Rest as an Experience in a Space Rich with Symbolism: Insights from the Argentinian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice BiennaleSave this picture!© Federico CairoliThe proposal by Argentinian architects Marco Zampieron and Juan Manuel Pachué for the Argentinian Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 is clear from the outset: upon entering Siestario, visitors are immersed in a space of dim lighting and evocative sound, and immediately encounter—at the center of the room, stretched across its width, and acting as the undeniable protagonist—a large, inflated pink bag that instinctively invites repose. This is a silobag, an object commonly used in the Argentinian countryside to store grain and a potent symbol of the country’s export-driven economy. In this setting, the silobag becomes more than a spatial intervention; it also introduces a temporal dimension: an invitation to pause and reflect amid the relentless rhythm of the Biennale. Save this picture!Under the motto “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”, general curator and Italian architect Carlo Ratti invites participants to explore and debate the many meanings of these terms, setting the stage for a critical rethinking of contemporary architecture. Within this framework, both national pavilions and individual projects and installations engage with the tensions and possibilities that emerge between the natural, the artificial, and the collective—each from their own distinct perspective.Save this picture!Marco Zampieron and Juan Manuel Pachué — Rosario-based architects and co-founders of Cooperativa — were selected through a public competition organized by the Argentine Foreign Ministry, in partnership with the Chamber of Urban Developers (CEDU), with their winning project to represent Argentina in this edition of the Biennale. Related Article Bahrain Wins the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale Save this picture!With the support of CEDU and Base Proyectos, ArchDaily was present at the inauguration of the Argentine Pavilion on May 9, at the extraordinary Arsenale in Venice. During the first days of the event, we had the opportunity to speak with the authors of Siestario about their experience participating in the Biennale, the creative process of the project, and other aspects related to their practice and understanding of architecture.Save this picture!AD (Paula Pintos): What was your motivation to participate in the competition to represent Argentina at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025?Marco Zampieron & Juan Manuel Pachué (MZ & JP): As Cooperativa, our group is deeply engaged with competitions. We participate regularly, advocate for them as a valuable tool, and truly enjoy the process they entail. This one, in particular, stood out because, while it’s a national competition, it offers a strong international platform: it’s about representing the country on one of the most important global stages for architecture. Our studio operates as a collaborative collective that expands or contracts depending on the nature of each project. At its core, our practice revolves around competitions. We see them as a way to access commissions without requiring an extensive portfolio, a strong reputation, or an established body of work. That’s why we especially value competitions that are anonymous and transparent — they open the door to meaningful opportunities, such as building a public-scale pavilion with high visibility, through a more horizontal and equitable framework.Save this picture!AD: How does Siestario relate to the theme proposed by the Venice Biennale 2025 — Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective — and what possible interpretations did you envision based on that premise?MZ & JP: These mottos or curatorial texts often tend to be quite ambiguous — and we see that as something positive, because it opens the door to multiple interpretations. With so many people participating in the Biennale through diverse projects, it’s valuable for the thematic framework to be broad: it allows for a wide range of perspectives and approaches. From there, the question of how to represent Argentina naturally arises. Where do you anchor that representation? In our proposal, what comes through is our way of thinking about architecture, our understanding of the Biennale, and our perspective on the collective.Not only were the notions of intelligence, nature, and collectivity present, but there was also something that moved away from the idea of one place, one solution—a concept that truly captivated us. We find the idea of artificial intelligence somewhat challenging... perhaps we’re a bit romantic in that sense; there’s a certain resistance on our part. When we look at some international pavilions, we see a strong emphasis on technology and technical prowess. And while the artificial and the natural are in constant dialogue, what interests us is thinking about the artificial through the lens of local production—through cultural construction. Not as a race toward technological advancement, but as a way of drawing from the depth of knowledge that already exists within our own culture.It is also important that these competitions are resolved quickly, and often one starts from previous ideas or works. In our case, the collective already had a background, a sensitive research on the territory linked to art and certain key elements. This allowed us to connect with the Biennale's themes more deeply in a short time. We see this in other pavilions as well: many have a foundation of prior work and research. In our architecture — and also in art and other disciplines with which we engage — each person brings a background, certain interests, preferences, and tastes. From the place one comes from, what one observes, all of that forms a layer of information from which we project. We try to reflect on this to make it as conscious as possible, so that we can create something that feels close and authentic to us.Save this picture!Representing Argentina also forces us to ask ourselves what we want to say, how we want to speak about who we are. We are interested in a certain metaphor, a certain poetics. We think about the conditions the country is currently going through, both