💸 OpenAI has become the most expensive private company in the world after completing a deal on the secondary sale of shares to investors.

The cost of the ChatGPT developer is now estimated at $500 billion, CNBC reports, citing sources.

Employees of the company who owned them for more than two years got the opportunity to sell their securities. A total of $6.6 billion worth of shares were sold.

Previously, SpaceX was considered the most expensive company. Its value was estimated at $456 billion.

US authorities have ordered Amazon to pay $2.5 billion in fines and compensation without a court order for mass misleading users.

This refers to forcing a paid Prime subscription on customers and complicating the unsubscribe process.

$1 billion will go to the state budget, and the rest will go to the defrauded customers.

👜 Trend of the Week: Coach Brooklyn Bag Takes Over Amazon

If you follow fashion, you’ve probably seen the Coach Brooklyn Shoulder Bag in recent photos of Bella Hadid. On Amazon, this accessory has become a true sales hit.

Why it’s popular:
Design: the combination of classic shape and modern details makes the bag versatile.
Brand quality: Coach is long associated with durability and style.
Popularity: celebrity attention immediately drives interest among mainstream buyers.
Seller insights:
Demand for “accessible luxury” products continues to grow.
Social media and influencer recommendations directly impact sales.
Ahead of the holidays, demand can spike — a good chance to boost turnover.

💡 Tip: If you sell fashion items, monitor celebrity trends and social media reactions — it helps you spot hot-selling products early.

A scandal is brewing in France over the Chinese online retailer Shein, according to The Guardian.

After a series of temporary pop-up stores in Dijon, Toulouse, and Marseille, the company announced that it intends to open permanent stores in the country, including at Galeries Lafayette and BHV, which are owned by the Société des Grands Magasins holding company.

These plans have sparked a backlash in the fashion industry. Galeries Lafayette has stated that its collaboration with Shein violates the terms of its franchise agreement and undermines the reputation of the department store. The president of the Federation of French prêt-à-porter called the Chinese retailer a “threat to the national fashion industry.”

The media highlighted that Shein’s business model is in direct conflict with French principles of quality, sustainability, and moderate consumption, and also recalled the company’s numerous accusations of labor exploitation and environmental violations due to its massive production volumes.

Amazon closes cashier-less stores in the UK.

A major end to the "smart" store experiment.

Amazon announced the closure of its cashier-less stores in the UK—the very ones where artificial intelligence allegedly controlled everything.

But it turned out that "AI" was only on the sign. The actual calculations were carried out by remote employees from India, who monitored customers via cameras and manually recorded who took what.

When this became known, customer traffic plummeted. Now Amazon is shutting down the project—and with it the myth of fully autonomous stores.

China is the only country in the world where more than 50% of purchases are made online.

This is where all the new Ecom products are born. Tsui Zhiyu, ex. top manager of JD․ com (one of the five largest marketplaces in the world with a revenue of \$162 billion and a daily audience of 90 million users), identified three key trends:

📍 Sales through video

📍Increased express delivery of all types of goods

📍 Modernization of supply infrastructure

Some experts are sure that marketplaces will fade away.

However, Amazon continues to grow rapidly in the United States. There are three large marketplaces in China, which are also doing well, despite the fact that the market there was formed earlier than in Russia. Another thing is that a new segment is emerging within marketplaces — this is the D2C, Direct to Consumer model.

In America, many brands have already started working on this principle, that is, interacting directly with users and managing their loyalty.
Do you agree?

Chinese exports are growing at their fastest pace in six months, despite US tariffs, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In September, Chinese exports grew by 8.3% compared to the same period last year. In August, growth was 4.4%. Shipments to the US fell by 27% year-over-year, continuing the downward trend that began in April.

Exports to the EU, China's second-largest trading partner, grew by 14.2%, the fastest pace in more than three years. Shipments to ASEAN countries increased by 15.6%.

Scientists have developed an AI capable of recognizing ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the AIRI Artificial Intelligence Institute.

This development could be used in augmented reality mobile apps in museums. AI could also help researchers improve the process of deciphering and interpreting new materials.

ChatGPT will have an erotic content mode.

In the near future, ChatGPT will have a major update. There are several changes at once:

Now the model's answers will become even more lively and "human". It will be able to answer like a human, use emojis in a huge amount - in general, be your friend.

Age verification will be added to the chat: this will not only protect teenagers, but also expand opportunities for adults. For example,
erotic content will be allowed

According to Altman, "the new ChatGPT will surpass all previous ones."

Elon Musk will launch a marketplace for purchasing usernames in X.

The social network X has introduced the Handle Marketplace, where Premium users will be able to buy occupied but unused profile names. Usernames will be distributed based on the activity of applicants, taking into account their reach, frequency of posts, and audience engagement.

It is expected that the nickname can be obtained both for a fee and for free. Owners will be able to use the nickname as long as they maintain a paid subscription. After it is canceled, the nickname will return to the system.

The internet has crashed in many countries worldwide due to a massive outage at Amazon Web Services.

Almost everything has been disrupted: streaming services, online games, messaging apps, and the company's work platforms. The website Downdetector reports massive user complaints from all over the world.

Frank RG has published a study titled "The Global Subscription Market 2025".

