The public outcry over artificial intelligence has largely focused on what it could mean for the average worker. Entry-level jobs in sectors like tech and finance have already been impacted by the rise of AI. And while economists have said the claims of workforce disruption are overblown at the moment, some companies are, in fact, making major cuts to their workforces in the name of AI. Just this week, Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut 40% of head count at the fintech company, citing efficiency gains from its adoption of AI tools.
But its not just rank-and-file workers whose jobs may be on the line. As CEOs tout the vast potential of AIand make cuts to their workforces accordinglymany of them have suggested that they could be out of work soon, too.
In a podcast interview this week, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi disclosed that some of his employees had built what they called Dara AI, an AI-generated approximation of their boss. They basically make the presentation to the Dara AI as a prep for making a presentation to me, Khosrowshahi shared on entrepreneur Steven Bartletts podcast The Diary of a CEO.
Are you concerned they might show Dara AI to the board? Bartlett quipped. To which Khosrowshahi laughed and argued that AI was still missing a beat and could not yet replicate the ability to learn in real time. But when that changes, he said, that is the point at which Im going to think, yeah, we are all replaceable.
Khosrowshahi might not be convinced that AI can supplant him just yetbut hes not the only CEO who sees a future where that might be the case.
Shame on me if OpenAI is not the first big company run by an AI CEO, Sam Altman said on the Conversations with Tyler podcast last year. He claimed to often think about what would enable an AI CEO to do a much, much better job of running OpenAI than me?” At a conference last week, Altman doubled down on this idea. AI superintelligence at some point on its development curve would be capable of doing a better job being the CEO of a major company than any executivecertainly me, he said at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has suggested a CEOs job might be relatively simple in the hands of AI. I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things maybe for an AI to do one day, he told the BBC a few months ago. Within the next year, Pichai said, AI will be able to perform more complex tasks autonomously.
Its not clear whether CEOs genuinely believe that their jobs could be replaced in the near future, or if this is largely another attempt to convince workers that its time to get on board with AI. After all, there is a huge disconnect between how tech leaders and CEOs talk about AI and what workers seem to feel: In 2025, a report from the Pew Research Center found that only about 17% of Americans expected AI to have a positive effect overall, while 43% said they anticipated being personally harmed by the technology.
Then againit may not be an easy adjustment for every CEO, even among the most vocal AI evangelists. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has been outspoken about AI adoption and has cut his companys workforce in half over the last three years, in part by relying more heavily on AI (to varying results). He was less optimistic, however, about a world in which his role might cease to exist.
To me, AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included, he said in a post on X last year. I am not necessarily super excited about this. On the contrary, my work to me is a super important part of who I am, and realizing it might become unnecessary is gloomy. But I also believe we need to be honest with what we think will happen.
It’s no secret that Flavor Flav loves the Olympics.
The rapper and Public Enemy member has become one of the loudest supporters of womens sports in the past few Olympic cycles. He is the official hype man and a sponsor for USA Water Polo. In October 2025, he announced he was bringing the hype to the Winter Olympics as a sponsor for USA Bobsled and Skeleton.
Now, after the USA women’s hockey team declined a perfunctory invitation to the State of the Union address after President Donald Trump shared a chummy locker room phone call with the men’s teamin which they laugh at the prospect of the women’s gold medalists attendingFlav is once again stepping up.
He’s invited the womens Winter Olympic and Paralympic medalists to Las Vegas for a weekend of celebration this summer, bringing on MGM Resorts, The Gist, and more sponsors for the three-day “She Got Game” weekend.
What to know
After the womens Olympic hockey teamwhich won gold in overtime against Canada in Milanskipped the State of the Union address, Flavor Flav was quick to issue a public alternative invitation on social media, offering up a celebratory trip to Las Vegas.
A post on X on Thursday confirmed the She Got Game weekend will be held July 16-19 in collaboration with MGM Resorts and women-led sports media brand The Gist.
Flavor Flavs vision for the weekend is all about building up the Olympic and Paralympic women medalists. His posts promise nice dinners, concerts, shows, and a big partyall to support womens sports.
