Petco Narrows Loss Amid Turnaround Efforts
Petco WOOF 1.69%increase; green up pointing triangle Health & Wellness narrowed its first-quarter loss and kept its sales decline within expectations as leadership continues its turnaround efforts.
The pet-products retailer on Thursday posted a loss of $11.7 million, or 4 cents a share, in the 13 weeks ended in May, compared with a loss of $46.5 million, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier.
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Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
AI Can't Replace Education
Credit - Tingting Ji—Getty Images As commencement ceremonies celebrate the promise of a new generation of graduates, one question looms: will AI make their education pointless? Many CEOs think so. They describe a future where AI will replace engineers, doctors, and teachers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently predicted AI will replace mid-level engineers who write the company's computer code. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang has even declared coding itself obsolete. While Bill Gates admits the breakneck pace of AI development is 'profound and even a little bit scary,' he celebrates how it could make elite knowledge universally accessible. He, too, foresees a world where AI replaces coders, doctors, and teachers, offering free high-quality medical advice and tutoring. Despite the hype, AI cannot 'think' for itself or act without humans—for now. Indeed, whether AI enhances learning or undermines understanding hinges on a crucial decision: Will we allow AI to just predict patterns? Or will we require it to explain, justify, and stay grounded in the laws of our world? AI needs human judgment, not just to supervise its output but also to embed scientific guardrails that give it direction, grounding, and interpretability. Physicist Alan Sokal recently compared AI chatbots to a moderately good student taking an oral exam. 'When they know the answer, they'll tell it to you, and when they don't know the answer they're really good at bullsh*tting,' he said at an event at the University of Pennsylvania. So, unless a user knows a lot about a given subject, according to Sokal, one might not catch a 'bullsh*tting' chatbot. That, to me, perfectly captures AI's so-called 'knowledge.' It mimics understanding by predicting word sequences but lacks the conceptual grounding. That's why 'creative' AI systems struggle to distinguish real from fake, and debates have emerged about whether large language models truly grasp cultural nuance. When teachers worry that AI tutors may hinder students' critical thinking, or doctors fear algorithmic misdiagnosis, they identify the same flaw: machine learning is brilliant at pattern recognition, but lacks the deep knowledge born of systematic, cumulative human experience and the scientific method. That is where a growing movement in AI offers a path forward. It focuses on embedding human knowledge directly into how machines learn. PINNs (Physics-Informed Neural Networks) and MINNs (Mechanistically Informed Neural Networks) are examples. The names might sound technical, but the idea is simple: AI gets better when it follows the rules, whether they are laws of physics, biological systems, or social dynamics. That means we still need humans not just to use knowledge, but to create it. AI works best when it learns from us. I see this in my own work with MINNs. Instead of letting an algorithm guess what works based on past data, we program it to follow established scientific principles. Take a local family lavender farm in Indiana. For this kind of business, blooming time is everything. Harvesting too early or late reduces essential oil potency, hurting quality and profits. An AI may waste time combing through irrelevant patterns. However, a MINN starts with plant biology. It uses equations linking heat, light, frost, and water to blooming to make timely and financially meaningful predictions. But it only works when it knows how the physical, chemical, and biological world works. That knowledge comes from science, which humans develop. Imagine applying this approach to cancer detection: breast tumors emit heat from increased blood flow and metabolism, and predictive AI could analyze thousands of thermal images to identify tumors based solely on data patterns. However, a MINN, like the one recently developed by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology, uses body-surface temperature data and embeds bioheat transfer laws directly into the model. That means, instead of guessing, it understands how heat moves through the body, allowing it to identify what's wrong, what's causing it, why, and precisely where it is by utilizing the physics of heat flow through tissue. In one case, a MINN predicted a tumor's location and size within a few millimeters, grounded entirely in how cancer disrupts the body's heat signature. The takeaway is simple: humans are still essential. As AI becomes sophisticated, our role is not disappearing. It is shifting. Humans need to 'call bullsh*t' when an algorithm produces something bizarre, biased, or wrong. That isn't just a weakness of AI. It is humans' greatest strength. It means our knowledge also needs to grow so we can steer the technology, keep