JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty said able-bodied people are requesting wheelchairs to skip the line.
IMF
JetBlue's CEO recently said that able-bodied travelers are requesting wheelchairs to skip lines.
Her comments drew attention to the long-running "miracle flight" phenomenon.
Advocates say policing the "hack", which drew attention on TikTok, could backfire.
Some travelers have found a shameless travel "hack" to skip airport lines: request a wheelchair to board the plane, then walk off at the destination.
This phenomenon of so-called "miracle flights" — where able-bodied travelers ask for a wheelchair to cut security and boarding lines — blurs the line between legitimate disability accommodations and abusing the system.
Earlier this month, during an interview with the Boston public radio station WBUR's "Breakfast Club," JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty said US law requires airlines to provide wheelchair assistance to passengers who request it at the airport. Airlines generally cannot ask questions beyond logistics or clarity about the assistance request.
However, she said there is a "group of folks that use wheelchairs to get to the front of the line, and not for legitimate reasons."
The CEO's comments drew attention to the long-running "miracle flight" tension in air travel that others in aviation say has become all too common in the US and lacks an easy solution.
"We have certain flights that have 23 to 25 customers with wheelchairs, and, frankly, nobody wants to try to address some of those challenges because it's a very tough situation to navigate, both politically, but also just heart," Geraghty said.
Not all disabilities are visible, and passengers do not need to use a wheelchair full time to request assistance at the airport. But doing so to bypass airport lines shortchanges people with real mobility issues.
So how do airlines and airport staff police the increasing demands for disability accommodations without unfairly scrutinizing passengers with legitimate — and often invisible — disabilities?
Michele Erwin, the founder and president of the advocacy nonprofit All Wheels Up, told Business Insider that there are few solutions.
She said she's seen firsthand how airlines discuss the abuse behind the scenes and are doing their best to tackle it within the law, but there is virtually no way to verify who does or does not have a disability without asking for legally protected information.
She added that each wheelchair push is an expense for the airlines, so they lose money every time someone abuses the system: "It's not great for either side; we're all living in a gray area."
Airlines handle thousands of wheelchairs a day across their networks, and adding fake requests can worsen service.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
Industry leaders have called out the misuse for years. Former Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said in 2024 that the ultra-low-cost airline was seeing a "massive, rampant abuse" of special services. He said it costs $30 to $35 per wheelchair request.
The ex-CEO of London's Heathrow Airport similarly said in 2022 that some travelers were using wheelchair assistance to "fast-track" through airports after seeing it recommended on TikTok.
Several reports say Southwest's former open-seating system — where boarding order was determined by check-in time — may have incentivized some passengers to request wheelchair assistance in order to secure a better seat.
However, Erwin warned that efforts to police abuse could actually risk creating new problems for passengers who rely on wheelchairs, especially for reasons not related to mobility.
For example, she said some people who board with a wheelchair but then walk off the plane may be mobile but need help navigating a big, unfamiliar airport. Or they may be someone who has been flying for 24 hours across time zones and is simply exhausted.
So, she said, referring to these individuals as having experienced a medical miracle in-flight ignores the broader context.
Retired Delta captain Mark Stephens told Business Insider that he's aware wheelchair abuse happens, but similarly warned people should not start questioning anyone in the airport using one, on the off chance that they might be lying.
"Many people are disabled with things we cannot see," he said.
Geraghty acknowledged the shortfalls during the interview, saying, "In general, I don't think the airline industry does a great job with our customers with disabilities."
Transportation Department data shows that there were about 43,500 disability-related complaints among all US airlines in 2024.
More than half of the complaints were about failure to provide wheelchair service,such as insufficient staff or leaving someone behind. This may be partly due to the increase in wheelchair abuse, which takes workers away from those who truly need assistance.
Airports like Detroit have deployed autonomous wheelchairs to transport passengers to their gates without an attendant. Erwin encourages people to use it.
: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
But Erwin said part of the problem also stems from travelers not notifying the airline in advance that they will need wheelchair assistance.