The average number of subscriptions per person is 4.5 in the United States, 3.5 in Latin America, 3.3 in East Asia, and 3.2 in Europe. In Russia, the average number of subscriptions is 2, with an average spending of only $14 per year.

In 2025, the "supermarkets" segment will surpass electronics in terms of the popularity of subscriptions in retail for the first time, with a nearly twofold increase in three years.

Amazon Prime has 310 million users. Sales during Prime Day 2025 increased by 33% and amounted to $24 billion. Subscription became a loyalty driver: 91% of customers with more than 2 years of experience searched for goods only on Amazon.

The USA is no longer the main buyer of Swiss watches.

In September, the USA imports of wristwatches from Switzerland fell by 55% to 157.7 million francs, dropping from the first to the third place in terms of purchases. This is according to data from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

The United Kingdom has now become the main destination for exports, with a 15.2% increase in demand to 173.3 million francs. At the same time, Swiss watch exports have been declining for two consecutive months. In September, they fell by 7.6%, and in August, they fell by 16.2%.

It seems that we have reached a point where ChatGPT's advice is more valuable than that of a manager.

According to a study by Resume Now, 97% of employees have asked AI for advice instead of their boss at least once. Here's why:

➡️ Complete neutrality. No bias or political intrigue. ChatGPT doesn't evaluate, criticize, or draw conclusions about your "competence."

➡️ Instant response. You don't have to wait for a meeting or write a long email to your boss - the response comes in seconds.

➡️ 70% of employees believe that ChatGPT understands their tasks better than their boss.

➡️ 49% of respondents admitted that the AI provided them with more emotional support than their boss.

Almost every fifth largest brand in 2025 is from retail data Interbrand.

Since 2024 the number of retail in the ranking has decreased from 22 to 19 — Nike, Starbucks, KFC, and Jordan have left. Only UNIQLO has replaced them. The top three remains unchanged:

1. Amazon (third place in the overall standings, +7% to $319.9 billion);

2. McDonald's (9th place, same $53 billion);

3. Louis Vuitton (12th place instead of 11th, -5% to $48.4 billion).

Additionally:

📍Two retailers, Hermes (+18%) and LEGO (+19%), were included in the list of the fastest-growing brands.

📍Gucci (-35%), H&M (-13%), and Dior (-10%) experienced the sharpest decline.

📍 In total, the value increased for 12 brands and decreased for six.

📍Interbrand believes that Burberry, Jordan, KFC, and Starbucks have a good chance of being included in the next ranking.

The evaluation is based on the following factors:

📍 the company's financial performance;

📍the role of the brand in these results;

📍the strength of the brand, as measured by loyalty.

Artificial intelligence can become dull due to social media browsing.

A work appeared on the network called LLMs Can Get Brain Rot! — the first scientific confirmation that language models can experience “intellectual burnout”. The reason is low-quality data.

Scientists conducted a series of experiments in which models were trained on “garbage” posts from X. The results were similar to the cognitive decline in humans:

Аfter training on “viral” content, AI lost the ability to reason logically and became narcissistic.

The authors of the study emphasize: the consequences of brainrot content cannot be eliminated even by training on high-quality data.

AI Floods Herbal Medicine Books: 8 Out of 10 on Amazon Are Written by Algorithms

Researchers have discovered that about 82% of 558 herbal medicine books available on Amazon were most likely created using artificial intelligence.

Among them are even popular bestsellers, which many readers mistake for works by real authors. Experts are already calling this wave an “AI garbage invasion”, warning that such books often contain dangerous advice and references to fake or dubious sources.

Meanwhile, Amazon does not label AI-generated content and has no plans to block such publications, stating only that it removes clearly harmful material.

Amazon is laying off employees en masse.

Amazon plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs. This would be the largest job cut at Amazon since it laid off around 27,000 employees at the end of 2022.

This number represents only a small fraction of the company's total workforce, which is 1.55 million. However, it is almost 10% of Amazon's corporate workforce, which is approximately 350,000.

The decision is related to the company's desire to reduce costs and compensate for the excessive hiring of staff during the peak demand for Amazon services during the pandemic.

Social commerce and sustainable practices trends – the review of The Future Shopper 2025 report by VML.

Popularity of social commerce:

✅Just over half of the respondents (52%) have purchased something through social media at least once.

✅ Just under half (46%) have purchased during live broadcasts – this share is highest in India (67%) and China (66%).

✅In the future, 46% of consumers want to shop more often on social media, up from 62% in 2024.

✅The main reasons for not using social commerce are a lack of trust in social media (28%), high prices (26%), and a lack of reviews (21%).

✅Additionally, 49% of consumers would like to make purchases directly within the social media app, but they often have to leave the app to make payments.

OpenAI is working on AI for music creation/

OpenAI is working on a new neural network that will be able to create music, reports The Information. The release date is not yet known.

The model will be able to work in several modes:

🔡 generate music from a text request,
🔡 create compositions under recorded vocals,
🔡 Make a soundtrack for a finished video.

➡️ To avoid copyright issues, OpenAI collaborates with the Juilliard School of Art. Students teach AI musical logic so that it doesn't create music based on existing tracks