economically and politically, and this image of Argentina resting upon the Argentine countryside emerges, along with the cost of this rest. The proposal of Siestario suggests that the visitor to the Biennale, weary from seeing so much, could climb uphill to a silobag — that iconic symbol of Argentina's agricultural production — and rest, take a nap. But of course, that silobag is the one that stores soybeans, and soybeans, with all their symbolic, productive, and also destructive weight: they contaminate water, devastate forests, and affect local communities. So, Siestario doesn’t just offer a break; it also questions what that rest truly means. There’s a critique, a political stance, a reading on the artificial, on comfort, on the cost of being at ease. All of this emerges when the concepts are linked: the natural, the artificial, the collective. And here, the siesta also appears as a gesture, as a metaphor, as a critique, as a refuge.Save this picture!AD: What motivated you to use the silobag as the central element of the project? How was the process of re-signifying this object within the exhibition context of the Biennale? MZ & JP: The relationship with the silobag is not new to us; in fact, we had already worked with this element in previous projects, documenting and traveling through different towns. This prior research allowed us to see the silobag not just as a functional element, but also as an object loaded with meaning. The process of re-signifying it here at the Biennale involves decontextualizing it. We wanted to change its scale, give it a new role, and use it as a place for a nap, a space for rest. By doing so, the silobag transforms, ceasing to be just an agricultural object and becoming something more playful, connected to the body, fatigue, and the intimacy of the siesta. It’s a simple gesture, but a profound one: it proposes a space for people to recline and feel comfortable in it.Furthermore, the silobag becomes an object that, although it has strong rural and economic connotations, is reinterpreted within the exhibition context, adding a layer of reflection on the everyday and the collective. The intimacy of the siesta becomes social, as the act of resting in a shared space like this creates a collective moment. In the pavilion, we also worked with the atmosphere: the environment is designed to darken, with sounds and lights that induce a sense of relaxation, contributing to creating the right space for that collective rest.Save this picture!AD: What were you hoping to convey through this installation, and how did you expect visitors to experience or interpret the act of "pausing" within the exhibit's journey?MZ & JP: The proposal for this installation revolves around the idea of "stopping." Stopping to think, to look at what you’re doing, to know yourself, to decide. Ultimately, it’s an invitation to stop, to rest, to sleep. We aim for visitors to find that pause within themselves, to disconnect from the fast pace of their surroundings. Furthermore, this act of "pausing" becomes something desirable, almost like an object of desire: the urge to try it, to climb onto the silobag. We wanted to create a physical and experiential experience, not just a contemplative one. Walking through the pavilion becomes an invitation to interact with the space. It even allows walking on the silobag, changing heights, lying down, and resting.We know that at the Biennale, visitors tend to walk a lot and want to see as much as possible. However, this space demands that you stop, that you dedicate time to the experience. It’s not a place to just pass through quickly; it’s a space that asks you to stay for at least 15 or 20 minutes, to climb onto the silobag, to experience the physical effort of doing so, because it’s not a comfortable chair — it’s an experience that requires an investment of time and attention.The curation and design of the rest of the space, along with the projections, are intended so that the installation partially disappears as one moves through it, creating a visual and spatial effect that forces visitors to interact with the place, to stay alert. The project takes a risk; we know that, in the frenetic pace of the Biennale, some may not pay attention to this proposal. But we believe that, to truly enjoy it, it’s necessary to take that time, lie down, listen to the sounds, and be present.Save this picture!AD: How did you approach the relationship between architecture, space, and time within the Argentinian Pavilion?MZ & JP: Our approach has always been to give prominence to the public and collective. In the projects we develop, we try to make the ground floors open and accessible spaces where people can enter spontaneously, without the design being entirely directed toward exclusive use. We are interested in simplicity and clarity, in being radical in the sense of the purity of the idea. This pavilion, for example, uses a single element to express and resolve multiple layers of meaning. The design process seeks to simplify and refine complex ideas, ensuring that the result is direct and clear.In relation to time, we are interested in how architecture, over time, ages and transforms. In Venice, for example, one can see how the city and architecture are not static, how the passage of time causes materials to change, deteriorate, and feel lived in. This concept is present not only in the built architecture but also in the thinking and creation process. For us, time is not just a factor that affects buildings, but a constant in the design process. We value the time spent on physical models, on hand drawing, on processes that endure and allow us to generate something with more depth.Save this picture!Save this picture!AD: There is something disruptive about Siestario: by not displaying so much information or explicit context, the space becomes entirely an experience. What place did you give to the sensory aspect compared to the more direct information exhibition?MZ & JP: This approach is carried over to all our projects, not just the pavilion. We are interested in making spaces sensory experiences, where people not only see but also feel. We seek the space to invite reflection, but also for the enjoyment of the body, for people to engage directly with the environment. In