Top Stories Wednesday, Apr. 04: Facebook Turns To Generative AI For Help, FedEx Consolidates, UBS Executives Say Surprise Credit Suisse Deal 'Major Challenge:' Today's Top Stories - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Benzinga

Meta Platforms Inc META plans to commercialize its proprietary generative artificial intelligence this year, a company executive reportedly said.
The Facebook parent began its full-scale AI research in 2013 and is among the companies having the most studies published.
With over a decade of investment into AI and one of the leading research institutes in place, Meta is at the very forefront, said Andrew Bosworth, the company's chief technology officer, in an exclusive interview with Nikkei.

FedEx Corp FDX shared plans to bring FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Services, and other FedEx operating companies into Federal Express Corporation, becoming a single company by June 2024. FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam will serve as CEO of the combined organization.
The DRIVE transformation spans 14 domains across Customer, Surface Network, Air Network & International, and General and Administrative (G&A), likely generate $4 billion in savings in FY25.
FedEx's board approved an increase in the annual dividend rate on its common stock of 10%, or $0.44 per share, to $5.04 per share for FY24.

Electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc TSLA will change how it promotes its "Sentry Mode" car feature in Germany.
Tesla may not unrestrictedly promote its Sentry/Sentinel Mode in Germany anymore, the Federal Consumer Association (VZBV) said on Tuesday.
The Federal Consumer Association sued the EV giant in July 2022 for misleading advertisements on its sentry mode.

Nintendo Co. Ltd NTDOY designer and director Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Super Mario will not be returning to smartphones, such as Apple Inc's AAPL iPhone.
As Nintendo gears up for its April 7 release of the "Super Mario Bros." movie and marks its foray into the world of cinema, with the iconic mustachioed plumber making his debut on the big screen in animated form, Miyamoto has dropped a bombshell for Mario fans.

Walmart Inc WMT believes roughly 65% of its stores will be serviced by automation by the end of the fiscal year 2026.
The company said about 55% of the fulfillment center volume would move through automated facilities, and unit cost averages could improve by approximately 20%.
The remark comes just days after the news about reducing 2,000 positions at its e-commerce warehouses.

At the halfway point of its probe into U.K. cloud services, U.K. digital regulator Ofcom decides to refer the market to the Competition and Markets Authority for further investigation after discovering objectionable practices by the influential cloud service providers.
Ofcom flagged Amazon.Com Inc AMZN and Microsoft Corp's MSFT practices for exploiting their market position to make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple cloud suppliers.

Reuters

GM Buyouts Slash 5,000 Positions

General Motors Company GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson reportedly said about 5,000 salaried workers took buyouts to leave the company.
Jacobson added that the buyouts are helping the company to hit the $2 billion cost reduction target.
General Motors was able to raise prices in the U.S. over the past two years, which the CFO said would be difficult going forward.

Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google on Tuesday elaborated on the supercomputers it uses to train its artificial intelligence models.
Google said the systems are faster and more power-efficient than comparable systems from Nvidia Corp NVDA.
It has designed its custom chip called the Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU which serves more than 90% of the company's work on AI training, feeding data through models to respond to queries with human-like text or generating images. The Google TPU is now in its fourth generation.

When UBS AG UBS agreed to acquire Credit Suisse Group AG CS for $3.2 billion, the deal angered shareholders and many in Switzerland.
UBS executives told shareholders that its unexpected takeover of Credit Suisse was a milestone for the industry and a significant challenge for the bank.
Describing the transaction as "the first merger of two globally systematically important banks," Chairman Colm Kelleher sought to assure investors that it also meant "a new beginning and huge opportunities ahead for the combined bank and the Swiss financial center as a whole."

Wall Street Journal

Exxon Mobil Corp XOM has reportedly stopped drilling in the offshore acreage after failing to find commercially viable amounts of crude in Brazil's deep waters for the third time.
The company hasn't put out tenders to drilling contractors for exploratory work there in the year since its last active rig contract expired in April 2022, and it skipped Brazil's latest offshore auction in December.
Michelle Gray, a spokeswoman for Exxon, said the company is still engaged in Brazil and pursuing exploration activity in the country.

Farallon Capital Management is planning to start a proxy battle at Exelixis Inc EXEL and has nominated three director candidates, it signaled in an SEC filing.
Hedge fund Farallon has a roughly 7.2% stake in cancer-focused Exelixis. It has been an investor in the business since 2018.
Farallon wants the board to communicate a plan to deliver cash flows from its flagship product, cabozantinib.

Bloomberg

Amazon.Com, Inc AMZN fired about 100 employees in its video-game divisions, affecting workers at Prime Gaming, Game Growth, and its San Diego studio.
Amazon proposed to earmark resources to support its focus on content.
Amazon failed to capitalize on its resources in gaming, including through its Crown channel, an entertainment show on the Twitch streaming service, leading to the decision under its broader layoff plan.

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