Juro Osawa / The Information: ByteDance unveils Seedance 2.5, saying the AI video model can generate up to 30-second clips from up to 50 reference materials, up from 12 for Seedance 2.0  —  ByteDance on Tuesday unveiled Seedance 2.5, its new AI video generation model, at a conference in Beijing.

Guinevere Grant / Bloomberg: Google plans a 12-week incubator, picking 10 to 20 AI startups from its “Xoogler” alumni and providing up to $350K in cloud credits and $100K in direct funding  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is backing a new incubator for former employees building artificial intelligence startups …

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Wall Street Journal: How Sam Altman's 80+ personal investments, many from his time running YC, benefit from ties to OpenAI; 10+ companies have discussed business deals with OpenAI  —  OpenAI CEO's holdings in Helion and other companies have seen significant upswings since the AI giant explored or sealed tie-ups with Altman-linked startups

Don Clark / New York Times: Top500: China's Arm-based LineShine passes the US' El Capitan by 20%+ as the world's fastest supercomputer, the first time China has taken the crown since 2017  —  A supercomputer in Shenzhen was declared the world's fastest.  It uses only standard microprocessors and not the special-purpose chips called graphics processing units.

CFOs are the gatekeepers of one of the biggest spending booms in decades. Maskot/Getty Images CFOs are taking charge of AI spending as companies pour billions into the technology. Some are introducing AI budgets and new controls to keep costs from spiraling. "The CFO is really becoming the face of the AI story," said a PwC advisor to finance chiefs. At Match Group, every employee now has an AI budget. The parent company of Tinder, Hinge, and other dating apps recently began giving department heads a set amount to spend on AI, which is then distributed across their teams. Employees can track their usage on a dashboard, and if they want to exceed their budget, they have to explain why. The company's most expensive AI models also aren't available by default and require a specific use case. "If you don't set guardrails, there's no reason for an engineer to not go use the most expensive model," said Match Group CFO Steve Bailey. The average software engineer at the company spends roughly $600 a month on AI tokens, he said. Match Group's system reflects a growing reality across corporate America: As companies spend billions on AI, CFOs are emerging as some of the most powerful executives in the AI era. Finance chiefs are doing more than signing off on AI budgets. In many cases, they're the ones deciding who gets access to AI tools, how much employees can spend, which vendors make the cut, and whether AI investments are generating enough value to justify costs. "The CFO is really becoming the face of the AI story," said Peter Pollini, a PwC advisor to finance chiefs in the financial-services sector. A spending boom The stakes are enormous. Match Group initially allocated $5 million for AI this year, but it's now on track to spend double that amount, Bailey said. The increase followed CEO Spencer Rascoff's May push to make the company more AI-native by expanding access to AI tools across the workforce. Initially, they were available mainly to engineers. "Aside from maybe travel and entertainment, we've never had to budget for a cost that's this big at the employee level," Bailey said. To help fund those investments, Bailey said Match Group plans to dramatically slow hiring while it assesses how AI could reshape its workforce. Across corporate America, similar calculations are turning CFOs into the gatekeepers of one of the biggest spending booms in decades. At Elevance Health, CFO Mark Kaye oversees a hidden way of keeping AI costs from spiraling. The insurance giant quietly routes employees' queries to different AI models based on the complexity of the request. That's because a single prompt can cost anywhere from a few pennies to more than a dollar, depending on how many tokens, or units of data, employees gobble up. "We manage it on the back end," said Kaye, adding that he expects Elevance Health, the parent of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, to invest $1 billion or more on AI this year. Making AI pay off Some CFOs are making tough decisions about how to fund AI expenses at large, such as by freezing annual salary raises and laying off workers. Others say AI is helping to pay for itself. Kaye said AI automation at Elevance has reduced administrative work tied to medical-chart reviews by roughly 40%, giving staff more time to support customers. "There are significant inefficiencies in the system that AI is allowing us to take out," he said. Keeping a tight leash on AI spending isn't the only new hurdle for CFOs. They're also responsible for managing spending on a category that is evolving more rapidly than previous generations of enterprise software. For the first time this year, Xero, a global small-business platform that offers accounting, payroll, and payments, added a line item to its budget for AI token spending per employee, said Claire Bramley, the CFO. The company also created a task force to review software purchases and identify AI products it can do without. "Do we have more than one tool that serves the same purpose?" Bramley said. "As a CFO, you want to make sure that everybody's not going off and doing their own thing." AI is also changing who CFOs spend time with. Bramley said finance, technology, and HR leaders at Xero now work together more frequently to evaluate software purchases, hiring plans, and how AI could affect future staffing needs. "You could probably do it once a month before, and I think you have to do it weekly today," she said. Additional headaches CFOs are also facing new business problems arising from AI. Netta Samroengraja, finance chief at healthcare platform Zocdoc, said her team has had to hustle to evaluate AI tool providers to solve problems that, ironically, were created by the technology. In recruiting, for instance, the technology suddenly enabled job seekers to flood the company with applications and create phony personas. "It was pretty prevalent very quickly, and so we had to react quickly," Samroengraja said. That wasn't the only surprise, as the economics of AI were shifting, too. Early on, Zocdoc raced to vet vendors, anticipating that prices designed to attract customers at the start of the AI boom would increase over time. The company used that window to test multiple providers and compare their cost and effectiveness before settling on the tools that delivered the strongest business results, Samroengraja said, adding that Zocdoc has been willing to spend more on tools that produce measurable business outcomes rather than optimize for the lowest possible AI spend. "If you see the ROI in it, you should keep investing in this," she said. A crowded AI market is making those decisions even harder. New providers are constantly pitching tools that promise to boost productivity, cut costs, or replace existing software, forcing many CFOs to take a more active role in evaluating vendors, said Alex Sobol, cofounder of the Millennium Alliance, an invite-only community for C-suite executives in North America and Europe. "It seems like every hour there's a new AI vendor," he said. "It's hard to know what's real and what's fake, and what's good and what's bad." Read the original article on Business Insider

