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Jack in the Box says a summer collaboration with the YouTube series Hot Ones fell short of expectations, prompting the chain to scale back the spicy lineup and shift course on its promotional calendar. Company executives told investors the limited-time spicy sandwiches and branded sauce packets proved divisive with guests and weighed down average spending per visit. In response, the burger chain introduced gentler versions of the items, curtailed the promotion sooner than pla

A prototype that blends the two chains under one roof delivered roughly a threefold gain in its test market, and the parent company now wants to multiply that model nationwide. Dine Brands said the first combined IHOP-Applebee’s site in Seguin, Texas, produced sales that were about three times higher than the same IHOP had been generating on its own, prompting the company to accelerate expansion. The firm aims to operate roughly 80 of the hybrid restaurants by the end of the

Local owners can now train large models on modest connections, but experts warn three in five AI initiatives will stall without a clear plan and cleaner records. Recent advances in distributed model training mean small firms can create bespoke language models at speeds once reserved for big tech, yet the hard truth is many projects won’t cross the finish line. New methods let teams train very large models — the kind with upwards of a hundred billion parameters — on household-

A&W is rolling out its biggest restaurant redesign in years, pairing vintage roadside diner cues with contemporary detailing to refresh hundreds of locations. The company says the new prototypes, billed as a balance of classic and current, will occupy roughly 2,200 to 2,800 square feet and accommodate between 40 and 70 diners. A&W will retain its recognizable orange-and-brown palette while adding outdoor seating and updated architectural elements to the footprint. Brand strat

Subheadline: Leaders who scrub setbacks from their public narrative may be protecting a brand, not proving competence; visible setbacks often mean real learning, say observers. When a business leader tells a tidy tale of nothing but smart choices, pause. Real-world entrepreneurship involves detours, lost bets and decisions that needed fixing. Founders who present an unbroken chain of triumphs are more likely to be hiding mistakes — or haven’t yet had enough trials to test the

A national pizza chain is temporarily shortening its name to “Hut” for roughly half a year as part of a football-season promotion, a move consumers first noticed on storefronts and social platforms. Shoppers in Plano, Texas, spotted the change this week when a location near the company’s headquarters hid the word “Pizza” behind a football-shaped banner, and the brand updated its social-media icons to match. The limited renaming will run for 25 weeks and is timed to coincide w

A routine misstep can ruin a budget. By treating legal, insurance and safety matters as afterthoughts, many businesses leave themselves vulnerable to losses that grow quietly — then explode — into sums that can top six figures. Recovering requires a shift from reaction to routine prevention. A business leader I recently spoke with described an innocuous errand that ended up costing the firm more than anticipated. These sorts of incidents rarely arrive as clear red flags; they

Walk-On’s is trading sprawling dining rooms for compact sites as it pursues faster growth, opening smaller restaurants that require less capital and can fit into more neighborhood locations. Walk-On’s, long known for locations that ranged from about 7,000 to 12,000 square feet, opened a much smaller unit at The Battery in Atlanta measuring roughly 3,700 square feet. That site generated about $4 million in revenue last year, company leaders say. Brandon Landry, who returned to

Buyers don’t just multiply last year’s earnings and call it a day; they’re buying the odds that cash will keep coming in. Most company owners default to a simple formula when they try to put a price on their business: a multiple applied to operating earnings. That’s a useful shorthand but it obscures the mechanics that actually set offers in the middle market. Acquirers begin by measuring risk and forecasting cash, and the multiple is the result of that assessment, not the st

Too many firms confuse blending in with stability, and the result is slower innovation and worse service for buyers. In a recent address at an industry off-site in Detroit, I warned executives that pursuing a comfortable slice of the market—what many leaders call their “fair share”—is a path to average results. The problem shows up in industries that barely budge, where the sector might expand by roughly one-fiftieth each year while some teams aim to double annually. When org

Harvard’s new HBS Foundry program pairs paying participants with video replicas of faculty, letting aspiring founders practice pitches and get feedback — and the school says the format helps advisers reach far more students than traditional office hours allow. HBS Foundry is an eight-week entrepreneurship course that stitches together guided lessons, simulated conversations with Harvard instructors and online peer discussion spaces. The school has piloted the $699 program wit

Companies that truly rework how work flows, who does the thinking and how success is measured behave differently than firms that merely add smart software. Most executive teams now say their company uses advanced machine intelligence. But an installation of tools — a subscription to a generative service, a pilot in one department or a public-facing assistant — does not by itself change how a business operates. An organization that’s genuinely intelligence-first reimagines its

Before you commit to a franchised business, conversations with current operators can surface the true costs, local obstacles and everyday realities that paperwork alone won’t show. Many prospective buyers underestimate the importance of these owner conversations, yet they’re often the clearest way to test whether a brand fits your market and temperament. Do these calls after you’ve been introduced to the brand and reviewed the Franchise Disclosure Document, but before you att

A link submitted for review returned no news story — only a consent form and a long list of tracking vendors — highlighting a growing problem for reporters and researchers trying to access online content. When pages surface nothing but cookie-management interfaces, the article body, author name and publication date are inaccessible, forcing users to take extra steps or abandon the search. Consent-management systems, often called CMPs, are designed to let sites collect permiss

An inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission has been launched into a well-known hedge fund that uses artificial intelligence to steer its trading, after the firm nearly collapsed amid a sudden market shock, according to people briefed on the matter. The probe is said to focus on the firm’s risk controls and investor disclosures as regulators try to determine whether securities laws were violated. The fund’s troubles began when automated strategies posted rapid losses

WhatsApp is introducing tougher account safeguards — longer, more complex secondary passcodes, improved recovery options and tighter controls over linked devices — in a phased rollout that begins this month. The company said the changes are designed to reduce account takeovers and give users clearer ways to regain access. Starting with the next app update, WhatsApp will let people create alphanumeric secondary passcodes of greater length instead of the shorter numeric codes u