SIGN OF THE TIMES- The increase in the cost of flying is outpacing inflation: Air fares have surged at double the rate of annual inflation in developed markets as passengers are more willing to pay high costs amid higher demand for travel, the Financial Times reports. Pent-up travel appetite from the days of covid-19 has pushed some routes to sell for double their pre-pandemic prices, the Financial Times says, citing data from aviation company Cirium analyzed by the Financial Times.

It’s not just the travel bug: You can also blame rising fuel prices + supply chain shortages + a rallying USD: One-way economy ticket prices, excluding taxes and fees, jumped significantly across many routes this year compared to pre-pandemic levels, the salmon-colored paper notes. The high ticket prices coincide with growing scrutiny of companies invoking high inflation as a justification, a phenomenon referred to as “greedflation,” Luis Gallego, CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG) said.

We will soon say goodbye to the traditional Google SRPs — and hello to Siri’s sister-in-law Magi: Google is expected to debut new features in its upcoming I/O developer conference that are meant to spice up its search result pages (SRPs) with AI conversations through virtual assistant Magi, short videos and social media posts, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing Google documents it has seen and unnamed sources familiar with the matter. The tech giant aims to engage young people with its search results by making them more “visual, snackable, personal, and human,” according to the documents.

Everyone wants a piece of the AI cake: The rise of AI-powered apps is posing a challenge to Google’s dominance as the traditional most popular go-to search engine. The Silicon Valley tech company is trying to maintain its hegemony in all things internet in the wake of the emergence of ChatGPt — an AI-powered app developed by OpenAI and supported by Microsoft, WSJ reports.

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