• OpenAI bought Jony Ive's io to enhance product distribution and user reach.
• Generative AI competition is now more about distribution rather than technology.
• Google's vast distribution network poses a challenge for OpenAI. Ive's gadgets could help.

OpenAI's decision to buy Jony Ive's gadget company, io, is about distribution.

The generative AI race has entered a new stage. It used to be about creating the best AI models, but they're all pretty similar these days.

Who ultimately wins will depend a lot more on distribution, and less on the quality of the underlying technology.

Getting ChatGPT and other OpenAI models and products into the hands of users — that's what really counts. Without that direct relationship, these products won't be used as much, or it will cost a lot to get the offerings to consumers indirectly.

Ive designed the ultimate distribution tool for technology, Apple's iPhone. Then he left and started work on io, a new type of device company built for the AI era.

AI could spark a wave of new gadgets

While phones still dominate, generative AI could change that. We might all wear smart glasses with AI chatbots built in. Meta, Apple, Google, and others are working on this. We could have a little clip thingy attached to our shirts, so we can converse constantly with AI models and chatbots. Who knows what else might work in this new era?

Either way, if you're Sam Altman running OpenAI, you don't want to have Google or Meta or Apple standing in between you and your users. You know what happens then? You end up having to pay for distribution. Mark Zuckerberg despises being an app on Apple's mobile device platform, which takes a juicy 30% fee from many developers. Even Google pays Apple roughly $20 billion a year to have its search engine distributed on iPhones and other Apple gadgets.

Does Altman want to pay Apple $20 billion in a few years? Does he want to give Tim Cook 30% of the revenue OpenAI generates from ChatGPT paid apps on iPhones? Of course not.

One solution is to hire the original iPhone designer to build OpenAI's own gadgets. This quote stood out to me in the OpenAI announcement about the deal with Ive and his io company.

"It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company," Altman and Ive wrote.

Even if this hardware journey costs billions of dollars, it could be cheaper than paying other tech giants for distribution. And at least you control your own destiny and have that direct relationship with users.

io vs IO

I'm writing this from Google IO, the internet giant's annual conference. Altman loves to crash this party. He did it last year, and he's doing it again today. It's all the more perfect because Ive's device company is called io.

My interpretation of this party-crashing is that Altman could be pretty worried about Google.

Despite that very expensive deal with Apple, Google is a master of distribution, and it's using everything at its disposal to quickly get its new AI products and tools into as many hands as possible. These are the offerings that compete directly with ChatGPT.

Here are some examples of Google's distribution power, taken partly from this week at Google IO and partly from all the work Google has been doing for the past 20 years or so. For a startup like OpenAI, this must be terrifying.

• Android, Google's mobile operating system, supports more than 3 billion devices. The company is prominently displaying its Gemini AI chatbot service on as many Android gadgets as possible.
• There are millions of Pixel devices and Chromebooks out there. And guess what? Google is weaving Gemini into many of these phones and laptops.
• Chromebooks, Android, and Pixel are mainly ways to distribute Google technology to users directly. Chrome is the default browser on these Googley gadgets. This week at IO, Google showed off how Gemini is now baked into the Chrome browser. That's suddenly more than 1 billion users who will see Gemini every day, and they could end up using this chatbot, rather than ChatGPT.
• Then there's the big kahuna: Google Search. The company announced several ways that its new AI technology is being weaved into Search. There's a new AI Mode that launched across the US on Tuesday. Suddenly, roughly 250 million people will see — and probably use — AI Mode regularly. Because it's baked into the top of the Search page prominently. There are about 1.5 billion daily users of Google Search.

This is the type of distribution power that startups can only dream of. If OpenAI really wants to compete with tech giants, it badly needs Jony Ive's new gadgets — and a host of other distribution.

Distribution = data = better AI

Why is this so important? Well, AI products only really get better when a lot of people use them regularly. Google cofounder Larry Page used to call this the toothbrush test: If your product isn't used twice a day, forget about it.

If that happens, AI companies can collect mountains of data on how users are behaving. That information informs product updates. But in the generative AI era, this data is also incredibly valuable for developing new AI models and related products. This data can be pumped into training new models, with certain user permissions. It can also be used for fine-tuning and other AI development techniques.

The more you have, the better. Again, this data feedback loop only works if you have distribution—massive distribution.

In February 2021, Morgan Wallen's future as country music's golden goose was hanging in the balance.

First, there were the reports of drunken disorderly conduct during a night out in Nashville. Then, a video of Wallen flouting COVID protocols at a party in 2020 resulted in the postponement of his "Saturday Night Live" debut. But his then-latest incident, in which he was caught using a racial slur on camera, threatened to torpedo his career.

As quickly as the industry had lifted him up as the genre's next global star, Wallen was disinvited from awards shows, criticized by peers, blocked from radio play, and suspended by his record label. Country music cable network CMT announced it would scrub his appearances from its platforms, saying Wallen's words and actions were "in direct opposition to our core values that celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Then, something happened: People kept listening anyway.

Four years later, Wallen, now 32, is bigger than ever. His 2023 album "One Thing at a Time" spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the longest reign ever for a country album. He went back on "Saturday Night Live," where his latest viral controversy, in which he walked offstage while the cameras were still rolling, garnered him enough defenders to launch a cheeky merch line. (It's now sold out.) His new album, "I'm the Problem," only needed one day to become Spotify's most-streamed country album of 2025.

These days, it pays to be the problem.

The making and marketing of a modern antihero

Sonically, there's nothing particularly special about Wallen's brand of stadium country music. His signature Tennessee twang is pleasant enough, but it pales in comparison to the richness of Shaboozey's, for example, or the expressive texture of Chris Stapleton's. The melodies aren't any catchier than the average single by Luke Combs or Florida Georgia Line, and his lyrics are teeming with tropes: the word "whiskey" is sung no fewer than 18 times on "I'm the Problem."

In a genre historically obsessed with first-person storytelling and narrative cohesion, Wallen also isn't distinguished by his songwriting: he's not listed as the sole songwriter on any "I'm the Problem" tracks, and on 15 out of 37, he's not credited at all. (Forty-nine other songwriters are credited throughout.)

However, a closer look at the album's title track and opener offers insight into a core element of Wallen's appeal. On the taunting kiss-off, addressed to an ex who's equally flawed but can't bear to share the blame, Wallen is equal parts self-loathing and vindictive: "You hate that when you look at me, you halfway see yourself / And it got me thinkin' / If I'm the problem / You might be the reason."

These themes are woven into the fabric of Wallen's songs, many of which double as sly implications. He often sings about drunken screw-ups and toxic relationships that paint his friends, lovers, and listeners as co-conspirators, or even instigators. "Don't Think Jesus," his first solo release after returning to the spotlight in 2022, makes this theme explicit: "World likes to rear back and throw a few stones / So boy wants to throw a few stones of his own." In his big hit from last year, the Post Malone duet "I Had Some Help," Wallen reasons, "It ain't like I can make this kinda mess all by myself."

John Malanga, a 21-year-old rising senior at James Madison University, said he likes Wallen more than other country stars because he sees him as authentic: the themes of his music align with his unpolished, unapologetic public persona.

"He recognizes his flaws and yeah, he's kind of like this young guy who's a little bit of a douchebag sometimes, but that's his character," Malanga said. "It seems like he's really not afraid of that."

Devin Selvala, a Boston-based 27-year-old who said she's been in Wallen's top 1% of Spotify listeners for at least three years, agreed.

"Nowadays in the music industry, it's easy to be consumed by the machine," Selvala said. "He isn't one that's willing to be shape-shifted and evolved based on how the industry or how 'big music' wants him to be. I think he's very, 'Take me as I am or leave me.'"

Still, not everybody has accepted Wallen's career rebound. When Tate McRae was announced as a feature on "I'm the Problem," some of her fans objected based on Wallen's reputation and presumed political views, describing their team-up online as tone-deaf and meme-ing McRae as a MAGA Republican.

