☕ Starbucks reverses course

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👋 Good morning. How’d you get to work today? Odds are, probably not via air taxi, though Joby Aviation is still working on it. The company flew one of its aircraft from vertical hover to horizontal flight and back with a pilot on board, a milestone that brings the taxis one step closer to FAA testing and coming to market. With 40k miles of test flights already completed, here’s hoping passengers can expense a Joby flight on the company card soon.

🎧 On the pod: Was ChatGPT being super nice to you? Here’s why.

NEWS FLASH

💉 Cutting weight and corporate costs? GLP-1 use might save employers money, according to Aon, which analyzed claims from 139k US workers. By the end of the second year of treatment, patients on the drugs saw medical cost trends slow ~7%, compared to those with similar chronic conditions not on the medications. Since GLP-1s are pricey — $1k+ per dose — their popularity has driven up employer drug spending since 2023. The biggest contributor to employer savings was the 40%+ reduction of major cardiac events, like heart attacks and strokes, compared to those not taking the drugs.

🚘 Waymo just keeps making moves: Most recently, Alphabet’s autonomous driving company and Toyota announced they were exploring possible collaborations, including developing a new autonomous vehicle platform and implementing Waymo’s tech in Toyota’s consumer vehicles. Waymo already has its own platform — Waymo One, for hailing its robotaxis — but doesn’t manufacture its own vehicles. Waymo One’s fleet uses electric Jaguar I-Paces.

🔎 Two can cheat at this game: In response to Chungin “Roy” Lee dropping Cluely, a supposedly undetectable desktop AI assistant intended to help people “cheat on everything,” some startups have announced software that can flag Cluely’s use. Bay Area startup Validia launched Truely, which activates an alarm if Cluely is in play. Adrian Aamodt, CEO of online exam platform Proctaroo, called Cluely “unethical” and told TechCrunch that Proctaroo can detect “applications and ‘hidden’ background processes,” including Cluely. Guess you’ll have to do your job interviews and sales calls on your own — which is probably a good thing, considering Cluely is apparently very laggy.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

No longer a package deal: UPS is cutting ~20k jobs and closing 70+ facilities in preparation for a reduction in Amazon shipments. The company said it would lower its volume of Amazon shipments by 50%+ before the end of 2026 after its contract expired.
Oh? Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that 20%-30% of the company’s code was written by AI. It’s not a dirty little secret: Microsoft’s CTO had already projected that 95% of all code would be AI-generated by 2030.
Update: Sorry to anyone who enjoyed the validation of ChatGPT’s sycophancy, but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is pulling the update that made the chatbot flatter its users.

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM

A pixelated image from the perspective of a person driving a car down a tree-lined road.

Give it up for the AI DJ

Would you be able to tell if your favorite radio station got taken over by a bot?

Turns out, maybe not.

Listeners tuning in to Sydney’s CADA radio station were greeted with a four-hour radio show hosted by Thy — an AI-generated voice.

Thy was created using ElevenLabs’ AI and is based on a real employee.
There was no disclosure of the AI tool on the show or the station’s website.

How did listeners respond? And is this happening elsewhere? Read on to find out.

THE BIG IDEA

Starbucks changes its mind about humans vs. tech

While other companies push robots and AI, Starbucks is doubling down on human touch.

This year, the chain asked employees to scribble messages or doodles on single-use cups and brought back ceramic mugs for customers who want to hang out — a callback to when Starbucks cafes were cozy third spaces, not just pickup spots for mobile orders.

And on Wednesday, CEO Brian Niccol — the former Chipotle CEO who’s been driving these changes — told investors that the chain tried removing labor from stores, but has found that equipment and tech alone don’t solve the customer experience problem. People do.

Why the change?

Starbucks was struggling with slipping sales before Niccol — its fourth CEO in three years — came on board, and in 2024 attempted to course-correct with an affordable “pairings” menu and the Siren Craft System, a series of operational and tech updates designed to speed up beverage prep.

It also began testing increased head counts, a program Niccol has since rolled out to ~3k of its 36k stores.

Now, the company is trying:

Pausing deployment of the Siren Craft System.
A new dress code that calls for dark, solid clothes underneath Starbucks’ green aprons to “create a sense of familiarity,” per the brand.
Expanding freshly baked offerings, which it tested in UK stores.

Will this work?

Niccol admitted that, yes, humans cost more, but he’s “banking on some growth to come with the investment.” Interestingly, many of Starbucks’ negative online reviews relate to the impact of mobile ordering on its cafes — e.g., inventory issues, increased wait times, frustrated staff.

The delicate balance between human staff and tech is one that’s playing out across many fast-food and fast-casual chains. Sales increase when customers get in and out quickly, and companies including Starbucks have found technology can decrease wait times.

But the real boon is often not replacing humans, but pivoting them to customer-centric tasks.

BTW, Chipotle recently revealed it’s trying a novel strategy: asking employees to smile and say thank you.

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Get cut off by a speeding U-Haul on the highway this past year?

It might’ve been a millennial anxiously voyaging to their new home state: over 7.7m of them moved in 2024, according to online moving platform HireAHelper.com.

As for which state opened its doors to the most young transplants, Colorado welcomed the highest rate of millennial movers compared to other generations with 34.8%. That was followed by Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, and South Carolina.

Not coincidentally, Maryland and Colorado ranked 2nd and 7th, respectively, for US states with the highest job growth in 2024, per National Business Capital.

Connecticut saw the fewest millennials move in, at a rate of -64.8%.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1941, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane premiered at the RKO Palace Theater in NYC.

🧀 How to: choose the best cheese for a grilled cheese sandwich.

🍝 Useful: Barilla has Spotify playlists timed for cooking various pasta shapes to al dente.

🧠 That’s interesting: What exactly is muscle memory?

🦎 Aww: You were warned.

QUOTE OF NOTE

The message that replaced 19k+ NFTs from a CloneX RTFKT collection — a collaboration between Nike and artist Takashi Murakami — after RTFKT downgraded from a paid Cloudflare account to a free one last week.

While the images eventually came back online, the sudden disappearance of tens of millions of dollars worth of NFTS has left many contemplating the reliability of the digital assets that were touted to last forever.

And obviously CloneX holders were pissed; some are now suing Nike for divesting from the project.

SHOWER THOUGHT

Since our bodies are made up of the food we eat, when you go grocery shopping you are carrying around bags of future-you. SOURCE

Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Singdhi Sokpo and Kaylee Jenzen.
Editing by: Ben “Caramel Frappuccino from a human, please” Berkley.

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