| |
| Hi Insiders, Welcome to the Inside Tech newsletter. Here are today's top stories: - The FTC sues Amazon, accusing the company of enrolling customers in Prime without consent.
- Singapore’s Grab cuts 1,000 jobs in biggest layoffs since pandemic.
- A hacker uncovers new "Elon Mode" for Tesla vehicles.
- Amazon won't host its re:MARS tech conference this year.
Scroll down further to see our question of the week and join the discussion over at the Inside Tech community. Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | The news: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Amazon on Wednesday, accusing the company of enrolling millions of consumers into the Prime subscription service without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel. What happened: Since March 2021, the FTC has been probing Amazon Prime's sign-up and cancellation practices. The lawsuit filed by the FTC accuses Amazon of employing deceptive design tactics, referred to as "dark patterns," to trick users into renewing their Prime subscriptions. Amazon has yet to provide a response. What the numbers say: Amazon raked in $35.2B in revenue from Prime and other subscriptions in 2022, an 1,150% increase since 2014. The FTC claims that Amazon generates around $25B in revenue annually from only Prime, which costs consumers around $15 per month, or $139 a year. The agency claims Amazon's focus is on expanding its Prime membership base, which already exceeds 200 million global subscribers, including 162 million in the U.S. Why it matters: The move is part of a broader effort by regulators to curb the power of tech giants. FTC Chair Lina Khan has been advocating for more robust enforcement of antitrust and consumer protection laws. Amazon has previously reached settlements with the FTC, including a case involving Alexa devices collecting children's data. 
|     | |
| 2 | | Southeast Asia's ride-hailing and delivery giant, Grab Holdings, is set to lay off 1,000 employees, accounting for 11% of its workforce. It is Singapore-based Grab's largest job cuts since the pandemic. More: - Grab CEO, Anthony Tan, said the job cuts are necessary to manage costs and improve competitiveness in a rapidly evolving industry.
- Despite reporting a quarterly loss of $250M, Grab saw a significant revenue increase of 130% to $525M in Q1 2023.
- However, the company has yet to achieve profitability due to investments and pricing pressure from rivals like Indonesian tech firm GoTo Group.
- According to Tan, Grab is expected to break even this year, even without the planned layoffs.
- GoTo reduced its workforce by 12% in 2022 and an additional 600 staff in March.
Zoom out: -
Grab started as a taxi-booking app in Malaysia in 2012 and has since become Southeast Asia's largest ride-hailing firm. It now operates in eight countries in the region and has expanded its services to include digital payments. | | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Linqto. |  | | Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of technological innovation, transforming industries and the way we live and work. The potential of AI is enormous, ranging from enhancing business operations to tackling global challenges like climate change and healthcare. AI's growing impact on various sectors indicates a promising investment opportunity. - Market Growth: The AI market was projected to grow from $58.3 billion in 2021 to $309.6 billion by 2026, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 39.7% during the forecast period, according to MarketsandMarkets.
- Business Adoption: A 2020 survey from Gartner found that 59% of businesses have already implemented AI in some form, reflecting the broad adoption and trust in AI technologies.
- Impact on Economy: PwC estimated that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, a testament to the enormous economic potential of AI.
Investment Inflow: According to Statista, global investments in AI startups rose to a record high of nearly $40 billion in 2019, indicating a strong and growing interest in the sector. Learn More | |
|
| 3 | | Ride-hailing startup Bolt has teamed up with U.S. robotics company Starship Technologies to introduce food delivery using its fleet of robots. The service will first launch in Estonia, the home country of both Starship and Bolt, and is expected to expand to additional countries later this year. More: - Through the collaboration, Starship will tap into Bolt's extensive customer base of over 100 million users in 45 countries and 500 cities.
- Customers will be able to order food online and have it delivered by Starship's suitcase-sized self-driving robots.
- Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
- Starship, formed by ex-Skype founders, operates autonomous delivery robots in over 50 areas. It has completed over 5 million deliveries worldwide, including in the U.S., where it partners with Grubhub to serve college students.
- Bolt, valued at $8.4B and backed by Sequoia Capital, competes with Uber in the ride-hailing industry and serves over 100 million customers worldwide.