The Wallen fans I spoke to were well aware of the singer's slur scandal and didn't let it slide, either, calling his language "repulsive" and inexcusable. (Wallen, for his part, said much of the same at the time, instructing his supporters to stop defending him in a video shared online.) But none said the incident ultimately deterred them from enjoying and supporting Wallen's music, especially following his public apology.

"I know I've never called anybody the N-word, but I've called people other things and done really crappy things. I think everybody has," Laragh Thooft, a 32-year-old from Iowa, told me. "I would never stop listening to music that I like, or stop watching a movie that I like, because it's somebody doing really dumb and potentially hateful things if they're not seeming to me to be a dumb and hateful person."

"If we start doing that," she added, "then we're just gonna have to listen to only AI music."

Wallen doesn't innovate — he resonates

Wallen's relatability is also bolstered by streaming-optimized savvy.

His music is extremely popular on TikTok, a platform that rewards broad appeal and repetition to serve users content that echoes what they already know and love. To this end, Wallen and his collaborators are masters at integrating other sounds and genres into his well-worn country formula. His songs bear tones of '70s rock, radio-friendly pop, electronic, and hip-hop, and his duet partners are carefully selected to help legitimize those unions: Hardy ("Come Back as a Redneck"), Tate McRae ("What I Want"), Diplo ("Heartless"), Lil Durk ("Broadway Girls"). Wallen's most high-profile collaborator in recent years, Post Malone, has achieved similar success hopping between rap, pop, and country trends.

Wallen also releases a lot of music. Like, a lot. "One Thing at a Time" had 36 songs on its tracklist, just one fewer than "I'm the Problem." Its predecessor, 2021's "Dangerous," was a double album with 32 songs total, including bonus tracks.

Much has been written about the "more is more" strategy that excels in the streaming era, and Wallen is far from the only artist to take advantage of it. But he arguably does it better than anyone else. The proof is in the pudding, which is to say, his chart performances. As of Wednesday, tracks from "I'm the Problem" dominated nearly half of Spotify's Top 50 in the US, with four of the top five slots. "We see that the demand is there and we are happy to meet that demand," Wallen said in a press release for the album.

In the process, Wallen avoids disappointing any fans who prefer specific flavors in his sound. It's a familiar failsafe — something for everyone — and it suits Wallen's creative process, which he has characterized as relatively directionless. "We just went with our gut. That's what we do a lot of times, we don't necessarily have a plan," he told Rolling Stone of his debut album, "If I Know Me," in 2018. "Hopefully it sounds good."

Wallen may not be leading the writing or production of his songs, but there is something to be said for his sonic pliability. Paired with his everyman ease and nonconformist attitude, Wallen is the ideal avatar for an attractive idea — a feeling of freedom, of open roads and judgment-free zones.

After all, Wallen was right: He had some help. His record label resumed promoting his music a few months after he apologized for the slur incident in 2021. Last year, he was nominated for male video of the year at the CMT Music Awards and won entertainer of the year at the CMAs. He's hitched a ride on a powerful pendulum, one that's swinging away from DEI initiatives and toward self-styled free thinkers and rebels against social etiquette.

Consider "Working Man's Song," a track from Wallen's new album, which echoes recent anti-establishment, anti-elite hits like Oliver Anthony's "Rich Men North of Richmond" and Jason Aldean's "Try That In a Small Town": "I punch the clock, wanna punch a ticket to New York and punch the boss," Wallen sings. Never mind that Wallen's 2023 tour grossed over $300 million, making it the highest-grossing country tour of all time. When he moans about the indignity of 9-to-5 jobs and "underpaid checks," it strikes a nerve.

For a lot of Wallen's fans, Selvala theorized, "It's not just the music. It's the embodiment, the aesthetic of everything."

"When I think of country music, I think of long drives, being with my friends, feet in the grass, sunny and 75, beers in the cooler," she said. "A lot of amazing memories I have over the years, just like being with people I love, have Morgan playing in the background."

"I'm the Problem" concludes as it begins, with a double-edged confession. In the chorus of "I'm A Little Crazy," Wallen casts himself as a "coyote in a field of wolves" — scrappy, perhaps, and proud to stand out, yet no more wild than anyone else.

"Yeah, the only thing keeping these tracks on the train," Wallen sings, "Knowing I'm a little crazy, but the world's insane."

• Fortnite returned to the US App Store after a 5-year legal battle with Apple.
• Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told BI that the resulting expanded App Store freedoms are "priceless" for developers.
• Apple is appealing the court's anti-steering injunction enforcement ruling made in 2025.

The popular game Fortnite is back on the US App Store after a 5-year legal battle with Apple, and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney tells Business Insider it represents a "priceless" win for app makers everywhere.

While the game quickly shot to the top of the App Store's games rankings less than 24 hours after launching, its reappearance was years in the making — and costly for Epic, which makes the game. Sweeney previously told BI's Peter Kafka that his fight with Apple over in-app purchases has cost it more than $1 billion since 2020.

Prior to the legal feud, Apple's App Store rules required that Fortnite players — and all other iOS users — make in-app purchases exclusively through the App Store, where Apple takes up to a 30% cut of each transaction. In the summer of 2020, Epic intentionally broke these rules, prompting Apple to remove Fortnite from iPhones and iPads, which in turn sparked Epic's lawsuit.

In an email exchange with BI after Fortnite went live on the US App Store, we asked Sweeney if the protracted court battle and legal fees were worth it.

"Yes," he said. "These newly recognized freedoms are priceless."

"The freedoms developers have gained in the United States and Europe on iOS must be brought to the rest of the world," Sweeney told BI. "I hold out hope of Apple and Google doing that themselves, proactively, rather than being subject to waiting for different and potentially contradictory new laws to be passed around the world."

Epic Games is in a similar legal battle with Google over its app store rules.

The US App Store approval came after US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers scheduled a May 27 hearing to address what Epic said was Apple's noncompliance with a prior injunction, questioning Apple's delay in approving Epic Games' May 9 submission for Fortnite's return to the US App Store.

A representative for Epic Games declined to comment further. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider. The company has previously said its App Store rules regarding payments help ensure the safety of its users.

Asked about the latest on his legal battle with Apple, Sweeney said it's ongoing.

"Apple is appealing the Court's anti-steering injunction enforcement ruling made in 2025 but the Court's ruling hasn't been stayed and appeal briefings will run through August 18," he said.

Spotify, Microsoft, and others backed Epic's opposition to Apple's motion to stay the court's ruling in amicus briefs filed this week, arguing that Apple's compliance with the order is beneficial to both developers and consumers.

• A "No Tax on Tips" bill passed the Senate on Tuesday with no Democratic opposition.
• This was one of Trump's key economic campaign promises.
• But several Democrats told BI that they still had questions about the proposal.

A bipartisan bill to exempt tips from federal income tax passed the Senate. That doesn't mean everyone's fully behind the idea, which was one of President Donald Trump's key campaign promises.

In fact, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are surprised that the "No Tax on Tips Act," a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, passed at all.

"I'm a little amazed the Democrats didn't block it," Cruz told BI. "But I'll take yes for an answer."

As it turns out, Cruz's surprise is warranted. While no Democratic senators said they were outright opposed, several told BI on Wednesday that they still had questions or concerns about the idea, or were simply ambivalent about it.

"That's one way to approach the topic," Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. "The other way is to raise the minimum wage, and sort of eliminate a tip-based economy, which is what a lot of countries do."

"It's obviously great for people who make their incomes off of tips. It's just a question of fairness," Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said. "It just, on its own, seems to be a little strange to decide that certain workers are getting taxed at a rate that's much less than other workers."

The bill passed on Tuesday night after Rosen made a "unanimous consent request," a procedure that senators can use either to pass non-controversial legislation or highlight the other party's opposition to one of their bills. If no senator shows up to object, it passes.

Senators are notified about these requests ahead of time, giving them plenty of time to prepare to object. But no one in either party did so, despite some expectation that Republicans would, given that their own version of the proposal is included in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" reconciliation package.

