House flippers are about to get an AI assist on their next renovation project.
Kai is an AI-powered tool that can visually identify what’s needed to fix up a house and put it on the market. The system converts photos and videos of house projects into SKU-level material specifications and cost estimates, making it fast and easy for an institutional home renovator to create an actionable renovation plan and order all the materials needed to get the job done.
Kai has just launched a partnership with home improvement retailer Home Depot to link its building material and product selection tools directly with Home Depot’s 3.5 million item inventory list. Home renovators will be able to use Kai to scan a project, identify the materials needed, and immediately order them from Home Depot.
[Image: Kai]
Kai’s cofounder and CEO Or Agassi calls it an “AI-native renovation intelligence platform” that can effectively reverse engineer a scope of work on anything from a kitchen remodel to a down-to-the-studs gut renovation. With a guided photography process, Kai analyzes images of a house to determine what materials are needed to complete a given project. A photo showing a cracked door, for example, would lead the tool to offer up a few options for replacement, with their prices and availability at Home Depot stores in the area. An image of an old furnace can lead the tool to recommend a more efficient model that can increase the resale value of the home.
[Image: Kai]
It’s an evolution of RenoWalk, an in-house tool Home Depot had used for more than a decade, which allowed business customers to streamline property management and renovation projects by integrating with Home Depot’s inventory and ordering systems. The company decided to sunset that tool, and now Kai is taking its place, using data from the tens of thousands of renovation projects completed using the old system. Kai declined to disclose terms of the Home Depot deal.
Kai’s first users are large institutional housing investors and operators, including both public and private companies. Citing nondisclosure agreements, Kai declined to reveal the names of these companies. Some of these companies own more than 100,000 houses across the U.S. They also bring their own wealth of renovation data, which Kai uses to train client-specific AI models. “If you send us a scope of work of how you like to renovate, we will know how to create a playbook based on that,” Agassi says.
The system also adjusts for different types of renovation projects and budget levels. “Whether you’re looking to optimize for selling to the market, selling off market, renting the property out, we know how to understand the renovation condition and tell you what needed to be done to hit this target renovation,” Agassi says.
[Image: Kai]
Agassi says the system has the potential to drastically reduce project timelines and budgets, and help get more affordable housing on the market. “There’s a shortage of five million single family rentals out there. And it’s only getting worse because new inventory is unable to catch up,” Agassia says. “We are trying to solve for the biggest issue in housing.”
Agassi has been looking at the housing challenges in the U.S. for more than a decade. Previously he and Kai cofounder Tov Arneson created Stoa, a now-closed proptech company that helped connect fix-and-flip housing investors with institutional investors and housing operators looking for more inventory. The company was seeing solid growth since its launch in 2017 but a hike in interest rates in 2023 hit the company hard and it shut down.
Agassi says that even though the company failed, the idea behind Stoa stuck with him. Kai is an evolution of that concept. “We are fulfilling what used to be our dream at Stoa, which is a system that you get into a property, take some photos, and it tells you what you need to do in order to do an optimized renovation,” says Agassi. “The technology was never there, and now it is.”
Agassi says Kai expects to be serving tens of thousands of customers by the end of the year, and plans on expanding the tool for use by mom-and-pop landlords, DIYers, and contractors next year. “We start with the largest operators, but the goal is to go all the way down to the consumer sitting in the comfort of their own homes, taking some photos, and we tell them exactly what’s needed to be done in order to renovate for the optimal outcome,” Agassi says.
President Donald Trump’s meeting Thursday with China’s top leader Xi Jinping produced a raft of decisions to help dial back trade tensions, but no agreement on TikTok’s ownership.“China will work with the U.S. to properly resolve issues related to TikTok,” China’s Commerce Ministry said after the meeting.It gave no details on any progress toward ending uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the U.S.The Trump administration had been signaling that it may have finally reached a deal with Beijing to keep TikTok running in the U.S.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the two leaders will “consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”Wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner to replace China’s ByteDance. The platform went dark briefly on a January deadline but on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, extended deadlines for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership. That fell apart when China backed out after Trump announced sharply higher tariffs on Chinese products. Deadlines in June and September passed, with Trump saying he would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.Trump’s order was meant to enable an American-led group of investors to buy the app from China’s ByteDance, though the deal also requires China’s approval.However, TikTok deal is “not really a big thing for Xi Jinping,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, during a media briefing Tuesday. “(China is) happy to let (Trump) declare that they have finally kept a deal. Whether or not that deal will protect the data of Americans is a big question going forward.”“A big question mark for the United States, of course, is whether this is consistent with U.S. law since there was a law passed by Congress,” Glaser said.About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published in September.A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.The security debate centers on the TikTok recommendation algorithm which has steered millions of users into an endless stream of video shorts. China has said the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But a U.S. regulation that Congress passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok would require the platform to cut ties with ByteDance.American officials have warned the algorithm a complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to deliver personalized content is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, but no evidence has been presented by U.S. officials proving that China has attempted to do so.