Brendan Murray / Bloomberg: The EU will apply a €3 duty on items under €150 from July 1, as the bloc seeks to slow the flood of low-priced merchandise from retailers like Shein and Temu  —  Bargain-hunting consumers across the European Union will start feeling the pinch of higher online shopping costs next week …

Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence in which software systems autonomously plan, execute...

Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI New York health regulators say Tiger Medical smuggled alloClae into the state and lied about it. A court filing includes photos of boxes piled in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse who regulators allege drove the product to NYC. Tiger says only the FDA, not New York State, can regulate alloClae, and denied wrongdoing. On a blustery December day, nine large white cardboard boxes sat stacked next to a garbage can in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse as a man packed them into the bed of a pickup truck. Other than a manufacturer's label in the corner and a note that the contents were perishable and shouldn't be frozen, there was no indication they held thousands of dollars' worth of processed cadaver fat. Inside the boxes, state regulators allege, was alloClae, a hot new injectable filler derived from the fat of dead people and headed to high-end cosmetic surgeon practices in New York City. Photos of the boxes were part of a recent court filing by New York State health officials, who have accused Tiger Medical Holdings, which manufactures and sells alloClae with its affiliates, of "smuggling" the product into New York. Boxes of alloClae were piled in the driveway of a New Jersey home before being brought to New York doctors, New York officials allege. New York County Clerk Tiger has said only the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate alloClae, and that FDA rules don't require premarket approval. New York is one of a handful of states that issues permission to store and distribute human tissue, and it claims that Tiger violated those rules by bringing alloClae to market without waiting for approval. Recent court filings reveal that the state obtained FedEx records, including photos, in an attempt to prove that Tiger organized a scheme to smuggle hundreds of boxes of the product — possibly over $1 million worth — into New York. The dispute could affect the availability of a product that lets busy C-suiters get a boob job during a lunch break or a butt lift between meetings. Doctors have said the injectable is flying off the shelves, and some have continued to administer it during the state investigation. Tiger co-CEO Oliver Burckhardt said in a filing on Wednesday that 60 doctors have contacted the company about the fat spat with New York — some worried about the case, but most wanting to buy more alloClae. Tiger hasn't disputed shipping alloClae through New Jersey, though it has called the state's evidence "unreliable" and "self-serving," and said the allegation of "smuggling" is baseless and inflammatory. It said the health department kept asking for more information without signaling concerns until last month, and that the company submitted testing data as recently as January to show that alloClae was safe. Tiger's lawyer, Larry Wood Jr., did not address specific questions from Business Insider, referring a reporter to Tiger's court filings. Building buzz for alloClae while dealing with regulators AlloClae hit the market in 2024. It didn't take long for plastic surgeons on Manhattan's Tribeca and Upper East Side to realize the appeal. Their patients wanted a quick touch-up and were willing to pay for the convenience. In small quantities, the product can be injected for under $10,000; in other cases, it can cost up to $100,000 per procedure. The product is a good fit for "the CEOs, COOs, CCOs that don't want to be away from the boardroom," Douglas Steinbrech, who practices in New York City, Beverly Hills, and Chicago, told Business Insider last year. "They have to go to a lot of meetings that just pop up, and they cannot control when they're going to happen. They can't just clear their schedule to recover for a surgery." AlloClae was advertised on social media and websites: "Revolutionary," said one clinic. "Pure Gold. On Demand," said another. In a video posted by a Texas plastic surgery practice, audio of Oprah gifting cars to a screaming audience was dubbed over a man in scrubs pretending to dole out alloClae boxes to employees who wriggled with excitement. Tiger, which is privately held, said this month that alloClae is experiencing "rapid growth" and the company plans to build a 200-person sales force by the end of 2027 to sell alloClae and a similar product in development, dermaClae, to surgeons, med spas, and other buyers. When Business Insider spoke to Tiger Aesthetics at the end of last year, the company said it was struggling to keep up with demand. Behind the scenes, it was grappling with more than a shortage. The company was engaged in a back-and-forth with New York's health department. Between October 2024 and May 2025, the agency sent three letters saying that it could not grant Tiger