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AI is not ready to hang up its Cupids arrow just yet. Facebook Dating is the latest dating app to present AI-based features as the answer to swipe fatigue, Meta announced yesterday. The new features include a dating assistant AI chatbot that allows users to find compatible matches, as well as a Meet Cute feature that automatically pairs them with an algorithmically matched profile once a week, all without users having to swipe a finger. Rather than searching through endless profiles, users can type out exactly what they are looking for in a romantic partner and the assistant will recommend compatible matches. The assistant allows users to go beyond traditional traits like height or education, a Meta spokesperson told Fast Company. For example, if a user typed out the prompt: find me a finance bro who loves puppies and long walks on the beach, in theory, the assistant would pull up a match based on publicly available information drawn from their profile. The AI assistant can also be prompted for dating advice, including effective pickup lines or romantic first date ideas, and will be available in the Matches tab, continuing to roll out gradually across the U.S. and Canada, Meta says. According to a recent study, just over a quarter of singles are already using AI wingmen to enhance their dating lives, up 333% from 2024. Facebook Datings move away from the traditional dating app model lands amid a time of swipe fatigue and dating app burnout. In 2024, 78% of dating app users reportedly feel emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted from the apps, according to one Forbes Health survey. Many are instead turning to curated and vetted services and personalized matchmakers. While Facebook Dating may not be the first dating app that comes to mind, it has answered the call. Facebook said that matches among young adults are up 10% year over year, and that hundreds of thousands of young adults in the U.S. and Canada create accounts each month. Compared to competitors like Tinder, which has about 50 million daily active users, and Hinges 10 million daily active users, it’s a drop in the bucket. But as the influx of singles run clubs and resurgence of speed-dating has shown, hopeless romantics will try anything once.
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E-Commerce
Ghia, the nonalcoholic aperitif brand thats become a mainstay at swanky bars and upscale brand events, just launched its newest flavor thats bound to be a crowd pleaser: Blood Orange. The flavor, described as a blend of Ghias signature bitter aperitif with juicy blood orange, will join the companys line of canned, cocktail-adjacent beverages called Le Spritz, which come in existing flavors like Lime & Salt and Sumac & Chili. Blood Orange Le Spritz launches today on Ghias website at a price point of $24 for a four-pack of eight ounce cans. As canned cocktails take over grocery store shelves, Ghias latest launch is designed to add a sweeter, more recognizable flavor profile into its portfolio of ready-to-drink (RTD) beveragesinviting a broader, more mainstream audience to sample the brand. [Photo: David Kitz for Ghia] The N/A category is still popping off When Ghia first launched in 2020, its only product was its original aperitif, which is designed to be added to a mixer like a traditional spirit. Since then, the nonalcoholic beverage market has taken off: According to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis data, the category saw overall volumes rise by 29% in 2023, and the total no-alcohol market in the U.S. is expected to be worth almost $5 billion by 2028. Simultaneously, canned cocktails have become Gen Zs drink of choice, with RTD beverage sales up by 27% in 2023making them the fastest-growing spirits category by revenue that year. Ghia has met both of these industry trends head-on, introducing new product lines including Le Fizz, the brands take on a nonalcoholic wine, and Le Spritz, its answer to the growing demand for RTDs. [Photo: David Kitz for Ghia] Since launching in 2021, Le Spritz has sold around four million cans, with the category now accounting for 60% of Ghias total sales, according to internal data shared with Fast Company. Ghia founder and CEO Melanie Masarin says that the Le Spritz line is expanding the brand’s reach by offering a lower barrier to entry nonalcoholic drinking experience that doesn’t require mixing (unlike Ghia’s original aperitif). Its also helped bring the brand to new retailers, including Whole Foods, Target, and Trader Joes. [Photo: David Kitz for Ghia] Ghia blood orange: a mainstream move? Compared to its existing Le Spritz flavors, which come with more unexpected top notes like ginger and yuzu, Blood Orange is an offering that might be more familiar to a mainstream audience, considering it’s become a popular choice for other companies like Spindrift, White Claw, San Pellegrino, and more. While Blood Orange is initially launching as a digital exclusive, the company says it will eventually roll out to the brand’s retail partners, including Amazon, over the next few months, a move that will put it directly on shelves in front of curious customers. Masarin, who is French and Italian, says the flavor took over a year to perfectand describes it as a return to Ghias Italian roots. It’s Ghia’s first addition to the Le Spritz line since 2023. [Photo: David Kitz for Ghia] Blood Orange came from wanting something a little more intuitive and approachable, but still layered with the depth of our Aperitif, she says. The citrus rounded out some of the natural bitterness, added a touch of weetness, and created a flavor that pairs beautifully with aperitivo snacks. Its approachable without being simple since it still has the dryness and herbal backbone of Ghia. Unlike the bulk of RTD cocktails on the market, Blood Orange Le Spritz contains no added sugar, no artificial ingredients, and, of course, no alcohol. The flavor was designed to offer a sweeter option in Ghias overall catalog, but its balanced with marjoram, a Mediterranean herb that adds a piney, herbal quality to the drink. Masarin describes Blood Orange as Ghias most crushable spritz yeta great entry point for someone new to the brand, and a fresh experience for fans. Its not your mothers orange soda, she says.
