Dave Lee in San Francisco

US rapid delivery company Gopuff has turned to rivals Uber and DoorDash to deliver some of its orders, as it becomes the latest group to be hit by a fall in demand following the sector’s lockdown-driven boom.

Philadelphia-based Gopuff, which was valued at $15bn in July 2021, has been using Uber couriers to fulfil a small proportion of orders placed on its app since late last year, plugging a gap in its own driver workforce.

At least 4 per cent of all Gopuff orders in the US are being handled by Uber couriers, Gopuff and Uber confirmed.

That amount could increase further, a person familiar with the deal said, with the companies in talks to have Uber provide more delivery support, by using Uber couriers for Gopuff orders placed through the Uber Eats app as well.

The move comes as the once booming rapid delivery grocery market, which aims to deliver groceries and convenience store items via courier in as little as 10 minutes, has come under pressure as demand has fallen amid rising inflation, competition and the end of a lockdown-driven expansion.

After more than a dozen rapid grocery apps launched in the US and Europe by mid-2021, only a handful of independent participants now remain. Getir, the Istanbul-based online grocery start-up, acquired its German rival Gorillas last year, while several smaller companies have either significantly scaled back operations or gone out of business entirely.

According to industry research by YipitData, Gopuff’s sales fell 17 per cent in January 2023 compared with the previous year. In that time, the company’s market share of US rapid delivery shrank by 7 percentage points.

While demand appears to vary geographically, three Gopuff drivers speaking to the Financial Times, as well as others posting on social media, have complained of too few orders coming in that makes waiting around less worth their while compared with working with other delivery platforms.

Gopuff denied it had an issue with driver supply, saying that 80 per cent of its warehouse locations had a waiting list for drivers.

Gopuff’s model commits to paying an hourly fee to scheduled drivers if the commission earned from deliveries does not reach a minimum threshold of about $18-$22 an hour, depending on the market.

A separate partnership has seen Gopuff list BevMo, the alcohol retailer it acquired in 2020, on its rival DoorDash’s app, with orders fulfilled by DoorDash drivers.

Previously Gopuff had held off listing BevMo on DoorDash, which, with its own network of warehouses known as DashMarts, is Gopuff’s leading US competitor.

Founded in 2013, Gopuff quickly became one of the leaders in the fast grocery delivery market, as well as one of the most heavily funded.

The US-based group was valued in July 2021 at $15bn after a $1bn funding round. Last year, it raised $1.5bn in debt, bringing its total funding to slightly less than $5bn, according to data from PitchBook. Investors have included D1 Capital, Guggenheim Investments, SoftBank and Disney chief executive Bob Iger.

Gopuff has long touted the strength of its business model, which involves having its own inventory, building out small warehouses or “dark stores” in urban locations and hiring gig worker couriers to fulfil orders quickly.

But the bold bet on changing shopping habits, a gamble that consumers would pay a premium for extremely fast delivery, has shown signs of strain over the past year amid a cost of living crisis and a tech downturn.

Gopuff has put on hold plans for an initial public offering. Last July, it announced it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce and close 76 of its warehouses. Earlier this month, the company said it would cut a further 2 per cent of jobs.

It has been more than a decade since Jeff Bezos excitedly sketched out his vision for Alexa on a whiteboard at Amazon’s headquarters. His voice assistant would help do all manner of tasks, such as shop online, control gadgets, or even read kids a bedtime story.

But the Amazon founder’s grand vision of a new computing platform controlled by voice has fallen short. As hype in the tech world turns feverishly to generative AI as the “next big thing”, the moment has caused many to ask hard questions of the previous “next big thing” — the much-lauded voice assistants from Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and others.

A “grow grow grow” culture described by one former Amazon Alexa marketing executive has now shifted to a more intense focus on how the device can help the ecommerce giant make money.

“If you have anything you can do that you might be able to directly monetise, you should do it,” was the recent diktat from Amazon leaders, according to one current employee on the Alexa team.

Under new chief executive Andy Jassy’s tenure this change of focus has resulted in significant lay-offs in Amazon’s Alexa team late last year as executives scrutinise the product’s direct contribution to the company’s bottom line.

The belt-tightening came as part of broader cuts that have seen the ecommerce giant slash 18,000 jobs across the group amid pressure to improve profits during a global tech downturn.

At Microsoft, whose chief executive Satya Nadella declared in 2016 that “bots are the new apps”, it is now acknowledged that voice assistants, including its own Cortana, did not live up to the hype.