permission to distribute alloClae in the state. In July 2025, a health inspector visited two Tiger tissue facilities in Pennsylvania and asked why New York doctors were advertising alloClae. Monica Garcia, the COO of Tiger Aesthetic's parent company, said she was unaware of any shipments to the state and asked what the consequences would be if there were, according to a sworn statement from Joseph Giovannetti, the agency's top investigator. Garcia, in a sworn statement, said the exchange took place at a Tiger affiliate where employees familiar with alloClae weren't present. She said the inspector didn't ask for follow-up information about alloClae distribution to New York, disputing one of Giovannetti's claims. Giovannetti said the inspection prompted Tiger to stop shipping alloClae directly to New York and start going through New Jersey and Connecticut. Despite the letters and inspection, Caroline Van Hove, the president of Tiger Medical Holdings affiliate Tiger Aesthetics, provided reassurances about alloClae to at least one New York plastic surgeon. "We can confirm that the New York Department of Health has not reached out to us in connection with our alloClae product," she wrote in an April 2026 letter seen by Business Insider. Boxes of alloClae were piled up in a New Jersey driveway Every week or two, starting no later than September 2025, a new set of white boxes would appear at the clapboard, shuttered home of Robert McGee, a nurse who lived on a cul-de-sac in the central New Jersey town of Tinton Falls, according to FedEx records and a state investigator's statement. The boxes of alloClae would be stacked next to duffle bags and trash cans in McGee's driveway or on his front porch, according to delivery photos and Giovannetti. Between September 2025 and April 2026, the company sent over 330 boxes of alloClae to McGee, who loaded them in his pickup, drove them the 50 miles into Manhattan, and dropped them off at more than three dozen plastic surgeons and med spas, Giovannetti said. McGee did not respond to requests for comment. In January 2026, the state said in a filing that an unidentified "whistleblower" told regulators what was happening. Three months later, health investigators made an "unannounced inspection" at the office of Dr. Adam Schaffner, a Manhattan plastic surgeon. Schaffner's paper trail laid out a shift in Tiger's shipping processes. Invoices from July 2025 showed Tiger had sent alloClae directly to his Fifth Avenue office. But starting in August, the month after the inspection, the products were mailed to homes and offices in New Jersey and Connecticut, and employees or Ubers would courier them across state lines, the health department said. Schaffner, who declined to comment, received at least $95,000 worth of alloClae initially shipped to addresses outside of New York, according to invoices filed in court records. Some boxes went to the New York City office of plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman, the FedEx records show. In a YouTube video posted last fall, he gleefully unpacked 287.5 cubic centimeters of alloClae as the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited" played in the background. Schulman's name, with McGee's home address, was visible on a shipping label. If Schulman's boxes were typical — as a review of more than a dozen plastic surgeons' unboxing videos on Instagram suggests — a total of 15,840 cubic centimeters of alloClae could have been sent via McGee's home. The prices on 11 of Schaffner's invoices filed in court average $86.29 per cubic centimeter; at that price, more than $1.3 million worth of alloClae could have been shipped through McGee. Schulman did not respond to requests for comment. Tiger has asked that the state's allegations be struck from the court record because, among other things, they argue, the health department could be cherry-picking from its investigative file to benefit their case. Some New York surgeons are still using alloClae Doctors who received alloClae say they ordered the product from Tiger and didn't know the route it took. "He had no idea that this was a challenge, or how stuff was showing up, or any of that," said Ken Sterling, an attorney for Dr. Jason Emer. Sterling said Emer has not been contacted by medical authorities. Samira Shamoon, a publicist for Dr. Darren Smith, said in an email that "when Dr. Smith was using AlloClae, he purchased it directly from the company and had no knowledge of irregularities." Smith is no longer offering the product, she said. ME Plastic Surgery, which has locations on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and in Queens, recently updated a blog post to say that it is not offering alloClae. Several New York doctors said in early June that they're still using alloClae. Tiger has said it's suspending distribution to New York, but the product can still be "legally sold." In the meantime, doctors in the state continue to promote it. Emer posted an Instagram video on June 12 showing himself injecting alloClae into a patient's buttocks. "Don't be left behind," the caption reads, along with a peach emoji. The geotag: New York City. Read the original article on Business Insider

