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[ad_1] 2025-06-24T23:30:02Z Share Facebook Email X LinkedIn Copy link lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Disney laid off workers for the second time this month, this time in product and technology. The layoffs, under Adam Smith, affected under 2% of the group. Disney is still hiring in product and technology despite the head count reductions. Disney has laid off workers for the second time this month,…
[ad_1] The conversational AI market has exploded since ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and is predicted to grow into a nearly $50 billion global industry by 2031, according to MarketsAndMarkets. Synthflow AI is just one of many companies building in this space that hopes to stand out from the pack because of its focus on being enterprise-grade and easy to set up. Berlin-based Synthflow is a no-code platform that lets enterprises build and deploy customized white-labeled voice AI customer service agents. The company, which launched in 2023, has amassed more than 1,000 customers and has handled more than 45…
[ad_1] Some financial windfalls are all about the timing — and luck: A handful of California gold nuggets in 1848. A SoHo loft in 1984. Bitcoin in 2013. A home mortgage rate in 2020.I’ve made peace with missing out on some of life’s chances to accidentally inflate my financial standing in the world. But the one that has always made me slightly sick to my stomach is missing out on the late 2016 Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card points bonanza.Now, my painful case of FOMO has been cured.Last week, Chase said it was revamping the Sapphire Reserve — and upping…
[ad_1] Measuring AI progress has usually meant testing scientific knowledge or logical reasoning – but while the major benchmarks still focus on left-brain logic skills, there’s been a quiet push within AI companies to make models more emotionally intelligent. As foundation models compete on soft measures like user preference and “feeling the AGI,” having a good command of human emotions may be more important than hard analytic skills. One sign of that focus came on Friday, when prominent open-source group LAION released a suite of open-source tools focused entirely on emotional intelligence. Called EmoNet, the release focuses on interpreting emotions…
[ad_1] 2025-06-24T20:29:48Z Share Facebook Email X LinkedIn Copy link lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Starbucks is changing how it charges customers for customized beverages. The chain now charges 80 cents for any combination of sauces or syrups, it said on Tuesday. It’s the latest change that Starbucks has made on CEO Brian Niccol’s watch. The cost of your next Starbucks drink with extra syrup shots…
[ad_1] It’s been a rough year for Apple stock, but there might be hope for a rebound with a rumored AI acquisition.Apple has been the worst-performing Magnificent Seven stock in 2025, with shares down 20% year-to-date. On top of weak iPhone sales and tariff concerns, the company has lagged in the AI race among its mega-cap tech peers.At Apple’s WWDC earlier this month, the company failed to ease Wall Street’s concerns about its Apple Intelligence product, with investors bemoaning the company’s lack of a new killer app.However, Apple executives could be eyeing a purchase of AI startup Perplexity, Bloomberg reported…
[ad_1] Abridge, an AI startup automating medical notes, has secured a $300 million Series E at a $5.3 billion valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal. The round, led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Khosla Ventures, follows the company’s $250 million February fundraise at a $2.75 billion valuation. The seven-year-old Abridge is widely considered to be the leader in the increasingly crowded AI-powered medical scribe market, largely due to its early entry and integration with Epic Systems, the dominant health record software. In Q1, Abridge has reached $117 million in contracted annual recurring revenue (a metric that includes all…
[ad_1] The constant stream of headlines out of the Persian Gulf has led to a highly volatile oil market and a steep pullback in a fund that has burned investors plenty of times before. One of the most direct ways for regular investors to play in the oil market is the United States Oil Fund (USO) , which holds oil futures contracts and over the counter swaps. The fund is designed to mirror the changes in the near-term futures market. USO, which was created in 2006, has about $1.3 billion in assets under management. On Monday, when the fund dropped…
[ad_1] Inside Tesla’s Austin factory, employees have built modified Model Ys for the company’s high-stakes Robotaxi program, sources with knowledge of the matter told Business Insider.The project, internally referred to as “Halo,” involves cars with slightly different parts than the Model Ys that consumers can buy, the insiders said. Among other things, the Halo vehicles have self-cleaning cameras and extra protection for the cameras to prevent damage and debris, one person said.The vehicles also have a second telecommunications unit in addition to the unit normally built into the Model Y, one person said. The units provide GPS coordinates for the…
[ad_1] It could be a good second half of the year for municipal bond investors. The assets have continued to recover from the tariff-induced selloff in April which, in retrospect, was a buying opportunity, according to Bank of America. “We believe the opportunity to add duration exposure for munis is again presenting itself in the near term,” strategist Yingchen Li wrote in a June 6 note. “We also expect that this rally will likely continue for the rest of 2025.” The bonds are favored by wealthy investors since the income is free of federal tax, as well as state tax…