Adding “AI” to your company’s name used to be a blessing. Right now it’s a curse.

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Hey Snackers,

Call us petty, but we kind of enjoy when one Big Tech competitor razzes another. Case in point: Google, which recently put out an ad directly mocking Apple’s failure to deliver a better, AI-powered Siri for its iPhones. Yesterday, Google debuted its new Pixel 10 and showed off AI features Apple has long promised were “coming soon.” From early reviews, it seems its Gemini assistant is succeeding, though the real proof will come when the new smartphone hits the hands of actual consumers next week.

What was shaping up to be a repeat of Tuesday’s AI momentum wreck seemingly turned on a dime into another buy-the-dip moment. Though major indexes all retreated on the session, they turned around sharply shortly before 11 a.m. ET to finish well off their lows. In the end, the S&P 500 gave back 0.2%, the Nasdaq 100 underperformed with a 0.6% drop, and the Russell 2000 dipped 0.3%.

 
AI AI AI

Adding “AI” to your company’s name used to be a blessing. Right now it’s a curse.

For years, there has been a simple way to convince investors that your company has promise, regardless of its actual business: just jam “AI” into its name.

Simple, yet effective, there is no better way to make sure everyone knows you’re in the AI business than literally putting it in your name, a tactic many US publicly traded companies have turned to to try to ensure their stocks get their fair share of any halo effect from the theme. 

But when there’s a nascent pullback in everything AI, that also means you stick out like a sore thumb.

  • We scanned the S&P 500 Total Market Index for companies whose names make it clear they’re in the artificial intelligence business (mostly relatively smaller stocks).
  • Think companies like Arrive AI, BigBear.ai, Blaize Holdings, Bullfrog AI Holdings, C3.ai, Datavault AI, Jet.ai, Palladyne AI, Scantech AI Systems, SES AI, SoundHound AI, and Spectral AI.
  • Those stocks were down a lot this week, as charted here. A Bank of America basket of mostly large-cap US AI beneficiaries also dropped over the same period.

SoundHound AI is at the bottom of the pack despite a dearth of company-specific news, and fell another 6.6% yesterday. 

THE TAKEAWAY

Adding “AI” to your name could be a sincere way to bring the forefront of a company’s business to top of mind for investors, or it could more cynically be perceived as a cheap stunt to juice the stock. Whichever way you see it, one thing is now clear: it’s far from without risk. 

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THAT’S GOTTA HERTZ

Amazon dabbles in used cars; the industry winces 

Rental car giant Hertz announced it will begin selling some of its massive inventory of used vehicles on Amazon. The news sent shares of the used car company up 6 points, while it dinged stocks like Carvana and CarMax as investors came to grips with the idea that Amazon might be muscling in on their turf.

  • The program will start in four cities before eventually expanding to 45 US locations.
  • Hertz, which has posted seven consecutive quarterly losses, has been on the hunt for profit-boosting strategies as of late. It’s also rolled out controversial AI damage scanners at several US airport locations that, according to some customers, charge hefty fines for minuscule scratches and dents.
  • In its latest earnings report, Hertz said it had a fleet of more than 540,000 vehicles. Carvana sold more than 143,000 vehicles in its second quarter, and has a lofty goal to sell 3 million vehicles annually in 5 to 10 years.

If Amazon continues to expand into the used car business, that may become even tougher.

THE TAKEAWAY

The four most dangerous words for any company are: “Amazon likes your industry.” Even a cursory expansion to an existing business line — Amazon’s toe in the water in the auto world is the aptly named Amazon Autos, which has so far mostly been an arrangement with Hyundai — is enough to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting industry’s share prices. 

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THE BEST THING WE READ TODAY

Xiaomi is speedrunning building an electric vehicle business

In 2021, no one at Xiaomi knew how to make cars. Going from smartphones to EVs isn’t exactly a logical or easy next step — just ask Apple, which gave up on its moon shot car project after a decade. But facing trade sanctions in its phone business, the company launched Xiaomi Auto and, less than four years later, predicts it will deliver 350,000 electric vehicles this fiscal year.

See how long it took Tesla and BYD to hit that milestone.

 
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