Chloe Taylor / CNBC: South Korea's tech-heavy Kospi index falls 10%, dragged down by SK Hynix and Samsung; STMicro and ASML fall ~7%, and US tech stocks fall in pre-market trading  —  Global stocks sold off on Tuesday, led by deep losses for tech stocks following a losing session for the sector on Wall Street.

Some experienced real estate investors are using rentals as a launching pad, and then pivoting to more passive strategies. HAKINMHAN/Getty Images Buying rental properties is a popular way to get into real estate investing, but it's not passive. Experienced real estate investors are shifting from rentals to more passive strategies. Two popular, more hands-off strategies are real estate syndications and private money lending. A popular way to get started in real estate investing is by buying a rental property. After finding and closing on a deal, investors place a tenant and ideally collect more in rent than they owe each month on the mortgage and expenses. Whatever is left over is cash flow. It can be a lucrative income stream, but real estate investors are upfront about one caveat: It's not passive. Owning rentals means dealing with tenant turnover, maintenance requests, vacancies, repairs, and, in some cases, evictions. That's why some experienced investors are using rentals as a launching pad. Once they've built capital and experience, they're shifting to more passive strategies that allow them to keep exposure to real estate without taking on the day-to-day responsibilities of being a landlord. Two such strategies have come up repeatedly in Business Insider's conversations with financially independent investors: real estate syndications and private money lending. Real estate syndications A syndication allows investors to put money into a larger real-estate deal — such as an apartment complex, student-housing development, or boutique hotel — without personally buying or operating the property. A sponsor or operator manages the deal, while investors typically receive cash-flow distributions and, if the property is eventually sold for a profit, a share of the proceeds. Cody Berman, who started with a house hack and later bought rentals that generated enough cash flow for him to live on, said much of his real-estate exposure today comes through syndications. "My return on effort in my main business, my digital-products business, is a lot higher than my return on effort in real estate," he said. "I still want the real-estate exposure, but I don't want to go out there and just buy a 20-unit apartment building myself and then have to get it tenanted and figure out how to set up all the maintenance stuff." Cody Berman has shifted from buying rental properties to investing in syndications. Courtesy of Cody Berman In a syndication, Berman said, he might invest in a 100-unit apartment complex in another part of the country — a property he has never seen in person — because he trusts the operator running the deal. "I will invest a chunk of money with them for some set period of time, usually somewhere from three to seven years," he said. "I'll make money every quarter on cash-flow distributions based on the rent the property is generating. And then if there is a sale event, which is usually the goal of a syndicator, then I'll get all my money back and some more in the form of a check." He described it as "owning rental properties without actually having to own rental properties." There are trade-offs. Investors in syndications generally do not have the same control or upside as the general partner running the deal. Their money is also typically locked up for years. Choosing the right operator is crucial, added Berman, who relies on referrals, interviews, and research. "Pretty much everyone that I've ever invested with has been through a word-of-mouth referral plus an interview, talking to the person, doing my research." Private money lending Another strategy experienced investors use to keep real estate in their portfolio without owning additional property is private money lending. Instead of buying or renovating properties themselves, they lend money to other investors who need capital for deals. To get started in private lending, you need capital and, ideally, a presence within your local real estate community. Real estate is a relationships business, and typically, the broader your network, the more opportunities you'll encounter. Carl and Mindy Jensen, who grew their net worth to more than $5 million and retired early, have tried a variety of investment strategies, including live-in flipping. They said that private lending is one of their favorite strategies. "The private lending generates such a nice return that it's difficult to be like, 'No, we don't want to have the easy money. Let's go do another live-in flip,'" said Mindy. "But we're also in a much different financial position now than we were when we started live-in flipping, and I think that's important to note: You could still make money live-in flipping, and if you have more time than money, it can be a really great way to turn your home into an investment." Josh and Ali Lupo, another financially independent couple, started lending to other real-estate investors in 2025, and it's resulted in double-digit returns. "There are some industry standards," Josh said. "In the private money lending world, 10 to 12% interest is very common. That's the baseline." The lender generally determines the terms of the loan, he added, and the rate can vary depending on the deal's length. Private lending is not risk-free. One of the main risks is that the borrower fails to repay the loan, which makes vetting both the borrower and the deal essential. That due diligence takes time, but once the Lupos have completed their research and decided to fund a deal, the process itself is relatively hands-off, said Josh. "It takes us 30 minutes driving to the bank, wiring the funds, and then the investor that is borrowing the money sends us updates, and that's the extent of it." Read the original article on Business Insider