His message was initially for the womens hockey team, but quickly expanded to all womens medalists. More than 100 attendees have confirmed their involvement, according to Flavor Flav’s spokesperson.
Other brands were equally eager to jump on the opportunity. Alaska Airlines replied to the original post, saying Lets talk. Visit Las Vegas responded, extending an offer to every Team USA athlete who medaled. (Six of the 10 individual gold medalists for Team USA were women, and women won over 50% of the U.S.s historic 33 total medals.)
What brands are doing
The Gist and MGM Resorts are official partners of the event. The Gist broke the story on its social media and has been posting updates as the event planning continues.
StubHub was one of the first brands to show support, offering to be a platform for tickets to shows and live events. We believe in the power of live experiences to bring people together and shine a spotlight on inspiring talent,” a spokesperson told Fast Company in an email. StubHub is still working through the details of their support of the weekend, the company said.
Woman-owned beauty brand Megababe has committed to donating 1,000 Megababe products to girls and young womens hockey leagues. Founder Katie Sturino saw supporting the She Got Game weekend as a natural fit for the company. Megababe is all about helping women feel comfortable and confident in their bodies, especially in spaces where they havent always been centered, she told Fast Company in a statement.
Also onboard is Lyft, which has said it will provide ride codes to help transport athletes around Las Vegas. A Lyft spokesperson told Fast Company in an email, When we saw what Flavor Flav was doing with She Got Game, we loved the energyusing his platform to shine a genuine, joyful light on women’s sports.”
A race among the top AI companies to sell powerful models to the U.S. Defense Department is hotter than ever. No matter how the feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon ultimately plays out, the Pentagon is now more incentivized to contract with other tech firms. Likewise, whatever misgivings Anthropic had about working with the military have only grown.
Indeed, other companies are already taking steps to pick up the government-contracting mantle. Earlier this week, xAI reached an agreement with the Defense Department to operate on classified systems. And OpenAI is working on a Pentagon deal of its own. But winning over the Defense Department officials may not be enough. To actually become a go-to AI provider for the agency, their AI will need to catch up to Anthropics Claude large language model, which is widely liked within the military. And theyll likely need to connect to Palantirs technology.
Palantir, along with its partners, holds cloud security clearances that allow it to host highly sensitive military information and data. The company has also built a far more streamlined way of accessing data from across the DoD, and, presumably, data that would make any large language model far more useful to military officials. One former employee of the Defense Departments Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office tells Fast Company that Palantir has effectively taken over the data lake problem inside the Pentagon, consolidating raw and low-level data feeds and making them accessible through its platform.
Everything runs through Palantir, the former employee says. Theyre the 1,000 pound gorilla in this space.
The dispute centers on the Pentagons demand that it be allowed to use Anthropics Claude model for all lawful purposes, while Anthropic has sought safeguards blocking uses for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. After negotiations stalled this week, the Trump administration has reportedly deemed the company a supply chain risk, which forces military contractors to ditch Anthropic models. On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that every agency was to immediately stop using all Anthropic products, with a six-month phase-out period.
The Pentagon has already reached out to defense contractors to ask about their reliance on Anthropic. Palantir, notably, uses Anthropic models internally, one person tells Fast Company, and would possibly be impacted by the decision by the U.S. government to blacklist the AI firms technology.
Still, Anthropic has a real advantage in its integration with Palantir. Since Claude is playing ball with [Palantir], it makes them more appealing than having to get Palantir to agree to share their stuff with OpenAI, the former DoD employee says.
Even so, Claudes agile technology remains a powerful draw. One recent government AI official says the LLM is so far ahead of its rivals that current and former government workers, (including those from the Defense Department) are sending memes about the standoff in at least one group chat.
Anthropics value to the Defense Department is also owed to the fact that its technology enriches the Maven Smart System, one former Palantir employee tells Fast Company. The Maven systemwhich has a long and controversial historyis an integrated platform that might help, for example, a military command team to access critical data that might be spread across the Defense Department. That data might include information about nearby munitions supply, or the number of soldiers that a military operation might be able to deploy.
