TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 30 September 2025

• Banana Republic, looking to the future, digs into its past: The brand is celebrating its roots — and appealing to younger consumers — with a vintage apparel collection and a fan’s archive of marketing ephemera.
• Kohl’s expands private label athleisure line to kids: The struggling department store is leaning on its proprietary brands to offer value while protecting margins.
• Bath & Body Works wants to get inside your dryer: The retailer wants to bring immersive fragrance experiences to daily tasks, according to Chief Merchandising Officer Betsy Schumacher.
• Former Shoe Carnival CFO retakes finance chief reins: Kerry Jackson will slip back into the role he held for nearly three decades as the company targets expansive growth plans for its Shoe Station banner.
• SEC says former RadioShack buyer ran a Ponzi scheme, unprofitable brands: The federal regulator alleged that REV’s co-founders misled investors about the profitability of its retail portfolio, which also included Stein Mart and Dress Barn, and misappropriated investor funds.
• Billions of dollars are flowing into artificial intelligence as some of the world’s leading tech firms join forces to build the infrastructure required to power the next generation of breakthroughs.
• Smartphone endurance isn’t just about how many milliamp-hours you can cram into a phone. Apple showed this years ago with the iPhone 13 Pro, which routinely outlasted Android rivals that had larger batteries. The secret wasn’t bulk – it was efficiency.
• AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring: Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.
• Anthropic is releasing a new AI model that’s better at following instructions and can code on its own for up to 30 hours straight, the company said.
• AOL ends its dial-up service today after more than 35 years. The decision, announced last month, marks the end of a service once synonymous with accessing the internet. When the company (then called America Online) launched dial-up in 1989, it was among the first. The approach used a modem to convert computer data into audio signals, which could then travel over phone lines. The dial-up tone (see explanation) was so ubiquitous in the 1990s that it was considered part of the soundtrack of the decade, with the service inspiring Nora Ephron’s hit 1998 rom-com “You’ve Got Mail.” At its height in 1999, AOL boasted over 18 million subscribers with a market capitalization of $222B.
• OpenAI introduces parental controls to ChatGPT following lawsuit linking teenager’s death by suicide to the chatbot.
• Anthropic releases latest Claude Sonnet 4.5 model designed to excel at coding and meet business needs.
• YouTube to Pay $24.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit With Trump: YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to President Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit over suspending his account in 2021, according to documents filed in court on Sept. 29. The social media website, owned by Alphabet, put Trump’s YouTube account on hold following the security breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
• OpenAI takes on Google, Amazon with new agentic shopping system: OpenAI’s new ‘Instant Checkout’ feature, which allows ChatGPT users to make Etsy and Shopify purchases within conversations, is now available in the US to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and Free logged-in users. Users can now just tap a ‘Buy’ button to confirm their order, shipping, and payment details to complete a purchase. OpenAI says that the product results it surfaces are organic and unsponsored and ranked purely on relevance to the user. Merchants will be charged a fee for completed purchases.
• OpenAI will reportedly release a TikTok-like social app alongside Sora 2: OpenAI is preparing to release a standalone social app powered by its Sora 2 video model. The app will reportedly closely resemble TikTok but only feature AI-generated content. There will be no option for users to upload photos or videos. Users will be limited to generating 10-second-long clips. They will be able to create videos using their likeness – and receive a notification whenever their likeness is used by someone else. The app will refuse to generate some videos due to copyright restrictions.
• China’s oyster-inspired ‘bone glue’ bonds fractures, can replace metal in surgery: Bone-02 is a new kind of medical adhesive created by a team of Chinese researchers. It is designed to repair broken bones quickly without the need for metal plates, screws, or big surgeries. The glue can be injected directly into a fracture site to help speed up bone repair, bonding bone fragments together in two to three minutes, even in blood-rich areas. The researchers were inspired by oysters, which have a remarkable ability to attach to hard surfaces in harsh environments. This is due to a special protein-rich adhesive that works in wet, salty, and constantly moving conditions, forming a tough bond that resists both pressure and erosion.
• 6,100-Qubit Processor Shatters Quantum Computing Record: Physicists from the California Institute of Technology have built a quantum computing array containing 6,100 qubits, well above the thousand or so qubits previous systems contain. They used cesium atoms as their qubits, trapping them in place with a complex system of lasers that act as tweezers to keep the atoms as stable as possible. Large arrays allow for better error correction, which helps to overcome the inherent fragility of qubits by providing a surplus to double-check machine operations.
• Fork yeah: Valkey 9 sharpens edge against Redis: Valkey, which was forked from Redis in April last year, is set to release its ninth iteration next month. The update promises improved resource optimization and availability. It will allow multiple logical databases in cluster mode, enabling developers to combine many different applications using the same cluster. Valkey 9 also promises unified auto-failover configuration for high availability, regardless of deployment choices, so clusters stay consistent from development to staging to production. It has a safe shutdown mode, so a shutdown command does not pull the plug on production without a deliberate, confirmed action.
• In the economy of user effort, be a bargain, not a scam: Products win when user effort scales smoothly with use case complexity, usability cliffs are engineered out, and every interaction declares a meaningful piece of user intent. This requires hard tradeoffs, saying no a lot, and prioritizing user needs at the organizational level. Treating user effort like real money forces developers to design with restraint. Prioritize consumers over producers consistently to turn delight into trust, trust into loyalty, and loyalty into product-market fit.
• Electronic Arts Goes Private for $55 Billion in Largest LBO Ever: Electronic Arts (EA) has been bought out in a $55 billion deal by a group of investors that includes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, private-equity firm Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners. It is the largest leveraged buyout of all time. EA stockholders will receive $210 a share in cash, a 25% premium to EA’s share price at Thursday’s close.
• Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.5 in latest bid for AI agents and coding supremacy: Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 can run autonomously for 30 hours straight. The new model is particularly adept in fields like cybersecurity, financial services, and research. It helped beta testers with complex, long-context tasks, from engineering in codebases to in-product features and research. Claude Sonnet 4.5 will be paired with other updates to help developers code their own AI agents.
• F-Droid says Google’s new sideloading restrictions will kill the project: Google’s plan to force developers outside of Google Play to register with the company threatens to kill alternative app stores like F-Droid.
• Microsoft Sets the Tone for ‘Vibe Working’ With New Agent Mode in Word, Excel: Agent Mode in Microsoft 365 Copilot can generate high-quality documents and spreadsheets from simple prompts.
• Amazon and Google tip off Jensen Huang before announcing information about their homegrown AI chips: Nvidia is still deeply embedded into Amazon and Google’s cloud operations, and neither wants to surprise the person who effectively controls their AI infrastructure supply.
• Scrolling sum: Facebook and Instagram will introduce £2.99 subscriptions for users who do not want to see adverts in the UK.
• Google is still 210x bigger than ChatGPT in search.
• Horizon Media Holdings and Havas unveil new global agency network: Horizon Global.
• You can now join YouTube Labs to test out new AI features.
• Snapchat launches paid memory storage option.
• Here comes Dirty Mountain Dew.
• Eggo debuts (naturally colored) red waffles for Stranger Things.
• When money is tight, how do gyms and salons encourage loyalty?: “Loyalty and growth go hand in hand: When clients feel looked after, they stay, and they bring their friends,” Playlist’s Brian Fields said.
• Why leaders and consumers have different ideas about loyalty: Leaders measure loyalty using metrics of control while customers see it in emotional terms, according to PwC’s George Korizis.
• Jimmy John’s moves to points-based rewards: Switching from a surprise-and-delight program to JJ Rewards could help drive frequency and incentivize the chain’s most loyal guests.
• What the $2.5B Amazon Prime settlement means for CX leaders: The online retailer did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the FTC settlement but agreed to pay $1 billion in penalties and $1.5 billion in refunds to consumers harmed by its subscription practices.
• How retailers are hiring for the 2025 holiday season: In a year already marked by job cuts, and with the busiest shopping season ahead, tariffs and depressed consumer spending could mean fewer hires.
• Gen Z pullback could send holiday sales down 5%: Older generations are cutting back a bit or even spending more, but these younger consumers’ budgets are down nearly a quarter, PWC has found.
• Target doubles new merchandise, expands next-day delivery for the holidays: The mass retailer, which is in the midst of a turnaround, will also bring back its Target Circle Week savings event in October.
• Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days event returns in October: The sale, which marks the company’s kickoff to the holiday shopping season, is scheduled for Oct. 7 and Oct. 8.
• Halloween spending to hit record $13.1B: While the majority of consumers anticipate price increases this season due to tariffs, 73% still plan to participate, according to the National Retail Federation.
• Spirit Christmas to open 30 locations: The company, a spinoff of Spirit Halloween, tested stores last year. This year, it is nearly quadrupling its footprint.
• Managing tariff impact gets tougher as the holidays approach: Lower-income households are especially worried about employment and higher prices — and prices are indeed rising.
• Holiday retail sales projected to grow 4%, below 10-year average: While in-store sales are expected to grow 2.75% from last year, e-commerce sales growth is slowing, according to a recent report from Bain & Company.
• Target introduces in-store toy demos, kids’ catalog for the holidays: The retailer is also highlighting thousands of toys it will offer under $20, as a way to emphasize value.
• $1.62 trillion: The estimated amount that holiday spending could reach this season, from November to January.
• As brands face rising pressure to prove ROI and make faster, smarter decisions, a new technology-led consumer insights agency is entering the market with bold ambitions. neon octopus, a South African-born consultancy with global reach, has officially launched, promising to deliver not just data, but a measurable return on insight.
• When it comes to coding, collaboration, and innovation, one name stands above the rest: GitHub.
• Microsoft will officially end software support for Windows 10 in about two weeks. However, it is easy for people whose devices do not support Windows 11 to get another year of security updates for free.
• WhatsApp has provided a round-up of its latest feature updates.
• YouTube’s ‘Extend with AI’ feature is the latest AI slop generation process.
• Threads is looking to spark more topical engagement with dedicated community discussions.
• The latest usage data suggests that Threads will soon overtake X in total users.
• Godiva taps Leighton Meester for brand reset ahead of 100th anniversary: The Belgian chocolate brand is refreshing its identity with a refined logo, new design system and global campaign featuring the “Gossip Girl” star.
• Horizon Media, Havas form joint venture to woo global marketers: Horizon Global will focus on U.S.-centric global clients and bring together Horizon’s Blu and Havas’ Converged.AI platforms.
• DraftKings bets on NBCU’s wide sports reach with multiyear ad deal: The deal grants the betting platform exclusive integrations and digital sponsorships across sports properties including the NFL and NBA.
• Lower-funnel marketing accelerates amid flagging economy, IAB finds: With tariff fears growing, IAB revised its 2025 ad spend forecast down.
• The AI boom has triggered one of the costliest building sprees in history. Over the past three years, leading tech firms have committed more capital expenditure toward AI than the United States spent building the entire interstate highway system over four decades, even adjusted for inflation. Unlike highways, however, no one can say what these investments will do for global productivity.

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