Law firms are figuring out how to stay relevant as more legal work becomes software-enabled. Cooley Cooley is joining a sudden rush of law firms creating their own AI technology, with help from Legora. Cooley Go Lab is an online portal built to help startups with routine contract review and drafting. The portal will be available exclusively to founders in Y Combinator's summer cohort to start. Law firms know more clients are asking chatbots for advice before ever calling a lawyer. So legal giant Cooley is building technology that it hopes founders will use instead. Cooley plans to give select startups access to Cooley Go Lab, an online portal where founders can upload files and ask questions about their documents, Matt Bartus, global cochair of Cooley's emerging companies and venture capital practice, told Business Insider. To build it, Cooley teamed up with Legora, a fast-growing legal technology startup that sells to law firms and corporate legal departments. Last year, Legora entered a new line of business with what it calls "portals" — white-labeled workspaces where law firms and their clients can work together on legal matters. Cooley Go Lab is aimed at catching a common startup problem early, Bartus said. Founders often handle routine contracts themselves to avoid outside counsel's hourly rates. That can leave startups with a trail of messy agreements that their first in-house lawyer has to unwind later. Legora founder Max Junestrand knows the problem well. When he started the company at age 23, he said he used an early version of ChatGPT to rewrite contracts. Junestrand, a software engineer, not a lawyer, said he let some early contracts include an unlimited liability clause — a provision that can leave a company exposed to damages far beyond the value of the deal. "When our general counsel started, she freaked out," he said. Cooley is now trying to give the next crop of founders a way to use artificial intelligence to move faster, but with a law firm's guardrails around it. Cooley Go Lab will have a limited rollout to start. It will be available first to startups in Y Combinator's summer cohort. Max Junestrand. Legora Much has changed for startups since Legora's turn in the famed startup accelerator. Teams can write code and release technology faster with coding agents. They are signing customers and growing revenue earlier, and the hottest companies seem to be raising funding nonstop. But moving faster also means legal work that once came later in a startup's life is being pulled closer to the beginning. At Y Combinator, partner Gustaf Alströmer is seeing that shift play out in real time. In the last batch, a record 14 startups reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue — the amount of revenue a company expects to collect over a year. Alströmer said giving founders access to tools like Cooley Go Lab could help them keep that pace without creating contract-slop. The portal includes features that review documents like nondisclosure and contractor agreements and flag issues for founders to consider. The tool also draws on Cooley Go, the firm's central hub of standard startup forms, templates, and guidance. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em Law firms like Cooley are facing a new reality. The better the frontier models get at legal work, the more founders and in-house lawyers may decide they can handle situations themselves rather than send them to outside counsel. Anthropic is trying to make that easier with new tools built for contract review and drafting. Law firms are now figuring out how to stay relevant as more legal work becomes software-enabled. Some are building their own tech. Kirkland & Ellis has tapped Palantir to help it build tools to manage parts of the firm's private funds practice, while Freshfields is working with Anthropic on software that could eventually be sold to other law firms. Harvey, a leader in legal technology, says it's getting into training custom models for law firms. Taken together, the moves point to a new attitude spreading across Big Law: If clients are going to use artificial intelligence anyway, law firms want to shape how they use it. Bartus doesn't seem especially concerned about losing business to in-house legal departments. Cooley has been on a hot streak. Profits rose 6.7% to $922 million last fiscal year. The firm also scored a fair use win for Meta in a copyright case involving its model Llama last year, and it advised Jony Ive's hardware startup Io in a $6.5 billion sale to OpenAI. Bartus is confident that companies will continue to depend on law firms for the important work. Cooley Go Lab, he said, is meant to help founders handle routine legal work more cleanly, not replace lawyers. Cooley says the tool is not protected by attorney-client privilege, so founders will need to be careful about what they upload because those materials could be turned over in litigation. "If you want actual legal advice," he said, "you need to talk to a lawyer." Read the original article on Business Insider