Making these systems more interoperable makes it a lot easier to plan a military operation, the person said. While Anthropic could certainly try to independently sell its own system to the government, its technology is most useful to the government when integrated with a system like Maven. Palantir, the former Palantir employee added, wouldnt be in a position to prevent OpenAI or Anthropic from connecting to something like Maven, but to be similarly useful as Anthropic those companies would likely want to enrich it, too.
From their understanding, it appears that Anthropic was early to gaining accreditation to work in these kinds of military systems, and other companies are still catching up.
Neither Palantir nor the Defense Department responded to a request for comment.
If you think Paris is always a good idea and the French do everything better, especially leisurethen this one is for you.
Unlike Americans, who treat their weekends as a sprint to see who can do the most chores, Sundays are sacred in Francea time to slow down, reset for the week, and do as little as possible. Even protests in France happen every day except Sunday . . . thats how sacred [they] are,” Céline Kaplan, cofounder of upcycled products marketplace OOOF (Out of Office Forever) and a PR agent for French clients in New York, tells The Zoe Report.
Looking for more work-life balance? Try treating Sunday as a holiday instead of the first day of a new week, and you may find some surprising resultsa calm start to your workweek instead of an anxiety-producing day of “Sunday Scaries.”
So, what is a “French Sunday”?
I will admit, I’ve been doing my own version of a “French Sunday” for as long as I can remember. Sleeping in late? Check. Lounging around with coffee and a paper? Check. Brunch? Bien sr.
Like most fashionable trends, “French Sunday” comes from France, but was most recently popularized by Vogue. In short, the art of Sunday la française is an antidote to the burnout and anxiety many Americans feel come Monday.
For one thing, most shops are closed by noon on Sundays in France, eliminating the need to feel “productive” or cross things off a to-do list. Instead, Dimanche is for connecting with family and friendsnot isolating on digital devices, something Americans commonly do as a way to decompress, but that actually severely affects mental health, increases stress and anxiety, and creates even more loneliness.
According to the Vogue article, “French Sundays” are supposed to be “lazy, stress-free days, when the main activity is to do nothing”the exact opposite of productivity hacks that encourage people to use Sundays to prep for next weeks meals, do that load of laundry, clean your space, review your calendar, and lay out your work clothes (making Sundays practically a sixth day of work).
How to have your own French Sunday
First, French Sundays are a mindset, not just a day.
Try embracing your inner Frenchiewhich means starting the day by letting your body decide when you get up, sans alarm clock.
Other suggestions on how to make Sundays your own: Prioritize meeting up with friends and family, take a walk, and even allow yourself to indulge in life’s simple pleasures, which, for the French, is food.
One Sunday ritual in France is the family lunch, a big meal that goes on far too long, often involving a roast chicken and many, many people. (Social connection, it turns out, is good for your mental health.)
Here are a few more suggestions from Vogue:
Take an obscenely long nap.
Be a flâneur or flâneuse, and stroll aimlessly.
Snack.
Cook something that takes forever.
Find a pretty view to stare at.
Indulge in watching two movies back-to-back in an actual theater.
And of course, the most French thing of alland something you never see as a productivity hackmake love. Bon weekend!
Target will stop selling cereals containing synthetic colors by the end of May.
The Minneapolis-based discounter said Friday it had been phasing out synthetic colors in cereals for several years. Right now, 85% of its cereal sales already come from products made without synthetic dyes.
Target said it has worked with national brands and its private brands to reformulate products as needed. Some cereals including Trix and Lucky Charms, which are made by General Mills will have updated formulations, Target said. Target said it will no longer carry brands that don’t reformulate, but it didn’t name the brands.
General Mills announced last year that it planned to remove artificial dyes from all of its U.S. cereals by the summer of 2026. But WK Kellogg has said it plans to remove artificial dyes from its cereals by the end of 2027. Kellogg makes several cereals with artificial dyes that are now sold at Target, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Squishmallows.
Messages seeking comment were left Friday with General Mills and WK Kellogg.
Target’s move acknowledges that American consumers and the U.S. government are paying closer attention to what goes into packaged foods. Last January, days before former President Joe Biden left office, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Red 3, a petroleum-based dye.
