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Digital health company Noom on Thursday announced it will offer a compounded GLP-1 drug as part of a new weight loss product that starts at $149. 

The treatment will feature compounded semaglutide, the same active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. Noom has offered weight loss programs for years, and consumers can already try to access those branded medications through its platform. 

But Noom is the latest in a string of digital health companies to offer compounded versions of the medications as a cheaper alternative for consumers while demand for weight loss and diabetes drugs spikes. Hims & Hers and Sesame have launched similar programs in recent months — and the market for low-cost options has grown more competitive.  

“Our position is that more supply, especially at a reasonable price, is needed right now, not less,” Noom CEO Geoff Cook told CNBC in an interview. 

Wegovy and Ozempic belong to a highly popular class of medications called GLP-1s, which mimic certain gut hormones to tamp down a patient’s appetite and regulate their blood sugar. The compounded versions are custom-made alternatives to the brand drugs, and they can be produced when brand-name treatments are in shortage.

Compounded GLP-1 medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Wegovy and Ozempic both cost roughly $1,000 per month before insurance. Most insurance plans cover GLP-1s when they are used to treat diabetes, but coverage of the weight loss drugs is less widespread. Spiking demand can also make it difficult for many patients to find the branded treatments.

Cook said consumers will pay $149 for their first month in Noom’s program and $279 for the following months as the dose of their medication increases. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not review the safety and efficacy of compounded products, and the agency has urged consumers to take the approved, branded GLP-1 medications when they are available. However, the FDA does inspect some outsourcing facilities that compound drugs, according to its website.

Noom said it is working with an FDA-regulated 503B compounding pharmacy to provide its medication for its new program, which is called Noom GLP-1 RX. 

“The drug manufacturer we’re working with generates 20 generic medications, epinephrine being one of them — a lifesaving medication that’s available in hospitals all across the United States,” Dr. Adonis Saremi, chief medical officer of Noom, told CNBC in an interview. “So we’re really confident and happy with our vetting process.” 

The company said it has also introduced a way for participants to taper off the compounded treatment if they would like to stop taking it. GLP-1s are intended for long-term use, which means some patients may end up taking them indefinitely. 

Cook said Noom has seen both anecdotal and real-world evidence that patients are able to maintain weight loss after they stop taking the drugs. Six out of seven patients are off GLP-1s by the two-year mark anyway, he said. 

“It’s prescribed by the doctor, the person takes their medicine, they lose weight, but then life happens,” Cook said. “They eventually stop taking the medication, or their insurance stops covering it, they’ll change a job [so] it’s no longer covered.” 

Cook said not everyone will be able to taper off the medication, so some people will likely end up taking it indefinitely. The company will provide a free year of Noom or “substantial medication discounts” to anyone who regains the weight within 18 months after following its program for a year, it said in a release. 

Consumers can get started with the Noom GLP-1 RX program by filling out an intake form on the website. Noom said one of its contracted, obesity-trained doctors will review the intake form and decide if the compounded medication is appropriate for that patient. If so, the drugs will arrive at their door within a week, Noom said. 

Participants will learn how to inject their medication, and they can use a chat feature to talk one-on-one with a coach and their Noom clinician, the company said. They’ll also have access to a range of psychology-based programming and tools to help keep them from losing muscle mass, such as features for tracking protein intake and engaging in resistance training, Noom said.

And if users decide they are ready to move off the medication, they can chat with their clinician or tap “initiate taper” in their settings, Noom said.  

“I think there’s a lot of folks who don’t want to be on a medication for the rest of their lives, and in any event, people aren’t doing that in the real world,” Cook said. “Our goal is just not to sell more medications. It’s to drive sustained weight loss outcomes.”

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New bipartisan bill would require companies to report AI job losses

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New bipartisan bill would require companies to report AI job losses

A pedestrian walks past Amazon Ireland corporate offices in Dublin, as Amazon.com, Inc., said on Tuesday it plans to cut its global corporate workforce by as many as 14,000 roles and seize the opportunity provided by artificial intelligence (AI), in Dublin, Ireland, Oct. 28, 2025.

Damien Eagers | Reuters

A new bipartisan bill seeks to provide a “clear picture” of how artificial intelligence is affecting the American workforce.

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday announced the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act. It would require publicly traded companies, certain private companies and federal agencies to submit quarterly reports to the Department of Labor detailing any job losses, new hires, reduced hiring or other significant changes to their workforce as a result of AI.

The data would then be compiled by the Department of Labor into a publicly available report.

“This bipartisan legislation will finally give us a clear picture of AI’s impact on the workforce,” Warner said in a statement. “Armed with this information, we can make sure AI drives opportunity instead of leaving workers behind.”

The proposed legislation comes as politicians, labor advocates and some executives have sounded the alarm in recent years about the potential for widespread job loss due to AI.

In May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the AI tools that his company and others are building could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to spike up to 20% in the next one to five years. Anthropic makes the chatbot Claude.

Layoffs have been announced recently at companies across the tech, retail, auto and shipping industries, with executives citing myriad reasons, from AI and tariffs to shifting business priorities and broader cost-cutting efforts. Job cuts announced at Amazon, UPS and Target last month totaled more than 60,000 roles.

Some experts have questioned whether AI is fully to blame for the layoffs, noting that companies could be using the technology as cover for concerns about the economy, business missteps or cost cutting initiatives.

WATCH: Is AI behind recent job cuts? Here’s what to know

Is AI behind recent job cuts? Here's what to know

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Tesla sales in Germany have cratered from last year, data shows

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Tesla sales in Germany have cratered from last year, data shows

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., arrives at the Tesla plant in Gruenheide, Germany, on March 13, 2024.

Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla sold just 750 electric vehicles in Germany for October 2025, less than half of what it sold a year ago, according to data out Wednesday from the country’s federal transport authority, known as KBA.

In October last year, Tesla sold 1,607 EVs in Germany.

KBA data shows 434,627 new battery electric vehicles year to date, the KBA data said, up nearly 40% from the same period last year. Of those EVs, 15,595 were Teslas, a decline of 50% for Elon Musk‘s automaker this year.

Tesla operates a massive vehicle assembly plant in Brandenburg, Germany, which is outside of Berlin, but the company is not a hometown favorite.

Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric and endorsement of AfD, Germany’s extremist, anti-immigrant party, have weighed on left-leaning consumers’ interest in the Tesla brand there.

Read more CNBC tech news

Tesla also faces a passel of European and Chinese competitors throughout Europe offering smaller and more affordable EVs, many priced below 35,000 euros.

During October, Tesla began selling a new, lower-cost version of its Model Y SUV in Germany. The stripped-down version of the SUV was priced at 39,990 euros for the German market — about 5,000 euros lower than the cheapest, previously available versions of the Model Y there.

It remains to be seen whether Tesla’s new, lower-priced model variants can help revitalize demand for their EVs in Germany or Europe.

Policy changes ahead may lift EV sales in Germany, overall.

Germany scrapped incentives to boost purchases of fully electric vehicles about two years ago, a policy change that led to a sharp drop in demand for fully electric vehicles, initially. The country is now poised to start up a new EV incentive program that goes into effect in January 2026, and is intended to help lower- and middle-income buyers adopt zero tailpipe emission vehicles.

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Op-ed: The fuel for the AI boom driving the markets is advertising. It is also an existential risk.

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Op-ed: The fuel for the AI boom driving the markets is advertising. It is also an existential risk.

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

With OpenAI’s recent release of its AI browser, the historic level of capital expenditures being made in the current AI arms race may accelerate even further, if that is possible.

From the reciprocal, and some have said circular, nature of hundreds of billions in commitments in investment, tied to future chip purchases, to the extent to which GDP growth is reliant on this boom, some have said this is a bubble. A Harvard economist estimates 92% of US GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was due to investment in AI.

But much more needs to be understood about the connection between the breakneck investment in AI and the business models that underpins the entire economy: the advertising technology (Ad Tech) industrial complex.

For the past 25 years the infrastructure of the internet has been engineered to extract advertising revenue. Search Engine Marketing, the advertising business model at the core of Google, is perhaps the greatest business model of all time. Meta’s advertising business, based on engagement and attribution, is a close second. And right behind both of these is Amazon’s advertising business, powered by its position as the largest online retailer. While a smaller portion of Amazon‘s topline, its highly profitable advertising business makes up a disproportionate percentage of Amazon’s profits. So much so that nearly every major retailer has spun up their own version of retail media networks, all driving significantly to the bottom lines and market capitalization of massive companies like Walmart, Kroger, Uber (and UberEats), Doordash and many more.

In fact, these platforms have been using AI to refine their advertising business models for years, in the form of algorithmic models that powered their search and recommendation engines, and to increase engagement and better predict purchase decision, seeking an ever-greater share of all commerce, not just what is typically thought of as “advertising.” These three multi-trillion-dollar market cap companies either
wholly, or substantially, derive their profits from advertising. And now they are using some portion of those historically profitable advertising revenues to fuel infrastructure investments at a level the world has not seen outside of War Time spending by governments.

But at the same time, the latest wave of AI has the potential to disrupt the very same trillions in market cap that is fueling it. AI will, without question, change how people search (Google), shop (Amazon) and are entertained (Meta). Answers delivered without clicking around the web. AI-assisted shopping. Infinite personalized content creation.

If AI represents such a potential existential risk, why are Google, Meta and Amazon such a huge part of the current arms race to invest in AI? The “moonshot” outcome of would be that achieving Artificial General Intelligence, or Super Intelligence, AI that can do anything a human can, but better, would unlock so much value that it would dwarf any investment.

But there is more immediate urgency to protect, or disrupt, the advertising business model fueling the trillions in market cap and hundreds of billions of current investment, before someone else does. While the seminal paper that launched this phase of AI, “Attention is All You Need” was written by mostly Google researchers, it was OpenAI and Microsoft, and now Grok as well, that launched the current AI arms race. And they are not remotely as dependent on the current advertising industrial complex. In fact,
Sam Altman has called the feeds of the major platforms using AI to maximize advertising dollars, “the first at-scale misaligned AIs.” He is clearly stating which businesses he believes OpenAI is trying to disrupt.

What comes next?

This time is different, but it also comes with different risks. The major difference with the current fever in infrastructure investment vs the dotcom bubble of 2000, is that in large part the companies funding it are among the most profitable companies in the world. And so far, there has not been indications of cracks in the business model of advertising that is both funding their investments, and their market capitalizations (along with so many massive companies people wouldn’t think about being in the advertising business).

But if AI does disrupt, or even break, the current advertising model, the shock to the economy and markets would be far greater than most could imagine.

Google, Meta and Amazon are still best positioned to create new business models, and as mentioned, have been using AI for far longer to support their advertising business models with great success.

However, fundamentally changing the way people interface with search, commerce and content online will require just that, entirely new revenue models, maybe, hopefully, some that are aligned, that are not advertising based. But whatever the model, perhaps it is helpful to consider that the justification in AI
infrastructure spending may not be to just unlock new revenue, but to protect the business models that make up a much more significant portion of the market capitalization of public companies than most people are aware.

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