in dining chains like Chili's and Applebee's, which are not subject to the wage hike.
McDonald's did not respond to an immediate request for comment sent outside standard business hours.
Google Glass, Google's smart glasses, were meant to be revolutionary but were released before they were ready and had a number of quality issues.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Google Glass existed for almost exactly 10 years before being discontinued.
Google Glass' failure came amid widespread quality issues and a general lack of adoption.
Apple's smart glasses, the Apple Vision Pro, seem to be succeeding where Google Glass failed.
First announced in 2012, and then released to a select number of product testers in 2013, Google Glass was thought by many tech experts and industry watchers to be a revolutionary new device that would change the way human beings and technology interacted.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know those hopes were overblown.
So, what went wrong? A cocktail of factors led to the failure of Google Glass. But before we discuss the demise, let's establish a baseline understanding of this once-promising hardware.
What did Google Glass do?
Google Glass was first developed by a lab formerly known as Google X. The secretive research initiative, which also developed the self-driving car technology now known as Waymo, is now a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
Google Glass was like a heads-up display and a mini computer joined together in one pair of glasses. It placed a small cube of glass just before its wearer's right eye and had a camera inset into the frame beside that cube.
The camera could be used to do things like identify objects or locations or project a restaurant's menu or a subway station's schedule before the user's vision in real time. It could also share images and videos via Google Meet.
Google Glass even integrated with Google Calendar and could show wearers their schedules or event notifications.
Google Glass used the Google search engine to summon information, allowing wearers to navigate the world hands-free and with their eyes raised from their phone while still enjoying all the benefits of a smart device.
The hardware was controlled via voice command or a touchpad on the side of the frame. Google Glass could also do many things a smartphone can, like send and receive texts, take photos, and so on.
Why did Google Glass fail?
Google launched several editions of Google Glass — some for consumers and others for businesses — but none achieved widespread adoption.
Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP via Getty Images
Google Glass was released before it was ready. Early users complained about short battery life, slow upload times, inferior camera quality, and spotty voice control and voice recognition abilities.
The system often misheard words and was unable to pick up commands over loud background noise. And despite being essentially a smart pair of glasses, the physical design of early Google Glass editions was not that smart: the arms of the glasses did not fold down, so storing a Google Glass when it was not being worn was a frustration.
It also must be said that, in many ways, Google Glass was an answer to a problem that did not exist. Despite the best efforts of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who frequently wore the glasses in public, the public did not have much interest in the technology.
In fact, many people hated the sense that they were always being filmed and monitored by people wearing Google Glass.
Though the technology had a brief ascendence used in professional settings, with businesses like Volkswagen and Boeing seeing increased productivity in workers wearing a headset, even the specialized "Enterprise Edition" of Google Glass failed. There was simply not enough adoption.
Can you still buy Google Glass?
You can find pairs of Google Glass for sale on Amazon and on eBay and at certain other platforms, so you can still purchase a set for yourself. But Google no longer offers any support for the device, thus if you have an issue with the hardware, you're on your own.
There will be no further updates, no technical assistance, and certainly no repair or replacement of a Google Glass bought via a third-party seller.
You can expect to pay between $150 and $300 on average for a Google Glass set today, though some Enterprise and Expedition editions sell for much more than that. In comparison, a brand-new Apple Vision Pro currently costs $3,499.
How is Apple Vision Pro different from Google Glass?
Unlike Google Glass, which used only voice and touch control, users can control the Apple Vision Pro through highly precise hand motions.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
Whereas Google Glass used a small, semi-transparent screen perched before one eye, an Apple Vision Pro headset fully covers both eyes and can create a truly immersive experience.
And whereas Google Glass simply added to its user's real-time experience, Apple Vision Pro can transform it. The former can display videos, whereas the latter brings you into the visual experience.
Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro also used different control features. As noted, Google Glass was controlled by voice or by touch.
Apple Vision Pro is controlled by hand motions and voice, with those motions being highly precise. You can, for example, type on a virtual keyboard or pinch to zoom with your fingers simply grasping at the air.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Andrei Belousov in 2017.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin is replacing his defense minister with a civilian economist.
Andrei Belousov will lead Russia's military-industrial complex as Putin prepares for a protracted war.
The move shows Russia's wartime economy has become a key pillar of growth.
Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced his defense minister with a civilian economist on Sunday. The move has surprised analysts and signaled to some observers that Putin has no intention of ending the war in Ukraine any time soon.
The Russian leader proposed Andrei Belousov, a 65-year-old former deputy prime minister, as defense minister to replace his longtime ally Sergei Shoigu.
The personnel changes still need to be approved by Russia's parliament, but given Putin's grip on power, there are few doubts they will be checked off.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian defense military's budget is nearing that of the former Soviet Union in the mid-1980s.
"Today on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation," Peskov said of Belousov's appointment, per TASS state news agency.
"Therefore, it is natural that at the current stage, the president decided that the Russian Ministry of Defense should be headed by a civilian," Peskov added.
Putin is putting the war at the center of Russia's economy
Putin's cabinet reshuffle comes as the war in Ukraine drags well into its third year.
Russia continues to face sweeping Western sanctions that were designed to cripple its economy. However, Russia's economy has appeared to remain resilient.
Reports from Russia suggest the country's economy is primarily driven by wartime activities that generate a demand for military goods and services, subsidies that steady the economy, and sharp policy-making from its top central banker, Elvira Nabiullina.
However, the Russian leader's appointment of a civilian economist with no military experience as defense minister signals Putin expects the military-industrial complex to be a key pillar of Russia's wartime economy amid the conflict in Ukraine.
"Belousov's appointment to the position of Russian Defense Minister is a significant development in Putin's efforts to set full economic conditions for a protracted war," the analysts added.
Defense minister Belousov will be a 'financial administrator'
Belousov's appointment to defense minister is unlikely to impact military operations on the ground.
Valery Gerasimov, Russia's top general and chief of general staff, will remain in his position and is expected to continue playing a key role in directing the Ukraine war, Mark Galeotti, the director of the London-based Mayak Intelligence consultancy, told Reuters. Gerasimov reports directly to Putin.
"In that context, having an economist, someone who has been speaking about the need to basically subordinate much of the economy to the needs of the defense sector, makes a certain amount of sense," Galeotti told the news agency. "It is now essentially a financial administrator's job and Belousov can do that."