She said airports can sometimes be overwhelmed by unexpected last-minute wheelchair requests, leaving staff stretched too thin and resulting in slower or worse service. "That's where All Wheels Up comes in," Erwin said. "To educate the community."
Passengers can typically request a wheelchair during the booking process or add it later.The airlines are responsible for providing disability access services, but the assistants who perform these duties on their behalf are usually employed by third-party contractors.
Geraghty similarly said that more opportunities to pre-plan would be helpful: "If we could isolate out the folks who truly needed help, I think we could do a far, far, far better job with it."
Jonathan Butler vibe-coded a construction management website.
Jessica Pettway for BI
Jonathan Butler owned 105 website domains that were collecting dust. The problem was, he didn't know how to code them to life.
The 56-year-old entrepreneur is a Brooklyn fixture. He cofounded the food festival Smorgasburg and the resale market Brooklyn Flea. In 2004, he made one of New York's early blogs, Brownstoner.com.
When he was building Brownstoner, he had help. He was "looking over the shoulder" of an employee programming the site's back-end, he said. With no coding knowledge, he couldn't do anything with all those web domains himself.
Butler vibe coded a website for his REM cover band and a vintage tools tracker.
Jonathan Butler
Butler vibe coded a website for his REM cover band and a vintage tools tracker.
Jonathan Butler
"It hasn't really made sense to pay someone else a few thousand dollars to fiddle around with your idea," he said.
Then Butler began reading about AI. He first used it as a "Google on steroids," he said, before a friend invited him over and taught him about vibe coding. The lecture was on a Friday; by Monday, he started building.
Butler is one of many new "vibe coders," or non-technical folks who use AI to build software for their day-to-day. They use platforms like Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, instructing an AI agent what to code (rather than coding it themselves).
His first vibe-coded project was a website for his REM cover band. Then, there was a website for tracking vintage tool collections, like how he uses Discogs for his vinyl records.
"I have so many records that, when I go to a record store, I can't remember," he said. "I've got like a dozen David Bowie albums."
His biggest project, though, is a construction management site. Butler is building himself a home in Germantown, New York, at the top of a 15-acre ridge.
"We're thinking of it as our forever house," Butler said. "It's one story, so we will roll around in our wheelchairs and get carted into the showers."
Poynton has friends, family, and a few folks online sorting their shopping lists with his app.
Jessica Pettway for BI
Butler expects the build to take 18-24 months. It will require lots of blueprints, contracts, drawings, and photographs. Those all too easily get lost.
"Every time I wanted to see the most recent plans, I was digging through my old emails or having the architect resend it," Butler said.
He named the app Metalog. It's not too complicated, he said, comparing it to a combination of Dropbox and iPhoto. His goal was to create a centralized platform for document-sharing with his architect and contractor.
Butler does his best work in Claude, which he pays $200 a month for. ("On the free level of these things, you use it up in a few minutes," he said.) He started this project in ChatGPT, though, asking for an outline.
Butler built Metalog, a site to track his home construction's paperwork.
Jonathan Butler
Butler built Metalog, a site to track his home construction's paperwork.
Jonathan Butler
"I'm building a house now and realizing how scattered everything is and wondering if there might be an opportunity for me to vibe-code a new product that unified everything but wasn't too crazy," he wrote to ChatGPT.
The chatbot told him that there was an opportunity and highlighted the core problems. Then, Butler and ChatGPT went back and forth with spreadsheets and follow-ups until they had a plan.
Butler then uploaded the 79-page conversation to Claude Code and asked the system to review it. He got to prompting, asking for "very explicit instructions" as he went.
After about 25 hours of vibe coding, he's happy with Metalog. He loaded it up with designs and insurance documents, and handed it over to his architect. He plans to use it for meeting notes from their weekly check-ins, along with labeled progress photos.
A rendering of the home that Butler plans to grow old in. It's one story, so "we will roll around in our wheelchairs and get carted into the showers," he said.
Jonathan Butler
Laura Trevino, Butler's architect and sister-in-law, said that she usually keeps documents organized in her own systems. Then, she'll email them to clients along the way.
