People gather at the Magic Kingdom theme park before the “Festival of Fantasy” parade at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, U.S. July 30, 2022.

Octavio Jones | Reuters

Disney is planning to begin its next phase of cost cutting, which will include as many as 1,000 layoffs, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The cost-cutting initiative comes shortly after Josh D’Amaro took the helm as CEO in mid-March.

The layoffs are expected to mostly affect Disney’s marketing department, according to the person, who requested to speak anonymously because the moves had not yet been made public. That department was recently consolidated under Asad Ayaz, who was named chief marketing and brand officer in January.

Ayaz, who reports directly to D’Amaro and Dana Walden, Disney’s president and chief creative officer, oversees marketing for all of Disney’s divisions — entertainment, experiences and sports — in the newly created role. It’s the first time that Disney brought all of its units under one marketing chief.

Disney’s stock was slightly down in afternoon trading on Thursday. The layoffs were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The changes to the marketing department structure occurred in January, when Bob Iger was still CEO of the company. Disney announced shortly after that that D’Amaro would take take over the top job — a long-awaited decision for the company.

D’Amaro, who previously was chairman of Disney Experiences, succeeded Iger after a period of uncertainty for the media and theme park giant — which had included a succession race and recent reorganization and turnaround of the business.

Iger reclaimed the Disney CEO role in late 2022, about two years after his initial departure. He was immediately tasked with a turnaround of the business as its stock price had fallen and earnings began to miss expectations.

By February 2023, Disney had announced sweeping plans that reorganized the structure of the company, cut $5.5 billion in costs and eliminated 7,000 jobs from its workforce.

On D’Amaro’s first official day as CEO in March, he noted the work Iger had done to get the company past one of its most difficult periods.

“When Bob returned to the company a few years ago, his goal was to fortify our business and lay the groundwork for long-term growth, by reigniting creativity and improving performance at our studios, building a robust and profitable streaming business, transforming ESPN for a digital future, and turbocharging our parks and experiences,” D’Amaro said on stage at the company’s investor day.

“We’ve accomplished all of those things, and we’re operating from a place of strength, with ample opportunity for growth.”

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A Target store in Chicago, Feb. 10, 2026.

Scott Olson | Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — Target customers will soon see changes on the retailer’s shelves, as the company tries to woo back shoppers during a turnaround effort that has started to catch Wall Street’s eye.

Among those shifts, Target will add more fresh and trendy groceries, a dedicated display for higher-end makeup and a larger array of merchandise for sports fans.

At the big-box retailer’s Minneapolis headquarters on Tuesday, Target’s merchandising leaders previewed the company’s ambitious plans to overhaul key categories, including home and apparel, which have posted year-over-year sales declines. The company held an investor meeting to share its holiday-quarter results and its turnaround strategy for this year, which hinges in part on regaining its reputation for stylish and unique items.

CEO Michael Fiddelke, a Target veteran who stepped into the top role on Feb. 1, told investors on Tuesday that the company is making changes that “don’t happen overnight.” But, he added, they include many tweaks that customers “will see and feel right away.”

“If I were to step back and draw a heat map of the entire store highlighting where we’re making changes this year, you’d see more change to what we sell and how we sell it than you’ve seen in a decade,” he said.

The success of Target’s merchandise makeover will help determine whether the company meets its sales and earnings outlook for the current year and whether it can reverse four consecutive quarters of declining customer traffic. The company’s revenue fell slightly in fiscal 2025 and has been stagnant for four years.

Target said Tuesday that it expects net sales for the current fiscal year to rise about 2% compared with the previous year and anticipates that sales will grow in every quarter of the year.

Wall Street had a positive early read on Target’s turnaround progress: The company’s stock climbed more than 6% on Tuesday, and was trading higher on Wednesday.

Here’s a closer look at Target’s merchandising changes:

Putting a fresher spin on grocery 

Target is expanding the fresh department and adding more prominent signage for its Good & Gather private brand as it tries to draw more customers to stores for grocery shopping. This rendering shows what the expanded fruit, vegetable and meat displays will look like.

Courtesy of Target

One of the top reasons for customers’ Target trips is a simple one — running in for a quick grocery item like a gallon of milk or box of pasta. The challenge is getting shoppers to buy more of their food there.

Food is the No. 1 traffic driver for Target, and over half of customers have food in their shopping basket, said John Conlin, senior vice president of merchandising, food and beverage. Target’s grocery category, which it labels food and beverage, drew higher sales than any of Target’s merchandising segments in the past fiscal year. It grew by about 1% year over year and totaled $24.14 billion — or roughly 23% of Target’s net sales for the fiscal year. 