"Frankly, I was surprised," Murphy said, adding that he assumed a member of the Senate Finance Committee would "object to something that big going outside of regular order."

'I haven't studied the full implications'

The No Tax on Tips Act would allow tipped workers to claim a tax deduction of up to $25,000 for the sum of all tips they earned in the previous year. The GOP's "Big Beautiful Bill" includes a similar provision, but without the $25,000 cap.

For Rosen, passing the bill was smart politics. Her home state of Nevada has among the highest concentrations of tipped workers in the country, owing to the hospitality and entertainment industry in cities like Las Vegas.

The senator also wanted to divorce the issue from the GOP's broader bill, which includes safety-net cuts that Democrats oppose.

"Our office ran a hotline on both sides of the aisle and, after seeing no objections, Senator Rosen went to the floor to pass this bipartisan bill by itself and without any poison pills," a spokesperson for Rosen told BI. "In doing so, Senate Democrats are showing we can deliver tax relief for working-class families without Republicans' extreme cuts to Medicaid and SNAP."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer applauded the passage of the bill on Tuesday, saying in a statement that "thanks to Senator Rosen's incredible leadership, we are one step closer to eliminating taxes on tipped wages for hardworking Americans."

But while the bill has the support of Republicans and Nevada's other Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, none of the Democratic senators who BI spoke with on Wednesday said they were fully supportive of the idea.

"I haven't studied the full implications," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. "I fear very much that corporations may be able to use it in certain ways."

"It's not the worst element of this bill, though," Sanders added.

"No tax on tips makes a great headline, but if it's not done the right way, it fails to help hardworking people who are barely scraping by, while it gives one more boost to Wall Streeters who change their compensation to tipped income," Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said. "So, like so many things, the devil is in the details."

Rosen's bill does include a provision to prevent the wealthy from doing what Warren suggests, barring those who earn more than $160,000 a year from claiming the deduction.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee and a key voice within the party on tax policy, declined to comment specifically on the no tax on tips proposal, only saying that Democrats as a whole want to find ways to help workers.

"I strongly favor getting relief to the workers," Wyden said. "But we know we have a lot of legislative hoops to jump through."

Regina Ventura, Dawn Richard, Sharay Hayes, and David James took the stand at Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial. Here's what we know.

• Nine law firms struck deals with President Trump to collectively provide $940 million in pro-bono work.
• Some Congressional Democrats suggested that the deals were illegal, and asked the firms to disavow them.
• In letters, most of the firms told Congress that their commitments were legal and ethical.

White-shoe law firms that made deals with President Trump are doubling down on their commitments, insisting in letters to Congress that the agreements were legal and ethical.

The letters were sent on May 8 in response to public scrutiny from Democrats about whether the deals amounted to illegal bribes. They were signed by representatives from the nine firms that agreed to provide pro-bono work for the president's preferred causes, including de-emphasizing DEI.

"Your suggestion that the Firm may have violated federal law, state law, and rules of professional conduct in entering into the agreements is wholly without merit," the law firm Simpson Thacher said in one letter.

"The Firm rejects your suggestion that Skadden's compliance with the Agreement reached with the Administration might constitute either legal or ethical violations," an attorney for Skadden wrote.

The only firm that didn't explicitly defend the legality of its deal was Latham & Watkins. Chair Richard Trobman said the firm takes its ethical obligations "seriously."

Beginning in late March, the nine firms committed $940 million in free legal work to support some of Trump's priorities amid punitive executive orders. The deals led several lawyers at the firms to publicly announce their resignations. Four other firms targeted with orders that threatened their client relationships have since won legal victories.

Last month, members of Congress led by Rep. David Min and Rep. April McClain Delaney asked the firms that cut deals to repudiate them, calling them unethical and illegal. Critics of the deals say the vague commitments don't square with the firms' obligations to exercise independent professional judgment and provide legal help for the needy rather than the politically connected.

Min told Business Insider he disagreed with the law firms' responses and said he and other Congressional Democrats were considering their next steps. He said the law firms might have violated state laws as well as federal laws, and said investigations and enforcement activities could take place in other jurisdictions — or once Democrats take power.

"It's probably incumbent on state and local and federal, should that time arise, authorities to investigate these settlements," Min said.

The law firms "can disavow the agreements," he added. "If they don't do that and continue to perform — for example, if they decide to represent January 6 protesters… then I think you have very clearly a circumstance where they violated a number of laws."

In a statement, Rep. McClain Delaney called the deals a "real threat to the rule of law and integrity of the judiciary" and questioned how firms that cut deals with the White House could represent clients that "might be seen as antagonistic."

Several of the firms also sent letters to Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Jamie Raskin defending the deals, Reuters previously reported.

The nine law firms didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.

Read the full letters below.

• I made Gordon Ramsay's easy recipe for the perfect 10-minute burger. 
• Ramsay's burger includes bacon, cheddar cheese, Sriracha mayonnaise, and brioche buns. 
• I loved Ramsay's burger, which was super juicy and tasted like it came from a top restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay has a recipe for the perfect burger that only takes 10 minutes to make.

I discovered Ramsay's bacon cheeseburger recipe while exploring his cookbook "Ramsay in 10," which includes 100 recipes inspired by his YouTube series of the same name.

"From raw ingredients to an incredible juicy burger in just 10 minutes… this is my quickest burger ever!" he writes in the description.

Ramsay's 15-minute pasta is one of my all-time favorite recipes, and I loved his recent tips for making the best plate of eggs.

So, with the holiday weekend coming up, I decided it was the perfect time to give his burger a try.

Ramsay's recipe puts a fun twist on traditional burger ingredients.

To whip up four of Ramsay's perfect cheeseburgers, you'll need: 

• 16 ounces of ground beef 
• 4 brioche buns
• 4-8 slices of bacon 
• 4 slices of cheddar cheese 
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 frozen red chile
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• Little Gem lettuce 

Ramsay's recipe recommends adding two slices of bacon to each burger. Since the hickory-smoked bacon I had in the fridge was already quite thick, I decided to use only one slice per burger instead — but feel free to add as much bacon as you wish! 

His sauce also mixes things up from the usual ketchup.

To make Ramsay's Sriracha mayonnaise, you'll just need: 

• 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise 
• 2 teaspoons of Sriracha 

Ramsay says you can add more Sriracha if you want some extra heat. Since I was also making burgers for my parents, who don't love spicy food, I stuck to these measurements. 

And if spice just isn't your thing, don't worry! Ramsay says you can easily swap the Sriracha for English, Dijon, or whole grain mustard.

First, I prepped my chile pepper.

Ramsay recommends always keeping a handful of chiles in the freezer for burgers, curries, and sauces. 

"Freezing the chile makes it really easy to grate with minimum fuss," he writes in his cookbook. 

I took Ramsay's advice and threw my chile in the freezer the night before I made these burgers. I also followed his tip to deseed the chile before grating it for a milder heat. 

Then, I began making the patties.

First, I cracked my egg yolks into the bowl with my ground beef. Then, I added my seasonings, sprinkling salt and freshly ground black pepper on top.

After throwing in my grated chile, I mixed everything together with clean hands.

I divided the beef and formed four patties, each around 1 inch thick.

"Remember that the thicker you make the patties, the longer they will take to cook," Ramsay writes in his cookbook. "So if you want these on the table in under 10, press your burgers until they are a little thinner for a quicker cooking time."

I drizzled some vegetable oil on my griddle over medium-high heat.

Ramsay recommends using either a griddle or a frying pan for this recipe. Since I was making four burgers, I opted for the griddle so I could cook everything together.

Then, I threw my burgers on, seasoning them with some more salt and pepper.

I allowed my patties to cook for about four minutes.

While my patties were cooking, I quickly whipped up the sauce.

I added my mayonnaise and Sriracha into a small bowl, threw in some salt and pepper, and mixed everything together — so easy. 

After four minutes, I added my bacon and onion slices to the pan.

Once the bacon and onion slices were on the griddle, I increased the heat to high.