“They were all dumb as a rock,” Nadella told the Financial Times last month. “Whether it’s Cortana or Alexa or Google Assistant or Siri, all these just don’t work. We had a product that was supposed to be the new front-end to a lot of [information] that didn’t work.”

Nadella can afford to be blunt: Microsoft’s recent introduction of AI chatbot ChatGPT to its Bing search engine means the company is now seen as a leader in the field, having previously been mostly forgotten by the majority of internet users.

ChatGPT’s ability to understand complex instructions left existing voice assistants looking comparatively stupid, said Adam Cheyer, the co-creator of Siri, the voice assistant acquired by Apple in 2010 and introduced to the iPhone a year later.

“The previous capabilities have just been too awkward,” he said. “No one knows what they can do or can’t do. They don’t know what they can say or can’t say.”

Efforts to highlight additional functionality, by having Alexa blurt out “did you know” information at sometimes-inopportune times, has only served to frustrate users.

“Our patience is limited, you get annoyed,” says Carolina Milanesi, president of market research group Creative Strategies. “That’s not the job that you asked ‘her’ to do. ‘She’ was overstepping.”

For many users, Alexa is just viewed as a “glorified clock radio”, noted independent tech analyst Benedict Evans.

Amazon said it was fully committed to Alexa and “as optimistic as ever”.

“The fact is Alexa continues to grow. Engagement increased more than 30 per cent globally in 2022, more than 50 per cent of Alexa customers are now using it to shop,” said Amazon.

By many measures, Alexa can be considered an extraordinary success for Amazon. It is by far and away the leader in the US with an estimated 66 per cent of the market, according to Insider Intelligence. Eight years after its soft-launch in early 2014, calling out “Alexa” now elicits a robotic response in the homes of about 20 per cent of the US population, the group estimates.

Third-party manufacturers have created more than 140,000 products that are compatible with Alexa, and its operating system controls more than 300mn smart devices, such as lightbulbs or cameras, according to Amazon. Research group IDC estimates that more than half of Alexa owners interact with the device at least once per day, a better hit rate than both Apple Siri and Google Assistant.

But the direct value of those interactions to Amazon appeared low, and there had been disagreements internally on how to measure or credit Alexa’s impact on spending on Amazon.com, said two people familiar with Alexa’s strategy.

The current mood is in stark contrast to the time when enthusiasm for Amazon’s Alexa flowed eagerly from Bezos, who took a direct hand in guiding Alexa’s testing and development, even going so far as to personally craft the look and language of marketing materials.

“Our goal was not to make the Alexa program profitable,” said the former Amazon marketing executive. “It was to sell devices — and we were selling tons of devices.”

Having missed out on the smartphone boom, the hope at Amazon had been that Alexa would open up a vast new ecosystem of new and ideally lucrative apps powered by voice. Amazon named these apps “Skills”, and opened up Alexa to third party developers.

There were now more than 130,000 Skills in Amazon’s store, the company said in November. Google made a similar move with its assistant, calling them “conversational actions”.

But Skills on Alexa are largely offered free of charge, with developers saying monetisation is near-impossible, while “discovery” — the process by which users find new apps to try — is hard.

“I think there’s still a ton of people who don’t even know what a ‘Skill’ is,” said Brian Tarbox from Wabi Sabi Software, which develops Alexa Skills. “I don’t know that they’ve done a great job in saying: ‘Hey, here are all these other things that Alexa can do’.”

Google has seen similar challenges. In June it will end access for the third-party “conversational actions” made specifically for its voice assistant, instead directing them to add voice functionality to its Android smartphone and tablet apps.

Without a smartphone, Amazon had no similar fall back, said IDC analyst Adam Wright, noting that the continued competitive threat of Apple and Android “could erode gains made via the smart speaker” sales.

But a voice assistant revival may come from generative AI, which could help make them much smarter than they are today.

“It’s causing buzz,” said the current Amazon employee about tools such as ChatGPT. “There was a directive that came down from some [executives] to have teams brainstorm what it would look like for Alexa to be more intelligent.”

The technology had the potential to bring voice assistants back on the track towards the original sci-fi goal, Siri co-creator Cheyer added.

“I do think it is about quality,” he said. “Fundamentally, this technology will enable that breadth and flexibility and complexity that has not existed with the previous generation of voice assistants. I think there will be a renaissance.”

Amazon has paused construction on its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, in the latest cost-cutting effort at the ecommerce and cloud giant.