"I have no idea how that information is organized on their end," Trevino said. "With this, I can see what he's seeing at the same time."
One example of a task Butler and Trevino used it for: setting budgets. Contracts often have multiple rounds of pricing, all of which can stack up in your inbox. It's difficult to know which document is the most recent. In Metalog, it takes Trevino "two minutes" and there's "no confusion about it."
Still, there's always more work to be done, and Butler said that he'll continue to "noodle" on Metalog for three to four hours a day. That doesn't feel like a burden, though.
"It's like being in your wood shop making something," he said. He felt "so powerless" when he couldn't build his own websites. Now, he feels empowered.
He wants to share it, too. Butler's next project: building an AI scraper for architects' contact information, so he can send Metalog straight to them.
Red meat is having a moment. It's the OG protein at a time when America's protein obsession is peaking. MAHA influencers, avid gym-goers, and anyone trying to cool it with the processed foods are embracing steak, burgers, and roast beef with renewed enthusiasm. The federal government — particularly Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — put beef at the forefront of the country's revised dietary guidelines.
This accelerated appetite for beef is running into a big problem: the cost. Ground beef prices recently hit a record of $6.90 per pound, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and beef and veal prices are up nearly 15% from a year ago, far outpacing overall inflation. Data from the market research firm NIQ shows that Americans have spent $42.4 billion on beef over the past year, even as they bought less of it overall. That burger-dollar isn't going as far as it used to.
As grilling season approaches, many Americans are facing an uncomfortable reality at the meat counter: That roast or sirloin they want is going to cost a pretty penny, and there's no sign that will change anytime soon. America's cattle herd is severely depleted, and building it back up is a yearslong effort — ranchers can't grow a cow overnight, and many of them aren't sure they want to grow more cows at all. There's little relief to be had on the demand side as Americans' meat craze isn't abating.
America wants more beef. American ranchers aren't convinced it's worth making.
To put things plainly, America doesn't have enough cows. There were 86.2 million cattle and calves in the US at the start of the year, according to the USDA, which is right around the lowest level in decades.
A long stretch of low cattle prices in the 2010s encouraged ranchers to reduce their herds, and ongoing droughts have meant there isn't enough grass for cattle to eat. Ranchers can buy feed to supplement, but that's gotten more expensive, too. And building up the next generation of cattle is a long process: Most calves are born in the spring and remain by their mother's side nursing and grazing until they're weaned six to nine months later. At that point, most male calves go to a feedlot to grow until they reach market weight, usually at about 18-20 months of age, maybe more. Ranchers have a decision to make about female calves: keep them for breeding to expand the herd, or send them off with the males. Given the hot market, many ranchers have made the calculation that it's better to sell the animals to slaughter and get paid a decent price for them while they can.
There's some long biology here that's pretty tough to beat.
Let's say a rancher has a heifer calf born this spring and decides to keep her. She won't have her first calf until the spring of 2028, and that calf has to grow for months until it becomes beef — which gets us to 2030.
"There's some long biology here that's pretty tough to beat," says David Anderson, an extension economist for livestock and food product marketing at Texas A&M.
Ranchers are also hesitant to start this multi-year cycle to grow their herds because of their own age. The average beef producer is around 63, explains Rich Nelson, a livestock market analyst at Allendale Inc., an agriculture research and brokerage firm. "They're preparing for retirement, and they have no interest in long-term expansion," he says.
Close puts the thought process succinctly: "Those guys are to a point of, 'Do I pay these kind of prices to buy replacements when I'm at an age I really don't want to be banging around with cows anymore?'"
Younger generations aren't exactly clamoring to get into the cattle ranching business, either. Startup costs are expensive, interest rates are high, and the payoff takes years to come to fruition— not to mention it's about as far from a cushy desk job as you can get.
Amanda Severson is one of the few younger people to buck the trend. The 32-year-old never thought she'd wind up in agriculture — now, she knows more about it and cattle ranching, specifically, than she ever imagined. She moved from Seattle to Iowa in 2017 to work on her husband's century-old family farm and start their own operation, Grand View Beef. They buy calves — usually from her husband's parents, who run a calf-cow operation — and finish grass-feeding them. Then, they have them processed and sell the meat directly to consumers. "When we started in 2017, we would pay around $1,000 for a 500-pound calf, and today that's more like $2,200 to $2,500," she says.
