How Amazon Turned Its Back on Vendors

  • Amazon began inviting third-party sellers onto its marketplace in 2000. This helped expand selection and enabled Amazon to take a commission on each sale without holding inventory.
  • But over the years, Amazon has increasingly prioritized its own private label brands over third-party sellers. It uses seller data to identify top-selling items, then makes its own competing product.
  • Amazon can give preferential treatment to its own products in search rankings, stealing market share from third-party sellers. Many feel Amazon has "turned its back" on the vendors that helped its marketplace grow.

Women Underrepresented In AI Jobs & Chatbots

  • Women make up just 26% of data and AI roles.
  • 79% of women are highly exposed to AI automation versus 58% of men.

ChatGPT That Knows Your Sales Data Is Here

  • Ponyrun is a "ChatGPT for your sales data" that provides insights on deals, clients, and money.

Instacart's Slow Delivery Times

  • Instacart advertises 1-hour delivery for many orders, but customers report waits of 5 hours or more in some cases.
  • Contributing factors include insufficient couriers, store inventory issues, and technical glitches in the app.
  • Customers unhappy with delays are complaining on social media and leaving bad reviews. This could hurt Instacart's brand reputation.

Direct-to-Consumer Brands Struggle with Alexa

  • Voice shopping via Amazon's Alexa is growing, but many direct-to-consumer brands are struggling to gain visibility.
  • Alexa heuristics favor big mass-market brands shoppers are familiar with. Newer niche brands get buried.
  • DTC brands report Alexa voice search driving little to no sales. But ignoring the channel isn't an option given forecasted growth.

Digital Mental Health Benefits

  • Mental health disorders increased 25% from 2019 to 2023
  • 88% of HR leaders say mental health benefits increase productivity
  • Modern Health expanded offerings with personalized support

Global Employee Strikes

  • Workers striking for better pay and benefits around the world
  • Australia seeing strikes in energy and transportation sectors
  • Over 320,000 workers on strike in US in 2023 so far

ChatGPT-4 Boosts Consultant Productivity

  • BCG consultants with ChatGPT-4 were 12% more productive, 25% faster, and 40% higher quality than those without it.
  • AI helped the worst consultants the most - bottom half saw 43% productivity boost vs 17% for top.
  • Relying too much on AI led to worse performance on tasks too hard for ChatGPT-4.

Google Testing ChatGPT Rival Gemini

  • Early testers say Gemini is on par with or better than GPT-4.
  • Gemini trained on Google's proprietary data so could be more accurate.
  • Potential features: voice commands, explaining charts/visuals.
  • May rollout through Cloud first before public release.