As everything cooked together, I prepped the veggies for my burgers.

I cut up some tomato slices and lettuce leaves for the bottom of my burgers. 

Then, I flipped the burgers, bacon, and onions.

Per Ramsay's recipe, I allowed them to cook for another five minutes. 

While my burgers were still on the griddle, I got the brioche buns ready.

I toasted my buns in the oven for two minutes, and they came out perfect. 

My bacon and onion slices were ready before my patties, so I took them off the griddle first.

I placed them on a plate covered with a paper towel, per Ramsay's instructions. 

It was time to turn my burgers into cheeseburgers!

First, I added a bit of butter to the griddle, then threw cheese slices on top of two of my burgers.

Then, I tried Ramsay's special trick to melt the cheese.

Ramsay recommends covering the patties with a lid or upturned saucepan to help the cheese melt — a similar method to the one I tried while making Guy Fieri's perfect burger. 

I opted for a metal bowl instead, which perfectly covered both patties. 

The cheese came out beautiful.

I mean, just look at that photo! Ramsay's trick definitely delivered. 

I repeated the step for my remaining two patties, then placed all four on a plate.

It was almost time to eat, but first, I needed to build my burgers. After spreading the sauce, I threw on my veggies.

I placed the bottom buns on a plate and spread some Sriracha mayonnaise on top.

Then, I added a lettuce leaf on each, followed by tomato slices and onions.

I added my cheeseburger, bacon, and onions.

I drizzled some extra sauce on my top buns and was done.

Barely 10 minutes had gone by, and my burgers were ready to go.

The cheeseburgers looked absolutely glorious.

From the plump patty with oozing cheese to the crispy bacon right on top, this towering burger looked seriously impressive.

It made for a great Instagram picture, but would Ramsay's burger taste as good as it looked?

Oh yeah. 

Ramsay's 10-minute burgers were perfectly cooked.

The patty was beautifully juicy, and the Sriracha mayonnaise and grated chile added just the right amount of heat. The bacon and onions also gave each bite some nice crunch, while the fresh tomato and lettuce cut through the heavy ingredients. 

All in all, it was a total slam dunk. 

I'll definitely be making Ramsay's perfect cheeseburger again.

I've tasted some of the best restaurant burgers in the game, from the iconic cheeseburger at Peter Luger to Obama's favorite burger at Upland in Manhattan. And honestly, Ramsay's homemade burger recipe is right there with them. Plus, it's so easy and cheap to make at home.

With summer on the horizon, barbecue season is here. And I can guarantee Ramsay's burger will impress at your coming Memorial Day and Fourth of July parties. 

Newark Liberty International Airport has been dealing with the shutdown of a major runway, outdated equipment, and a shortage of air traffic controllers, all contributing to major flight delays. So, is there a plan to fix one of America's busiest airports?

• Toyota's 2026 RAV4 SUV will be hybrid-only with a new design.
• The RAV4 is the top-selling SUV in the US.
• This shift to hybrid-only aligns with Toyota's broader electrification strategy.

The most popular car in the United States that isn't a Ford pickup truck is getting a major overhaul.

Toyota's RAV4 SUV will be manufactured only as a hybrid starting in 2026, with an updated design inside and out, the company said Tuesday. This is a major reboot for the sixth-generation vehicle, which first hit the US nearly two decades ago and helped kick-start the compact SUV craze.

Here's a look at the new, electrified 2026 Toyota RAV4 and all its updates:

The new Toyota RAV4 is still very recognizable

There's nothing too radical about the overhaul, but the new RAV4 is getting some fresh work to its front grille with headlights that mimic other Toyota models. The company calls this a "hammerhead" design.

Off-road-inspired looks extend to the rest of the body

Plenty of SUVs these days have rugged looks, and the new RAV4 is no exception. It also comes in new colors like "sunset orange" and "midnight blue." Sportier trims can get larger wheels up to 20 inches, Toyota says.

Fully electric for up to 50 miles

Like the Camry, the RAV4 is now fully hybrid. A 320-horsepower electric motor gives up to 50 miles of range, compared to 42 miles previously. Toyota says higher trim levels can fast-charge from 10% to 80% in 30 minutes.

The two electric motors work in tandem with a 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine. Depending on which of the seven trims you buy, power output varies between front-wheel and all-wheel drive.

Interior updates include a new infotainment system

The updated RAV4's touchscreen takes center stage, and some trims can get a larger 10.5-inch touchscreen. Toyota says its new software, Arene, is its "first step toward fully software-defined vehicles." But don't worry — there's still Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Bluetooth.

Unfortunately for button lovers, air conditioning and heat controls are now integrated into the bottom of the touchscreen.

A new customizable gauge cluster shows on a screen in front of the driver. Top trims get a heads-up display, too.

Toyota says the new interior 'prioritizes functionality'

Between the driver and passenger seats, an organized center stack groups the shifter and drive mode selector, a removable divider, and a storage bin.

Sport trims get paddle shifters and aluminum pedals. Seats get either fabric or "SofTex" faux-leather

Toyota hasn't revealed pricing

The most recent 2024 model starts at $30,218 and goes up to more than $38,000 for the limited trim.center

• Sam Altman's OpenAI is buying an AI hardware startup from the former Apple design chief Jony Ive.
• Ive's startup, IO, is set to work with OpenAI's research, engineering, and product teams.
• The deal is valued at nearly $6.5 billion.

Sam Altman's OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it's buying a hardware startup called IO from Jony Ive, the former Apple exec who led the design of the iPhone and other iconic products. The deal is valued at nearly $6.5 billion, a spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, began working with Altman and OpenAI two years ago before he founded the AI hardware startup one year later with Scott Cannon, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey. Ive left Apple in 2019 after nearly 30 years at the company.

Now, IO is set to merge with OpenAI to "work more intimately with the research, engineering, and product teams in San Francisco," a press release said.

A video of Altman and Ive posted to OpenAI's social media says the two tech titans are teaming up to create a "family of AI products."

Sitting with Ive in a San Francisco café, Altman says in the video he and Ive started talking two years ago about "what the future of AI and new kinds of computers was going to look like."

Ive, who was instrumental in creating the iMac and iPhone, was formerly Apple's chief design officer and a close collaborator with Steve Jobs, who once called him his "spiritual partner at Apple."

After stepping away from his full-time work at Apple, Ive launched LoveFrom with his fellow designer Marc Newson. The company counted Apple and Airbnb among its early clients. Ive and LoveFrom plan to continue to work closely with OpenAI but remain independent, a company spokesperson said.

Though Ive was known for his minimalist designs at Apple — think the sleekness of the iPhone — he said recently that he's now in his "ornament era." Ive said during a fireside chat earlier this month that his recent design work had been influenced by a wide variety of industrial, graphic, and sound designers.

Altman, who cofounded OpenAI in 2015, has played a critical role in shifting OpenAI from a nonprofit research project into a $300 billion AI giant competing with the likes of Apple and Google.

OpenAI's recent slate of products has focused on AI software, in the form of large language models, reasoning models, image generators, and chatbots.

Altman, however, has previously dabbled in the hardware space.

The OpenAI CEO invested in Humane, a wearable AI pin that was intended to replace smartphones but ultimately floundered after poor reviews and sold its assets to HP.

Altman's cryptocurrency project, World, is building a new verification network for humans with melon-sized devices called Orbs, which take pictures of the human iris. World said the Orb was designed by Ive's first hire at Apple, Thomas Meyerhoffer, who worked closely with the design executive on projects including the iMac.

In 2023, Altman, when asked about artificial intelligence hardware, said he had "no interest in trying to compete with a smartphone."

"What AI enables is so fundamentally new," Altman said at the time. "I think it's well worth the effort of talking and thinking about what we can make now. If the answer turned out to be nothing, I would be a little bit disappointed."

OpenAI said it planned to share more next year about what IO has been working.

• Universal is set to cut the ribbon Thursday for its new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando.
• Buzz is building and expectations are sky-high, but executives at rival Disney aren't worried.
• Insiders say why Epic Universe could actually be a net positive for Disney World.