Associated Press Writer Fu Ting contributed to this story from Washington.
Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer
The Trump administration has agreed to resume student loan forgiveness for an estimated 2.5 million borrowers who are enrolled in certain federal repayment plans following a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers.Under the agreement reached Friday between the teachers union and the administration, the Education Department will process loan forgiveness for those eligible in certain repayment plans that offer lower monthly payments based on a borrower’s earnings. The government had stopped providing forgiveness under those plans based on its interpretation of a different court decision.The agreement will also protect borrowers from being hit with high tax bills on debt due to be forgiven this year.“We took on the Trump administration when it refused to follow the law and denied borrowers the relief they were owed,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Our agreement means that those borrowers stuck in limbo can either get immediate relief or finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.”The Education Department said the Trump administration is reviewing forgiveness programs to identify ones that were not affected by court rulings that blocked much of the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel student debt.“The Administration looks forward to continuing its work to simplify the student loan repayment process through implementation of the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the department said in a statement.
Several forgiveness programs are included
According to the deal, the Trump administration must cancel student debt for eligible borrowers enrolled in the following plans: income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, income-contingent repayment plans, Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) plans.If borrowers have made payments beyond what was needed for forgiveness, those payments will be reimbursed. The Education Department must also continue to process IDR and PSLF “buyback” applications. Balances forgiven before Dec. 31 will not be treated as taxable income, as they will in 2026 due to a recent change in tax law.The administration must also file progress reports every six months with the court to show the pace of application processing and loan forgiveness, according to the AFT.
How many borrowers are waiting for forgiveness?
An estimated 2.5 million borrowers in IDR plans will be affected by the agreement, and another 70,000 are waiting for forgiveness through the PSLF program.Even with the agreement in place, mass layoffs at the Education Department could factor into processing times for forgiveness, said Megan Walter, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.If borrowers continue to make payments while their application is pending forgiveness, that will be refunded to them if they are successful, Walter said. “But keep really good records,” she said.
What are the PSLF and buyback forgiveness programs?
Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which has been in place since 2007, forgives federal student loans for borrowers who have worked at non-profit organizations or in public service after 120 payments, or 10 years. The Biden administration also created an option for borrowers to “buy back” months of payments they missed during forbearance or deferment in 2023, to allow more people to qualify for that forgiveness.To determine if you qualify for a buy-back under the PSLF program, consult this page at the Education Department.
The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
With federal SNAP food assistance set to run dry this weekend amid the protracted U.S. government shutdown, Louisiana, New Mexico and Vermont became the latest states Wednesday to announce help for low-income households that rely on the funds to eat.They join states from New York to Nevada in scrambling to find ways to get food to people who are increasingly anxious and will otherwise go hungry without their normal monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Several states take action Wednesday
In Louisiana, where nearly one in five residents receive SNAP benefits, lawmakers authorized $150 million in state funding Wednesday to help avoid Saturday’s expected interruption. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry backed a bipartisan measure to allow most of the state’s nearly 800,000 SNAP recipients to receive their full monthly benefit amount.“Our priorities are specific, we’re going to protect the most vulnerable population in Louisiana which is our kids, disabled and elderly,” Landry said.But officials said that while program details are still incomplete, the effort will likely exclude “able bodied” adults who aren’t caring for children or don’t share a household with elderly or disabled members about 53,000 recipients.Elsewhere, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday that her state will provide $30 million in emergency food assistance to residents through EBT cards, backfilling SNAP benefits temporarily. The Democrat leads a state where 21% of the population relies on SNAP the highest rate in the nation. Officials said the benefit would cover about 30% of what residents usually see at the start of the month.New Mexico held a two-day special legislative session at the outset of the shutdown to shore up food banks and pantries with $8 million in new funding, along with $17.5 million in SNAP-related costs to offset cuts under President Donald Trump’s spending and tax cut bill.The emergency funding is expected to last about 10 days, while Democratic state House Speaker Javier Martínez said the Legislature is positioned to approve more if necessary because “children going without basic food staples is an emergency.”Lujan Grisham said state officials are aware that 10 days isn’t enough but they are prepared to deal with the issue for as long as they can.“We’re not going to let food insecurity creep into this state,” she said.In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic legislative leaders approved using $6.3 million in state funds to cover 15 days of SNAP benefits and provide $250,000 to food banks. The Legislature had previously put $50 million aside for such emergencies.