Grand View increased prices for its end product on May 1 — ground beef went from $12 per pound to $14, stew meat from $14 to $16 per pound, and sirloin from $24 to $28 per pound. When they started out selling in 2017, their ground beef was priced at $7 per pound, which Severson says was probably a little low. They were concerned that if they didn't up prices this spring, they'd start losing money. Most customers have been understanding. "Just shows how much people love beef," Severson says. They've worked to communicate with their customers about what's going on, and the couple is also trying to buffer themselves against market headwinds — toward the end of 2025, they bought some of their own cows to start a small herd. Today's market may be favorable, but there's uncertainty — they'll be paying off the loan they took out to start the herd for five to seven years.
"There was still this risk of like, well, if the cattle markets crash or even go down just a little bit, this could be a bad investment," she says. "Obviously now, looking at what happened, we're glad we did."
Bill Smith, managing editor of the red meat division at Expana, a market intelligence firm and price reporting agency, tells me typical cattle herd cycles run on a 10-year cycle of expansion and contraction. That means replenishing the country's herds to more normal levels of, say, 90-95 million cattle, would be a hefty task, but not an impossible one. The issue, however, is that "we're still liquidating these animals," he says, meaning killing more cattle than keeping and growing new ones.
"The ranching industry is kind of a head scratcher," Severson says. "It's going to take us so long to make that money back."
The supply crunch is landing at a moment when demand for beef is exploding, thanks to the cultural shift toward protein-heavy diets and the MAHA movement. Some of the negativity surrounding beef in recent decades — health, environmental, and animal rights concerns — isn't generating headlines the way it used to, though those issues haven't gone away. Many beef alternatives, such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, haven't really taken hold.
Seventy-seven percent of shoppers say that meat and poultry are part of a healthy diet, according to a survey from food industry group FMI and lobbying group the Meat Institute, and 45% of shoppers are actively trying to make more meals with meat and poultry. Whether you're a GLP-1 user, a looksmaxxer, or a perimenopausal mom, chances are, you're thinking about your protein intake. The focus on meat is also getting some government support. The new White House dietary guidelines rolled out by HHS Secretary RFK Jr. put red meat front and center. Politics aside, it's a sign of the times: beef is back.
The quality of American beef has improved significantly as of late — producers have increased the marbling in their products to better align with consumer palates. The vast majority of graded US beef reaches the USDA's top two quality tiers. The across-the-board quality helps keep price-conscious consumers from looking for other protein sources— they may not get the fanciest beef for dinner, but they're not scrapping it entirely.
"They may be trading down the beef ladder so that they're willing to trade out some of the expensive steak cuts for lower-priced items, but they're not yet fully trading out of beef to either pork or poultry," Close says.
"The people who are still buying beef are beef loyalists," says Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University.
Indeed, data from NIQ shows that annual beef spending in the US has increased by nearly $10 billion over the past five years. However, people seem to be buying moderately less beef overall, and they're seeking out deals and buying in larger pack sizes to try to save money. Chris Costagli, vice president of food insights at NIQ, tells me about a quarter of consumers say they're stretching their meat-based meals with pasta, beans, and rice, and about one-fifth say they're eating more meatless meals.
But when consumers are shopping for beef — or anything, for that matter — they're scrutinizing packaging. This is a place where meat, depending on how it's produced, may have an advantage: Producers and manufacturers aren't adding a bunch of weird, unpronounceable ingredients to ground beef. If they adhere to certain consumer standards around animal welfare, hormones, and antibiotics, it appeals to buyers.
"When they see meat products that make those sorts of claims that are valuable to them, they're actually willing to spend more money in that department on those products because they have a claim that in their mind justifies the spend," Costagli says.
