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Happy Friday, Future Party. In a twist worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, Paramount has emerged as the victor in the battle to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. After WBD’s board deemed Paramount’s one-millionth offer (okay, more like the 11th or 12th) “superior” to Netflix’s, it gave the streamer four days to respond. Netflix answered almost immediately… by walking away. That earthquake you may have felt yesterday afternoon was Hollywood’s collective jaw hitting the floor.
DAILY TOP TRENDS
YouTube – Jury Duty
X
(Twitter)– The Bride!Google – Block
Reddit – Grey’s Anatomy
Letterboxd – Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Spotify – “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter”
Uber Takes To The Skies
Courtesy of Uber
Uber announced a partnership with eVTOL (electric takeoff and landing) startup Joby Aviation to launch Uber Air — an all-electric air taxi service.
Why It Hits: Uber is ramping up collaborations across industries to ensure it’s first in line for the newest transportation tech, dipping its toes in carsharing, robotaxis, and now airtaxis. It’s the company’s insurance plan to help you get wherever you need to go. So how long until we get go-fast boats in the Caribbean?
Behind The Trips: Uber Air may soon be the best way to beat morning traffic.
The service allows users to book a flight directly in the Uber app.
It also coordinates an Uber Black for both pickup and drop-off at the “vertiport.”
The service will first roll out in Dubai later this year, expanding to additional regions as it secures government approval.
Final Route: Uber has wanted to take to the skies for a while. It operated a helicopter service from Salt Lake City to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival in 2016… but that was short-lived. The infrastructure for “airshare” (did we just coin that term?) simply wasn’t there yet. Now, though, the eVTOL industry has been building that infrastructure for years and is ramping up deployment plans across Asia, the Middle East, and right here in the US.
It sounds like the FAA may need to hire a lot more air traffic controllers.
Next Flight: With a top speed of 200 mph and a range of 100 miles on a single charge, the new executive perk might just be an Uber Air expense account — to get to and from meetings in record time.
Together with Wispr
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Whether it’s for work or everyday productivity, over 100K people use Wispr to save hours each week.
Burger King Watches Its Subjects With An AI Named “Patty”
Image courtesy of Burger King // Illustration by David Vendrell
Burger King is rolling out a new AI chatbot named Patty, accessible through employee headsets. But beware: Patty is judging you, too.
The Whopper Picture: AI is already making waves across the fast-food industry… with mixed results. Most top chains have tested AI drive-thrus, only to roll them back amid customer frustration. Burger King is hoping that deploying the tech with employees first will help work out the kinks and actually speed up orders.
Between The Burgers: Patty is the voice of Burger King’s new BK Assistant AI platform, powered by OpenAI.
Patty is designed to help workers with meal prep, burger construction, and cleaning questions through voice commands and audio responses.
The broader system will also track inventory, collect drive-thru metrics, and alert managers if a machine goes down.
If it detects that, say, the ice cream machine needs repair, it will remove items that rely on it from all points of sale to avoid customer frustration.
BK Assistant is rolling out to every Burger King restaurant this year, while Patty is being piloted in 500 locations.
Final Order: Here’s the wildest part of what Patty does: evaluate employee interactions with customers for “friendliness.” According to Burger King’s chief digital officer Thibault Roux, it measures how often workers say phrases like “please” and “thank you,” and allows managers to ask the chatbot about their store’s friendliness performance. It’s even testing a way to rate someone’s tone of voice… just in case there’s a hint of sarcasm.
So, sorry, Burger King employees… Patty is always listening.
Next Customer: Prepare for Burger King employees to seem extra nice in the coming years to stay in good standing… and perhaps for an unfortunate viral trend of customers trying to get them to crack.
Together with Mintlify
See Why HubSpot Chose Mintlify for Docs
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DEEP DIVES
Listen: In Proximity captures a conversation between filmmakers Ryan Coogler and Maggie Gyllenhaal about the latter’s upcoming Warner Bros. movie, The Bride!
Read: Survivor host Jeff Probst breaks down a typical day on the show for Insider.
Explore: Variety drops its 2026 TikTok Discover List — 50 creators from around the world you should be paying attention to.
How often do you use a drive-thru?
87.9% of you voted Money under the pillow in yesterday’s poll: What was your experience with the Tooth Fairy growing up?
“Sometimes the money would hide under a stuffy. Probably on nights she couldn’t make it under my pillow. Lol.”
“And it was only 25 cents!”
“Ten cents per tooth! [early 1960s]”
“But a lot less than a dollar! A nickel as I recall! OK Grandpa, let’s get you back to bed.”
“The Tooth Fairy is the weirdest lingering bit of cultural mythology. More invasive than the Easter Bunny and really impractical for parents. And she’s definitely not keeping up with inflation.”
Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.
QUICK HITS
→ Entertainment / Media
🏎️ Apple and Netflix inked a deal to share streaming rights for the next season of Drive to Survive and live coverage of the Canadian Grand Prix.
🎙️ This might be a media first: CBS News correspondent David Begnaud has launched his own media business, Do Good Crew, while keeping his position at the network.
🏒 There’s now a hotline to call the US Women’s Hockey Team to celebrate their gold medal: 1-833-SHE-WON1. Very cool.
→ Technology
💰 ByteDance has been valued at $550 billion in a proposed share sale led by investor General Atlantic.
👀 $35 billion of Amazon’s proposed $50 billion investment in OpenAI hinges on whether the AI startup goes public or achieves AGI.
🫨 Gas turbines at xAI’s data center in Mississippi are keeping residents up all night with constant, jet engine–like noise. Yikes.
→ Fashion / E-commerce
👖 Mall brands like Gap and American Eagle are now making custom fits for celebrities.
😋 Glen Powell is entering the snack wars with a new Smash Kitchen line of chips.
👩🦰 Why are so many stars wearing wigs now?
Let us know how we are doing...
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.