Different strokes for different states
So far, state responses have been mixed. Some, like Rhode Island, say they will funnel reserve federal welfare funds directly onto the debit cards issued to people who buy groceries with SNAP. States including Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, West Virginia plan to boost funds to food pantries to help cover for low-income families needing food. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo are both seeking to direct $30 million in state funds to cover food assistance.Other states such as Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Florida have not acted.In Nebraska, the state Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement Tuesday announcing it would pause SNAP benefits the next day. It said it is “actively coordinating with food banks, nonprofit partners, and community organizations,” and listed area food banks for those seeking help.Leaving people to fend for themselves will mean the most vulnerable like children and the elderly will go hungry, said Tashara Leak, a registered dietitian and nutritional researcher and professor at Cornell University. She also serves on New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy that routinely meets with New York’s governor.“The panic is already starting,” Leak said, adding families with limited resources are “already rationing food in preparation to not receive benefits on Nov. 1.”
States can’t do what the federal government can
Despite the best efforts of states, local governments and food charities, it won’t be enough to cover what the federal government does under SNAP. Even states with fat budget surpluses couldn’t cover the SNAP tab much beyond November. That tab nationwide totaled about $100 billion in 2024.“There’s no way for the states to be able to fill in the gap for the month of November, especially with such short notice,” Leak said.Democrats have called on the Trump administration to release contingency funding to ensure uninterrupted SNAP payments, but it has declined to do so.Recently, a group of Democratic state officials filed suit, asking a judge to require the Trump administration to keep funding SNAP benefits. They say that the government is required to use one contingency fund, which has around $5 billion, for that purpose and that another larger reserve fund of about $23 billion is also available. A hearing is set for Thursday in federal court in Boston.Delays in benefits are nearly certain for most beneficiaries whose debit cards are replenished early in the month even in states that are planning to pay for benefits or if a judge orders the federal government to load the cards immediately.The legal filing asserted that in California, for instance, there will be a one-day delay in benefits available for every day after Oct. 23 that the process of putting money on cards hasn’t begun. That means that if a judge orders the program to continue on Thursday, the first cards would likely not be ready until around Nov. 10.Christopher Bosso, a Northeastern University professor of public policy and political science who has published a book about SNAP, said even a delay would be deeply felt. Beneficiaries often stock up on groceries at the start of the month, and stores often hold sales then that encourage shoppers to do so.“We’re about to find out how much this program matters, in ways that people hadn’t realized,” Bosso said.
AP writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
Margery A. Beck and Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
Recently, Figma CEO Dylan Field assembled employees from throughout the company for a demo of a new-ish tool for generating, refining, and editing synthetic images and videos. Rather than being built around one-off prompts, it allowed users to create visual workflows for comparing and manipulating options created by different AI models. It also facilitated putting imagery through multiple rounds of polishing and remixing, adding a large dose of human taste and quality control to the process.
According to Field, they were mesmerized by what they saw. We had it scheduled for 20 minutes, he remembers. And 20 minutes came, and everyone’s like, ‘No, no, please keep going. We’ll cancel the next sessionthis is the most magical thing.’ We went for an hour.
The tool that wowed the Figmates, as Figma employees call themselves, was the creation of an Israeli startup. Both were known as Weavybut not for long. Figma had already agreed to acquire the company. Slightly rebranded as Figma Weave, its product will join Figmas growing portfolio of web-based apps for designing interfaces, whiteboarding ideas, creating presentations, AI-assisted coding, and more.
[Image: Weavy]
Figma isnt disclosing the terms of the acquisition, its first since its July IPO. It will result in around a dozen Weavy staffers joining the company, including cofounders Lior Albeck, Jonathan Alumot, Jonathan Gur-Zeev, and Itay Schiff. Describing its vision as artistic intelligence, the startup was founded in 2024 and announced a $4 million seed funding last June. In its short existence, it had lined up an impressive customer list, including Google, Nvidia, Toyota, Dyson, Panasonic, and HP.
Its products interface provides a canvas for connecting building blocks called nodes to create a flowchart-like system of inputs and outputs. One example project starts by feeding a prompt into several still-image generators, then sends the nicest one on to serve as source material for several video generators. Another deconstructs an image into editable layers, allowing for the sort of masking and tweaking that was once solely the province of a product such as Photoshop. A third starts with an actual beauty shot of a dessert taken in a studio, then generates purely synthetic images of other foodstuffs that retain its look and feel. Workflows can accept user input that affects their operation, turning them into mini-apps with ongoing value.
