🤖 AI vs. 🔊 assistants

As AI changes the world, people turn to smart assistants for… the same stuff as always?

Sherwood Media/Datawrapper Presented by Hey Snackers, Since the dawn of Furby nearly three decades ago, one rule in toy making has proved itself true time and time again: there's always money in weird little guys. The latest case in point: Labubu, the wildly hyped little monster toys by Chinese toy maker Pop Mart. Sales of the Monsters franchise, fueled by the zoomorphic creatures, grew to $670 million in the first half of the year. To put that in perspective, that's nearly twice the sales of Barbies in the same period. The nascent pullback across high-flying, AI-linked names picked up steam on Tuesday, sending major indexes down even as most stocks went up. The S&P 500 fell 0.6% despite having far more gainers than losers, the Nasdaq 100 tumbled 1.4%, and the Russell 2000 gave back 0.8%. OK COMPUTER As AI changes the world, people turn to smart assistants for… the same stuff as always? Google, Amazon, and Apple have all touted improvements to their digital assistants — Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, respectively — to use more advanced generative-AI technology. The problem has been that even as they promise new and better capabilities, these tools have lost some of their initial functionality, and companies are struggling to make everything work as advertised. A new survey from YouGov shed a little light on what exactly people want out of their digital assistants. The surprising thing? It's all boring stuff that you can do with normal computers and don't really need AI for.  The three most popular uses for digital assistants were checking the weather (59%), playing music (51%), and searching the web for an answer (47%). Lots of the other top uses were just sending basic telecommunications: 39% of respondents use them to call hands-free, 27% to send or receive messages, and 11% to control other media devices. These digital assistants are not exactly doing rocket science — 40% of people use them to set a timer, while half that number uses them for smart home functions. THE TAKEAWAY Where can AI help? Some 27% of smart assistant users said their main problem with the technology is that it doesn't understand their requests, while another 12% cited a lack of accuracy and the final complaint was that digital assistants aren't as smart as expected. Maybe generative AI and LLMs can sand those edges a bit.  Read more Presented by State Street Investment Management Creating the life you're envisioning starts today Get a head start on investing for the future and turn today's money into tomorrow's wealth.  Every day, millions of investors are building towards their goals with ETFs like DIA - the only ETF that tracks the Dow. With DIA, you get 30 US blue-chip stocks in a single trade. The mega-caps that comprise the Dow Jones Index offer exposure to 172 countries and 160 different industries.  Whatever the goal, find out how getting there starts here.1 HARD TO SWALLOW Sure, you have a miracle drug that changed the way Americans eat, but what about next quarter? Demand for blockbuster GLP-1 drugs has never been higher, creating opportunity for both the drugmakers that developed them and telehealth companies that sell compounded versions. But for investors in those companies — Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Hims & Hers being the ones that stand to benefit the most — the plate is half empty. In fact, shares of each dropped the day they last reported earnings because Wall Street was unimpressed with their sales or, in Lilly's case, progress on its next weight-loss product. What gives? Total sales of the four major brand-name GLP-1s eclipsed $15 billion in the latest quarter for the first time ever, continuing a sharp climb.  A recent RAND survey showed that a whopping 11.8% of all Americans have used GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. The drugs have become ubiquitous in America, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the recent stock price moves of the companies that sell them. Over the past six months, Lilly's, Novo's, and Hims' stocks are down 18%, 34%, and 37%, respectively. So, what's holding them back? Uncertainty of the future, mainly.  "The blowout in revenue and earnings per share, that's great, but that's all stuff that happened in the last quarter," Brian Mulberry, an analyst at Zacks Investment Management, said of Lilly's results. "We want to know where growth is headed." THE TAKEAWAY Lilly, which has the newer and more effective drugs on the market, has gained ground on Novo, leading Novo to shuffle executives and take a massive hit to its market cap. Both are working on pill versions of their drugs — but Lilly's late-stage trial results have shown that patients on its pill shed fewer pounds than investors had hoped, which cast a cloud over its otherwise massive earnings and sales beat last quarter. Read more THE BEST THING WE READ TODAY The "SPAC King" gets back into the game With SPACs back on the menu, Chamath Palihapitiya, the former Facebook exec, SoFi founder, and "All-In" podcaster, is raising at least $250 million for a new special purpose acquisition vehicle called the American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp. But his previous merger projects haven't all led to great stock performance, as this chart shows. 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Tax Benefits: Enhance overall returns with potentially favorable tax treatment.  Explore XND® index options.2 MOVES Yesterday's Big Daily Movers  Viking Therapeutics plummeted over 40% after its weight-loss pill trial disappointed Palo Alto Networks surged after posting better sales, earnings, and guidance than anticipated Fabrinet sank double digits after warning of supply chain issues in its Nvidia-linked business Intel spiked 7% after SoftBank invested $2 billion in the chipmaker and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed the US was in discussions for an equity stake Palantir led the way down with a 9% drop as momentum stocks cratered What else we're Snackin' If April was "Sell America" month, June was "Buy America" month — and it was 9x the size Nvidia reportedly has a new tailor-made Blackwell chip in the works for sale to China Ethereum spot ETFs saw their second-largest daily outflow, reaching almost $200 million  After broad workforce cutbacks, Meta is now hoping to downsize its AI team, too Ad Snack Fact of the Day The US's biggest local TV broadcaster wants to get bigger with a $6.2 billion megamerger. Wednesday Fed meeting minutes  Earnings expected from Baidu, Lowe's, Target, Estée Lauder, Viking, XpengTJX, Nordson Corporation, and Analog Devices Advertiser's disclosures: 1 Before investing, consider the funds' investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. To obtain a prospectus or summary prospectus, which contains this and other information, call 1-866-787-2257 or visit www.ssga.com. Read it carefully. Investing involves risk. ALPS Distributors, Inc. (fund distributor); State Street Investment Management Funds Distributors, LLC (marketing agent). State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is now State Street Investment Management. Please click here for more information. 2 Neither Nasdaq, Inc. nor any of its affiliates makes any recommendation to buy or sell any security or digital asset or any representation about the financial condition of any company. Additionally, nothing contained herein should be construed as tax advice.  Nasdaq® is a registered trademark of Nasdaq, Inc. 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