Yet for many customers, Target is a destination for buying just a few grocery items rather than a fuller basket of food for the week. Plus, competition has grown fiercer — not only from the nation’s largest grocer by revenue, Walmart, but also from Amazon and fast-expanding discounter Aldi.

“We don’t want food to just be a business that guests are shopping while they’re at Target,” he said. “But increasingly, we want to be a business that is why guests are at Target.”

He said Target is “trying to carve our own lane with our assortment strategy” rather than copy the grocers down the street.

Going forward, Target will expand the square footage it devotes to grocery as it remodels stores and builds new ones, Conlin said. In over half of the stores that the company remodels, Target will double the square footage for fresh foods like fruits, vegetables and meats, he added.

The company also plans to add more brands that shoppers haven’t yet discovered and lean on seasonal items and private brands. To stand out from competitors, Target is going to ramp up the amount of new items by up to 50% in key categories like snacks and dry groceries, Conlin said.

But he acknowledged a challenge that has tripped up Target in recent years, which it’s tried to fix by owning its supply chain and opening a new facility in Colorado in the next year.

“None of this comes to light if we’re not in stock for our guests,” he said.

He declined to share a key detail about some items and brands that Target is adding: price points.

Giving beauty a glow up 

In many of Target’s stores, customers buy lip gloss and other items from Ulta Beauty. That will change in August, after the two brands announced the end of a deal that brought the mini beauty shops to nearly a third of Target’s big-box stores. 

On Tuesday, Target said it plans to give its own beauty assortment a glow up. This fall, it will open what it is dubbing its Beauty Studio in more than 600 stores and online, said Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of merchandising for essentials and beauty at Target.

Beauty Studio will replace Ulta Beauty at Target. It will be a dedicated shop within the store with prestige beauty brands, elevated lighting, enhanced service and a loyalty program tied to beauty, Nusz said. In renderings, the beauty shop looks similar to Ulta Beauty at Target, but without the beauty retailer’s branding. 

Starting this fall, Target will open Beauty Studio dedicated shops in more than 600 stores and online. The prestige beauty shop will replace Ulta Beauty at Target.

Courtesy of Target

Nusz declined to share the national brands that the Beauty Studio will carry and whether it will offer some of the same brands sold by Ulta Beauty and other competitors like Sephora.

Beauty “has been one of the strongest growth engines for Target,” Nusz said. She said it was also the top growth category for Target’s curbside pickup service, Drive Up, and in-store pickup of online orders in the fourth quarter. A bonus for Target: Beauty tends to draw in younger shoppers.

The segment’s sales were roughly flat year over year in the most recent fiscal year, but accounted for about 13% of Target’s overall net sales for the period.

Along with rolling out Beauty Studio, Nusz said, Target will add more well-recognized national brands like sunscreen brand Supergoop, lean into trends like Korean beauty and invest more in men’s beauty, such as grooming and fragrance items.

Adding fun and pop culture relevance

Target has overhauled its hardlines category, which includes items like consumer electronics, books and toys. The category, which it now calls Fun101, now carries more items related to sports and pop culture. For example, it has a line of merchandise for the 30th anniversary of the movie “Space Jam.”

Melissa Repko | CNBC

In the back of Target’s stores, the retailer is giving an overhaul to a department that’s typically known for selling consumer electronics, toys and books.

Instead of calling it the traditional name, hardlines, Target coined the category Fun101.

Cassandra Jones, senior vice president of merchandising for Fun101, said the goal went beyond the new name, however. Target wanted to turn around a category that was falling flat.

Starting in late 2024, Target has had a tighter focus on four key areas: play, which includes toys like plush stuffed animals and popular brands like Lego; pop, which includes culturally inspired items like a limited-edition collection tied to Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and another linked to the 30th anniversary of the movie “Space Jam”; sport, which includes items like water bottles and licensed sports apparel for professional teams; and gadget, which includes trendy takes on products like phone cases and headphones.

On the other hand, Jones said Target has cut back on items like TVs and laptops, where it’s harder to stand out from retail competitors or inject a sense of style.

Sales of Fun101 merchandise were roughly flat year over year in the most recent fiscal year, but drove $15.8 billion, or 15%, of Target’s net sales for the period.

Jones said shoppers will see the category go bigger in the second half of the year. Target plans to open a fan shop in stores and online with licensed sports gear, expand its position as a “trading card destination” and open a “collectibles zone” for other types of merchandise.