A few months later, the FDA under President Donald Trump urged food makers to phase out petroleum-based artificial colors by the end of 2026. The agency is reviewing some other petroleum-based dyes, including Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and 6 and Blue No. 1.
Earlier this month, the FDA said it was relaxing rules that restrict when food companies can claim that their products have no artificial colors. The agency said food labels may claim to have no artificial colors when they are free of petroleum-based dyes even if they contain dyes derived from natural sources such as plants.
Target isn’t the first big retailer to nix artificial dyes. Whole Foods has never allowed products with artificial colors since its founding in 1980. Trader Joe’s also doesn’t use synthetic colors in its products.
Last year, Walmart said it planned to remove synthetic food dyes and 30 other ingredients, including some preservatives, artificial sweeteners and fat substitutes, from its store brands sold in the United States by January 2027.
Target noted that its private label Good & Gather brand, which it introduced in 2019, is made without artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors or high fructose corn syrup. The brand has more than 2,500 products across dairy, produce, ready made pastas meat as well as baby and toddler food.
We know consumers are increasingly prioritizing healthier lifestyles, and were moving quickly to evolve our offerings to meet their needs, said Cara Sylvester, Targets executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, in a statement.
In recent months, other major food companies like Kraft Heinz, Nestle and Conagra Brands have pledged to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes in coming years.
Anne D’Innocenzio and Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
One of generative AIs earliest applications remains among its most controversial: AI art. Its proponents celebrate the chance to create the images in their head, no time or traditional skills necessary. Its critics argue that AI images lack the soul of human-made art, steal the work of other artists without permission, and take opportunities away from working artists.
AI-generated art often draws ridicule across social media, whether its being used for advertising, like Guccis recent series of AI-generated posts, or in the fine art world, like the immersive AI-generated works of Refik Anadol, which caught flak on X last week after being featured on 60 Minutes. (This is not an artist. He makes screensavers, one user wrote.)
But there are internet forums where AI art enthusiasts can celebrate their passion free of ridiculeor at least know that there will be people in their corner to back them up. On the sister subreddits r/DefendingAIArt and r/AIWars, AI art lovers are encouraged to post freely about their controversial hobby (and talk trash right back at their critics).
Though the two subreddits espouse similar philosophies on AI art, r/AIWars encourages debate between the tech’s supporters (known as “pro’s”), and its critics (known as “anti’s”). Meanwhile, r/DefendingAIArt flat-out bans debate.
One of the latter subreddit’s pinned posts is a compendium of court cases where AI copyright claims were dismissed. Another is an infographic arguing that AI art isnt copying the work of other artists: Training an AI off the work of another artist, it says, is like looking at someones finished work and learning.
You look at other peoples work all day, and learn from them for free, the post continues. Theres nothing wrong with that.
you've probably seen this image before but try spreading it around as much as you can, it may not change anyone's mind but it'll at least have a chance of take down the most danming accusation in people's minds byu/GlitteringTone6425 inDefendingAIArt
r/DefendingAIArt isnt a space for AI artists to share their work, but a place to speak Pro-AI thoughts freely, per the subs rules. The most upvoted posts of all time include gotcha moments of tricking anti-AI folks into thinking human-made art is AI-generated; callouts of the other sides apparent hypocrisy; and, naturally, memes about not caring where a piece of art came from. Every comment section is entirely free of argument.
For that, Redditors are redirected to r/AIWars, where debate reigns supreme. On r/AIWars, posts are designed to be picked apart and argued into oblivion. There are examples of AI clearly plagiarizing copyrighted works, like generating an image of Sonic when asked for a blue hedgehog videogame character. And there are real-world legal and moral dilemmas, like the ethics of a vendor being banned from a convention for selling AI-generated artwork.
Some posts simply argue to let everyone make art however they please, without deriding it as AI slop or, as the subreddits users satirically call traditional art, pencilslop.
While comment sections on some social media platforms have been dominated by AIs critics, r/AIWars user base seems to be closer to a 50/50 split. That might make sense: Reddit has always been a place for niche fandoms and communities to connect, and in the age of AI, that includes the folks who love to fight about it.