Rankin Carroll speaking to Lara O'Reilly for Business Insider's CMO Insider Podcast Business Insider/Charlie Floyd Rankin Carroll emphasizes the enduring value of entertainment in marketing strategies today. Mars shifts focus to personalized, engaging content to better connect with consumers. Snickers' UEFA Euro 2024 campaign showcases Mars' innovative approach to consumer engagement. After more than two decades at Mars, overseeing iconic brands like M&M's, Skittles, and Twix, the company's chief brand officer, Rankin Carroll, says one of the biggest mistakes marketers make today is forgetting a simple idea: entertainment still matters. As marketers race to embrace AI, data, personalization, influencers, and new measurement tools, Carroll told Business Insider in an interview for its "CMO Insider" podcast that the industry sometimes loses sight of what consumers are actually looking for. "I think what's critical to cut through is it's still a game of compelling stories," Carroll said. "People are still looking for content that captures their attention." Carroll's comments come as Mars undergoes a major transformation in how it markets its brands, shifting toward more personalized advertising powered by data and technology. Yet Carroll says all of those tools matter only if they help brands create entertainment that consumers actually want to spend time with. Consumers don't want brands talking at them Carroll says one of the biggest changes in marketing is the growing expectation that consumers participate in brand experiences rather than simply receive messages. "We can get caught up in the data, we can get caught up in all the technology side of this, but at the end of the day, it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in," he said. For Carroll, that is where entertainment comes in. Instead of interrupting consumers with ads, Mars increasingly wants to give them experiences they choose to engage with. That philosophy has shaped several recent Mars campaigns. Carroll pointed to a Snickers activation built around the UEFA Euro 2024 soccer tournament. The campaign partnered with Meta and WhatsApp to let consumers send personalized messages to friends using an AI-powered José Mourinho character. Users entered prompts about mistakes their friends had made, and the system generated custom responses in Mourinho's voice. Rather than simply promoting Snickers, Mars built the campaign to tap into behavior that it already understood about soccer fandom. "We know the behavior around the Euros around football is banter," Carroll said. "You want to banter with your mates." The result was an entertaining experience that consumers could actively participate in and share. "It just exploded," Carroll said. Mars says personalization works best when it's entertaining Carroll believes personalization has become an expectation, particularly among younger consumers. "What we know is that consumers now, especially younger consumers, expect personalization from brands," he said. But he does not view personalization as simply delivering more targeted advertisements. Instead, Mars is trying to build experiences that allow consumers to participate in the creation of content itself. The Snickers campaign was one example. Another was the "Twix Harmonizer," a tool that allowed users to send voice notes to friends that would soften bad news through AI-generated audio. Again, Carroll says the appeal was not the technology itself but rather giving people something entertaining to do. "You cut through by creating an experience that they can actually participate in," he said. Why Mars thinks many marketers are overcomplicating things Carroll says that digital platforms have made it harder for brands to break through. Social media feeds are crowded, algorithms constantly change, and consumers have more content choices than ever. Still, he says marketers sometimes focus too heavily on data, technology, and optimization while overlooking the importance of creating something people genuinely enjoy. "I think that's the word that we've slightly forgotten about. Entertainment," Carroll said. That thinking also influences how Mars approaches culture. Whether it's Skittles creating unusual campaigns, Snickers building interactive experiences, or M&M's responding to controversy through humor, Carroll says brands need to find ways to participate in culture without losing their identities. "We can bring something to you," he says of consumers. For Carroll, that remains the foundation of effective marketing regardless of how technology evolves. "At the end of the day," he said, "it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in." Read the original article on Business Insider

The question most business leaders are asking today isn't whether to adopt AI. It's...