Rosangela Teodoro, the owner of Teodora's Boucherie Gourmande, a craft butchery in Massachusetts, tries to educate her customers on which meats work best for which meals and encourages creativity — not everything has to be the best cut. "The cattle has a lot of muscles," she says. She also uses concerns about processed food to her advantage. "Meat is the real protein," she says, whereas many trendy snacks promoting their protein content are gimmicky. "Popcorn that's made out of whey, it's not protein."
Over and over, I asked analysts, economists, and ranchers when this beef debacle gets fixed, and the answer was that no one really knows. We're stuck in this situation "indefinitely," Volpe says. "This industry is challenging."
The Trump administration has made some efforts to bring about relief. The president recently announced he would suspend tariffs on beef imports, though that plan is now in limbo after complaints from cattle ranchers and some Republican lawmakers. It's also trying to increase loans and access to capital for ranchers and reduce protections for wolves that ranchers say prey on their herds. None of those measures, whether they come to pass or not, will be hugely or immediately impactful.
The people who are still buying beef are beef loyalists.
"Directionally, with a lower tariff, we would import more, add some supply. So directionally, you could argue some lower price, but we're already importing record amounts of beef," Anderson says.
It's a similar story on meatpackers, which have been under scrutiny by the Justice Department in both Democratic and Republican administrations over anticompetitive behavior. There are plenty of problems with the meatpacking industry and its concentration — just four companies control about 85% of the market — but going after them won't solve the current conundrum.
"They don't control the weather, and they don't control interest rates and costs," Anderson says.
There's not one single entity that does, which isn't ideal for anyone in this picture. High prices are supposed to encourage more production, but in cattle, where expansion takes years and risks are enormous, the calculation is far from simple.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
Between pictures of rockets, planets, and satellites, SpaceX's recently dropped S-1 includes a lot of sci-fi-sounding language.
SpaceX
SpaceX's IPO paperwork includes terms and photos that are more sci-fi than Wall Street.
Its S-1 filing lays out SpaceX's ambitions to build AI centers and fueling stations in space.
The filing nods at classic Elon Musk lore — David Bowie's "Starman" gets a reference, too.
SpaceX's IPO filing is written for Wall Street — but parts of its 277 pages read like a sci-fi novel.
Sprinkled among the necessary financial disclosures for Elon Musk's rocket company are a bevy of glossy images of his futuristic vision, planets, and products floating in space — tied together with a whole lot of nerdy nomenclature.
The tone is set right out of the gate with the first image.
The first image that greets you in SpaceX's S-1 filing.
SpaceX
No, that's not a still from "Interstellar," it's an image of one of SpaceX's rocket ships.
This isn't new to Musk, who is an avid science fiction fan. He has a long history of sneaking geeky references into names, internal memos, and product roadmaps.
The filing shows that Musk continues to lean into nerd-dom, and in many ways, that makes sense. After all, he's selling investors quite literally on rocket science.
Some of that science has yet to materialize, as this disclosure makes clear:
A snippet from SpaceX's S-1 filing.
SpaceX
The company acknowledges that its vision involves bets in "future markets" that literally don't exist at the moment, though it believes "these industries will develop over time."
So how nerdy does it get?
Grab your helmet, buckle up, and let's launch into it.
'Cryogenic propellant transfer in microgravity'
SpaceX is trying to figure out how to refuel its
SpaceX
Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? "Cryogenic propellant transfer in microgravity." Basically, SpaceX doesn't want to send its rockets back to Earth every time they need to refuel.
So, the company has to solve two problems with space's harsh environment that make refueling unlike filling a car's gas tank: It's cold, and there's far less gravity than on our home planet.
"Cryogenic propellants" is another way of saying super-cold rocket fuel. SpaceX flags the transfer of that fuel on Mars and the moon's "microgravity" as a challenge in its filing, because the fuel doesn't always settle at the bottom of the tank the way it would on the ground.
Put simply, the company still needs to figure out how to build rocket gas stations in space.
'Kardashev Type II'
"We believe the next paradigm shift for humanity is the creation of a resilient, perpetually expanding spacefaring civilization that drives continuous innovation across new frontiers, ultimately propelling us to Kardashev Type II status," SpaceX writes.