it in check, ensure it does what we think it does, and help people in the process. The real threat isn't that AI is getting smarter. It is that we might stop using our intelligence. If we treat AI as an oracle, we risk forgetting how to question, reason, and recognize when something doesn't make sense. Fortunately, the future doesn't have to play out like this. We can build systems that are transparent, interpretable, and grounded in the accumulated human knowledge of science, ethics, and culture. Policymakers can fund research into interpretable AI. Universities can train students who blend domain knowledge with technical skills. Developers can adopt frameworks like MINNs and PINNs that require models to stay true to reality. And all of us—users, voters, citizens—can demand that AI serve science and objective truth, not just correlations. After more than a decade of teaching university-level statistics and scientific modeling, I now focus on helping students understand how algorithms work 'under the hood' by learning the systems themselves, rather than using them by rote. The goal is to raise literacy across the interconnected languages of math, science, and coding. This approach is necessary today. We don't need more users clicking 'generate' on black-box models. We need people who can understand the AI's logic, its code and math, and catch its 'bullsh*t.' AI will not make education irrelevant or replace humans. But we might replace ourselves if we forget how to think independently, and why science and deep understanding matter. The choice is not whether to reject or embrace AI. It's whether we'll stay educated and smart enough to guide it. Contact us at letters@
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How a multibillion dollar defence bank could help Canada increase its military spending
A new multilateral defence bank aims to help Canada and its allies build their militaries to meet looming threats in an increasingly hostile world while also giving Canadian industry a leg up when it comes to producing weaponry and military kit to tackle those threats head on. And its Canadian president is hoping it will have a major presence in Toronto. Announced this past spring, the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank could solve financial problems for countries, including Canada, that are under pressure to increase military spending beyond two per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP). Some estimates peg the more likely target as five per cent of GDP as Russia and China grow increasingly belligerent on the world stage. 'We have to use our capital markets of allied nations for overwhelming force against our foes,' Kevin D. Reed, the new bank's president and chief operating officer, said in a recent interview. The theory is the bank would allow Canada and other countries to re-arm, said Reed, who has helped start nine companies including Equity Transfer & Trust. 'Hopefully that acts as a form of deterrent against big conflicts.' The United Kingdom 'has emerged as the lead candidate to take this on,' according to Reed. 'That being said, we've … advocated to our Canadian government that there's a window here for Canada to take a co-leadership role with the U.K.' Reed would like to see a branch of the bank located in Toronto. If Canada chose to be the bank's host nation, or to co-host with London, 'you're probably looking at 2,500-3,500' banking jobs in Toronto, he said. The bank would be owned by member nations, including NATO and Indo-Pacific countries. 'They would capitalize the bank, we would get a triple-A rating, and we would take it to the bond market to raise money,' Reed said. 'If we have all 40 nations in, we would expect about $60 billion of equity into the bank over time, and then subject to the bond markets we would seek to raise $100 billion at first, taking that up to about $400-500 billion over time.' For countries that don't have a triple-A credit rating, it would mean a lower cost to capital, he said. It would also allow nations in immediate need of more defence dollars to tap the bank for money, rather than waiting for annual budget cycles. 'The real driver in this is that it would provide credit guarantees to commercial banks to lend into the defence sector,' Reed said. 'Most commercial banks … unless you're a big prime (like Boeing), if you're a number two or three or four in the supply chain, you're almost unbankable, historically, because of ESG (an investing principle that prioritizes environmental and social issues, as well as corporate governance) and just a view of defence.' The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank would be similar to Export Development Canada, a Crown corporation that provides financial and risk management services to Canadian exporters and investors, 'but way bigger,' Reed said. It would offer large banks such as RBC and BMO credit guarantees 'that would loosen up capital so they could offer lines of credit, trade finance, you name it, but we can grow the industrial base a lot faster,' Reed said. That would, in turn, speed up military procurement, he said. 'It takes nine years to get a jet or seven years to get a shoulder-fired rocket launcher,' Reed said. 