Latest news

Gene J. Puskar  

The development of AI 

Fast food chain invests in drive-through chatbot 

The American fast food chain Wendy's begins a collaboration with Google and develops a chatbot that will take care of the drive-through orders at one of the company's restaurants in Ohio. The Wall Street Journal reports. 

The technology will begin to be used in June, and the goal is to make the ordering process faster and thus prevent long queues that scare away customers.  

Wendy's CEO Todd Penegor tells the WSJ that customers won't experience much of a difference, and that it will feel like talking to a human employee. 

Wendy's has collaborated with Google on things like data analysis, machine learning and cloud tools for many years.  

One of Amazon's long-haul trucks (stock image) Shutterstock  

Amazon's ventures  

Amazon customers get paid to forgo home delivery  

American Amazon customers who have premium subscriptions with free home delivery have this week been offered $10 (102 kroner) if they instead pick up the goods themselves. This is written by the Reuters news agency. 

One of the customers who received the offer via email is transportation consultant Dean Maciuba, who lives outside of Buffalo in New York state. He tells Reuters that the model represents a huge opportunity to reduce transport costs.  

Landscape with sheep and ruin (illustration image) Shutterstock  

Economy 

Ireland is inspired by Norway - can put surplus in giant fund  

Ireland's government is considering creating an investment fund similar to the Norwegian oil fund, writes the Financial Times.  

The aim is to gather in the barns for a future with an aging population and other structural challenges. Tax revenues from tech giants such as Google and Meta currently fill the state's coffers, but are uncertain in the longer term.  

The government expects a budget surplus of 3.4 percent of gross national income (GNI) this year and a whopping 5.4 percent next year.