[Photo: Weavy]
Many tools have long helped users perform programming-like feats via workflow builders with some conceptual similarities to Weave, if not its emphasis on AI and imagery. One you might be familiar with is Apples Shortcuts. Field himself remembers using another called LabVIEW in middle school. But the unusual degree of buzz around Weavys implementation of the idea attracted his attention.
I started to hear about it from people who are connoisseurs of product and have good taste, he says. It spiked as something to check out.
Meeting with the startups founders, Field bonded over their approach to balancing power and approachability, which struck him as Figma-esque. As he explains it, My job to get right every day, from a product standpoint, is, how do you balance the power of a tool with approachability and simplicity? It’s a constant battle. I just felt like the way that they were thinking about that aspect was extraordinary.
[Photo: Figma]
Field was also attracted by the fact that their product didnt spit out AI images and videos allegedly ready for use. Instead, it was about making it easier for human creators to slice, dice, and otherwise rework them before they ever appeared anywhere.
Its easy to consider AI outputs as the final destination, but that’s not the way you should think about it, he says. Theyre just this new creative starting point. You can use them like clay, and you can figure out how to transform them. And I think [Figma Weave] does a really good job of showing how it’s possible.
Field says that Figma is working on integrating Weave with its broader ecosystemboth aking it possible to bring Figma designs into Weave and adding elements of Weave to other products. Its also planning to speed further development through additional hires. Maybe most of all, hes mindful of the delicate work involved in not screwing up what Weavy created on its own.
They’ve got the trust of their community, he told me. I think it’s very important for Figma to show that we’ll be a good steward of the team, of this platformand that we’re doing everything we can to help them build.
The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point Wednesday for the second time since September. Before that, it had gone nine months without a cut.The federal funds rate is the rate at which banks borrow and lend to one another. While the rates consumers pay to borrow money aren’t directly linked to this rate, shifts affect what you pay for credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, and other financial products.“While the full economic impact of such a move will unfold over time, early indicators suggest that even modest rate cuts can have meaningful consequences for consumer behavior and financial health,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research at credit reporting agency TransUnion.The Fed has two goals when it sets the rate: one, to manage prices for goods and services, and two, to encourage full employment. Typically, the Fed might increase the rate to try to bring down inflation and decrease it to encourage faster economic growth and increase hiring. The challenge now is that inflation is higher than the Fed’s 2% target but the job market has been weak. The government shutdown has also prevented the collection and release of data the Fed relies on to monitor the health of the economy.Still, the Fed has projected it will cut rates once more before the end of the year.Here’s what to know:
Interest on savings accounts won’t be as appealing
For savers, falling interest rates will slowly erode attractive yields currently on offer with certificates of deposit (CDs) and high-yield savings accounts.Three of the top five high yield savings accounts had rate cuts after the last Fed rate cut in September, according to Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com, while two of the big five banks (Ally and Discover/Capital One) cut their savings account rates. The top rates for high yield savings account right now remain around 4.46% to 4.6%.Those are still better than the trends of recent years, and a good option for consumers who want to earn a return on money they may want to access in the near-term. A high yield savings account generally has a much higher annual percentage yield than a traditional savings account. The national average for traditional savings accounts is currently 0.63%, according to Bankrate.There may be a few accounts with returns of about 4% through the end of 2025, according to Tumin, but the Fed cuts will filter down to these offerings, lowering the average yields as they do.
A cut will impact mortgages gradually
For prospective homebuyers, the market has already priced in the rate cut.“Mortgage rates, in particular, have responded swiftly,” said Raneri. “Just in the past week, they fell to their lowest level in over a year. While mortgage rates don’t always move in lockstep with the Fed’s target rate often pricing in anticipated future cuts, the continued easing of monetary policy may well push rates even lower.”Bankrate financial analyst Stephen Kates said a declining interest rate environment will provide some relief for borrowers over time.“Whether it’s a homeowner with a 7% mortgage or a recent graduate hoping to refinance student loans and credit card debt, lower rates can ease the burden on many indebted households by opening opportunities to refinance or consolidate,” he said.
Auto loans are not expected to decline soon
Americans have faced steeper auto loan rates over the last three years after the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate starting in early 2022. Those are not expected to decline anytime soon. While a cut will contribute to eventual relief, it might be slow in arriving, analysts say.“If the auto market starts to freeze up and people aren’t buying cars, then we may see lending margins start to shrink, but auto loan rates don’t move in lockstep with the Fed rate,” Kates said.Prices for new cars remain at historically high levels, not adjusting for inflation.Generally speaking, an auto loan annual percentage rate can run from about 4% to 30%. Bankrate’s most recent weekly survey found that average auto loan interest rates are currently at 7.10% on a 60-month new car loan.