'It's because the industrial base just isn't big enough. It's been constrained. So, this would push liquidity into the commercial banks.' Sovereign countries could also 'enhance procurement' by borrowing from the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank on the promise that they 'have to execute within two years,' Reed said. 'We want to foster that rapid-fire procurement that we know has been a problem for all member nations.' Right now, it takes 16 years for startups to go from selling the Department of National Defence on their products to procurement, he said. 'Companies just can't live in that — they call that the Valley of Death,' Reed said. 'That is a problem. If you want to invent a new bullet … in your garage, you're going to wait a long time.' Rob Murray, NATO's inaugural head of innovation and a former U.K. army officer, started writing the blueprint for the bank about five years ago. But, at the time, interest rates were flat, Russia hadn't launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, and U.S. President Donald Trump was not in power. You do not attract first rate people with third rate infrastructure. And right now, you go to any garrison, any base, any wing across Canada and the infrastructure is crumbling When the Ukraine war began, interest rates started climbing and people started recognizing 'threat levels are changing around the world,' Reed said. Then Trump came to power in his second term and started 'forcing the hand of many NATO nations' to increase their defence spending, Reed said. Murray published his blueprint last December. 'On the back of that he was invited down to brief the president elect down at Mar-a-Lago,' Reed said, 'and Rob's world just started to expand rapidly with proposed member nations seeking him out, asking how would this work? How can we get involved?' Murray asked Reed to step in as the bank's president in early February 'to help stitch together the coalition of governments' needed to bring the idea to fruition. 'Every European nation has been briefed,' Reed said. 'And we did the briefing for Canada right after the election' with senior people in Prime Minister Mark Carney's office, the Privy Council Office, and departments including National Defence, Finance, Global Affairs and Treasury Board. Reed also briefed officials in Singapore last week and plans to do the same in Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand this week. 'We're trying to drive this around a consensus of a dozen anchor nations,' he said. NATO figures from last June suggest Canada spent just 1.37 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2024. The Liberals have said they expect it to reach two per cent by 2030 'at the latest.' But that's not fast enough for Trump, who has complained repeatedly about Canada piggybacking on the U.S. for military protection. 'While I don't like what he's saying, I see this as an opportunity to get ourselves going,' Reed said. 'We have not done our job in a long time. We've not fulfilled our commitments, and this a kick in the pants to say who are we, and what do we stand for?' Later this month, Reed expects NATO countries to accept a new spending minimum of 3.5 per cent of GDP for defence and 1.5 per cent for border security. 'To go from our base today … it's another $100-110 billion a year to ramp up to that,' he said of Canada. 'And that's not in future dollars. That's in last year's dollars. So, any available mechanism that can help grow the industrial base and get them towards those NATO soon-to-be targets is going to be well received.' Founding members of the bank will start meeting in the fall to hammer out details. Reed anticipates standing up the bank next year. 'I like the idea of another mechanism, and a very powerful and large one, and I think a very influential one, that can help us do more in the defence and security domain in Western democracies,' said retired general Rick Hillier, Canada's former top soldier, who has joined the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank's board of directors. He predicts Canada is going to need 'a revolution in defence and security procurement' to solve the Canadian Forces' equipment woes. More money could accelerate the acquisition of new aircraft, warships and submarines, he said. 'The component I'm most worried about is the army,' Hillier said. 'The army is broken. We're down people. Our bases and our infrastructure are in very sad condition. And we lack every kind of capability that a force needs in the kind of areas where we would find ourselves fighting right now. If things go south in Eastern Europe and (Vladimir) Putin and Russia get into some kind of thing they can't extract themselves from and start heading into Lithuania and Latvia, where there are several thousand Canadians, our sons and daughters, we are ill-prepared to insure that they're ready to look after themselves.' The army lacks self-propelled artillery pieces, air defence systems, technology that can detect, track, and neutralize drones, and equipment to remove minefields, Hillier said. 'We need to focus a huge amount of that defence spend on the army.' Canada has also been lagging in spending to defend our north, he said. 