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In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, senior media reporter Mark Stenberg speaks with David Lafitte, president and CEO at Western wear retailer Tecovas, about scaling a heritage brand without losing authenticity. David explains how the brand expands into new markets while staying rooted in Western storytelling, invests in experiential retail to build loyalty, and balances performance marketing with long-term brand building. He highlights the importance of using cultural trends as tailwinds, not as a core strategy, while maintaining craft quality as a core differentiator. The conversation also explores AI’s role in operations, not creativity, and how an omnichannel approach, including digital,…
Over the past several months, many countries have announced plans to restrict social media access for children and teens. Australia became the first to implement such measures at the end of last year, setting a precedent that other countries are now closely watching. Australia’s regulations, along with other countries’ proposals, aim to reduce the pressures and risks that young users may face on social media, which include cyberbullying, addiction, mental health issues, and exposure to predators. Of course, there are concerns about privacy regarding invasive age verification and excessive government intervention. Critics, including Amnesty Tech, have said such bans are…
Anthropic announced Wednesday the launch of a new product that aims to make it easier for businesses to build and deploy AI agents. The tool, Claude Managed Agents, offers developers out-of-the-box infrastructure to build autonomous AI systems, simplifying a complex process that was previously a barrier to automating work tasks.The move positions Anthropic to capitalize on its rapidly growing enterprise business. On Tuesday, the company said that its annualized recurring revenue has surpassed $30 billion, roughly three times higher than it was in December 2025. Both Anthropic and OpenAI, which also has an agent platform called Frontier, are racing to…
Jeff Shell is exiting another major publisher.According to multiple news outlets, including Deadline and Variety, Shell, who served as president of Paramount Skydance, is out at the company. Prior to the announcement, Shell had been facing allegations from reported pro gambler RJ Cipriani that the executive had shared private information regarding Paramount. Cipriani also claimed Shell owed him $150 million for crisis communication services, according to reports. The pair had been engaged in a messy legal battle over the claims.This is Shell’s second exit from a major publisher in the last few years. In 2023, Shell was ousted from his…
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the creator of Bitcoin, remains a long-running mystery. But according to a new investigation published in the New York Times, Satoshi could be Adam Back, a British cryptographer who conducted influential early research about digital assets. Back denies that he is Satoshi. People have been trying to track down the father of Bitcoin for decades, without much success. Based on Back’s denial, it’s not clear if the Times’ tech journalist John Carreyrou, known for his reporting that took down Theranos, got much further than anyone else. Back fits the profile of the…
On Monday afternoon, an “election integrity” call organized by conservative podcaster Steve Stern featured a who’s who of election deniers rehashing years-old conspiracy theories about rigged elections and hijacked voting machines.These kinds of calls have happened for years. But unlike similar calls I listened to in 2021 and 2022, which were filled with then-unknown activists mostly shouting into the void, this call was stacked with people who are alleged to have been part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. They claim to still have the ear of the president when it comes to trying to undermine…
Databricks co-founder and CTO Matei Zaharia almost missed the email telling him that he was the 2026 recipient of the ACM Prize in Computing. “Yeah, it was a surprise,” he told TechCrunch. Back in 2009, the tech Zaharia developed for his PhD at UC Berkeley, under the tutelage of famed professor Ion Stoica, was launched into Databricks. Zaharia had created a way to dramatically speed the results of slow, clunky, big data projects and released it as an open source project called Spark. Big data was in those days what AI is today and Spark turned the tech industry on…
The Targhee collection, named after a hardy American breed of sheep known for their resiliency and rather fine wool, was first launched in 2005, with the intention of being versatile, robust, and comfortable from the get-go.I’ve walked in many pairs over the years, and they remain a dependable option I’m happy to recommend, but they’ve never been the most aesthetically pleasing. But with the new Targhee Apex, they’ve gone all-in with a trail running Gorpcore look that actually works. I know that looks aren’t important when you’re scrambling over rocks and through puddles, but in the high-fashion world of the…