Kymm Dracup Chloe Ellingson for BI This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kymm Dracup, a 56-year-old based in Toronto. It's been edited for length and clarity. My daughter says, "Don't worry, Mom, you'll get a job. I've seen your résumé, you're great." I don't think my daughter realizes the effect that my age, 56, has on my confidence and finding work. I was unemployed for 22 months before landing a temporary consulting job a few months ago. There's no guarantee for a transition to full-time work, and I'm really scared about my future. I've been rejected countless times, and I recently got evicted from my home. Unfortunately, I think my confidence took a hit, and my desperation for a job is coming through in my interviews. In Still in the Game, Business Insider is chronicling the realities of job hunting in your 50s — from overcoming age bias and navigating career transitions to rebuilding confidence, updating skills, and finding new opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market. Share your story by filling out this quick form. I never learned why I lost my last job I was the head of the management team for a group travel company for three years. In 2024, my job was terminated. I asked for a reason, but I was never given one. In Ontario, you don't legally need to give a reason, so that was it. It was very tough on my confidence to get let go. I still don't know the reason, but my best guess is that they were bringing in younger people with fresh eyes and innovations to replace me. It's difficult to prove that age is hindering my job search Dracup believes she was terminated from her job to make way for younger employees. Chloe Ellingson for BI After losing my job, I started applying wherever I could, mostly for travel jobs, and later, any sales job. I received rejection after rejection. I've been stood up for interviews, received automated rejections, and even had recruiters find excuses to end calls after seeing my face on camera. Have you ever felt your age was a factor in a job rejection? Scroll down to the comments and share your experience. It feels obvious to me that age is a factor in why I can't find a job, but the tricky thing is that there's no real way to prove that any of these rejections are due to my age. It hurts, and I don't feel as though recruiters see my value. Applying to jobs felt different 5 years ago When I was on the job market five years ago, I don't think AI was being used to sort through résumés. Additionally, I've never interviewed online before now, and quite frankly, it's a bit intimidating. Therefore, I may not come across as confident, as there is an insecurity factor lending to the video. I know how to sell myself in person, but I find it difficult, especially at my age, to do so over Zoom. You can be vibrant, brilliant, and all these things, but it's tricky because my generation is so geared to meeting people face to face. That is where we shine. There are also only so few jobs available. I applied for an entry-level receptionist role for a yoga studio, and they stood me up for my interview. So many people are looking for jobs, and I think older people might not be the first to get hired. Dracup said she's been stood up for interviews and automatically rejected. Chloe Ellingson for BI I think my desperation for a job is making it harder to get one As a single woman in my 50s, I don't have a partner to financially support me during this time. I feel desperate to find a job, and though I don't want it to come across that way to hiring managers, I think they can feel it. When I get another rejection, the self-doubt that I'm worthless, too old, and that nobody will hire me comes back up, and the desperation intensifies. It's a vicious cycle. I try to tell myself, "Kymm, pull up your socks. Let's go. Go on to the next interview," but in the back of my mind, the doubt is still there. Sometimes I'm joining an interview after not leaving the house or speaking to people for days. When I get an interview, I can't just snap my fingers and get out of that dark place. Job rejections have led to self-doubt and desperation. Chloe Ellingson for BI I got evicted from my home and moved in with my daughter My daughter has offered to let me stay in her home since I now have an income. I'm helping her pay bills while I figure it out. I think it's very difficult for her to have a parent who is all of a sudden in need. I raised her as a single mom. I was strong, and now I just crumpled to the ground. I've been in a really dark place, and I know that's not easy for her. What is helping me through this time is turning to God. I have to believe in something. Dracup remains hopeful that something better will come along. Chloe Ellingson for BI I wish I had been more prepared for unemployment in my 50s Most people coming out of university these days are learning AI and are up to date with modern technology. When you bring in someone my age, it's different because the technology we had in school was pretty archaic. I had no idea how difficult it would be to navigate the job market. I wish I were more prepared for all of the "no"s because it can be really hard on your self-esteem. I wish that life experience were viewed as a more valuable asset in the workplace. It's been very hard to get out of that dark mindset when I keep receiving rejections. My advice is to find a way to believe in something better for yourself. Sometimes belief is all you have, so you've got to hold onto it. Are you navigating a career change in your 50s? Contact this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com to share your story. Read the original article on Business Insider