Disney World is facing a formidable new challenger, but execs aren't breaking a sweat — yet.

Universal's eagerly anticipated new theme park, Epic Universe, opens to the public on Thursday in Orlando. It features attractions from tentpole franchises like Harry Potter and Super Mario, plus a Dark Universe section focused on villains and rides from the "How to Train Your Dragon" movie.

"Everything is so magnificent," said Francis Dominic, a theme-park-focused influencer who toured Epic Universe before its grand opening. He described it as immersive, colorful, and "what theme parks should be and could be in the 21st century."

By unveiling this flashy new park in Disney's backyard, Universal is "now applying so much pressure on what Disney can do and should do," Dominic added.

If Epic Universe is a huge hit, it could steal attention from Disney's nearby parks. An employee at the new park told BI that "they're not trying to necessarily overtake Disney — and they don't necessarily think that's possible — but they want to be a strong and healthy competitor."

But Disney's parks chief Josh D'Amaro, who's on the short list to succeed CEO Bob Iger, isn't shaking in his shoes. He's even suggested the excitement for Epic Universe is an opportunity for Disney.

"If something is built new in Central Florida, like Epic Universe, and if it brings in additional tourists — I can almost guarantee you that, that new tourist coming into the market is going to have to visit the Magic Kingdom," D'Amaro said at MoffettNathanson's media conference in mid-May.

Travel agents and analysts that BI reached for this story also think Epic could give Disney World an unexpected boost.

A Disney spokesperson referred to comments previously made by executives, and Universal didn't respond to a request for comment.

A win-win?

While D'Amaro's remarks may sound like spin, some media analysts think he's onto something.

Morgan Stanley's Ben Swinburne pointed to Disney's US parks bookings, which are tracking up 4% and 7% in the next two quarters, the company said on its early-May earnings call.

"Thus far, Epic's impact to WDW is either neutral to potentially already expanding the market in Orlando," Swinburne wrote after Disney's earnings.

This apparent strength follows a strong quarter in which Disney's US parks revenue rose 9%, despite economic volatility.

Travel agents have also told BI that there's enough demand to keep both Epic Universe and Disney World bustling.

Jenn Novotny, who runs the Upon a Star trip-planning service, visited Epic Universe before its grand opening, which she described as "spot-on gorgeous" with theming that's "literal perfection."

Novotny said she's seen a 9% surge in Universal bookings this year ahead of Epic's launch, but that Disney World demand hasn't waned. In fact, she expects her Disney bookings to grow by 18% this year.

Disney-focused travel agent Donna DeGiacomo said her clients are also buzzing about Epic Universe — and it hasn't come at the expense of trips to Disney World.

That aligns with what D'Amaro had told analysts: "That cannibalization is not coming from us."

Trouble in paradise?

However, Joe Bonner of Argus Research doesn't buy that "rising tide lifts all boats" sentiment. The analyst told BI that Epic Universe will likely shave off some of Disney World's market share. The question is: how much?

"It's only logical to think that there will be some negative impact on Disney parks revenue," Bonner said.

If tourists flock to Epic Universe over Disney World, Bonner said Disney may have to ramp up promotions to lure guests back. Profits would suffer, but D'Amaro said he'd do so if necessary.

"We can dial promotions up and down when we need to, against specific segments, if we're sensing the need to do that," D'Amaro said.

MoffettNathanson's Robert Fishman is encouraged by Disney's parks' resilience amid concerns about consumer sentiment and competition from Epic Universe, though it's not home free yet.

"We believe some cautiousness is prudent" given the Epic Universe launch and general economic uncertainty, Fishman wrote in a note.

For some parkgoers, the economy may be a bigger deciding factor when choosing between Disney and Universal's parks.

Disney superfan Shae Noble told BI in late April that she's tempted to go to Epic Universe, but she's torn between a trip to Disneyland in California (where she and her partner have annual passes), Epic Universe's new Super Nintendo World, and destinations like Italy.

"If the economy was better, we would take those days and go to Universal," Noble said. "But because the economy's not good, we're like, 'Well, we'll just stick with Disney, for now.'"

• Irish healthcare worker Imelda Collins, 52, launched a raffle for her two-bedroom house in October.
• Entrants only pay £5, or about $6.75, per entry. Collins will pay the fees to complete the transfer.
• Collins thinks it's a win-win: The buyer gets a cheap house, and she hopes to make more money.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Imelda Collins, who is selling her house in Ireland via an online raffle. Each entry is 5 euros (about $6.75), and people can buy multiple entries. The drawing is scheduled for Thursday, May 22, at 10 a.m. local time. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm from Ireland, and my husband is from Italy. We've lived back and forth between the two countries for a number of years.

In 2022, I bought this home near Manorhamilton, a small town about 20 minutes east of Sligo, because we were going to stay in Ireland full-time.

It's a two-bedroom house on 1.75 acres. I paid €133,000 (about $150,000), which was well over asking, but that's just what the market was. I estimate I put about €150,000 ($170,000) into the home as well — we completely gutted it.

The area is just stunning. It has the most amazing views and mountains all around. We're on a countryside road, and I barely see three cars a day. I love hearing birdsong. I love how we're out in the country but still so close to a city.

Now, our situation has changed. My heart is in Italy. My husband's family is in Italy. I got used to living there, with the amazing food, weather, and wine. That's where we belong right now.

It's really difficult to get a property in Ireland; there are hardly any homes for sale. It took me years to get on the property ladder.

I thought it would be really nice to give somebody the opportunity to win a home for the price of a latte.

Holding a raffle to sell my home seemed like a win for both me and the buyer

A year ago, I read online about a lady in Dublin who raffled off her apartment because she was moving to Paris. I thought that was kind of similar to my situation. I reached out to her a year ago, so this has been taking shape for a while. She's the one who showed me the Raffall platform for raffles and explained what was possible.

Selling it the normal route would be easier, but I thought it was a cool idea and wanted to try something new. Also, if the raffle succeeds, I hope to make more money than if I sold it traditionally.

With today's market, I would expect to get around €300,000 ($340,000). It's so hard to predict an exact figure, but that seems to be where I'd land.

There are a lot of costs associated with the raffle. I've paid a marketing professional to help me, I've run national ads in newspapers for seven weeks, I've paid for a photographer and drone videographer. Then, when it's all done, Raffall will take 10% commission on all the sales as well.

Even with all that, I expect to come in higher. Some people don't understand all those costs and just say, "Oh, she's sold 150,000 tickets, so she'll be taking in €900,000." It's not that simple. (Editor's note: Collins declined to share exactly how much she spent promoting the raffle. She also declined to share how many people had entered, but as of 1:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 23, 298,624 paid and free tickets had been issued, according to Raffall.)

I've laid out all the costs on my website. I'm paying for the legal fees associated with the transfer of the property, for example.

I want the winner to just pay the ticket for the home. There will be no extra costs whatsoever to the winner — none. I just thought that was fair.

The raffle has taken over my life, but it's been the adventure of a lifetime

The lady who raffled off her Dublin apartment told me the process would take over my entire life, and she was right. Sometimes it's caused me great stress. In the evenings, I come home from work and then I'm on the laptop for hours.

For months, I've been researching ways to get the word out, pitching myself to local newspapers in Ireland and the UK. I've joined Facebook groups where I thought there'd be interest, like one for Americans moving to Ireland. I even did research on where the most Irish descendants were in the US to target those cities.

You can enter the raffle from wherever you are as long as it's legal in your country. I can only see names on the Raffall page, not nationalities. I know that I've been featured in the New Zealand press. It's so fantastic to see the word is spreading.

It's all overwhelming. Before the raffle, I was never in the media. I was never even on social media. I will be happy for it to come to an end. It was a long seven months, but it's time now to find out who's winning.

• Steve Bannon said "everything changed" for Elon Musk after Trump pushed back against an NYT report.
• The Times reported in March that Musk would be briefed on details of any prospective war with China.
• Musk's critics pointed to the report as one more element of his power in the Trump White House.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said in an interview with The Atlantic that "everything changed" for Elon Musk after President Donald Trump denied that the CEO would receive a secret briefing on China.