Credit card rate relief could be slow
Interest rates for credit cards are currently at an average of 20.01%, and the Fed’s rate cut may be slow to be felt by anyone carrying a large amount of credit card debt. That said, any reduction is positive news.“While inflation continues to exert pressure on household budgets, rate cuts offer a potential counterbalance by lowering debt servicing costs,” Raneri said.Still, the best thing for anyone carrying a large credit card balance is to prioritize paying down high-interest-rate debt, and to seek to transfer any amounts possible to lower APR cards or negotiate directly with credit card companies for accommodation.
The Associated Press receives support from the Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
Shares of Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) were down about 9% in premarket trading on Thursday. It follows what can only be described as a mixed bag of a quarter-three earnings report on Wednesday, October 30.
On the one hand, Meta announced $51.2 billion in revenue, a 26% increase year-over-year (YOY) from $40.6 billion and a quarterly record for the company. The boost also beat Wall Streets estimate of $49.6 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by Bloomberg.
However, Meta also reported a non-cash income tax charge of $15.93 billion. This one-time charge led to a significant decrease83%in Metas net income YOY. It also meant the companys earnings per share dropped to $1.05 from 2024s $6.03.
While the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads points out that its earnings per share would have been $7.25 without the tax charge, in reality it severely missed Wall Streets predicted $6.70, according to consensus estimates cited by the Guardian.
“Our compute needs have continued to expand”
Meta also increased its estimated total expenses for 2025, from between $114 billion and $118 billion to $116 billion and $118 billion. Similarly, its estimated capital expenditures for the year rose to $70 billion to $72 billion, up from a range of $66 billion to $72 billion.
Why the higher numbers? It all comes down to AI.
In an earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that despite building an aggressive assumption worth of AI infrastructure, the demand keeps increasing in a way that is very likely to be a profitable thing.
He claimed that there are more than a billion people actively using Meta AI on a monthly basis.
As we have begun to plan for next year, it’s become clear that our compute needs have continued to expand meaningfully, including versus our own expectations last quarter, Zuckerberg stated. We are still working through our capacity plans for next year, but we expect to invest aggressively to meet these needs, both by building our own infrastructure and contracting with third-party cloud providers.
Zuckerberg does admit that there could be unnecessary overflow, but he claims that it could be converted into intelligence and better recommendations for Metas family of apps and advertisements.
He further shared that capital expenditures and total expenses will be significantly higher in 2026 than 2025, due to infrastructure and employee compensation costs.
Notably, Meta laid off 600 people from its AI superintelligence research lab just last week.
By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact, Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang stated in a memo about the layoffs.
Zuckerberg only announced the new superintelligence lab in June.
Fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) is seeing its stock price plummet this morning after reporting third-quarter 2025 earnings and a sales forecast that alarmed investors.
As of the time of this writing, CMG shares are down a staggering 19% to $32.21 in premarket trading. Heres what you need to know about the companys stock price crash.
Whats happened?
On Wednesday, Chipotle reported its Q3 2025 earnings after the bell. Some of what the company revealed has alarmed investors.
But first, here are the companys most critical quarterly metrics:
Total revenue: $3 billion (a 7.5% increase)
Comparable restaurant sales: up 0.3%
Operating margin: 15.9% (down 1% point)
Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.29 (up 7.4%)
Stores opened: 84
As noted by CNBC, Chipotles adjusted EPS of 29 cents matched investor expectations, and its $3 billion in revenue came close to the $3.03 billion expected by LSEG analysts.
However, while Chipotle’s main Q3 metrics largely met expectations, the companys forecast led investors to dump the stock in the hours after it reported its latest earnings.
Full-year comparable sales expected to decline
Investors generally arent happy with only their expectations being met. They want unlimited growth into the future, too. A perceived lack of future growth can send investors fleeingand that appears to be what is happening to Chipotles stock in premarket trading.
After reporting its relatively expected Q3 results, Chipotle issued its full fiscal 2025 forecast, revealing that it was cutting its sales outlook.
For the full fiscal year (the company is now in its Q4 2025), Chipotle says it expects full year comparable restaurant sales declines in the low-single digit range.
This is the third time in a row that the restaurant chain has cut its sales forecasts. Back in February, the company had initially said that it expected full-year sales to increase by low-to-mid single digits.
Why the gloomy outlook?
As for the factors affecting its lowered sales forecast, Chiptole CEO Scott Boatwright cited several reasons on the companys investor call.
As consumer sentiment has declined sharply throughout the year, Chipotle stores have seen a broad-based pullback in frequency of customer visits, Boatwright said.
This is especially true for low- to middle-income customers, which Boatwright says include households earning less than $100,000, representing about 40% of Chiptoles total customer base.