Musk was a close advisor to President Trump in the first few months of 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Elon Musk sounded the alarm about Taiwan's vulnerability to a Chinese invasion, per a new book. He told Trump and tech CEOs that the US was "headed for disaster" in the event of a Chinese invasion. Musk was in a meeting where the CEOs discussed the possibility of bringing chipmaking to US shores. Elon Musk expressed grave concern about Taiwan's dominance in the chip market — and the possibility of a Chinese invasion — in a tech CEO meeting at the White House last year, according to a book published on Tuesday about President Donald Trump's second term. The book, "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," by The New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, reported that the SpaceX owner had met with Trump and the CEOs of firms such as Dell, Qualcomm, and Intel on March 10, 2025. Haberman and Swan wrote that Musk told the gathering in the Roosevelt Room that he was "shitting bricks about our vulnerability to China." But Musk had grown increasingly alarmed in recent years, especially over the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which would jeopardize the supply of high-end chips that Musk's companies depended on. And now, with these CEOs as his audience, Musk was frantically sounding the alarm about the fact that an island country roughly the size of Maryland, floating eighty-one miles off mainland China, produced around 70 percent of all the semiconductors on earth and 90 percent of the most advanced chips. He was lecturing a gathering more familiar with this problem than perhaps any other group of people in the world. But Musk kept banging away. "If we don't start building chips outside the zone of confrontation," he said, "we are headed for disaster." He reiterated the point: "Somebody's got to build the damn fabs [fabrication plants] outside the battle zone!" According to the book, Trump said China's leader, Xi Jinping, had given assurances that Beijing would not launch an invasion of Taiwan while the former sat in the White House. But Haberman and Swan reported that Trump added a caveat: "Could be lying. Taiwan is the apple of Xi's eye, just like Ukraine was for Putin." The group of CEOs, alongside Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, then discussed how the US might claw back some of the world's semiconductor supply chain and shift factories from Asia to American soil. "The United States will only have thirty percent of TSMC's capacity in 2029. If China invades Taiwan, the entire economy crashes," Musk said, per the book. In May, Musk and other American tech CEOs, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Apple's Tim Cook, accompanied Trump on an official visit to China. Musk was widely regarded as a figure who could help stabilize Beijing and Washington's economic ties. Tesla operates a major factory, Gigafactory 3, in Shanghai that employs roughly 20,000 workers. The American automaker enjoys the rare arrangement of wholly owning the factory without needing a joint venture with a Chinese firm. The White House and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider. "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" is available for purchase on Amazon. Read the original article on Business Insider

Many companies, and the consulting firms advising them, are reevaluating how much the spend on AI. Getty Images; BI The age of freewheeling AI spending may be coming to an end. Consulting firms are rethinking how much they, and their clients, spend on AI. Tell us how spending at your consulting firm has changed. Companies are learning that there's such a thing as spending too much on AI. As the cost of AI tools grows, executives are recalibrating. Amazon recently removed its employee-made leaderboard for tracking AI token usage because it encouraged excessive spending. Walmart, which developed a vibe-coding tool for employees, recently set limits on the use of tokens. Uber COO Andrew MacDonald said it's hard to justify the money his company is spending on AI. Cisco Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel also pushed back on the cost of tokens. He said at an event recently that the price is "far higher than the actual value these tokens are generating at scale." For the consulting industry, the rise of AI was a near-existential threat. At first glance, chatbots can do a lot of the work of consultants, particularly those early in their careers. Most firms moved quickly to attract clients who needed help integrating the technology into their own companies. And they quickly adopted it themselves. KPMG, for example, has built a dashboard to track how often employees in its US advisory division use AI tools, part of a broader effort to move from basic adoption to more sophisticated use. McKinsey plans to go further. CEO Bob Sternfels said in January that the firm uses roughly 25,000 AI agents alongside its 40,000 human employees, and hopes one or more agents will eventually support every employee. The surge in spending, however, has raised a question: Are companies investing in AI strategically or simply spending to avoid being left behind? It's something consulting firms are working to answer for both their clients and themselves. Tell us how AI spending has changed at your consulting firm: For now, the answer appears to be: keep spending, but more strategically. In a recent report on corporate AI investment, Boston Consulting Group found that companies expect to more than double their AI spending in 2026, from roughly 0.8% of revenue to about 1.7%. For large enterprises, that shift represents billions of dollars flowing into AI strategies that remain, in many cases, experimental and difficult to measure. Russell Fradin, CEO and cofounder of Larridin, a platform that helps companies — including major consulting firms — measure the returns on AI usage, said the spending trend will continue. "We haven't seen anyone talking about spending less in AI next year," Fradin told Business Insider. "They're just talking about instrumenting to understand where it goes." Companies, Fradin said, are coming to the consensus that they "can't 10x spend every year forever." Read the original article on Business Insider

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