Target’s home category has been one of its weakest performers. The retailer is overhauling the category and redoing the display area in stores, too. It showed off some of its newer items at an investor event in Minneapolis.

Melissa Repko | CNBC

Rebuilding home goods

Target used to be known for its fashion-forward yet affordable throw pillows, lamps, bedding and other home decor. The category, however, is now one of the retailer’s weaknesses — particularly as it competes with digital players like Wayfair, big-box competitors like Walmart and Costco, off-price chains like TJX‘s HomeGoods and specialty players like Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn.

Sales in the home furnishings and decor category totaled $15.61 billion in the most recent fiscal year, sinking by nearly 7% year over year. That’s a deeper sales drop than in any of Target’s other key merchandise categories.

The big-box retailer is working to become a destination for the category again, said Mara Sirhal, senior vice president of merchandising for home, who stepped into the role about three months ago.

“Our home business has not delivered to its potential, point-blank,” she said. “The industry grew. Target home underperformed. We lost meaningful share over the last two years, and our authority and style inspiration has weakened. That is on us.”

Among the problems, she said, Target “lost clarity in our point of view,” with a blander assortment rather than a stylish, eye-catching one.

Sales of home goods at Target have also been hurt by economic factors, including higher interest rates and pricier homes in the U.S., which have led to a much older first-time homebuyer, she said.

Starting in June, Target will rebuild the category as part of a multiyear turnaround effort, she said. One of its first moves this summer will be redoing about 75% of its assortment in decorative home, which includes items like candlesticks, throw pillows and greenery. By the fall, she said, three-quarters of its bedding assortment will be reinvented. And next year, she said, Target will overhaul its kitchen and dining merchandise.

It won’t just be the products changing, she said. Shoppers should expect to see new fixtures in stores, too, such as elevated wood displays. It will also use its third-party marketplace, Target Plus, to sell large items that are easier to carry online, such as rugs, mattresses and furniture, she said.

To try to turn around its apparel sales, Target is using an artificial intelligence tool, Trend Brain, to help the company spot the styles that customers want earlier and speed those looks to shelves. The tool helped the company develop a collection of Western-inspired clothing and accessories.

Melissa Repko | CNBC

Speeding up fashion and raising the bar on basics

Another well-known category in Target stores has become a weaker link, too. Apparel and accessories sales at the company fell to $15.74 billion in the most recent fiscal year, down about 5% from the prior year.

To drive sales growth again, the big-box retailer aims to spot trends earlier, speed up the time it takes for new looks to hit shelves and sharpen the selection of clothing that it carries — even for basics like tank tops, said Gena Fox, senior vice president of apparel and accessories at Target.

She said the company’s performance “has not been where we want it to be over the past year.”

Denim, T-shirts and tanks make up about 25% of Target’s total assortment, Fox said. Last year, it overhauled its denim to raise the quality and style, which led to a 10% year-over-year lift in sales for that category.

This year, she said, Target plans to take that same approach to fix T-shirts and tanks, which have had weaker sales. Some of those refreshed closet staples are starting to hit store shelves and Target’s website.

Target is also working to get ahead of trends, which it features in collections in stores and online, she said. To spot trends, it’s using a new artificial intelligence-powered tool called Target Trend Brain, which helps the company’s designers and merchants identify the styles, colors and materials that customers may want.

For example, insights from Trend Brain helped inspire a Western edit of clothing and accessories like purses with fringe and belts with embroidery, with all items under $40. That area will soon rotate to a collaboration with Roller Rabbit, a colorful and brightly patterned pajama brand, that will include swimwear, sundresses and pool accessories.

Target is known for its limited-time brand collaborations. For the spring, it has a new line of swimsuits, pool accessories and more developed with pajama brand Roller Rabbit.

Melissa Repko | CNBC

Fox said the apparel and accessories timeline is now about 40% faster as the company reacts more in the moment rather than planning six to 12 months in advance.

Along with those trend-driven items, Target will expand national brands and add new partnerships. Last week, the company announced it would bring Levi’s to more stores, which will mean the denim brand is in more than 1,000 — or roughly half — of its stores, Fox said. It also developed an exclusive clothing line with country music singer Megan Moroney, which will coincide with her upcoming tour.

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Chinese officials are reviewing Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus for possible technology control violations, FT reported on Tuesday.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Meta Platforms is set to test new subscription models across its apps, including Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp in the coming months, according to a report from TechCrunch on Tuesday. 

The report, confirmed by a Meta spokesperson, said the subscriptions are expected to “unlock more productivity and creativity” by giving paid users access to more features and expanded AI capabilities. 