Boatwright says this segment of customers is dining out less often due to concerns about the economy and inflation.
However, another segment of Chipotle customers is also having a large negative impact on Chipotles revenue as they cut back on visits, too. This segment comprises younger people aged 25 to 35.
Boatwright says this cohort is facing particular economic challenges, leading them to pull back on discretionary spending. Those challenges include unemployment, increased student loan repayment and slower real wage growth.
We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle, Boatwright noted, and is occurring across all restaurants as well as many discretionary categories.
At the same time, Chipotle may rely more heavily on younger diners than other chains. “We tend to skew younger and slightly over-indexed to this group relative to the broader restaurant industry,” Boatwright said.
Forging ahead with new store openings
Despite projecting full-year 2025 sales declines, Chipotle says it will expand its physical store footprint significantly in 2026.
While the opening of new stores increases operational expenses, it could also help the company boost sales by expanding into new markets where no Chipotle stores exist or where the company is underrepresented.
In 2025, Chitpotle said it will open between 315 and 345 locations by the end of the fiscal year. In 2026, the company said it expects to open even more stores.
We anticipate opening between 350 and 370 new restaurants, Boatwright revealed. The CEO noted that these will include 10 to 15 new partner-operated restaurants outside of North America.
Countries where these restaurants are expected to open include South Korea, Singapore, and Mexico, as well as parts of the Middle East. Chiptole also expects to open one or two company-owned stores in Europe.
CMG share price plummets
But investors seem to care little about Chipotles continued expansion and are instead focused on the companys lowered sales forecast.
As of the time of this writing, CMG shares have declined 19% in premarket trading to $32.21 per share. Thats a low that Chipotle’s stock price hasn’t seen since 2023.
As of yesterdays share price close of $39.76, CMG stock had declined more than 33% since the beginning of the year.
At just above $32 per share in premarket trading this morning, Chipotles share price is now nearly half of what it was on the first trading day of 2025.
If youve been eager to try cultivated meatmeat grown from cells, without the need to raise an entire animalyour options, so far, have been limited. The innovation has only appeared on a handful of restaurant menus since its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
But if youre in the Bay Area, youre in luck: Cultivated meat startup Mission Barns will be selling its pork meatballs (made with a base of pea protein plus the companys cultivated pork fat) at Berkeley Bowl West, one location of an independent grocery store in California.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
It marks the first retail sale of cultivated meat in the United States, though the products are available for just one day only: Saturday, November 1.
That said, those in the area will have more chances to try Mission Barnss cultivated meat products.
Along with the one-day sale, the company is hosting four in-store tastings at Berkeley Bowl, offering samples of its pork meatballs on November 1, January 17, and February 21, plus tastings of its cultivated pork salami on December 12.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
Cultivated meat in restaurants
Cultivated meat (also called cell-cultured meat or lab-grown meat, though some in the industry contest that moniker) is still a nascent field.
Mission Barns first launched in 2018. Others like Upside Foods, which makes cultured chicken, and Wildtype, which develops cultivated fish, have been around just a little longersince 2015 and 2016, respectively.
U.S. regulators approved the first sales of cultivated meat in 2023. And since then, a variety of call-cultured options have made a few brief appearances on restaurant menus. (That move followed Singapores 2020 approval of cultivated meat, and cultured meat has been sold both in restaurants and in retail in Singapore, like in the frozen section of a butchery.)
The Michelin-starred Bar Crenn in San Francisco briefly sold Upsides chicken. Chef José Andrés piloted cultured chicken from Good Meat (owned by Eat Just) at his China Chilcano DC eatery. Otoko, a sushi restaurant in Austin, Texas, offered Wildtype salmon last summer (but stopped selling it after Texas lawmakers enacted a cultivated meat ban).
Mission Barns, too, debuted its cultivated pork meatballs and bacon at a few exclusive dinners at Fiorella in San Francisco this past September. But cultured meat hasnt yet been sold in a grocery store in the United States, until November 1.
Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang says the startup picked Berkeley Bowl for this milestone because it has a track record for innovation; its been an early adopter of new plant-based brands. A 12 pack of the cultivated pork meatballs will be on sale for $13.99.
Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang [Photo: Mission Barns]
Mission Barns’s focus on fats
Though a handful of statesincluding Texas, Florida, and Alabamahave moved to ban cultivated meat even before its widespread availability, Chang doesnt see cultured meat as controversial.
I think people don’t know that much about it, she says.
The in-store tasting series is a way to build up that consumer awareness and education. Mission Barns is collaborating with researchers from Tufts Universitys Center for Cellular Agriculture, who will observe the tastings to see how people react and talk about such products in a setting outside of a focus group.
