đ Happy Monday. And sorry about your bracket. Does it make it better that itâs not just you? The number of perfect March Madness brackets dove to two out of 34m after Sundayâs games, per the NCAA â thatâs 0.000000005%. ESPNâs tracker similarly listed two perfect brackets out of 24.3m. Winning in the weirdest way were the 30 ESPN brackets that made only wrong picks.
đĄ Is this your Big Break?Our pitch competition is open till April 4. Submit your 60-second video today.
NEWS FLASH
đ A hamburger today: Putting a meal on layaway sounds disturbingly dystopian, but DoorDash will soon join rival Grubhub in allowing customers to use âbuy now, pay laterâ service Klarna to pay for their food in four interest-free installments or at a âdate that aligns with their paycheck schedules.â Americansâ debt hit $18T last quarter, while Klarna reported a 24% revenue increase in 2024 and is preparing for an IPO in April.
âď¸ What a mess: Londonâs Heathrow Airport came to a standstill on Friday after a fire at an electrical substation took out its power for two days, leading to travel disruptions that could cost airlines millions. Heathrow is not a small airport; in 2023, it was the worldâs fourth busiest, seeing 83.9m passengers.
đ¤ Chatting away: Some people are leaning on AI-powered chatbots for emotional support, according to two new studies from OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab. The studies found that users turn to AI for its ability to display âhuman-like sensitivityâ and that ChatGPT âpower usersâ are more likely to consider the bot a friend, finding it more comfortable to interact with than people. This follows a 2024 YouGov survey that showed 55% of Americans ages 18-29 feel comfortable turning to an AI chatbot for mental health concerns.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Chobani is investing $500m in a 500k-square-foot expansion to its Twin Falls, Idaho, facility. Itâs expected to increase yogurt, oatmilk, and creamer production by 50% and create at least 160 jobs.
Twitterâs 12-foot-tall, 560-pound bird logo â AKA âLarryâ â sold at auction for ~$34.4k to an unknown buyer. The bird once hung on Twitterâs San Francisco HQ, but was removed after Elon Musk took over and changed the platformâs name to X.
StubHubfiled for an IPO of its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STUB. The online ticketing marketplace said buyers across 200+ countries purchased 40m+ tickets on its platform last year.
GET SEEN
How to be a highly findable business
As it turns out, AI summaries have thrown a pretty big wrench into the SEO and marketing systems that ruled the web for decades.
Power tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity mean itâs time to switch things up. Here are five savvy tips for brands that want to stay relevant as chatbots gobble up the web.
(Also: our improved AI Search Grader tool now works with Gemini. Try it for free.)
Brand visibility today is all about quality sources, competitor research, and actually valuable content. Eat the rest for free.
Weâve all seen the many ways AI is affecting the art world, from a barrage of AI-generated slop to its infiltration of auction houses and the upper echelons of the industry.
But what if AI could also help to keep artâs integrity? It might be possible.
There are currently three conventional ways to authenticate a work of art, perWired:
Connoisseurship: The oldest and most common method, it involves experts physically examining an object and providing their opinion.
Provenance research: follows the documented history of an artwork â through archival materials, letters, gallery listings, etc. â to discern when the object actually existed.
Forensic testing: where conservators use tools like carbon dating, X-rays, and infrared spectroscopy to see if a piece of art contains authentic elements.
But now, a fourth way to authenticate art has arrived: AI.
AI art experts
Zurich-based Art Recognition says it has completed 500+ authenticity evaluations by using two types of artificial neural networks.
The company compiles image datasets for each artist containing reproductions of verified artworks for its AI to train on.
It also includes contrast sets of known forgeries, works by anonymous artists, and AI-produced pieces to help its algorithms spot fakes.
After training, the AI can recognize an artistâs brushstrokes, color variations, and compositional elements in previously unseen work.
The bot has been busy: It might have identified a piece by famed artist Peter Paul Rubens (though itâs at odds with scholars) and potentially debunked a fake Van Gogh.
As Wired points out, AI could help art experts â not replace them. Itâs a valuable tool, like an X-ray, that authenticators can have in their pocket for tricky cases.
Plus, it could save us all some money. While we might not be waving our auction paddles at Sothebyâs, forgeries are everywhere.
On the pod: Your AI update on OpenAIâs regulatory fights, gaming, and more.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Price that S Sathish, a 51-year-old rare dog collector from Bengaluru, India, paid for Cadabomb Okami, the worldâs most expensive dog. Sathish owns 150+ different breeds, but this one is a cross between a Caucasian Shepherd and a wolf that, at just eight months old, is 30 inches tall and ~165 pounds. (Itâs also very fluffy and extremely cute.)
You may be wondering how one man cares for 150+ dogs. Sathish has six keepers on staff, and lives on a ~17-acre estate âso they all have plenty of space to romp around.â Sathish claims he has also charged money for appearances where guests line up to meet and take selfies with his dogs.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1955, Tennessee Williamsâ Pulitzer Prize-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roofopened in New York.
đď¸ Newsletter: Historical data is dead. The new Crunchbaseintroduces live, predictive intelligence, helping you be the first to find and act on opportunities.
đ Thatâs cool: In The Museum of All Things, every âexhibitâ connects to a Wikipedia article.
Gavin Newsom is apparently looking to secure more friends in high places. In recent months, the California governor reportedly sent ~100 leaders of California-based businesses, namely tech CEOs, âburnersâ â you know, like the prepaid cell phones used by TV mobsters and drug dealers to discreetly conduct business. According to Politico, the phones are loaded with Newsomâs number, delivered alongside notes like the one above, and more are reportedly still being dispatched.
SHOWER THOUGHT
The future nostalgia of todayâs lo-fi games will be due to developer choice, not by technical necessity.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 âRare dog petterâ Berkley.