This past March, MS NOW unveiled a new programming schedule across nearly all of its dayparts on weekdays and weekends. On Wednesday, the network announced the appointment of four executive producers who will oversee and lead the new shows launching in June.Stephanie Ruhle’s 11th Hour executive producer, Patrick McMenamin, is following her to the morning as he will steer Ruhle’s two-hour news block, which begins at 9 a.m. McMenamin oversaw Ruhle’s nightly show for the past three years, joining MS NOW in 2020.Inheriting Ruhle’s old weeknight timeslot is Ali Velshi, who, like Ruhle, will see his executive producer, Rebekah Dryden,…
You don’t attend TechCrunch Disrupt to sit in the audience. You go to gain leverage. Whether 2026 is a build, fundraise, hire, or scale year, this is where momentum compounds. With just 3 days left before these steep discounts end on April 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT, this is your opportunity to save up to $500 on your pass and secure your spot at the center of the tech ecosystem. Register here to save. What you gain at TechCrunch Disrupt From October 13 to 15 at Moscone West, 10,000+ founders, operators, and VCs converge for three days of high-signal conversations and deal-making. Disrupt is not just content. It is access. You get: Tactical insights…
I’ve always been an Ikea fan. I lived in nine different apartments over 15 years before moving into my home, and every single one of those places had an abundance of Ikea furnishings. But the latest thing from Ikea that’s been catching my eye isn’t the new bold blue shade for the Billy bookcase, but the brand’s expanded and upgraded smart home gear.Ikea announced last year that its new lineup of smart home gadgets would be entirely Matter-compatible. That’s a big deal, as the open source interoperability standard has Amazon, Apple, and Google signed up, meaning these devices will play…
Ogilvy, the storied WPP-owned creative shop, has appointed industry veteran Carol Reed as its first global chief innovation officer. It’s a newly formed position that Reed took on officially in November.In the role, Reed will develop and scale new tech products and services, bolster key practice areas like social, influencer, and sports and entertainment, and secure strategic partnerships and acquisitions. She reports to Laurent Ezekiel, Ogilvy’s global CEO. “There’s just so much change happening between consumer behavior shifting, and culture changing constantly,” Reed said in response to ADWEEK’s questions about why the company chose to add the role now.
Social media platform X is now rolling out a new feature that automatically translates posts. The company is also launching a new photo editor with the ability to modify images through natural language posts. Both features are powered by xAI’s Grok models. The company is pushing to make the in-app experience better for users with these updates. Late Tuesday, X’s head of product Nikita Bier announced that automatic translation is rolling out worldwide. You can tap on the gear icon on a translated post and toggle off automatic translation for that particular language. We’re rolling out auto-translate worldwide to give…
Compare Our PicksOthers We TestedPhotograph: Kat MerckLitter-Robot 5 for $799: While on a recent trip, I received an urgent message from my house sitter. “I think I broke the cat turd tilt-a-wheel,” it read. I knew he hadn’t broken the Litter-Robot, but I also knew it was doing what it always does, even when I’m at home: throwing arbitrary error codes. Laser Board Fault, Extended Scale Activity, Overloaded Globe … I never know why these codes are triggered, only that they are frequent and almost always incorrect. They also stop the machine’s operation until someone can physically go troubleshoot on…
Independent sister agencies Lippe Taylor and Twelvenote are formally unifying under a single brand, /prompt, in a move that reshapes their offerings with AI at the core.In 2023, the agencies launched /prompt as an AI-focused joint venture to expand their product offerings. Now, they are shrugging off their existing company names, joining forces, and rebranding to /prompt entirely. Lippie Taylor chief exec Paul Dyer will keep his position at the head of the new agency.Founded 35 years ago as a PR agency, Lippe Taylor expanded in recent years into integrated marketing and comms—particularly following the 2021 launch of sister agency Twelvenote—with…
Fusion power has always been a bit of a contradiction. The fusion part is actually kind of easy — an undergrad recently built a simple fusion device in his bedroom, for example — but getting electricity out of the reaction isn’t. “A fusion reactor that makes power — and there’s plenty of those, they already exist,” Daniel Velásquez, materials science lead at Avalanche Energy, told TechCrunch. “A fusion reactor that makes electricity is better.” That’s where the nascent industry remains stuck. Fusion reactions release tremendous amounts of energy by fusing two lighter atoms into a heavier one. But harvesting that energy…