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• Internal documents show how Meta’s new Vibes AI video feed is performing across its biggest markets.
• The data reveals which countries are driving early growth and where usage is slipping.
• The documents also detail how people use Vibes, from prompting the AI to scrolling through videos.

Meta’s new Vibes AI feed has about 2 million daily active users as of November 9 and grew about 1% from the previous week, according to internal data viewed by Business Insider.

The numbers, which haven’t been reported before, offer an early look at how many people open the dedicated AI video feed each day.

Vibes, which Meta added to the Meta AI app in late September, just days before OpenAI debuted rival Sora, lets people create and scroll through AI-generated videos.

For comparison — and because few companies publicly break out daily active users for individual products — Meta recently said its Threads app, which launched in July 2023, has 150 million daily active users.

There are no publicly released daily active user figures for Instagram, Facebook, or OpenAI’s new Sora app this year.

Some external estimates help illustrate the broader landscape. Data provided by digital intelligence firm Similarweb to Business Insider shows that Sora, which was accessible only by invitation for most of October, had an average of roughly 110,000 daily active users that month. That number jumped to roughly 673,000 in November after OpenAI temporarily opened it up to the general public.

Meta’s wider ecosystem of apps, measured through its “family daily active people” metric, reached 3.54 billion users in September 2025, the company revealed in its latest earnings report.

Meta declined to comment. Sources familiar with Vibes told Business Insider that Vibes usage has continued to grow.

The internal data about Vibes obtained by Business Insider breaks down how people use the feed, showing where the feature is growing, where it’s lagging, and what kinds of engagement Meta tracks inside the feed.

Most of Vibes’ growth in early November came from India and Brazil, according to the documents. In India, one of Meta’s largest markets outside the US, daily active users reached 704,000, representing a 22% increase from the previous week. In Brazil, the number of daily active users reached 114,000, representing a 13% increase from the previous week.

In Europe, Vibes launched on November 6 and has pulled in 23,000 daily active users since then. The strongest uptake came from France, Italy, and Spain, with each country contributing between 4,000 and 5,000 daily active users.

Usage declined in parts of Southeast Asia. The Philippines saw the largest drop among major countries, with daily active users falling about 9% as a burst of viral videos tapered off, according to the documents. Thailand experienced a similar decline, with daily active users decreasing by about 7% compared to the previous week.

The documents show that people use Vibes differently depending on whether they’re new or returning users. New users often try both parts of the feature — scrolling through the feed and prompting the AI — while returning users tend to rely more on prompting. About 52% of returning users prompted the AI, compared to roughly 30% who scrolled through videos, according to the data.

The documents also describe how engagement varies depending on how people arrive at Vibes. About 40% of daily users opened the feed after the app directed them toward it, and this group tended to interact less, with only 38% going on to prompt the AI or scroll through videos. Even so, around 60% returned the following week, and those who did engage were more likely to return, according to the data.

Since its launch, some critics have said much of Vibes is filled with “AI slop,” including a wave of politically charged clips, many of them centered on President Donald Trump.

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• Apple exec John Ternus is generating potential CEO buzz as Tim Cook recently turned 65.
• Ternus is the hardware engineering chief and has worked for Apple since 2001.
• With several exec changes in 2025, Ternus’ name is appearing in more headlines as a likely heir apparent.

Tim Cook has been running Apple for more than 14 years, but he won’t be CEO forever.

With leadership transitions this year, including Cook’s longtime number two, Jeff Williams, announcing his retirement before 2026, John Ternus has emerged as a likely frontrunner for the top job, according to reports in the last year and a half.

The 65-year-old could leave the role as early as next year after Apple’s January earnings report, the Financial Times recently reported, and that the iPhone maker has intensified succession planning. Bloomberg previously identified Ternus as “the most likely heir apparent.”

Cook has previously said that his ideal candidate for the role would come from within the company and that he’s preparing “several” people to potentially take over.

Meanwhile, Apple fans and Wall Street have become more familiar with Ternus as he makes public appearances tied to iPhone and other product events.

Here’s what to know about the executive who could one day replace Cook at the helm.

He studied engineering

Ternus graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, according to his LinkedIn profile. He majored in mechanical engineering.