the pavilion, in particular, we wanted the images to function as thresholds, leading you to other places, to the world of the dreamlike. This project, in particular, emphasizes the idea of pause, of stopping to reflect and rest, which connects with our broader vision of how we understand architecture: not just as something built, but as a lived experience.What we aim to create are silent spaces, ones that impose nothing, but at the same time offer power in their simplicity. This is something noticeable in other projects we've done, where the intervention is almost invisible, yet has a significant impact on people's experience, providing a space for them to claim it and inhabit it in their own way.Save this picture!AD: How was the curatorial process in constructing the space through the projections on the sides of the space?MZ & JP:  The curatorial proposal was built with the aim of integrating architecture, art, and landscape, bringing together the different actors. From the outset, we decided to organize the curation of images into three groups: one linked to architecture, another to art, and another to the very recording of the silobag in the field. This division not only provided the visitor with information about the origin and context of the project but also sought to establish a dialogue between architecture and art, something that is fundamental for us. Through the arts, we wanted to tell the story of our landscape and our territory, and we feel that artists have a special sensitivity to read and construct that landscape in a different way.The curatorial line was also guided by an idea that particularly interested us: that from naps emerge dreams, desires, and aspirations of a country. We wanted to propose a positive perspective within a critical reading, showcasing an Argentina that also produces art and architecture. The selected images engage in dialogue with the territory, and they do not respond to a specific temporal cut but rather bring together works from different moments, generating intersections across diverse times. We were interested in showing how these works relate to one another and how, through them, the variable of time appears in architectural production, in the territory, and in the contexts in which these works are being built.Save this picture!Additionally, there was significant archival work: we incorporated original drawings and unpublished material to add historical value. The selection included examples from across the country, even works that are not always associated with formal architecture, such as recreational or leisure spaces. We aimed to represent not only the major cities but also other realities, histories, and geographies. We also included maps and references to historical processes of urbanization and territorial defense, combining them with contemporary works to build the narrative.Save this picture!Save this picture!AD: What does it mean for you to represent Argentina at an event like the Venice Biennale, and how do you experience the responsibility and opportunity that this entails?MZ & JP: Representing Argentina at the Venice Biennale carries significant weight in the national architectural sphere. Winning the competition gave us a certain level of acceptance within the architecture community in Argentina. It’s difficult to fully reflect on the impact of this, as we are still in the process, but we do notice there is recognition. Our motivation was, above all, a genuine interest in participating in the competition, but upon taking on this responsibility, we realized the importance of representing our country at such a prominent event. For our careers, our studio, and our aspirations, this opportunity is significant. Being part of the Venice Biennale is something that makes us feel good because we know that what we do is part of a system that, although imperfect, allows us to reach places like this. It’s an important point in our trajectory and an achievement that fills us with satisfaction.Save this picture! Image gallerySee allShow less About this authorPaula PintosAuthor••• Cite: Pintos, Paula. "Rest as an Experience in a Space Rich with Symbolism: Insights from the Argentinian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale" [El Pabellón Argentino en la Bienal de Venecia 2025: La siesta como experiencia en un espacio cargado de simbolismos] 15 May 2025. ArchDaily. 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Part antiques dealer, part architect, this Belgian maverick is an unlikely source of lessons for contemporary material reuse Marcel Raymaekers (1933–) never qualified as an architect. This did not stop him from procuring the materials for, designing and building around 150 villas across Belgium. The exact number is unknown: Belgium’s architectural establishment mostly ignored and rejected Raymaekers just as he ignored and rejected them, and as a result his work has never been collated or taken seriously. Raymaekers himself never kept records of his work; he regarded the drawing board as a ‘torture device’, preferring sketches and improvisation on site, determined by the material batches he had to hand. The extent of Raymaekers’ oeuvre is also hard to fathom because he wanted to keep it under the radar of the tax authorities. They caught up with him eventually; he was bankrupted in 2014. Today, Raymaekers is a 92‑year‑old tenant living inside what was once his personal empire, Queen of the South, in the Limburg countryside in north‑western Belgium. This compound was – and to a limited extent, still is – a vast salvage yard packed with components scavenged from aggressive postwar demolition. This puzzling place, completed in 1972 but constantly expanded, is stuffed with billowing pitched roofs, impossible archways, numerous appendages and antechambers. In its heyday – the 1970s and ’80s – Queen of the South also had a nightclub, a restaurant, a jazz venue, Raymaekers’ own ultra‑luxe apartment, and an estaminet – a plush, wood‑panelled, banquet‑seated, mirror‑pillared café‑bar. Marcel Raymaekers was born in 1933 near Leuven in Belgium. In 1950, he enrolled to study architecture at the Sint-Lukas School in Brussels but left a year later without a degree. Though not officially an architect, Raymaekers proceeded to design around 150 projects, from suburban homes to hotels and music venues – in 1986, he completed the Orlando discotheque, which burned down in 2014 Credit: Roger Dyckmans It was here that Raymaekers would sit – when he was not criss‑crossing Belgium scouting for materials – scoping out clients as they stumbled giddily into his world, overwhelmed by the aspiration and status anxiety that Queen of the South was designed to induce. The project was also a cultural hub attracting misfits and eccentrics, wheelers and dealers, experts and charlatans. The novelist Hugo Claus had his 50th birthday at Queen of the South, honouring Raymaekers in his speech. Raymaekers and his wife Hilde did interviews for newspapers, magazines and TV, often while reclining on their bed. The media was not interested in him as an accomplished architect, but as a purveyor of kitsch, an absurdity.  