On Friday, Modernas mCombriaxa combined vaccine for both the flu and COVIDwas recommended for authorization by European regulators, which opens the door for the vaccines approval in the European Union.
The European Medicines Agency, the regulator granting the recommendation (or adopting a positive opinion on recommending it for market authorization), said that the messenger RNA vaccine should help protect people aged 50 years and older against COVID-19 and seasonal influenza (flu), in a statement.
The shot works like any other vaccine, effectively prepping the human body to defend itself against foreign infection, with the messenger RNA contained within giving blueprints to the body to make proteins to help stave off various seasonal flu viruses, and SARS-CoV-2. As the first combined COVID-19/influenza vaccine, mCombriax provides people with the option of having a single shot to protect against both illnesses, reads a statement from the Agency.
Next, the European Commission would need to ratify the recommendation to open it up for widespread use.
The CHMP’s positive opinion represents an important milestone for respiratory virus vaccination and for Moderna, with the introduction of the world’s first flu plus COVID combination vaccine, said Stéphane Bancel, Modernas CEO, in a statement. Combination vaccines have the potential to simplify vaccination and support improved health outcomes. We appreciate the EMA’s rigorous scientific review.
The big question remaining: What about the United States?
The answer is complicated and unclear, but part of it has to do with the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) higher standards and scrutiny. Moderna applied for clearance in the U.S. back in 2024, supplying data showing that the vaccine was effective against both the flu and COVID viruses. But the FDA had asked for more supplemental data, according to reporting from BioPharma Dive, prompting Moderna to withdraw the submission, gather more data, and then resubmit it.
Also, additional hurdles have entered the fray. The Trump administrationwhich includes several high-profile anti-vaccine advocates in various leadership positionsinitially opted not to review its application, though it changed its mind shortly thereafter after public and industry pressure. As it stands, thats where the bottleneck is: With the FDAs review process. Its unclear if or when the vaccine could win approval or be made available to the public in the United States.
Hopefully you never find yourself left behind by a partner while hiking a mountain or abandoned in the woods. If you do, you might be a victim of an alpine divorce.
The phrase has gained traction on social media in recent weeks following news of a climbers guilty verdict after he left his girlfriend behind on a hike, where she froze to death on Austrias highest mountain.
The phrase is said to have originated from the 1893 short story An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr, in which an unhappy husband plots to kill his wife by pushing her off a mountain during a trip to the Swiss Alps.
Across platforms like TikTok and X, women have started sharing their own stories of times they were allegedly left behind to fend for themselves by partners during hikes.
@lillystuffle #fyp #xyzbca original sound – WavingCandle461
One TikTok creator posted a short clip of herself walking along a mountain trail earlier this month. In the clip, she is audibly upset.
POV: you go on a hike with him in the mountains but he leaves you alone by yourself and you realize he never liked you to begin with, she wrote in the videos text overlay. Her video has since gone viral, with over 19 million views.
@everafteriya #venting levitation – Aaron Hibell & Felsmann + Tiley
The comments section is filled with similar stories from other users. My boyfriend did this to me. I found another hiker to show me how to get back then I went home and blocked his number, one wrote.
“This happened to me in Joshua tree on a day when it was 100+ degrees outside,” another wrote. “My ex husband left me and took the backpack with water and snacks. I thought hed come back but nope. Finally found my way back to the car and he was chilling in the front seat with the AC on. Needless to say were divorced.”
While many of the stories are unverified personal accounts, the recent surge in attention has also served as a grim reminder of the real-life case that echoes the tropes dark origins. Thomas Plamberger, 37, was found guilty of gross negligent manslaughter over the death of his 33-year-old girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner. He was given a suspended sentence of five months in prison and fined 9,600 euros (about $11,300).
In January 2025, the two hiked up Grossglockner, Austrias highest mountain. After Gurtner became exhausted, Plamberger abandoned her roughly 50 meters from the summit in freezing, high-wind conditions and without an emergency blanket. She later died of hypothermia.
During the course of the trial, an ex-girlfriend of Plambergers came forward and testified that he had also left her alone on a night hike on Grossglockner a few years earlier.