Mission Barns hopes to get crucial insights, too.
Though the startup has created a handful of products under its own namelike meatballs, bacon, pepperoni, and salamiit doesnt ultimately aim to be its own brand. Instead, its a B2B company, focused on selling its cultivated fats as ingredients to consumer packaged goods partners.
That focus on fat makes Mission Barns unique in the cultivated space; the startup isnt creating entire cuts of cultured meat like other companies.
Fat is really where a lot of that delicious, meaty, umami flavor comes from, Chang says. And Mission Barns sees these fats as a next generation functional flavoring ingredient that can go into alternative proteins or other savory applications.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
Through the cell cultured process, the company can also tune its process to tweak nutrition details, like lowering the saturated fat and cholesterol or adding in more omega 3s.
That includes plant-based meats like Mission Barnss meatballs and bacon, or possibly soups, sauces, and so on. The products that will be on offer at Berkeley Bowl are like a proof of concept for cultivated fat as an ingredient, and a way to show other CPG companies what Mission Barns can offer.
Working with established food brands also means Mission Barns wont have to focus on building up its own brand, retail partners, and so on.
From our perspective, B2B is a much faster way to scale and grow, Chang says.
The startup already has partnerships in the works, though couldnt name specific companies.
For those who taste its offerings at Berkeley Bowl and want to know how to be customers in the future, “We’ll be telling them to watch the space, Chang says. Well hopefully be launching something in retail with a partner sometime next year.
In April 2025, Lucy Guo became the youngest female self-made billionaire after Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, the company she cofounded with Alexandr Wang in 2016.
Though Guo had left the companywhich builds infrastructure and software to create AI applicationsover disagreements with Wang in 2018, she retained her 5% stake in the business, which skyrocketed in value after Meta’s investment.
In 2022 she reemerged with Passes, a platform that helps creators monetize their social media followings by selling access to exclusive offeringsfrom products and merch to pay-by-the-minute private phone calls. As of February, the company has raised a total of $49 million.
Guo tells me that Passes is growingits payments to creators have totaled nine figures so farand profitable. But its expansion has come with some controversy. In 2024, Passes was sued by rival platform Fanfix over alleged anti-competitive practices, and since February it has been facing a class-action lawsuit accusing it of distributing child pornography.
We talked about the lawsuits, as well as what her platform offers creators that they can’t get on Patreon or even OnlyFans. She says the platform’s main differentiator is that her long-term vision for Passes isn’t just engagement, it’s . . .
. . . using AI to grow creators’ earning potential and then managing their wealth.
Why did you found Passes?
I wanted to create a platform where creators could monetize their brand. Creators have such super fans that there’s no customer acquisition cost when it comes to marketing a product, which is unique. The best example was when Kylie [Jenner] made a lot of money through her lipstick brand, and her marketing plan was literally “I’m just going to drop it and people are going to buy it.”
Then we saw these other brands pop up like Logan Pauls Prime, and even Mr. Beasts with Feastables, that makes up most of his net worth. I was actually debating whether to start off with a platform like Passes or build something like a YC Safe( a Simple Agreement for Future Equity document developed by Y Combinator to help early-stage startups raise capital from investors), where creators would be able to get equity into brand deals that they work with.
Why did you consider that option?
It is the way to long-term generational wealth. Equity is more important than upfront cash, and I don’t think Hollywood and managers necessarily understand equity yet. No creators would listen to us if we pushed on equity unless we started making them money. The reason creators listen to their managers is that the manager is their main source of incomeso we needed to become their main source of income.
Over COVID, I noticed a lot of friends were making money from Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee. I thought it was the perfect time for creators to connect with their fans and offer an exclusive, authentic experience, and I wanted create the infrastructure for that.
What differentiates passes from say, a Patreon or an OnlyFans?
Quite a lot. We have paid livestreams, paid one-on-one calls where fans pay per minute. You can sell your own merchandise or you can create merchandise on our website and sell it without having to own inventory. We’re building out new features in the fintech space. We offer health insurance. We want to create these unicorn creators and get into wealth management.
Say a creator is on OnlyFans or Patreon, how do you convince them to switch over to Passes? We don’t compete with OnlyFansthey’re a completely different platform. We don’t allow nudity, so when someone’s on OnlyFans, we tell them that if they switch over to Passes, theyre probably not going to make any money.
There are plenty of non-pornographic content creators on OnlyFans.
Yeah, for sure. But even if they’re doing other stuff, I think their fan base has the hope of getting something else. Because of that, people are willing to spend more on OnlyFans because they just know they’re not going to get anything on Passes. As for Patreon, the pitch is pretty easy. We take less of a percentage from creators earnings, we have more features, so there’s more ways to monetize. We’ve seen creators switch over from Patreon and make 30 times more.
