Wall Street investors are reportedly uneasy about Meta’s multi-billion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI) plans.The company’s stock fell 15% in early trading Thursday (April 25), Bloomberg News reported, despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s efforts to reassure investors as the tech giant released its quarterly earnings.“For all Meta’s bold AI plans, it can’t afford to take its eye off the nucleus of the business — its core advertising activities,” Sophie Lund-Yates, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said in a no ...

Higher prices at Chipotle haven’t kept customers from visiting and spending at the fast-casual restaurant.They’re doing so because of value, executives said during the company’s quarterly earnings call.Chipotle saw its comparable restaurant sales increase 7% year over year during the first quarter, the company said in a Wednesday (April 24) earnings release.The company attributed that increase to higher transactions of 5.4% and a 1.6% increase in average check.Chipotle has also seen an increase in “side att ...

UnitedHealth Group is shutting down its Optum Virtual Care telehealth business.Employees were notified of the shutdown on Thursday (April 18), and some were told that their last day would be in July, Seeking Alpha reported Tuesday (April 24), citing a paywalled article by Endpoints News.Reached for comment by PYMNTS, a UnitedHealth Group spokesperson provided an emailed statement saying that the company will support the affected team members with job placement resources and, wherever possible, deploy them i ...

Investors reportedly expect increased competition in the grocery sector after Amazon’s announcement Tuesday (April 23) of a new grocery delivery subscription benefit.Walmart and Kroger shares declined 1.8% and 2.3%, respectively, Tuesday, in moves that UBS analyst Michael Lasser said showed that investors interpret Amazon’s announcement as a sign of greater competition, Seeking Alpha reported Wednesday (April 24).The new Amazon program offers a delivery subscription benefit in the United States for Prime me ...

Block ecosystems Square and Cash App have begun rolling out a feature that will allow eligible Square sellers to automatically convert a portion of their daily sales to bitcoin with Cash App.The rollout of this new Bitcoin Conversions feature began Wednesday (April 24), Block said in an email to PYMNTS.“Block believes that bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for people around the world, including business owners, to participate in a global monetary system,” the company said i ...

As consumers look to buy clothing online, PYMNTS Intelligence research reveals that digital shoppers are increasingly turning to Amazon to meet their apparel needs.By the NumbersThe PYMNTS Intelligence study “Whole Paycheck Report: New Consumer Spend Data Finds Amazon Way Ahead of Walmart” estimates each of the two retailers’ market shares in various categories based on years of earnings reports in conjunction with national data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis.According to supple ...

Nvidia plans to acquire Israeli startup Run:ai, a Kubernetes-based workload management and orchestration software provider.The chipmaker said in a Wednesday (April 24) blog post that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Run:ai, adding that the deal will help customers make more efficient use of their artificial intelligence (AI) computing resources.“Run:ai enables enterprise customers to manage and optimize their compute infrastructure, whether on premises, in the cloud or in hybrid environ ...

The global electric vehicle (EV) marketplace is seeing demand suffer under ongoing macro pressures.That’s why, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it’s a good thing that Tesla is not an EV company — it is a next-generation autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI) platform.And per the company’s latest financial earnings call Tuesday (April 23), the company that Musk once told Bill Gates “does more good” for the world than “most charities” has identified the key role it will play in shaping the world’s future. ...

Google has once again delayed plans to eliminate third-party cookies on its Chrome browser.The tech giant made that announcement Tuesday (April 23) evening, soon after a British regulator expressed concerns about Google’s proposed alternative to using cookies, known as the Privacy Sandbox.Third-party cookies — pieces of software that track internet users as they browse — have been useful for advertisers, who employ them to create targeted ads and to gauge whether their marketing campaigns are working.Google ...

Square has expanded the availability of offline payments to every hardware device, in every country.The company has offered this no-connection-required solution for 10 years on some of its devices, expanding it to a growing number of units over that time, and now offers it across the entire Square hardware lineup, Square said in a Tuesday (April 23) press release.With the latest expansion, nearly 90% of hardware sellers can take offline payments, according to the release.“Whether in a remote location or fac ...