Here, SpaceX is referencing the Kardashev scale, a theoretical framework developed in the 1960s by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. It ranks civilizations by the amount of energy they can harness.
A "Type I" civilization can use energy at the scale of its home planet. A "Type II" civilization can capture the full power output of its star.
Humanity is generally thought to sit somewhere below Type I, which makes SpaceX's mention of "Kardashev Type II" a very big swing for an IPO filing.
In the filing, SpaceX defines the term as "a civilization that harnesses the full energy output of our Sun."
'The light of consciousness'
SpaceX wants to bring human intelligence into space.
SpaceX
In the filing, the company says its mission is to "extend the light of consciousness to the stars," which is a lofty way of saying "human intelligence," with extra cosmic drama, and ensure mankind doesn't put all its eggs in one planetary basket.
The phrase fits SpaceX's long-running argument that becoming multi-planetary is a backup plan for human civilization. It appears 10 times in the S-1.
'Orbital AI compute'
This is SpaceX's way of saying it wants to put data centers — the protest-inducing buildings helping fuel the AI boom — in orbit.
The pitch: Space could help solve some of AI's earthly problems, such as power constraints, water use, and cooling costs.
The catch: SpaceX needs to figure out how to build, launch, operate, and eventually refresh a fleet of AI satellites.
There is growing interest in the concept of data centers in space, though OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Amazon cofounder Jeff Bezos have all said it could take a while.
'Asteroid mining'
SpaceX also wants to mine asteroids for materials that aren't commonly found on Earth.
SpaceX
You'd be forgiven if your mind immediately jumped to the 1998 film "Armageddon" starring Bruce Willis. Thankfully, SpaceX's vision for asteroid mining doesn't involve a nuclear bomb.
The company lists "asteroid mining" as one of its future markets (one that doesn't exist yet). It envisions a world where materials such as nickel, cobalt, iron, and even water could be extracted from asteroids rather than dug up on Earth.
Drill, baby, drill!
'Lunar mass driver'
So this one is likely directly inspired by an actual sci-fi novel. Also referred to in the past by SpaceX as an "electromagnetic mass driver,"it's basically a slingshot on the Moon.
The concept is reminiscent of an instrument in the 1937 science fiction novel "Zero to Eighty."
Instead of burning fuel, the system would use electromagnetic force to fling cargo off the lunar surface and into space.
It's the kind of idea that sounds absurd on Earth; however, it makes a little more sense on the Moon, where gravity is much weaker.
'Starman'
SpaceX launched an original Tesla Roadster into Earth's orbit during the Falcon Heavy rocket's maiden test flight.
SpaceX via Getty Images
This one is already a reality, floating far out in space.
"Starman" comes up in the filing where SpaceX mentions the Falcon Heavy rocket's maiden test flight. The rocket carried Musk's own Tesla Roadster into orbit in 2018 — complete with a mannequin dressed as an astronaut.
SpaceX called the dummy "Starman," a nod to the David Bowie song about an alien messenger. Yes, there is a literal Starman sitting in a Tesla, deep in space. In the words of Bowie, let all the children boogie.
It's a quintessentially Muskian stunt, and a good reminder that the SpaceX CEO has pulled off the truly absurd before.
Musk's rocket company certainly kept things interesting with its Wednesday filing, as others were quick to point out online.
Venture capitalist Kevin Kwok called it the "most enjoyable S1 read in a long time."
Cava is expanding the AI tech used in its restaurants to streamline operations and improve the guest experience.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Cava is embracing AI to predict orders, optimize labor, and personalize customer interactions.
CEO Brett Schulman said the Mediterranean chain has entered its "decade of data transformation."
Cava isn't the only slop bowl chain to enter its AI era: Chipotle and Sweetgreen are pivoting, too.
Cavadoesn't merely want to sell you a Mediterranean slop bowl anymore. It wants to predict when you'll order it, optimize the labor used to make it, personalize the app that sells it to you, and maybe eventually know you want extra feta before you do.