He then worked for four years as an engineer before joining Apple’s product design team in 2001, per its website.

Ternus became vice president of hardware engineering in 2013, taking over from Dan Riccio. He’s worked on various Apple products, including every generation and model of iPad, as well as AirPods.

With his hardware chops, Ternus as CEO would mark the return of a chief executive at Apple with a product design background.

Ternus has ample public speaking experience

The job of Apple CEO is one of the most high-profile executive positions in the world, requiring regular media and keynote appearances.

Ternus hasn’t shied away from the spotlight, as he also has experience presenting new products and revealing new versions of the iMac and MacBook at past Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) events.

At Apple’s “Let Loose” event in May 2024, Ternus unveiled new, thinner iPad Pro and iPad Air models. His 2025 has been marked with a number of media appearances, including interviews about Apple’s plans for Apple Intelligence and new hardware.

Following the launch of the new iPhone Air, Ternus and senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg “Joz” Joswiak did an interview showcasing the durability of Apple’s thinnest phone.

The video garnered nearly 350,000 views, and many of the comments discussed if either of the execs would be Cook’s successor. Joswiak, however, is only three years younger than Cook.

Cook wants someone ‘from within Apple’

Although Apple is unsurprisingly tight-lipped about who will take over from Cook, the CEO said in 2023 that there are “very detailed succession plans” in place for when he steps down. He didn’t give much away on who is included in that plan.

“My job is to prepare several people to for the ability to succeed, and I really want the person to come from within Apple,” Cook said in a 2023 interview with singer Dua Lipa.

Cook added that he aims to give the Apple board multiple candidates to choose from once his time is up. However, he said, it doesn’t mean his time is coming soon.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

“I love it there, and I can’t envision my life without being there,” Cook told Lipa two years ago. “So, I’ll be there for a while.”

• Bill Ackman wrote on X that his go-to line for talking to women used to be, “May I meet you?”
• Memes and reactions to the advice soon followed.
• Some social media users found the advice helpful or said that it helped encourage men to meet women offline.

Trying to strike up a conversation with a woman in the real world? Bill Ackman has some advice for you.

The billionaire CEO of Pershing Square Holdings wrote on X that many young men “find it difficult to meet young women in a public setting.” Reflecting on his youth, Ackman offered what he said was his old go-to line.

“May I meet you?”

The line seemed to take social media by storm over the weekend. Ackman’s post has racked up roughly 4,200 comments, ranging from meme-ified mockery to sincere conversations and endorsements of his advice.

“This ain’t 1850s UK,” one user commented. “This is ‘peak rizz,'” wrote another.

Ackman responded to some of the comments. When one commenter wrote that he tried the line on a girl at a coffee shop and “she said no,” Ackman wrote, “Try again.”

“You need not fear being rejected,” Ackman wrote. “Wrong girl for you. Her loss, your gain.”

When another user suggested that Ackman had found success with it because he was wealthy, he responded, “I didn’t have two nickels then.”

Some online praised the post. “You have taken dating off the apps with a single X post,” wrote one. “Corny? Maybe. But authentic,” another wrote.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the post quickly turned into a big meme fest.

Nick O’Neill, a crypto enthusiast known for his joke persona, tried it out on the subway and in the park. (Both attempts appeared unsuccessful.)

“Attention, ladies of New York City, may I meet you?” he asked a crowded subway car. “Should there be a line that forms, please line up single file,” he added.

Another tried it as an opening line with all of their Hinge matches.

There were Selena Gomez memes and Shane Gillis memes, Joe Biden memes and JD Vance memes.

Some X posters suggested Ackman was out of touch with the younger generation of daters.

“May i meet you fellow kids,” one X poster wrote with an image of actor Steve Buscemi dressed as a teenager, a reference to the popular “How do you do, fellow kids” meme that mocks attempts by older people to fit in with today’s youth.

“You Boomers have zero clue what you have created,” another commenter wrote.

This is far from the first brush with internet virality for Ackman, a prolific X user known for writing long posts sometimes reaching thousands of words (he dressed up as one of his X posts for Halloween).

While much of the meme-ing centered on “May I meet you?” as a pickup line for women, Ackman wrote that it “should also work for women seeking men as well as same sex interactions.”

