Together with
DevDay debut. Calling all AI developers — Christmas just came early. Yesterday, OpenAI (the force behind ChatGPT) held its first-ever developer conference, unveiling a ton of new models, features, and developer products. There are assistant APIs, GPT-4 Turbo, and a dizzying array of improvements galore. The only hiccup? Well, a whole lot of AI startups just became obsolete overnight. RIP.
In other news… consumers one-up realtors, Gen Z loves investing, and the US has a shoplifting problem.
Top Trends
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BUSINESS
A deep cut for realtors // Illustration by Kate Walker
Antitrust verdict gives consumers more power over realtors
The Future. Last Tuesday, a judge ruled in favor of home-sellers who had sued the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for inflating agents’ commissions. The decision could make buying and selling a home much easier for consumers — and much less lucrative for agents.
Bring down the house
Burnett et al. v. NAR et al. has big implications for the real estate industry.
The NAR will have to pay roughly $5.3 billion in damages for using privileged information to help realtors drive up commissions.
Sellers used to have to post a commission when listing their property for sale — usually between 2.5% and 3.5% of the list price — which the buyer would pay and both agents would split equally.
Now, that might change. Buyers and sellers may be able to pay their agents separately, leading to more price transparency and leverage for consumers, who could save $20 to $30 billion annually from the change.
The NAR is appealing the verdict.
This is a reckoning for the real estate industry. The verdict drove major real estate firms’ stock prices way down and led to a spike in lawsuits filed against the NAR and other companies. And realtors — of whom there’s already a surplus — may change careers as some buyers forgo agents altogether.
But at least they’re not struggling to keep a roof over their heads.
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CULTURE
Youth wasted on the young — and fiscally responsible
Gen Z invests earlier than other generations
The Future. As Gen Z ages, their income is growing quickly, set to surpass millennials’ aggregate annual income by 2031. But Gen Z isn’t frivolously spending that money — they’re setting themselves up for the future more than any generation to date.
Money on their mind
Gen Z is more financially literate than their parents — mostly for the better.
According to a survey by the CFA Institute, more than half of Gen Z respondents are already investing, and 82% began before turning 21 — much more than millennials and Gen Xers.
The reason is access to financial instruments and advice, which have proliferated especially via social media. 64% of surveyed Gen Z investors say they rely on apps, significantly more than older generations.
The obvious downside to this trend is many Gen Zers have invested their money in unproven instruments like crypto, meme stocks, and outright scams, with nearly two-thirds saying they fell victim to a get-rich-quick scheme.
Still, most Gen Zers are developing financial literacy earlier than their parents, often with the goal of saving for retirement or preparing for the economic uncertainty that plagued their childhood. To make this happen, they’re even fleeing cities for low home prices.
While fewer workers believe they can afford to retire, Gen Z might just manage to do it.
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RETAIL
Put a lock on it // Illustration by Kate Walker
No one knows how to solve the US’ shoplifting problem
The Future. Even as many companies fall victim to retail theft, their workers believe they could be doing more to safeguard their merchandise… and more importantly, their employees. If companies don’t invest more resources in asset protection, they might have to make up for their losses by cutting staff and employee hours or jacking up prices — which could hurt in-store experiences for workers and customers alike.
Ready, set, steal
The US has a shoplifting problem, and loss prevention is generally the most underfunded department of a company, reports Vox.
“Shrink,” the term for missing inventory that may have been damaged, lost, or stolen by workers or customers, jumped from 1.4% in 2021 to 1.6% in 2022, which is an increase from $93.9 billion to $112.1 billion in losses, according to the National Retail Federation.
Asset protection — having security at the door, better sales coverage on the floor, and lower employee turnover — costs money that most companies aren’t willing to spend because it doesn’t bring in revenue. It’s another expense.
Most workers feel like they’re not paid enough to care about shoplifting anyway. Reporting thefts, doing inventory, restocking, speaking to police, and even going to court all (understandably) drain their time and energy and add to their workload.
Keep calm and keep selling
The jury is still out on how much it would cost retailers to tackle the shoplifting problem and how much money is already being spent to combat theft right now. There’s just no way to estimate the ROI for loss prevention.
“Lock up your whole store and you’ll never lose anything. You’ll also never sell anything,” warned Joshua Jacobson, an asset protection specialist in California, to Vox. “Sales are more important to a company than shopping theft.”
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Who needs coffee or a mid-afternoon pick-me-up when you have Gorgie?
The moral of the story: Gorgie is legit. It’s simply physics.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival will run from November 30th to December 9th in the port city of Jeddah — even against the backdrop of the intensifying Israel-Hamas war. Read More → deadline
Latinx performers and filmmakers continue to be underrepresented in Hollywood, according to a new study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Only ten lead or co-lead roles across the top 100 earning movies of 2022 went to Latinx actors (eight of them being women). Read More → thewrap
Katy Perry’s new box set, Katy CATalog, which includes three of her albums in collector’s formats, opened at #19 on this week’s Top Album Sales chart and sold out on her website. Read More → forbes
Fashion & E-Commerce
Tesla plans to build a $27,000 electric car at its Berlin Gigafactory as early as next year in a move to lower production costs and, possibly, revive consumer demand for EVs. Read More → insider
Zelig, an AI-powered, virtual try-on and styling tech that launched this week, is the first of its kind to offer a “hyper-personalized online shopping experience” meant to imitate what users might find if they tried on clothes at a brick-and-mortar shop. Read More → techcrunch
Spotify is getting into music merch by collabing with some of its top-performing artists, including Daft Punk, Tyler, the Creator, and Rosalía, on capsule collections. Read More → hypebeast
Tech, Web3, & AI
Workers of color “could be disproportionately disadvantaged by the broader use of AI and automation,” according to a new study from workplace research firm Charter Works. Read More → insider
Slack CEO Lidiane Jones will succeed Whitney Wolfe Herd as CEO of Bumble, the female-focused dating app she created a decade ago. Read More → wsj
CBS News will launch a fact-checking unit to analyze misinformation and content generated by AI with segments that explain to viewers how information was determined to be falsified. Read More → thewrap
Creator Economy
YouTube duo Rhett & Link have launched their first DTC food product, a 90s-style cereal brand named MishMash, which is supposed to deliver “a mouthful of nostalgia.” Read More → tubefilter
Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and “Barbenheimer” might have contributed billions to the US’ GDP this summer, but funflation will likely be a “once-in-a-blue-moon” phenomenon rather than a permanent trend, warns Bloomberg economists , as Americans’ COVID-era savings run out. Read More → insider
Meta announced there are now 1 million paid subscriptions to creators on Instagram, a big milestone but small number for the platform, as Insta has almost 2 billion monthly users. Read More → theverge
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Today’s email was written by Luke Perrotta and Kait Cunniff.
Edited by Melody Song.
Published by Darline Salazar.