Author: Staff (Page 1 of 27)

      Starbucks continues to struggle with time spent in stores

      November 1, 2025 /

      Starbucks sign

      This post highlights a serious problem facing Starbucks – consumers are spending less time in their stores, and this trend continues to get worse.

      Starbucks’ once-dominant model involved packing urban corners with cozy cafés for work and socializing. But this relied on full offices and daily commutes. Remote work changed everything, erasing weekday rushes and gutting downtown profits.

      This had led to closures of many Starbucks locations. A third of recent LA shutdowns were in the city-center, with similar trends in Chicago, New York, and Seattle.

      The other problem involves the flood of mobile orders, which optimized speed but killed ambiance. Starbucks stores now feel much more transactional: order, grab, go. We see the long lines both at the drive-through and inside the store. When I want to meet someone for a coffee, whether for business or socializing, Starbucks is no longer the top option. I’ll try to find a Panera or a local brand coffee shop, as I know the Starbucks experience isn’t what it used to be.

      The key metric of customers lingering 10+ minutes has fallen over a year, even with changes implemented by new CEO Brian Niccol. Stayers drive revenue with second drinks, snacks, repeat visits, etc.

      We’ll see if Niccol can find a way to reverse this trend. It doesn’t help that we’re facing an economic slowdown, and expensive coffee drinks will be a luxury that many consumers won’t be able to afford.

      General Business

      Brands grapple with how to use generative AI in ads and in branding

      November 1, 2025 /

      You probably saw this amazing ad created by PJ Ace for Kalshi during the NBA Finals. It was a massive success for the Kalshi brand and generated a ton of buzz.

      And it was created completely by AI.

      For small companies and less well-known brands, generative AI offers an amazing tool if used propoerly with the assistance of creatives like PJ Ace, who has built an ad agancy that makes AI commercials for clients.

      Continue reading »

      Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Small Business, Technology

      The “Custom AI” trend that will dominate business use cases

      November 1, 2025 /

      AWS custom AI

      As businesses make more investments in AI, we’re going to start seeing more “custom AI” builds. “Custom AI” is the practice of taking a general foundation or large-language model (LLM) and adapting it so that it better reflects a particular organization’s needs. It all start with using that organization’s date, and then emplying tactics such as fine-tuning, continued pre-training, model-distillation, domain‐specific training, etc. to provide the most relevant and useful output. Think of a law firm using their own contracts to train their proprietary model, or a company using all of their own product specifications in the AI used for customer services.

      Amazon AWS details this in a recent release: “Custom Intelligence: Building AI that matches your business DNA.” It outlines how they help customers create custom models and how these models can be fine-tuned over time.

      General Business, Technology

      Amazon Cuts 14,000 Jobs

      October 31, 2025 /

      Amazon building

      Job losses tied to AI are accelerating.

      In a move that underscores the relentless pace of technological disruption, Amazon announced on October 31, 2025, plans to eliminate approximately 14,000 roles across its corporate workforce. This latest round of reductions, detailed in an internal memo from HR SVP Beth Galetti, continues the e-commerce giant’s efforts to streamline operations amid explosive growth in artificial intelligence. While Amazon frames the changes as necessary for agility and customer focus, they highlight a stark reality: AI is not just augmenting jobs—it’s eliminating them in the short term, forcing companies to rethink workforce structures in ways that prioritize speed over scale.

      Continue reading »

      Economy, General Business, Retail

      Chipotle earnings a warning sign for the economy

      October 30, 2025 /

      iphone with Chipotle app

      The latest news from Chipotle is crushing the company’s stock, but it’s even worse news for the economy. Here’s a quote from the CEO:

      “Earlier this year, as consumer sentiment declined sharply, we saw a broad-based pullback in frequency across all income cohorts. Since then, the gap has widened, with low to middle-income guests further reducing frequency. We believe that this guest, with household income below $100,000, represents about 40% of our total sales, and based on our data, is dining out less often due to concerns about the economy and inflation. A particularly challenged cohort is the 25 to 35-year-old age group. We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle and is occurring across all restaurants, as well as many discretionary categories.”

      We’re hearing this from many companies, but here it’s even more explicit. The middle and lower classes are getting hurt by inflation and a slowing economy. And this suggests that it’s going to get worse. We’ll see if this leads to a recession.

      Now we do have to put this in context. Chipotle has its own problems as it doesn’t seem to know how to cater to this younger demo in this environment. One use on X put it simply:

      i could fix chipotle in 1 day as ceo. You just introduce a half priced burrito that isn’t the size of a newborn. Instead of 1500 calories, maybe you only eat 700. It’s under $10. There would lines would be out the door

      This hit’s home.

      So we may have a combination of factors here, but it’s difficult to deny the economic slowdown. We’ll be posting more examples.

      Economy, General Business

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