Amazon has about 8,000 employees based at the site in Arlington, working in an already-completed phase 1 of the new campus called Met Park. Construction on a second phase, known as PenPlace, had been due to begin this year. That site comprises three office buildings and the “Helix”, a 350-foot corkscrew-shaped tower that was due to be the architectural centrepiece of the new office hub — its largest outside Amazon’s home city of Seattle.

The company said the pause was not related to job cuts announced earlier this year, in which it planned to dismiss 18,000 people from its corporate workforce, following years of rapid hiring.

“We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees,” said John Schoettler, Amazon’s head of real estate, in a statement on Friday.

Amazon said it was still committed to the $2.5bn project, which it expects will bring 25,000 workers to the region just outside Washington, DC, by 2030.

The delay to its so-called HQ2, first reported by Bloomberg, is symbolic of how Amazon has looked to tap the brakes on years of heavy investment and expansion. It has also scrapped or delayed other office plans in the US, and told some of those due to start on graduate schemes they would need to wait.

Amazon’s decision to build a second big office campus outside Seattle sparked a bidding frenzy in 2018, as multiple cities clamoured to be considered as the location for the tens of thousands of high-paying jobs the ecommerce group had promised to create. Stonecrest, a city in Georgia, offered to change its name to “Amazon” if it was selected.

After drawing up a shortlist of 20 cities, Amazon’s initial decision to split its proposal between Arlington and a neighbourhood in the New York City borough of Queens drew heavy criticism and accusations the company had used the bidding process as a way of pushing for greater tax breaks and other incentives.

Amazon ended up abandoning its New York plans after local opposition led by Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but said it would press ahead with plans in Arlington.

No date has been given for when construction will resume. However, the company has committed to a number of public-use projects that were due to be finished by early 2025.

“Since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace out a bit,” Schoettler added.

“Our second headquarters has always been a multiyear project, and we remain committed to Arlington, Virginia, and the greater Capital Region — which includes investing in affordable housing, funding computer science education in schools across the region, and supporting dozens of local non-profit[s].”

Don Beyer, the Democratic House member representing the Virginia district where the headquarters is being built, said he had been assured by Amazon that promised “community benefits” would still materialise.

“Monetary incentives were tied to economic benefits to the region and therefore have not and will not engage until established metrics are reached,” Beyer said in a statement.

YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki is stepping down, after overseeing the video hosting site’s growth into an entertainment juggernaut over nearly a decade.

Wojcicki, who joined Google in 1999 as its 16th employee, said in a memo she had “decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about”.

She will be replaced with YouTube’s current head of product, Neal Mohan.

Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn in 2006. In 2022, the video site’s advertising platform generated $29.2bn, representing about 10 per cent of Google parent Alphabet’s revenue.

Wojcicki, 54, has been a long-term fixture at the company, having rented out her garage to Google’s two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in 1998.

Her exit marks another significant departure for a prominent female executive in Silicon Valley, following the resignation of Meta’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg last year.

“Susan has a unique place in Google history and has made the most incredible contribution to products used by people everywhere,” Page and Brin said in a statement. “We’re so grateful for all she’s done over the last 25 years.”

In her memo to staff, sent on Thursday morning, Wojcicki said she would assist with the leadership transition at YouTube before assuming an advisory role in which she can “offer counsel and guidance across Google and the portfolio of Alphabet companies”.

Google faces a looming threat to its search dominance from Microsoft, whose integration of generative AI technology into its rival search engine has been regarded as the biggest competitive disruption in the sector in well over a decade.

During Wojcicki’s time at the helm of YouTube she ushered in a targeted video advertising model, while nurturing the “creator economy” from its inception to its huge influence today.

At times, these achievements brought controversy. In 2017, YouTube encountered a significant boycott from advertisers when ads were routinely appearing alongside content posted by religious extremists.

Wojcicki also navigated the unpredictable nature of YouTube’s biggest stars, such as user PewDiePie, who was temporarily dropped by the platform over anti-Semitic remarks within the Swedish creator’s videos.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which have reinstated Donald Trump’s accounts after suspending the former president in the wake of the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol, YouTube has not yet given a clear indication on its policy regarding his return to the platform in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

There has also been scrutiny on the platform’s recommendation engine, which suggests new clips for users to watch based on their habits and the collective behaviour of other similar accounts.

While being responsible for massive spikes in engagement — and therefore advertising exposure — the mechanism has also been blamed for playing a radicalising role, particularly in teenagers, because of the so-called “rabbit hole” effect.