Musk, after months as the face of the White House DOGE office, is stepping back from his high-profile role in paring down the size of the government. And Bannon, who for years has thrown barbs at Musk, highlighted what he said was the turning point for the Tesla CEO.

"You could feel it. Everything changed. The fever had been broken," Bannon told the magazine regarding the litany of concerns raised about the scope of Musk's influence within the federal government.

After The New York Times reported in March that Musk was set to be briefed on details regarding any prospective war between the US and China, Democratic lawmakers were up in arms over the plans — pointing to ethical and national security concerns.

Trump then denied the report on his Truth Social platform, saying the Times article was "fake news."

"They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential 'war with China,'" Trump said at the time. "How ridiculous? China will not even be mentioned or discussed."

Given the wide latitude Musk enjoyed at the outset of DOGE's work to make dramatic cuts at federal departments and agencies, the idea of Musk being present for such sensitive talks raised concerns from critics over the power he held in his role as a "special government employee."

In recent weeks, Musk has spoken about his plans to refocus his energy on Tesla, SpaceX, and X, with DOGE's work continuing without the initiative's most recognizable public face. Earlier this week, he added that he would cut back on his political donations.

Bannon has long chastised Musk.

In August 2018, during Trump's first term, Bannon said during a CNN interview that Tesla was "out of control," while criticizing Musk and other tech executives.

"They are all man-childs," he said at the time. "How can they have this unlimited power? It's outrageous."

And in an interview with Business Insider published in April, Bannon said Musk "was always evil."

"He's a techno-feudalist," Bannon said.

Representatives for the White House and Musk didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Staff in one of Deloitte's four UK divisions will get lower bonuses after missing profit targets.
• The firm will also promote fewer staff this year, according to an internal email seen by BI.
• The promotions move was demotivating and has "dampened" the office mood, a Deloitte employee said.

Deloitte told employees in one of its UK consulting divisions to expect lower annual bonuses following weaker-than-expected financial performance.

Richard Houston, a senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte UK, wrote in a companywide email on Tuesday that employees in the technology and transformation (T&T) consulting division would receive an average of 80% of their annual bonus.

Partners in the division will also face a drop in annual rewards, Houston said in the memo seen by Business Insider.

The memo was first reported by The Financial Times.

The T&T business had "faced a particularly challenging year and fell materially short of its performance goals," Houston wrote.

Bonuses have always been linked to individual and firm performance. However, for the 2025 financial year, they will also take into account performance variations in each of Deloitte's four business lines.

The shift means that workers in Deloitte's other three business lines — which cover deals, tax and legal, and audit and assurance services — will retain their full bonus.

Those three divisions have either exceeded targets or, in the case of the audit and assurance branch, had still increased profits in the 2025 financial year, Houston wrote.

Deloitte will also promote fewer employees than in previous years, Houston said.

The firm would promote 5,500 employees, or about 25% of the UK workforce, at the start of the next financial year, he said. In the previous year, 28% were promoted, Houston said.

A Deloitte consultant in the T&T division said the news about promotions was demotivating and had "dampened" the mood. They added that their division had taken "a beating."

It's "not the best feeling since T&T functions have historically pulled the firm forward in times of crisis," the employee added.

Deloitte UK's total profits for its 2025 financial year, which ends on May 31, would be "slightly ahead of last year" but "below our original plan," Houston wrote.

"At the start of FY25, we expected greater economic stability and a gradual return of growth opportunities. But an early election, geopolitical complexity, and unexpected economic headwinds — like changes in trade policies — have continued to cause market uncertainty," he said.

Deloitte's global revenue climbed 3.1% to $67.2 billion in the 2024 financial year, which marked a sharp slowdown in growth compared to the 14.9% increase in 2023.

The firm's UK arm has reorganized its business divisions and laid off workers as it grappled with an industrywide slowdown in demand for consulting services that has hit revenue growth.

Cost-cutting

In October 2024, Deloitte UK cut its spending on staff travel and expenses by more than 50%.

Houston addressed the cost-cutting measures in Tuesday's email, acknowledging "it has not been easy" for teams to be unable to meet in person for much of the year.

He said the efforts to manage costs had "made a significant difference" and had directly contributed to bonuses for the 2025 financial year.

A Deloitte UK spokesperson told BI: "Amid ongoing market uncertainty, we are pleased to be able to recognize our people for their hard work with salary increases, bonuses, and promotions this year. This is alongside other benefits such as fully funded private medical insurance, recently enhanced family policies, and our commitment to offering flexibility and choice in our ways of working."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at Polly_Thompson.89. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Mud crabs are favored for their large claws and sweet, meaty flesh. As demand for these crabs skyrockets across Asia, and especially in Singapore, where chili crab is an iconic dish, overfishing and habitat loss are also putting them at risk. At Kampoeng Kepiting (Crab Village) in Bali, local fishermen are blending old-school techniques like hand-catching and using bamboo traps with innovative methods like "crab apartments" to cultivate and protect both the crabs and the disappearing mangroves they rely on to survive.

• Google is expanding ads in AI Overviews from mobile to desktop and testing ads in AI Mode.
• It's also adding other AI-powered ad tools, designed to help automate ad creation and buying.
• Ad experts said Google's AI strategy needs to balance monetization with a clean user experience.

Google's multibillion-dollar investments in artificial intelligence need to pay off eventually. Ads may be the answer.

Google on Wednesday said it's expanding ads within the search and shopping AI Overviews that appear at the top of results, going from mobile to desktop in the US. AI Overview ads are beginning to roll out in other locations, too.

It's also testing ads within its AI Mode, a relatively new product built into its search page, where users can conduct deeper research using its Gemini AI chatbot, Google said.

Dan Taylor, VP of global ads at Google, told Business Insider that queries within AI Mode tend to be twice as long as traditional searches and more exploratory in nature. This "opens up these new opportunities to discover brands where advertisers might not necessarily have been in the conversation before," Taylor said.

The ad news follows the opening of Google's big summer developer conference, in which the search giant offered a look at updates it's been cooking up for its AI models. CEO Sundar Pichai described a "total reimagining" of Search as AI Mode is brought to all users in the US this week.

With Google committing to invest more than $75 billion in AI infrastructure and to expand its cloud capacity this year, Wall Street is watching closely for hints about how the company intends to profit from the new technology.

Advertising is set to be an important portion of that pie; the majority of Google's revenue is derived from traditional search ads. While Google is embracing its new AI future, it will also be looking to protect its cash cow. Last year, Google recorded about $265 billion in ad revenue.

Google introduced ads to AI Overviews on mobile last year. This week, Google said that the launch of AI Overviews has grown the number of "commercial queries," where users are searching for information about a particular product or service they may later go on to buy. It didn't state by how much.

For now, advertisers can't directly opt for their ad placements to appear within AI Overviews or AI Mode. Instead, Google will pull from existing search campaigns, where marketers target users on variables like their location, demographics, and by keywords and topics.

Google's introduction of AI-generated answers to its search results got off to a fairly bizarre start last year. It infamously recommended users add glue to their pizza and suggested they eat rocks. Taylor said Google had strict brand suitability guidelines and extensive controls in place across search, display, and YouTube to prevent ads from appearing in unfortunate places that marketers would rather avoid.

Advertisers and website owners are grappling with the impact of AI-generated search. Overviews often offer a definitive answer rather than a series of links that encourage users to visit their websites. According to an April analysis of 150,000 popular keywords from the search marketing company Ahrefs, the average click-through rates on top-ranking search results have dropped since Google's AI overviews were introduced.

Google will need to strike a careful balance between monetizing its AI offerings and providing a clean user experience, especially since some generative-AI rivals, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, have yet to roll out ads. (OpenAI has hinted that ads aren't out of the question, though.)

"If people are changing the way they search and using AI search more for commercial queries, there's no doubt we'll see a shift in ads moving to that space," said Matt Steiner, director of biddable media at the marketing agency Croud.