'We've got to know what's going on in the Arctic, to be able to see what's going on specifically, to be able to communicate what's going on and then to be able to respond to what's going, whether its air, land, or depending on the time of year, sea forces. Right now, we can only do a very small part of that.' The country needs satellites and ultra-long endurance drones to cover the north, Hillier said. Bases should be built in Inuvik, Rankin Inlet, and Iqaluit, he said. 'Then you have to connect … those spots by upgrading the airfields across the north.' The military also needs billions of dollars to repair and replace old buildings, Hillier said. Canada's military has a shortfall of about 15,000 people right now, Hillier said. 'You do not attract first rate people with third rate infrastructure. And right now, you go to any garrison, any base, any wing across Canada and the infrastructure is crumbling.' At CFB Trenton, the military's hub for air transport operations in Canada and abroad, people can't even drink the water on the base 'because it's contaminated,' Hillier said. At CFB Petawawa, 'the fire hall they've been trying to replace for years floods in any kind of a rainstorm,' he said. 'As soon as it shuts down, you shut down operations in that training area, in that garrison, for the brigade, for the helicopter squadron and for the special forces training centre.' Hillier believes the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank could help alleviate all of these problems. 'There's an enormous amount of momentum because the inherent good in it is evident to most people as soon as they sit and think about what it could achieve,' he Two ways to boost Canadian defence spending and minimize Trump's tariff threats Canada's boutique military: 'Should we not be able to defend ourselves?' Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cantor Says These 2 SaaS Stocks Are Top Picks as AI Rewrites the Software Playbook
AI and cloud services have already made their mark on the tech landscape, and the next iteration is taking shape: artificial intelligence software as a service, or AI SaaS. Simply put, it refers to the use of cloud technology to deliver advanced AI tools while minimizing cost and resource demands for end users. Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter The cloud can already reach a wide range of customers, users who require high-end computing but can't support the infrastructure themselves. Adding AI to the mix will put advanced functions – think machine learning and natural language processing – into the cloud's toolbox. From a user perspective, putting AI tools into the subscription-based SaaS model will also give advantages in flexibility and scalability. The opportunity here is substantial. According to Zion Market Research, last year, the AI SaaS market was estimated to be worth $115.22 billion – and it's predicted to see a CAGR of 38% or more over the next decade, to reach $2.97 trillion by 2034. Covering the AI/SaaS segment from Cantor, analyst Matthew VanVliet sees major upside in this space – and in the stocks poised to benefit. 'We believe there is ample upside for the group ahead, as AI represents a much greater catalyst than anything in the past couple of years, more significant and sustainable than pandemic-era work-from-anywhere investments. Our view is the opportunity for growth to re-accelerate points to upside for the AI winners, unlocking multiple expansion if this plays out as we are expecting,' VanVliet opined. Building on that bullish outlook, the analyst has singled out two top picks he believes are especially well-positioned to ride this next wave of AI-driven growth – a view echoed by the broader analyst community. According to the TipRanks database, both stocks carry Strong Buy consensus ratings from the Street. Let's take a closer look. Klaviyo, Inc. (KVYO) The first company we'll look at here is Klaviyo, a software firm that brings CRM (customer relationship management) to the B2C world. The company fields a proprietary data platform with AI insights, to give its customers effective marketing automation, data analysis, and customer service. The aim here is personalized service – Klaviyo's customers can use the company's software packages to improve their own customers' interactions: customer profiles, omnichannel campaigns, web forms, and more. Klaviyo has built its operations and reputation on the quality of its data-based services – which positioned the company well to integrate AI into its offerings. The company's email and SMS marketing services already make use of AI tech to smooth out customization and targeting, to automate content generation, and to optimize send times. Klaviyo's clean data library is a key support for the AI services. Strong services have allowed this company to build a solid customer base. In its last financial release, Klaviyo defined a customer as 'a distinct paid subscription to our platform;' by that definition, the company stated that it had over 169,000 customers as of this past March 31. Within that customer base, the number of large customers – defined as those generating more than $50,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR) came to 3,030, up 40% year-over-year. In addition to building a strong customer base, Klaviyo's 1Q25 financial release also showed quarterly revenue of $279.8 million, up 33% year-over-year and $11.89 million ahead of the