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E-Commerce
The afternoon sun was so hot that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman traded his usual crewneck sweater for a T-shirt on the last legs of a Tuesday visit to the massive Stargate artificial intelligence data center complex that will power the future of ChatGPT.OpenAI announced Tuesday that its flagship AI data center in Texas will be joined by five others around the U.S. as the ChatGPT maker aims to make good on the $500 billion infrastructure investment promoted by President Donald Trump earlier this year.Stargate, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, said it is building two more data center complexes in Texas, one in New Mexico, one in Ohio and another in a Midwest location it hasn’t yet disclosed.But it’s the project in Abilene, Texas, that promised to be the biggest of them all, transforming what the city’s mayor called an old railroad town.Oracle executives visiting the eight-building complex said it is already on track to be the world’s largest AI supercluster once fully built, a reference to its network of hundreds of thousands of AI computer chips that will be running in its H-shaped buildings.Altman said, “When you hit that button on ChatGPT, you really don’t I don’t, at least” think about what happens inside the data halls used to build and operate the chatbot.He and Oracle’s new co-CEO Clay Magouyrk also sought to emphasize the steps they’ve taken to reduce the energy-hungry complex’s environmental effects on a drought-prone region of West Texas, where temperatures hit 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday.“We’re burning gas to run this data center,” said Altman, but added that “in the long trajectory of Stargate” the hope is to rely on many other power sources.The complex will require about 900 megawatts of electricity to power the eight buildings.One is already operating, and a second that Altman and Magouyrk visited Tuesday is nearly complete. Each server rack in those buildings holds 72 of Nvidia’s GB200 chips, which are specially designed for the most intensive AI workloads. Each building is expected to have about 60,000 of them.More than 6,000 workers now commute to the massive construction project each day, in what Mayor Weldon Hurt described as a significant boost to the local economy. The campus and nearby expansion will provide nearly 1,700 jobs onsite when fully operational, Oracle said, with “thousands more indirect jobs” predicted to be created.Hand-made signs lining the roads to the facility advertise “move-in-ready” homes for workers.“AI WORKERS? HUGE DISCOUNTS” says one promising homes with one to six bedrooms.But Hurt also acknowledged that residents have mixed feelings about the project due to its water and energy needs.The city’s chronically stressed reservoirs were at roughly half-capacity this week. Residents must follow a two-day-a-week outdoor watering schedule, trading off based on whether their address numbers are odd or even.One million gallons of water from the city’s municipal water systems provides an “initial fill” for a closed-loop system that cools the data center’s computers and keeps the water from evaporating. After that initial fill, Oracle expects each of the eight buildings to need another 12,000 gallons per year, which it describes as a “remarkably low figure for a facility of this scale.”“These data centers are designed to not use water,” Magouyrk said. “All of the data centers that we’re building (in) this part of Stargate are designed to not use water. The reason we do that is because it turns out that’s harmful for the environment and this is a better solution.”The closed-loop system shows that the developer is “taking its impact on local public water supplies seriously,” but the overall environmental effect is more nuanced because such systems require more electricity, which also means higher indirect water usage through power generation, said Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, who has studied AI’s environmental toll.Indeed, the data center complex includes a new gas-fired power plant, using natural gas turbines similar to those that power warships. The companies say the plant is meant to provide backup power for the data halls and is a better option than traditional diesel generators. Most of the power comes from the local grid, sourced from a mix of natural gas with the sprawling wind and solar farms that dot the windy and sunny region.Ren said that “even with emission-reduction measures, the health impacts of essentially turning the data center site into a power plant deserve further study for nearby communities.”Arlene Mendler, a Stargate neighbor, said she wished she had more say in the project that eliminated a vast tract of mesquite shrubland, home to coyotes and roadrunners.“It has completely changed the way we were living,” said Mendler, who lives across the street. “We moved up here 33 years ago for the peace, quiet, tranquility. After we got home from work, we could ride horses down the road. It was that type of a place.”Now, she doesn’t know what to do about the constant cacophony of construction sounds or the bright lights that have altered her nighttime views. The project was essentially a done deal once she found out about it.“They took 1,200 acres and just scraped it to bare dirt,” said her husband, Fred Mendler.The first time most residents heard of Stargate at least by that name was when Trump announced the project shortly after returning to the White House in January. Originally planned as a facility to mine cryptocurrency, developers had pivoted and expanded their designs to tailor the project to the AI boom sparked by ChatGPT.The partnership said at that time it was investing $100 billion and eventually up to $500 billion to build large-scale data centers and the energy generation needed to further AI development. More recently, OpenAI signed a $300 billion deal to buy computing capacity from Oracle. It’s a huge bet for the San Francisco-based AI startup, which was founded as a nonprofit.OpenAI and Oracle invited media and politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, to tour the site for the first time Tuesday.Cruz called Texas “ground zero for AI” because if “you’re building a data center, what do you want? No. 1, you want abundant, low-cost energy.”Of the other five Stargate data center projects announced Tuesday, Oracle is working with OpenAI to build one just northeast of Abilene, in Shackelford County, Texas, and another in New Mexico’s Doa Ana County. It also said it is working to build one in the Midwest.Softbank said it has broken ground on two more in Lordstown, Ohio, and in Milam County, Texas.The projects offer OpenAI a way to break out from its longtime partnership with Microsoft, which until recently was the startup’s exclusive computing partner. Altman told The Associated Press his company has been “severely limited for the value we can offer to people.”“ChatGPT is slow. It’s not as smart as we’d like to be. Many users can’t use it s much as they would like,” Altman said. “We have many other ideas and products we want to build.”-The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives. Matt O’Brien, AP Technology Writer
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E-Commerce
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