As the streaming wars ramped up, Wojcicki looked to build a subscription model with exclusive content and other perks such as no advertising. In December, YouTube entered a $14bn deal with the US National Football League to broadcast some games over the next seven years.

Responding to the explosive growth of Gen Z-favourite TikTok, YouTube launched Shorts, a short-form, portrait-oriented mode with similar functionality to its Chinese-owned rival.

In a statement, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Alphabet, said Wojcicki’s “vision and passion have helped YouTube grow into an incredible platform that empowers creators everywhere”.

“Susan has built an exceptional team and has in Neal a successor who is ready to hit the ground running and lead YouTube through its next decade of success,” he added.

Mohan has been on Wojcicki’s leadership team at YouTube since 2015 and currently holds the role of chief product officer. He previously worked as head of strategy at DoubleClick, the advertising platform acquired by Google in 2007.

In her memo, Wojcicki said Mohan would be a “terrific leader for YouTube”.

“He has a wonderful sense for our product, our business, our creator and user communities and our employees,” she wrote.

Mohan also sits on the board of 23andMe, the genetics analysis company founded by Wojcicki’s sister, Anne.

The number of tourists seeking a foreign city break is rising, said Airbnb, which has recorded its first full year of profitability thanks to higher prices and a global travel rebound.

Cross-border trips in the fourth quarter of 2022 were up 49 per cent year on year, the company said on Tuesday, with stays in “high-density urban areas” up 22 per cent versus the same period in 2021.

Outbound travel from the Asia-Pacific region showed the strongest growth globally, the company said, as China lifted Covid-19 travel restrictions. Nights booked by travellers from the region were up 40 per cent during the final quarter of 2022 versus the same period in 2021.

“We see China’s recent removal of travel restrictions as an encouraging sign of continued recovery for the region,” co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Gross bookings in urban areas, described by Chesky as the company’s “bread and butter”, accounted for more than half of all bookings on the platform, for the first time since the pandemic started.

The shared accommodation company, which went public two years ago, posted revenue in the final quarter of 2022 of $1.9bn, up 24 per cent year on year, and marginally ahead of analysts’ estimates of $1.86bn, according to FactSet.

For the full year, its net income was $1.9bn, versus a full-year loss of $353mn in 2021. Net income for the fourth quarter was $319mn, compared with $55mn a year ago.

The company said it had repurchased $1.5bn in stock in the past five months.

Wall Street had been expecting slightly stronger gross booking value — the total value of all bookings — which came in at $13.5bn for the quarter, up 20 per cent on 2021. The number of total nights and experiences booked was 88.2mn, marginally lower than analysts’ estimates for 89.7mn.

Shares rose about 11 per cent in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Airbnb forecast “continued strong demand” in the current quarter, saying Europeans were making reservations earlier in the year than in 2022. It said it expected revenue in the current quarter between $1.75bn and $1.82bn, above Wall Street’s expectations.

“Consumer confidence to travel remains high,” wrote Chesky. “We’re particularly encouraged by European guests booking their summer travel earlier this year, the market share gains we are seeing in Latin America, as well as the continued recovery within Asia-Pacific.”

Average prices continued to be considerably higher than before the pandemic. The company’s “average daily rate” decreased 1 per cent, year on year, but consumers have not felt the benefit — excluding foreign exchange impact, ADR was up 5 per cent year on year at $153. Compared to pre-pandemic prices in the fourth quarter of 2019, ADR is up 35 per cent.

Airbnb said it expected those rates to decrease in the current quarter due to a greater number of shorter, cheaper stays, plus the introduction of discounting and pricing tools.

The company said it had significantly improved its supply of available rooms, addressing a critical concern of investors, adding 900,000 active listings year on year.

That brought the total available listings on Airbnb to 6.6mn, its highest ever, up 16 per cent on 2021, the company said. The figure excludes the listings lost when Airbnb closed its China-based business in 2022.

As other big technology companies shed thousands of employees due to the market downturn, Airbnb said it had kept its headcount low, with 5 per cent fewer employees compared to 2019.

Airbnb also said it would begin reinvesting in building out products beyond its “core” accommodation business, such as its “experiences” platform where companies or individuals can offer excursions and other activities to travellers. Launched in 2016, experiences took a back seat during post-lockdown recovery.

“Airbnb Experiences is something that we’re beginning to really ramp up,” Chesky said, although he cautioned investors to not expect much near-term material impact. “I think you’re going to see a lot more traction in that product in the coming years.”