After the post went viral, Ackman posted that the line works best “when you are moving” and that he’d heard a Stanford undergrad had used it successfully.

“A world where human interaction is encouraged and rewarded is a better world,” he wrote.

• Disney and YouTube TV reached a deal late last week after a lengthy blackout.
• The two sides were divided on how much Disney’s networks like ESPN are worth.
• Sports fans can expect similar carriage disputes in 2026.

Disney recently gave sports fans a cause for celebration — and a reason for dread.

The good news: Disney’s long-running fight with YouTube TV is over. Disney-owned channels, including ESPN, returned to YouTube TV on Friday night after a 15-day blackout, marking Disney’s longest carriage dispute to date.

The bad news: Disney warned in its latest annual report that more TV blackouts may be ahead. Disney has distribution contracts with pay-TV providers expiring in its fiscal year 2026, and told investors in its yearly 10-K form that negotiations “could lead to temporary or longer-term service blackouts.” These contracts can vary in length but typically last for three to five years.

“There’s a good chance” that carriage disputes between media firms and pay-TV providers will become commonplace in 2026, given the state of the TV industry, media analyst Alan Wolk of TVREV told Business Insider.

“There’s fewer and fewer video viewers,” Wolk said, referring to pay-TV subscriptions. “And I think that the media companies are just like, ‘OK, now we can really press our advantage.'”

As the cord-cutting movement continues, media firms and TV providers have tried to protect their businesses by squeezing existing customers for more money. That has created a vicious cycle where fewer people have a pay-TV subscription, except for die-hard fans of sports or cable news.

Disney’s argument, as Wolk noted, is that it owns highly valuable sports rights that make its networks a must-carry for any major TV provider.

But at some point, pay-TV customers could balk at how high their monthly bills have gotten. Google had said that paying Disney’s desired rates would have required it to raise YouTube TV’s price for the second time in a year.

YouTube TV had substantial leverage in its fight with Disney because of its backing by parent company Google. And while cable companies have been hit by cord-cutting, some are becoming less reliant on pay-TV subscriptions, which gives them their own leverage.

“TV is, at this point, a loss leader” for cable company Charter, Wolk said. He added that the video subscription business is primarily a way to retain broadband internet customers and “create stickiness” than to attract cord-nevers, or people who’ve never paid for cable.

Charter is thinking outside the cable box. The cable giant reached a deal with Disney in 2023 to bundle streaming services in its cable video package, a model that rival cable providers have since followed. While this isn’t a foolproof solution to pay-TV’s imperiled business model, it has helped slow Charter’s cord-cutting rate, as analyst Craig Moffett of research firm MoffettNathanson has noted.

“Charter is enjoying a remarkable turnaround driven by its bundled streaming packages,” Moffett wrote in a late October note, adding that it lost just 70,000 video subscribers in the third quarter, compared to 294,000 a year earlier. “The results are nothing short of extraordinary.”

Cable companies like Charter and Comcast aren’t the only players in the pay-TV market. There are also satellite providers, such as DirecTV and Dish, as well as virtual TV services like YouTube TV, Fubo, and Hulu + Live TV.

DirecTV doesn’t have a backup business like broadband internet, but it’s also starting to experiment with bundling streamers. And it’s trying a strategy centered on so-called “skinny bundles” built around sports, news, or entertainment. Its pitch is that customers can get the channels they watch most, while paying less.

Media giants like Disney must get enough value for their networks to please investors, but TV providers increasingly have reasons not to back down. That could lead to more fights in 2026, and sports fans might get caught in the crossfire.

• My husband and I appeared on an episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters International” in 2023.
• As a fan of the show, I was excited to be selected and encountered lots of surprises during filming.
• I was surprised by how long the pre-production process was and how many takes some scenes took.

It was always a dream of mine to move to Europe, so when the opportunity to relocate to Germany for work presented itself, my husband and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

As I was scrolling through an expat Facebook group, I came across a dream opportunity posted by a casting director — the chance to star in an episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters International.”

I messaged the casting director to express my interest and was given a form to apply. As an avid fan of the show, I was thrilled when we received an email stating we had been selected.