Youve said elsewhere that creators who make a lot of money on Passes often have something like 100,000 followers on social media. The most-followed people in the world dont necessarily have the closest relationships with their fans. Why is that?
Creators that have millions of followers are very busy. They’re focused on shooting movies or flying out for brand deals. Creators that have between 100,000 and a million followers aren’t getting as many opportunities. They’re desperate for a way to monetize their fan base, and they happen to have more superfans because they’re creating more content to gain traction and grow their follower numbers. They’re creating more content, and more content equals more money.
There was a 2024 lawsuit brought on by another creator platform, Fanfix, which alleged that Passes used confidential information to post clients and made misleading claims about creators’ earnings on the platform. That obviously doesn’t match up with what you just said.
I’m used to San Francisco and the tech industry, where you’re competing off of merit and everyone’s just trying to create the best product possible. Hollywood is very litigious and in the Hollywood scene, people are willing to make up lies in order to compete.
You’re also currently being sued in a class action suit over claims that Passes knowingly distributed child sexual materials. How are you responding to that case?
We did our own internal investigation and found that the claims and the case do not match up with evidence that we have found thus far. I think this is just another one of those scenarios where people are trying to shake us down and attempt to get money. That case was dismissed in Florida. [Editor’s Note: The lawsuit was dismissed in Florida, but transferred to California, where it remains active.]
You did make changes to the platform as a result, though. Now people under 18 cant join.
We had the idea that everyone should be able to monetize. When you look at YouTube, a lot of families are monetizing their content. But at the end of the day, it was a handful of creators that generated near 0% of revenue on Passes. So we decided it was very risky and just not worth it.
Youre a high-profile founder. What is it like for you personally when legal challenges come up?
Now I’m immune to it. I was very surprised at first. What IÙve learned in lawsuitsand this blew my mindis that you have to assume everything in the claim is true and try to poke legal holes in that. You can’t just hand over proof that the allegations are wrong and move on. That just makes it so easy for people to sue off others of complete lies. I think the hope when people do that is that the cost of another party defending the lawsuit is greater than just settling. I refuse to settle because I would rather spend more and prove things are not true.
What can you say about the future of Passes?
Wealth management. Creators always ask us, how do I turn passive income into passive equity? Who are the best wealth managers to work with? How do I set myself up for life? This is all stuff we should just be able to do.
We’ve already paid out creators nine figures. Every time we send a payout to their bank account, we have to pay a fee. It just makes sense for us to be a bank because then we can give them high-yield savings accounts.
Do you have any predictions about the creator economy? The creator economy is growing, and we are going to see more creators in the future just because trends follow kids. When you talk to kids nowadays, they all want to be creators. We’re going to be seeing a lot more creators, especially in a range where we monetize well, which is the 100,000-follower range.
What do you think about this emergent class of AI-generated “talent”I’m thinking of figures like the AI actor Tilly Norwoodin the context of Passes and the creator economy? I am not that bullish on AI creators. There have already been a few and everyone thought it was going to be the next big thing, but really we got Lil Miquela and some others. What’s much more likely to happen is that people are going to be licensing their likeness out so they can spend more time creating content and interacting with their fans. For example, if a brand wanted to fly me out, I could just license my likeness out instead of that. I could scale myself better so I have more time to do things that I love. We’re not going to see AI creators replace actual creators because it’s hard to have a human connection with someone that you know is fake.
Do you think you can have a human connection with a licensed image of a creator? I think so. But you can’t dilute your brand too much. At the end of the day, it’s still that creator you have a connection with. You’re following them on Instagram and you love them.
How are you using AI to connect creators with the right brand deals? We have a feature called smart pricing that basically automatically prices pieces of content creators make based off factors like fan history and the type of content it is, to help optimize their earnings. When creators use this, their earnings go up by 3x usually. Hopefully this quarter, we’re rolling out AI agents for creators. We want creators to be able to focus on creating content. These agents do everything from AB test captions to scheduling mass messages and running strategy under pages.
Do you think we’re in an AI bubble?
I don’t think we’re in an AI bubble. Valuations are higher now because you can build companies at a lower cost. I was in San Francisco other week, and there was this company that scaled from zero to $90 million in revenue in four months. They have Cursor AI doing 99% of their code. Because of all these AI tools you now need less money to get to scale. Valuations are predictive. It’s like, okay, we’re going to give you 10x what revenue is because we believe you’re going to be a 100x revenue. And I think a lot of investors are thinking this way. You don’t need to burn as much capital to get there.