Google is exploring ways to automate the entire advertising process through AI

Google also offered a glimpse on Wednesday at how it's using AI to automate creating and buying ads across search, its display ad network, and YouTube.

It's letting advertisers use its AI text-to-video and text-to-image generators, Veo and Imagen, to create the visual elements of their ad campaigns based on their product catalogs. On search, a new feature called Smart Bidding Exploration will automatically detect new types of queries advertisers can bid on based on more complex user searches that go beyond typical keywords like "best credit card." And Google is offering an AI agent within Google Ads and Google Analytics, which can make recommendations on campaigns or suggest new trends in their data that might be of interest.

"More traditional marketing tactics are not really able to keep up with the change in consumer behavior, and so AI is coming to the rescue, if you will, to help marketers adapt," Google's Taylor told BI.

Big Tech giants are increasingly looking for ways to automate advertising, with the potential to disrupt the entire industry of advertising agencies and vendors. In a recent interview, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is working toward a future where advertisers simply state their objective, connect their bank accounts, and Meta would do the rest — from creating the ads, selecting the targeting, and then providing the results. Google is moving in a similar direction with its AI-powered Performance Max product.

Scott Sadeghian-Tehrani, media strategy director at the marketing agency 26PMX, said some clients are wary of these types of automated tools. That's particularly true of retailers who often dice their budgets between different product categories and want to be able to make adjustments in the event of holding excess stock, or if it's unseasonably sunny and they want to ramp up advertising their swimwear, for example.

"Clients aren't really ready to hand over those reins, so there's a bit of trepidation," said Sadeghian-Tehrani.

• Companies run hackathons to promote collaboration and speed up software development.
• Pinterest's version, Makeathon, has encouraged employees to come up with ideas for new AI tools.
• This article is part of "AI in Action," a series exploring how companies are implementing AI innovations.

As companies look to AI for increases in productivity, some employees are wary. They worry about lost jobs, diminished creativity, and ethical oversteps, leaving many repelled by daily AI use.

Pinterest, a social media company with about 4,700 employees, has sought to address such concerns by keeping employees closely involved in the development of internal AI tools so those tools are viewed as efficient and helpful, not just mandated from the top down. Key toward this mission has been Pinterest's annual Makeathon, which is in its 14th year. The employee-led competition used to be viewed mostly as a fun way to recommend fixes, said Anirudh Koul, Pinterest's generative AI tech lead. Now, in the age of AI, its usefulness has exploded.

"The overarching goal is ground-up innovation," Koul told Business Insider. "We realized that if we can give the employees the opportunity and freedom to tell us what must be done, and give them some space to showcase working proof of their concept, we might find new innovations at a much faster rate."

Inside Pinterest's companywide hackathon

Makeathon is Pinterest's version of a hackathon — an event at which people work together to create new software quickly. Hackathons are designed to spark new ideas and increase employee engagement, said Brandon Kessler of Devpost, a digital platform for running hackathons. Since 2022's AI boom, hackathon demand has exploded, Kessler told BI.

Discussing hackathons' appeal, Kessler said the events "get people excited because they get to build something they want, as opposed to, 'Hey, all, please use this tool.'"

"You get people learning these new tools," he continued, "building stuff that helps the business, and collaborating and having fun — all within a short period of time."

Pinterest employees witnessed this type of quick development in early 2023, just a few months after ChatGPT's release. Pinterest's senior director of engineering, Anthony Suarez, helped collect a handful of engineers to have a mini hackathon which led to the creation of an internal chatbot tool. By their official Makeathon in July, Pinterest's now-foundational plug-in AI system was ready for wider use.

At Pinterest, hackathon projects start at an internal company page where employees across departments can log pitches. In the week before Makeathon, Koul's team hosts classes about how generative AI works and how to write prompts. There's also a class on no-code tools for app building so that nontechnical employees can still employ AI solutions.

Then, teams from across departments form around an idea. Suarez collaborated with seven Makeathon teams last cycle, mostly composed of fellow employees he had never worked with before. They also have the support of Koul's "hack doctors," support staff who work across the company and specialize in areas such as engineering, design, and video editing. The hack doctors help refine ideas and prepare teams to take questions from executives. Last year, just under 94% of teams worked with a hack doctor.

"We usually find that a good chunk of participants are actually not from engineering," Koul said. "They pair up with engineers to bring their ideas to the next level. We've had teams where people from six different countries come together."

Each team produces a video pitch, which colleagues up to the executive level can watch and vote on. Makeathon is strategically scheduled for late summer so any resulting tools can be incorporated into Pinterest's companywide planning period in September and October, Suarez told BI. He estimated that more than half of these Makeathon projects get funded during this cycle and called the event an "innovation flywheel."

How a Makeathon idea becomes an AI-tool reality

During the 2023 Makeathon, one of Pinterest's sales employees had an idea: What if AI could collect and search through all the company's internal documents?

The sales employee recruited a 14-person team, including Charlie Gu, a senior engineering manager on Pinterest's data team. Gu said he envisioned the tool as a Slack-based chatbot employees could turn to instead of bugging their colleagues. The team knew, however, that some existing documentation wouldn't be up to date when the chatbot pulled it in.

"We came up with a system where you can report answers and create new documentation on the fly," Gu said. The team pitched, built, and eventually implemented the document finder across the company.

The tool now answers, on average, an estimated 4,000 questions a month, according to Pinterest. The tool was also designed to access thousands of internal documents from Google Docs, Slack threads, and slide decks, said Koul, who is quite passionate about Makeathon. (He called over shaky service at a Mount Everest base camp to rave about it.)

Makeathon also encouraged some employees to come up with useful AI prompts. In 2024, Koul's team posed a challenge: Who could come up with the best questions to get Pinterest's chatbot to produce the most accurate and precise answers? Gu said that they had about 200 participants.

In this case, the employees' prompt generation helped with Pinterest's overall goal of encouraging employee engagement with AI. The effort also led Pinterest to integrate AI agents into the process of writing more precise prompts.

According to internal company surveys, 96% of Suarez's team of more than 60 use generative AI every month, and 78% of the company's 1,800 engineers report time savings from using internal AI tools.

Suarez said he'd been "quite surprised by the positive feel" for the tools across the business, adding: "Part of that is, we didn't force adoption of these tools early on, and we still aren't saying, 'You have to do this.' We're trying to come at this more from creating value."

• I spent a month in Turkey with a group of friends. We had fun, but made a few mistakes.
• We didn't realize Istanbul had two international airports or that çay had so much caffeine.
• I wish I hadn't exchanged my currency in the airport or bought so many souvenirs at Grand Bazaar.

In November, I went on a monthlong girls' trip to Turkey.

Before we left, I spent many evenings researching must-see attractions, searching for cute lodging options, and maintaining my Diamond League status learning Turkish on Duolingo.

My preparations paid off, and we had a great trip — but my friends and I made a few mistakes that we'll be sure to avoid next time.

We didn't realize there was more than one major airport in Istanbul.

Istanbul is the biggest city I've ever visited — it's so large that it actually hosts two international airports.

Istanbul Airport (IST) is on the European side of the city and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW) is on the Asian side. It can take about two hours to get from one airport to the other by bus.

My friends and I all flew into IST, but some of our group booked domestic flights out of SAW the following morning without realizing it was a different airport in Istanbul.

We all made our flights, but we had to split up into different hotels during our Istanbul layover, one near IST and one near SAW.

I shouldn't have exchanged my money at the airport.

Since I arrived in Istanbul was after business hours, I figured my best option was to exchange US dollars for liras at the airport despite the poor exchange rate.

After all, it seemed like a bad idea to enter a new city without any cash.

However, I regretted my decision as soon as I left the airport and found that many exchange counters in the city were open late — and had better rates. It was also easy to find ATMs throughout the trip.

After that first money mishap at the airport, I got all my liras from Halkbank ATMs, which didn't charge me fees.