Now that our episode has aired, I’ve had some time to reflect on what wasn’t seen on camera. Here are five things that surprised me most about the filming process.

The pre-production process was lengthy

The application process included several forms and a lengthy pre-filming questionnaire asking us to detail how we met, why we were moving, and what we did for work. I was also asked to send some photos to represent our story.

Then, we had virtual interviews to share more about ourselves, our lives, and our apartment preferences.

Luckily, this process didn’t delay our move since we were concurrently filling out documents for our visas.

My hair, makeup, and jewelry had to be consistent throughout filming

On the first day of filming, I was informed that I’d need to maintain the same hair, makeup, and jewelry for the next three days — a detail I hadn’t considered but was crucial for uniformity in the episode.

I did my own hair and makeup despite hoping a professional would do it. To maintain outfit coordination for each scene and day, we took photos and were meticulous about remembering our looks.

Filming was done out of order

To create a 30-minute episode, my husband and I filmed for four days. However, once we began, I was surprised to learn that filming wasn’t done in chronological order.

For example, the apartments we saw were shown in a different order on TV than we saw them in real life.

My husband and I had to repeat some scenes multiple times

Because the director wanted our genuine reactions to the apartment showings, we weren’t scripted to say, touch, or do anything. However, we did have to repeat some dialogue, movements, and expressions multiple times.

There was only one camera person on the shoot, which meant we needed to retake every scene at least four times so he could capture our individual reactions and our reactions as a couple. He also had to zoom in on any details, such as us touching an object or moving our hands.

For the scenes to remain consistent, we had to remember exactly where we stood, what we touched, what we said, and how we reacted.

Filming was a lot of fun

One of the best parts of the filming process was sharing our love story on camera. It was so exciting to have a big milestone in our lives documented — it’s something we’ll always remember.

Overall, we had a great experience filming our episode. The HGTV crew and staff were kind, helpful, and sincere in their desire to showcase an accurate reflection of us as a couple and our journey relocating to Germany.

This story was originally published on October 25, 2024, and most recently updated on November 17, 2025.

• Chinese Tesla rival Xpeng said it plans to start mass production of its robot, called Iron, next year.
• The EV startup’s CEO said Xpeng built Iron to be so “human-like” that people are comfortable hugging it.
• Tesla is also set to begin production of its Optimus robot in 2026.

A Chinese Tesla rival is betting on huggability to take on Elon Musk’s Optimus robot.

EV startup Xpeng unveiled the latest version of its humanoid robot, called Iron, earlier this month, and CEO He Xiaopeng said the company wanted its bipedal bots to be “highly human-like.”

In an earnings call on Monday, he told analysts that Xpeng had found adding fake muscles and “bionic skin” to Iron made people more comfortable touching and even hugging the robot.

“This is very exciting because traditional robots really were not that attractive and appealing for human beings to give them a hug,” said Xiaopeng.

Unlike many rival humanoid robots, Iron has a distinctly human-like physique, with Xpeng showcasing male and female variants. Users will be able to customize the robot with different body types, the company said.

In one demo at the unveiling, Xpeng employees even cut into the robot’s flexible “skin” to demonstrate that there was no one inside.

Speaking to analysts on Monday, Xiaopeng said Xpeng aims to sell 1 million Iron robots a year by 2030, with mass production set to begin by the end of 2026.

The auto executive, who predicted that the market for humanoid robots would ultimately be larger than the car market, added that he expects humanoid robots to be initially used in retail and as tour guides. Xpeng plans to put Iron to work in its stores next year, he said.

The production ramp-up is the latest sign that Tesla’s biggest robotics rival could come from China.

Musk’s automaker is preparing to begin mass production of its own humanoid robot, Optimus, by the end of 2026. Musk has predicted Optimus could be the biggest product ever, and Tesla’s AI chief told employees that 2026 will be the “hardest year” of their lives.

Founded in 2014, Xpeng has been one of the most successful startups to battle Tesla for a piece of China’s red-hot EV market.

The Guangzhou-based company has smashed sales records this year and is close to becoming profitable.

Xpeng executives said on Monday the EV startup will launch seven new vehicles next year, including three robotaxi models, and the company also plans to begin mass production of its $280,000 flying car in 2026.