Image credit: Starship | | | |
| 4 | | A security researcher has discovered a hidden setting in Tesla vehicles that allows for hands-free driving while cars are in self-driving mode. The system still has some issues, such as random lane changes and slower speeds on highways. More: - The hacker, known as @greentheonly, has dubbed the setting "Elon Mode." They purportedly drove nearly 600 miles with the feature enabled.
- Tesla's driver assistance systems demand drivers to regularly apply resistance to the steering wheel, with increasing alerts if they fail to do so.
- "Elon Mode" removes those prompts and alerts, referred to as the "nag" feature, while using Tesla's advanced driver assistance systems known as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD).
- The researcher, who remains anonymous, has previously tested Tesla's vehicles, reported bugs, and earned bug bounties from the company.
Zoom out: - Reports said it's unclear if this version of FSD will be available to the public.
- In April, Musk tweeted that Tesla was "gradually reducing" the nag feature, "proportionate to improved safety."
| | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Salesforce. |  | | Get fresh insights from 7,700+ sales professionals In today’s economy, productivity is the name of the game. In this report, you’ll hear from 7,700+ sales pros about how they keep their reps focused on selling and closing deals in a whole new way with AI. According to our latest research: - 97% of sales pros say AI has improved use of rep time
- 94% of sales orgs plan to consolidate their tech stack in the next 12 months
- 90% of sales reps from top orgs say their company enables them to act as a trusted advisor
Read the report | |
|
| 5 | | Amazon has decided not to hold its re:MARS conference in 2023, its annual event focused on cutting-edge technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. The decision was not influenced by budget constraints, according to the company. More: - In previous years, re:MARS offered a platform for showcasing futuristic innovations like delivery drones, warehouse robots, and its beat-boxing Astro robot.
- Following discussions with customers and the community, Amazon has decided to integrate the topics covered in re:MARS, such as space, automation, and robotics, into its existing AWS events scheduled for 2023.
- During the last conference, Amazon unveiled CodeWhisperer, an ML-powered coding companion, and demonstrated a feature for its Alexa voice assistant capable of mimicking any human voice.
Zoom out: | | | |
| 6 | | ChatGPT creator OpenAI plans to launch an AI model "app store," according to The Information. The platform would allow businesses to sell their customized chatbots to other companies. More: - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly shared the plans during a recent developers' meeting.
- Aquant and Khan Academy have already shown interest in distributing their customized versions of ChatGPT through the OpenAI store.
- While OpenAI previously launched ChatGPT plugins to extend the bot's capabilities, they haven't gained much in popularity.
Zoom out: - The marketplace has the potential to compete with app stores from OpenAI's partners and customers, such as Salesforce and Microsoft, while extending OpenAI's technology to a broader customer base.
| | | |
| |
| 8 | | Quick Hits: - Notion combines traditional project management with your docs, knowledge base, and AI. Try it for free.*
- Nintendo announced upcoming games for the Switch, including Super Mario, WarioWare, and Detective Pikachu titles, during its Direct event on Tuesday. The company also hinted at new Luigi and Princess Peach games for 2024.
- The Roblox metaverse is a popular destination for crypto phishing thieves using NFT drainers to spend their stolen millions.
- Opera has launched Opera One, its AI-powered browser, to the public. It's now available for download on Windows, Mac, and Linux via the Opera website.
- Qualcomm launched an upgraded S3 Gen 2 Sound platform, catering to gamers. The new chip, designed for dongles and adapters, offers sub-20ms latency and includes an extra backchannel for voice chat.
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | JUN
22 | | Inside.com Book Club - Automate Your Busywork (June 2023) | | | | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day SAFE notes: The acronym SAFE (when used with notes) refers to a simple agreement for future equity. Question of the Week How do you feel about the phrase "The customer is always right"? Join the conversation |
INSIDE TECH LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. She has written the Inside AI newsletter since 2019. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
| |
 | Get Started In Private Equity, With Linqto. | |
|
 | Discover the latest insights driving productivity and efficiency from Salesforce. | |
|
| |