On the company's earnings call on Tuesday, Cava executives framed the fast-casual chain less like a traditional restaurant company and more like a tech platform that happens to serve pomegranate-glazed salmon and harissa chicken.
CEO Brett Schulman said the company was laying the groundwork to become "a real-time AI-enabled business" as Cava builds out its internal data and commerce infrastructure.
The chain has unveiled two new systems this year — "Cava Core," its centralized data platform, and "Cava Current," a real-time operating platform now processing orders across restaurants.
Together, Schulman said on Tuesday, the systems will allow Cava to create "more meaningful, personalized experiences" for guests while helping stores "anticipate demand and better align staffing and preparation in real time."
In practice, that means AI-powered forecasting, predictive labor scheduling, inventory management, and personalized digital marketing — all aimed at making the healthy-bowl chain faster, more efficient, and more addictive, so guests keep coming back.
Restaurant chains are aggressively leaning into AI as the fast-casual category becomes more crowded and consumers grow more selective about where they spend money.
Cava reported 9.7% same-restaurant sales growth and 6.8% traffic growth in the first quarter, with executives saying the company's lower-income customer cohorts are outperforming other income brackets as broader restaurant traffic softens. Executives also repeatedly stressed that Cava has avoided aggressive discounting, opting instead to position itself as a value play with premium ingredients.
Technology — not hummus — increasingly appears to be central to the company's growth strategy.
Cava's AI systems, Cava Core and Cava Current, aim to personalize customer experiences and optimize restaurant operations.
Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
Schulman described the effort as Cava "being on the precipice of a decade of data transformation," saying the goal over the coming years is to create a connected system that brings "data, applications, and intelligence together to power our business."
Importantly, he said the technology was meant to "enhance the human experience, not replace it."
The message from Cava's earnings call was clear: the chain is entering its AI era — and the Mediterranean restaurant isn't the only slop bowl provider to bet big on technology as fast-casual chains look for ways to run leaner, faster, and more consistently.
During its most recent earnings call, Chipotle highlighted its AI assistant "Ava Cado," which helps managers with hiring, scheduling, prep planning, and operational insights.
Earlier this month, Sweetgreen executives discussed using new data systems to reduce waste, optimize labor, and personalize digital marketing.
The same trend can be seen across the fast food and fast casual sectors, including chains like McDonald's and Burger King, as restaurant chains are increasingly pitching AI as the next major growth engine — not only for customer-facing chatbots and apps, but for the invisible operational work behind the counter.
A new class of stock winners and losers has emerged in the past month, driven by two competing narratives. On the one hand, the AI boom is still going strong, with tech firms reporting strong earnings and trumpeting optimistic visions for future growth.
On the other hand, inflation is threatening to crash the party. Consumer prices grew at their fastest pace in three years in April, and investors are worried they could rise faster as the oil price spike works its way across the economy.
The result has been a growing bifurcation in the market that could be unsustainable, market pros told Business Insider.
The spread between the market's best-performing sector (information technology) and worst-performing sector (financials) rose to 25 percentage points on Monday.
Tech is leading the market, with the sector up 17% in a month. Those gains are followed by a 6% increase in energy and a 4% increase in consumer staples, two areas that are thought to benefit from higher inflation and the recent oil price spike.
Meanwhile, materials, financials, consumer discretionary, and communication services were among the market's biggest losers.
Peter Berezin, the chief global strategist at BCA Research, told Business Insider the divide between the market's underperformers and overperformers was largely due to a "perfect storm" of inflationary pressures.
For one, investors are weighing the impact of the latest oil price shock, which could feed price growth in other areas of the economy, he said.
Second, though AI is expected to be disinflationary over time, hype for the technology is currently stoking inflation, Berezin said. He pointed to prices for semiconductors, chips, and other data center components, which have risen alongside demand.
Third, investors have lingering uncertainty regarding Kevin Warsh, the Fed Chair appointed by Donald Trump and confirmed by lawmakers last week. While he's been more hawkish in some regards than markets expected, there's still some concern that Warsh could lower rates prematurely.