It took me too long to realize one of the most popular local drinks is packed with caffeine.

Turkish tea, or "çay" (pronounced like "chai"), is a popular drink in Turkey, and sharing tea is an important part of Turkish culture.

For my first few days in Turkey, I accepted tea whenever it was offered. It was inexpensive and delicious, and I was eager to participate in local rituals.

I was offered the tea at restaurants, shops, and even at the dentist's office (I was there for a bit of medical tourism).

What I didn't realize at first, though, is that çay is pretty caffeinated.

Although it varies depending on the strength of the brew, an average cup can contain over 40 milligrams of caffeine — about half of the caffeine in a standard cup of coffee.

Once I registered how much caffeine I'd been drinking throughout the day, I understood why my jet lag was so much worse than usual.

I ended up overpaying for souvenirs at the famous Grand Bazaar.

I loved browsing the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but I wish I hadn't bought souvenirs there.

The famed Turkish market and its mazes of different stalls felt overwhelming in a good way. I was captivated by the endless colors of Turkish textiles, the rich smells of spices and teas, and the banter of shopkeepers trying to entice us into their stores.

I bought a few things at the Grand Bazaar, but I wish I'd held out on shopping until the next day, when we took the ferry to Kadikoy, a neighborhood on the other side of the Bosphorus.

I found many of the same wares in Kadikoy that I'd seen at the Grand Bazaar, oftentimes for almost a tenth of the price.

It also would've been smart to check US customs regulations before buying souvenirs.

Turkey is famous for its cuisine, and eating my weight in baklava was a highlight of my monthlong trip. When it was time to return home, I wanted to bring back some of my favorite Turkish delicacies as Christmas gifts for my family.

Shops in Istanbul made it easy to bring home food, with some sellers even offering to vacuum-seal items like baklava and olives.

Most of my culinary delights made it home, but I was heartbroken and slightly embarrassed when my giant bag of dried persimmons was confiscated upon my return to the US.

As it turns out, most dried fruits and vegetables from other countries aren't allowed to be brought into the country. I should've checked the guidelines before shopping.

• Chungin "Roy" Lee, founder of Cluely, predicts cheating with AI in job interviews will soon be widely acceptable.
• Lee, who created an AI tool for cheating on technical interviews, was kicked out of Columbia earlier this year.
• "We say 'cheat on everything' because, ironically, we believe this is the only path towards a future that is truly fair," he told BI.

Creating a tool that allowed job candidates to cheat on their technical interviews kicked off a chain of events that would eventually see Chungin "Roy" Lee kicked out of Columbia University — but he believes that, soon enough, everyone will be using AI to get ahead.

Lee has since branched out from an AI tool for coding interviews alone, founding "Cluely," which he's previously called "a cheating tool for literally everything," including live conversation. A promotional video for the app, for instance, depicts Lee using the app to "cheat" his way through a date.

"There's a very, very scary and quickly growing gap between people who use AI and people who moralize against it," Lee told Business Insider in an email. "And that gap compounds: in productivity, education, opportunity, and wealth."

"We say 'cheat on everything' because, ironically, we believe this is the only path towards a future that is truly fair," he added.

Lee talked more about his views on how AI use will impact interviews in a recent interview with EO.

"When every single person is using AI to cheat on meetings, then it's not that you're cheating anymore," he said. "This is just how humans will operate and think in the future."

In the coming years, Lee expects interviews to be a lot more "holistic," and largely assess whether the candidate is a "culture fit," rather than focusing on a deep dive into their skills. That is, if the interview as a means of assessment endures at all, given that he expects AI to become powerful enough to build individual profiles for each candidate and feed that information back to the interviewer.

"I already know all the work you've done, or at least the AI already knows the work you've done," he told EO. "It knows how good it is. It knows what skills you're good at, and if there is a skill match, then I should just be able to match you directly to the job, assuming that we get along after like a 30-minute conversation."

It's a practice that's already commonplace at Cluely, Lee added, where he says interviews tend to be less formal.

"I really don't know that there is a need for interviews in today's age, but right now what we use is really just a conversation," he said. "We check if you're a culture fit, we talk about past work you've done, and that's pretty much it."

Lee expects AI to eventually alter more than just the job interview — he believes everyone will soon be using it as frequently and broadly as possible.

"The entire way we're going to think will be changed," Lee told EO. "Every single one of my thoughts is formulated by the information I have at this moment. But what happens when that information I have isn't just what's in my brain, but it's everything that humanity has ever collected and put online, ever?"

For instance, Lee posed — how different would an interaction between two people look if an AI could feed one a "condensed blurb" of information about the other, after it was finished scraping their entire digital footprint?

"What happens when AI literally helps me think in real time?" Lee said. "The entire way that humans will interact with each other, with the world, all of our thoughts will be changed."

With Cluely, Lee hopes to get people used to what he believes is an inevitable transformation.

"The rate of societal progression will just expand and exponentiate significantly once everyone gets along to the fact that we're all using AI now," he said. "And that's what Cluely hopes to achieve, is to get everybody used to, 'We're all using AI now.'"

For Lee, it's simple — either get on board or fall so far behind you can't ever catch up.

"Mass adoption of AI is the only way to prevent the universe of the pro-AI class completely dominating the anti-AI class in every measurable and immeasurable outcome there is," he told BI.

• Amber Duncan founded a company that's now worth $50 million.
• She never finished her bachelor's degree, so her kids weren't interested in college.
• She returned in her 40s in part to show her kids the importance of finishing.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amber Duncan, founder of Life After Debt. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I went to a private Christian school that had a clear message about higher education: You either went to college and got your degree, or you were a failure. It was so black and white.

I lived in a home with a lot of chaos, and I moved out the day I graduated from high school. A teacher helped me finish my college applications, and I got a scholarship to Liberty University. I moved from Florida to Virginia, where I started studying psychology.

The situation at my home continued to get worse as my parents went through a divorce. I felt I needed to be there for my younger brothers. I couldn't, in good conscience, stay at college while knowing my brothers had a need at home. My parents were so preoccupied with their divorce. I made the best decision I could and dropped out of college.

I subconsciously worried about my lack of a degree

Back in Florida, I started working as a makeup artist, making good money. Then, at 21, I unexpectedly became pregnant with my oldest daughter, Sabel. It was a tough season, but I was focused on giving Sabel the best life I could, which meant hustling to make money. College wasn't on my mind.

I became a mortgage broker, met my husband, and had four more kids. We built a property empire, but went bankrupt after the 2008 financial crash. Then, we came back stronger than ever, building a debt settlement company that's worth more than $50 million today.

I didn't often think about my lack of a degree. But subconsciously, when I walked into rooms with my co-founders, I worried that I was less worthy because I didn't have this piece of paper. That's what I'd been brainwashed to think.

My kid's question made me decide to get my degree

Soon, Sabel was a teenager starting to consider college herself. One day in the car, one of the kids said, "Why do we need college? You didn't graduate, and you're fine."

My life has proven that I didn't need a degree to be successful. Yet, I wanted my kids to experience college, which is so much more than a degree. Some of my best friends are still from my time at Liberty University. My kids have the financial means to go to college, and I thought it would be silly for them not to.

More importantly, I wanted my children to know that they should finish what they started. I decided to complete my degree.

I went on a cruise to celebrate my graduation

I re-enrolled at Liberty University in 2019 at 44, opting for online classes and switching my major from psychology to business management. Sometimes, because of parenting or business obligations, I could only take one or two classes; other times, getting motivated for assignments was difficult because I knew I didn't need this degree.

It took me a few years to finish, but in 2022, at the age of 47, I graduated with my bachelor's degree. Because of COVID regulations, there was no graduation ceremony. Instead, I went on a cruise with my family to celebrate.

Today, two of my kids have gone to college. Another son tried college and decided it wasn't for him, so he enrolled in trade school. My youngest two are still in high school, but I expect them to at least try college.

I'm proof that you don't need a degree to be successful. But graduating fulfilled something in me emotionally and brought a sense of calm. I had finally finished what I started.