Internal upheaval and delays have stymied X’s payments ambitions, but new beta tests could get the app back on track.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the one major hurdle to AI adoption that's not being discussed enough, the smart tech that's missing from your life, how to get X closer to its former glories, if it would be better to have an AI boss than your current human one, a grizzly consequence of global warming, and more. Tune in to the discussion with guest host Bill Fisher, and analysts Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, Carina Perkins, and Max Willens.

Last October, we projected that Twitter’s 2023 ad revenues would reach $4.74 billion worldwide. Since Elon Musk’s takeover, we’ve cut our projection by nearly $2 billion, to just $2.98 billion, as the app grapples with brand safety issues, confusing policies, and broken technology.

Our latest forecast shows the global monthly Twitter user base will shrink 3.9% next year and 5.1% in 2024. “Users will start to leave the platform next year as they grow frustrated with technical issues and the proliferation of hateful or other unsavory content,” said our principal analyst Jasmine Enberg.

Twitter’s global ad revenues will reach $4.67 billion this year, up 4.9% from 2021. This projection is a downgrade of nearly $1 billion from our March forecast, as social media ad revenues have taken a hit across the board.

Tesla and Ford are neck and neck in the race to become North America’s most popular connected car brand, each making up nearly one-third of connected car systems in the region. Android-based system Atoto takes third at 11%, beating out multiple automakers due to its ability to upgrade nonconnected vehicles.

In the US, Twitter will lose 1.4 million monthly users between 2022 and 2026. Many of those defectors will be people who joined in the initial years of the pandemic—for updates on COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election—but are leaving out of news fatigue or in pursuit of other content.

In April, Elon Musk entered an agreement with Twitter to buy the platform for roughly $44 billion.

Twitter has started a gentle decline in US users. The social media app peaked in 2021 with 57.8 million monthly US users. This year, that figure will flutter downward by 0.5%, hitting 57.5 million by year-end. But it's not all a decline for the platform.

On today's episode, we discuss Elon's pitch deck plans for Twitter, lululemon athletica betting on the future of connected fitness, how to best augment our reality, how fast online checkout should be, what kind of power video podcasts hold, an unpopular opinion about 15-minute grocery delivery, and where Nobel prizes come from. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Evelyn Mitchell, Blake Droesch, and Paul Verna.

On Monday, Twitter accepted a bid from Elon Musk to buy the platform for about $44 billion, putting the world's richest man in the driver's seat of one of the world's biggest social media apps.

Close to half of US adults believe widespread use of driverless cars would be bad for society. Meanwhile, 26% think it’d be good for autonomous vehicles to rule the roads, and 29% aren’t sure.