"I think all these three things are coming together at a time when inflation was running above target even before 2026," Berezin said, pointing to how pain was concentrated in key corners of the market.
Materials. Hotter inflation is raising costs for many materials firms, which is causing investors to downgrade those stocks, Berezin said.
Financials. The sector, which is sensitive to rates, is indirectly impacted by inflation concerns, Berezin added. Hotter inflation could lead to higher rates in the long-run, which could hit lending and spur higher defaults and delinquency rates among businesses and consumers, he added.
Consumer discretionary. Consumer-facing stocks will likely bear most of the market's pain for inflation. Berezin referred to the possibility that higher prices could cause consumers to pull back on spending, hurting businesses.
Communication services. The sector is in decline due to its exposure to consumers, Berezin said. He pointed to how some users may cancel subscriptions to streaming services as one example of how communications firms could be affected.
The winners
Energy & consumer staples: Inflation hasn't been as much of a headwind for these sectors.
The outlook has brightened for energy firms alongside the spike in oil prices, making the firm a beneficiary of recent inflationary pressures.
Technology. Strong earnings and a slew of dealmaking have powered the tech sector higher. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, one particularly salient area of the market amid the AI boom, is up 19% over the past month.
The growing divide has led to a mixed outlook for markets.
In a note to clients on Monday, BCA Research said it believed the US economy looked like it was exiting the "slowdown" phase and entering a new "expansion" phase. The research firm pointed to both strong revenue, earnings, and capex growth, which have fueled most of the gains in the tech sector, but also flagged the risk that inflation concerns could "intensify."
Strategists on JPMorgan's market intelligence team said they are still bullish on stocks overall, but with "reduced conviction," pointing to how inflation concerns recently sparked a historic sell-off in bonds.
"Bond vol is anathema for stocks and we are seeing it real-time," the bank said in a note. "We remain Tactically Bullish, but we would not maximally net long given the elevated probability of a pullback led by Tech."
Rate-sensitive and cyclical areas of the market will likely continue to struggle, Torres said.
"Those areas have been essentially blocked from achieving further upside because they can't really run much higher when you have rates this elevated and inflation," he said. "So really, investors have been insulating themselves with tech and semiconductors."
Torres added that he believed the split between stocks looked unsustainable, and with the market's best performers likely encountering future challenges unless rates were to come down or if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen, which would cool down oil prices.
"I expect that rates are a huge sentiment reverser," he said, speculating that a correction is possible in the near future.
Some Spark delivery workers now field orders from in-store restaurants like McDonald's.
It's the latest expansion for Walmart's delivery operations.
Your next food delivery order might come to your door thanks to Walmart.
The big-box chain began asking its Spark delivery workers at some stores to deliver restaurant orders, according to messages sent to the workers. The orders involve picking up food at restaurants inside Walmart stores, including some McDonald's and Dunkin' locations.
Restaurant orders are a new frontier for Walmart's e-commerce business, which topped $150 billion in global sales for the first time last fiscal year.
One in-app message viewed by Business Insider indicated that the restaurant deliveries began last Monday. Another, sent via email to a Spark worker, said that some restaurant orders would be batched for delivery with orders of Walmart merchandise.
A Walmart spokesperson declined to comment, citing a quiet period ahead of the company's next earnings report on Thursday.
"You may start seeing restaurant delivery offers from participating restaurants located inside Walmart stores in your area, offering more ways to earn," the email reads.
The orders "may include items like meals, sides, or drinks," the message says.
Besides national chains like McDonald's and Dunkin', some Walmart stores are home to regional restaurants. California-based hot dog chain Wienerschnitzel, for example, said last year that it would open restaurants at several Walmart stores in the Western US.
Walmart has grown its Spark delivery network over the last several years. The company introduced the service in 2018. Spark uses Walmart's 4,600 US stores to fill orders.
The service focuses on same-day deliveries of fresh produce, electronics, and other Walmart merchandise. The retailer is trying to deliver those items faster — a demand that's increasing pressure on the store workers who pick items and pack the orders.
Spark workers also make deliveries for other retailers, such as Home Depot and Sur La Table.