forecasts. The company ran a net loss in the quarter, of 5 cents per share, but that was one cent per share better than had been anticipated. Turning to Cantor's VanVliet, we find the analyst upbeat on Klaviyo, citing the company's strong position and its large total addressable markets and potential for growth. He writes of the stock, 'KVYO's core ecommerce/retail SAM is ~$16b, with a clear eye to more of the market as the platform expands, uptake of its CRM increases, such that it becomes a true system of record, and AI broadens its reach. KVYO's TAM also keeps expanding as it moves upmarket and diversifies across new industries and geographies. Within the US, it sizes the TAM at $34b and the global opportunity at $68b. At $1b+ of revenue today, KVYO's penetration remains low, providing it a long runway of potential future growth.' VanVliet's comments back up his Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating here, and his $48 price target implies a potential gain of 41% for the shares in the year ahead. (To watch VanVliet's track record, click here) The Strong Buy consensus rating on KVYO shares is based on 18 recent Wall Street recommendations, which break down to 15 Buys and 3 Holds. The stock's $33.95 current trading price and $43.41 average target together suggest a one-year upside of 28%. (See KVYO stock forecast) HubSpot, Inc. (HUBS) Next on our list of Cantor's Top Picks is HubSpot, the well-known marketing software platform. The company has a reputation for innovation and has developed a solid stable of marketing software packages offered through a unified platform. HubSpot's software solves problems and smooths out processes in CRM, content management, social media management, and SEO – in fact, in pretty much any area of online direct marketing, inbound sales, and customer service. HubSpot introduced its Breeze AI toolkit last year as an AI enhancement of the company's existing services – and as an independent set of AI-powered marketing tools. The company's Breeze Customer Agent is billed as a '24/7 AI concierge,' capable of independently automating features in marketing, sales, and service. The system is designed to act on the human operator's instruction, with the AI agent handling the implementation. HubSpot claims that client teams using the AI agent see a 10% higher close rate on work orders, a 39% faster ticket resolution, and upwards of 50% of customer contact conversations resolved automatically – with the top users reaching 90%. In addition to streamlining marketing outreach, HubSpot also makes AI systems available in the content field. The company's Breeze Content Agent can scale content marketing efforts, create and publish landing pages, and generate search-optimized blog posts – and all in minutes rather than hours. The AI can even handle scripting and voiceover for video content. In its 1Q25 financial report, HubSpot reported what it described as a 'solid start' to the year. The company's customer count as of March 31 was up 19% year-over-year, a growth figure that offset a 4% decline in average subscription revenue per customer. At the top line, HubSpot reported $714.1 million in revenue, up 16% year-over-year and $13.7 million ahead of the pre-release estimates. HubSpot runs a quarterly profit, and in Q1 it realized a non-GAAP EPS of $1.84 – 8 cents better than expected. The company finished Q1 with $2.2 billion in cash and liquid assets on hand. Checking in again with VanVliet and the Cantor view of this CRM firm, we find him impressed by HubSpot's record of success. The analyst says of the company, 'HUBS is one of the few CRM industry players that has successfully moved into adjacent sub-categories (started in Marketing, expanded to Sales, Service, Content, and increasingly Commerce). We think this is a testament to HUBS's mgmt., which we view as best-of-breed. By methodically building the platform breadth and depth, HUBS is now gaining traction upmarket, which is key to sustaining mid-to-high teens growth over the medium term. HUBS is also building a more robust partner network, which is further accelerating upmarket traction.' Looking ahead, and specifically looking at HubSpot's use of AI to chart a new path ahead, the Cantor analyst remains upbeat, adding to his comments above, 'HUBS' organically built platform is well-positioned to leverage AI and strengthen its competitive edge. Breeze AI is already driving higher Content Hub attach rates (tripled y/y in 1Q). Further, we think Breeze will play an important role in unlocking Service Hub traction, which is critical to HUBS' next leg of growth.' Unsurprisingly, VanVliet rates HUBS stock as Overweight (i.e., Buy). His price target, set at $775, indicates room for an upside potential of 28.5% on the one-year horizon. HubSpot has picked up 28 recent analyst recommendations, which include 24 to Buy against just 4 to Hold, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The stock is selling for $602.61, and its $749.32 average price target implies a potential one-year gain of 24%. (See HUBS stock forecast) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks' Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks' equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment. Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