“Once we descended the Glockner at night, and suddenly he was gone,” she reportedly said. “I felt dizzy, I screamed, and I was completely alone. From then on, we didnt go on any more hikes together.”
On Thursday, Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced that his fintech company, which owns Square and Cash App, would be laying off a whopping 40% of its workforce, slashing over 4,000 jobs.
Despite a strong year in 2025, Dorseylike many of his tech executive peersbelieves AI will enable greater efficiency with far fewer workers. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company, he wrote in a letter to shareholders. We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.
A number of business leaders have seemingly used AI as a smokescreen for layoffs, but Dorsey has explicitly attributed the job cuts at Block to intelligence, which he claims will be at the core of how the entire company works. Dorsey attempted to explain his decision in a memo to employees, which he shared publicly on X (also known as Twitter, the company Dorsey once cofounded).
I had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now, he wrote. I chose the latter. Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. (Block has, in fact, been laying off employees in waves this month, according to multiple reports.)
Dorsey insisted the company would not just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here, and that he would host a live video session to thank employees for their work. I know doing it this way might feel awkward, he wrote. I’d rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.
Read Dorseys post in full below:
today we’re making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we’re reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i’ll be straight about what’s happening, why, and what it means for everyone.
first off, if you’re one of the people affected, you’ll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if youre outside the U.S. youll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you’re being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.
we’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we’re already seeing that the intelligence tools were creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that’s accelerating rapidly.
i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i’d rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.
a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we’ve done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we’ve pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we’ve built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.
we’re not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i’ll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i’d rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.
to those of you leavingim grateful for you, and im sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that’s a fact that i’ll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.
to those stayingi made this decision, and i’ll own it. what i’m asking of you is to build with me. we’re going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we’re going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that’s what i’m focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.
jack
In recent months, fans of Burger King appear to have fallen out of love with the chains signature sandwich, the Whopper.
Social media has been full of complaints about the quality of ingredients and even completely deformed burgers.
In response, the burger chain said this week that it is rolling out a revamped Whopper. Heres whats changing, and where and when you can get yours.
Why is Burger King revamping the Whopper?
In short, customers became unhappy with the quality of the chains flagship burger in recent years. Criticisms range from the lackluster quality of ingredients in the burger to soggy buns to even smashed burgers (no, not in a good way).
That last complaintburgers that were physically deformed when they reached the customers handsis something even the companys U.S. and Canadian president, Tom Curtis, admitted to.
So the Whopper being smushed, literally, Ive heard it . . . and weve seen it, Curtis told CNN.
And while no one expects a fast food burger to be the gold standard for hamburgers around the world, lately, customers seem to have lost patience with the Whoppers problemsespecially as prices have risen in recent years and once affordable fast food has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans.
That growing unhappiness is something the burger chain has taken seriously. This week, it announced that, based on customer complaints and feedback, it was making the first changes to the Whopper in nearly a decade.
What are the Burger King Whopper changes?
On Thursday, Burger King announced it was revamping the Whopperbut it wasnt starting over from scratch.
The Whopper is an icon, so we didnt set out to reinvent it, Curtis said in a statement announcing the move. Instead, we elevated it based on direct Guest feedback.
That elevated Whopper consists of three new elements, according to the company:
a more premium, better-tasting bun
better-tasting mayo
served in a box to protect the burger from getting smashed
Other elements of the burger will remain the same, including its beef patty, and topping of onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles.
When and where will the revamped Whopper be available?
Burger King says the new Whopper will be available this week, where it will roll out across the chains 7,000 locations, according to CNN.
Will the new Whopper cost more?
That depends on whos paying the bill.
Curtis told CNN that the revamped Whopper is estimated to increase costs for Burger King franchisees by about $4,000 per year per store.
But Burger King is recommending to franchisees that they do not pass these increased costs onto customers, who are already reducing their discretionary spending due to inflationary pressures.
The price of a Whopper can vary by location.
In New York City, a standard Whopper currently costs around $6.99. In the Midwest, Whoppers go for around $6.19, and in San Francisco they can go for as high as around $8.19, according to data from the companys online ordering system.
If franchisees abide by Burger Kings advice, customers should not see any price increase when ordering the revamped Whopper.