Meta’s recently acquired suite of general AI agents under Manus will also be scaled as part of the subscription plans. Meta Platforms bought Manus — a Singapore-based developer of AI agents founded in China — in December for a reported $2 billion.

With its new subscription plans, Meta could be seeking a return on investment from its massive spending on AI talent and acquisitions last year, even before the Manus purchase. 

While Meta has been developing large language models under the Llama umbrella, those have been open-sourced. That means general access to Llama has remained free, unlike with paid plans from AI leaders like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

Other features offered as part of Meta’s paid plans could include full access to its AI-powered short-form video experience Vibes, which allows users to create and remix AI-generated videos. 

While Vibes has been free since its launch in 2025, the new subscription model would grant free access to its basic version, with the option to pay for additional features. 

The subscriptions will be separate from Meta Verified, a paid product rolled out by the company in 2023 that gave content creators and businesses a verified badge, 24/7 direct support, protection against impersonation, search optimization, and more.

Meta told TechCrunch that it plans to listen to its user community and gather feedback as it rolls out subscriptions in the coming months.

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A general view of the Baidu logo is seen at the Shanghai New Expo Center during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2025 in Shanghai, China, on July 28, 2025.

Ying Tang | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Chinese tech giant Baidu has announced plans to spin off its artificial intelligence chip subsidiary, Kunlunxin, and list it in Hong Kong, as more domestic chipmakers seek funds amid Beijing’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency.

The company said in an announcement Friday that it had confidentially filed a listing application on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, though details of the offering, including size and structure, remain undecided.

The move would still require regulatory approvals, including from China’s securities watchdog. Baidu emphasized there is no guarantee the spin-off will proceed. The company reportedly owns about 59% of Kunlunxin.

Baidu, a major player in China’s growing AI space, is both a buyer of specialized AI chips for data centers and cloud computing, as well as a designer of them through Kunlunxin.

The firm said that the spin-off would align with its strategy to highlight Kunlunxin’s standalone potential, attract sector-specific investors, and expand financing options. Kunlunxin would remain a Baidu subsidiary, it added.

The move comes against a backdrop of intensifying U.S.-China tech tensions. Both Washington and Beijing have imposed various restrictions on Chinese AI companies’ access to leading-edge AI chips from California-based Nvidia.

Meanwhile, Beijing has increasingly encouraged domestic chip purchases and mobilized billions in public funds towards development.

In recent months, several Chinese chipmakers have announced plans to list, including Moore Threads and Biren Technology.

A Growing Business Focus

Founded in 2012, Kunlunxin is central to Baidu’s ambition to become a “full stack” AI company, spanning hardware, servers and data centers, as well as AI models and applications.

While Baidu still relies heavily on Nvidia’s chips for AI computing power, Kunlunxin has enabled the company to increasingly use a mix of its self-developed chips in data centers running its Ernie AI models.

Kunlunxin has also shifted to operate as a separate entity, expanding its sales to third-party customers outside Baidu.

“In the market, Kunlunxin is seen as one of the most practical and widely used AI chips in China,” Brady Wang, associate director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

He added that one of the chipmaker’s main strengths is in software. “Instead of forcing users to adopt a closed system, Kunlunxin works well with common AI frameworks and makes it easier to move workloads from [Nvidia].”

Reuters previously reported that Kunlunxin’s revenue is projected to exceed 3.5 billion yuan ($500 million) last year, reaching break-even. External sales were expected to account for more than half of its revenue in 2025, the report added. 

In another sign of strength last year, Kunlunxin won orders worth over 1 billion yuan from suppliers to China Mobile, one of the country’s biggest mobile carriers.

China Mobile also participated in the entity’s latest funding, which had raised over 2 billion yuan and valued the unit at about 21 billion yuan, according to Reuters.

In its announcement, Baidu said its plans to spin off and list Kunlunxin would better tie management incentives with performance and elevate the unit’s market presence.

Late last year, JPMorgan analysts forecast that Kunlunxin’s chip sales would increase sixfold to 8 billion Chinese yuan in 2026.

However, while Kunlunxin may help reduce China’s reliance on chips from Nvidia, it cannot fully replace them, Counterpoint’s Wang said, citing Beijing’s ongoing constraints in advanced chip manufacturing.

“[Kunlunxin’s chips] work best for inference and other workloads that are easier to move, especially for government, telecom, and state-owned cloud users, where stable supply and lower cost matter more than top performance,” he said.

“Because of this, Beijing is not relying on a single company. Instead, Kunlunxin works together with Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Alibaba, and others to build a domestic AI computing ecosystem.”

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