What Raymaekers had to sell his clients was more than simply antiques or even houses composed of them (buy enough materials and he would design you a house for no charge: that was always the deal). What Raymaekers was really selling were dreams of nobility: the life of a lord and lady of the manor, set apart (and above) from an increasingly modernised, homogenised world. Sensuality and hedonism, expressed through haptic, resplendent materials, was a big part of the allure too – the promise of a new way of life. One of Raymaekers’ bigger projects was a love hotel, Rubensexclusief, near Diest, completed in 1979. Each chamber was bestowed with an excess of padded velvet upholstery, often creeping up the walls and curving onto the ceilings. In the lobby, a salvaged confession booth was intended as a hiding place for guilty parties. Raymaekers brought several clients here to celebrate a successful transaction or to introduce them to his material language before starting design negotiations. His clients were middle‑class professionals – teachers, dentists, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, florists, pharmacists. Wealthy, but not extraordinarily rich. Many of his houses allowed them to live and work – interfacing with the public – on the same property. House Kelchtermans from 1970, for example, designed with architect Jos Witters, is composed of three pyramids – a home, a doctor’s office and a garage – structured with reclaimed oak beams. The roof tiles were salvaged by the client himself, Dr Kelchtermans, who received tips on where to find them from his patients, many of whom were farmers whose buildings were undergoing modernisation or demolition. Inside, it is all split‑levels, enormous fireplaces and complex, spiralling spaces. But the house’s biggest flourish is the skylights: 23 cupolas from decommissioned Lockheed T‑33 fighter jet cockpits. Raymaekers had found them languishing in a salvage yard on the other side of Flanders, saw their architectural potential and persuaded the client to buy them. Client participation was everything. The Boncher family’s house, completed in 1984, is a mash‑up of components from a derelict slaughterhouse in the city of Tienen and an army barracks in Verviers. The Bonchers themselves spent weeks carefully dismantling the bricks, Gobertange white stone and fleur‑de‑lis roof tiles from the slaughterhouse. Raymaekers had the grand entrance and guardhouses from the barracks available in his stock at Queen of the South, probably at a time‑sensitive discount. Many of the construction and final design decisions for House Boncher were left to happenstance; as the contractors built the walls up row‑by‑row, whenever a hole was needed for a window, Raymaekers would decide the dimensions only at that moment, based on whatever blue limestone window frame he happened to have in stock. Occasionally, the masons had to deconstruct part of a wall if a larger‑than‑anticipated window became available.  ‘Raymaekers’ houses are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams’ The interior, too, required improvisation. A white stone staircase, salvaged from a church pulpit, was meant to spiral up to the main bedroom of House Boncher but turned out to be about 200mm too short. The solution? Raymaekers and the contractors decided to build a hefty bump into the floor, consisting of cobbles and decorative tiling. It gave the staircase the necessary boost to reach up to the bedroom. It was typical of how designing exclusively with old materials required Raymaekers to empower and trust his contractors. Their design contributions, extemporisation and management of materials and how they might fit together were intrinsic to the realisation of every project. Working with large batches helped simplify matters – or allowed further complexity. When the Antwerp townhouse of art nouveau architect Joseph Bascourt was demolished to make way for the extension of a car park, Raymaekers snapped up the facade. Without knowing or caring how the pieces were originally composed, Raymaekers shuffled them into a new configuration for the facade of a flower shop a client had commissioned in the Brussels hinterland, completed in 1987. Raymaekers moved Bascourt’s decorative entablature from the top of the facade down to eye level, the better to be enjoyed; that this meant the windows on the top floor would now poke strangely above the roofline was fine with both Raymaekers and the client. The shreds of Raymaekers’ reputation that survive today, and what can be retrieved and reconstructed of his private and professional habits, are complex at best. His charisma and determination enabled him to convince artisans, contractors, labourers and clients to stretch themselves beyond what they thought possible, adding their own talent to his difficult buildings. But Raymaekers could also be intimidating and domineering. Collaborators often stepped away from his all‑consuming process; clients who considered him too pushy and found themselves running out of money could cease working with him. But this was not the case for his spouses, sons, grandchildren and daughters‑in‑law. They were bound to him by more than his business practice and art, and some of them suffered enduring and even unbearable distress. Their suffering is the shadow behind Raymaekers’ work. When researchers from Belgian design practice Rotor and the University of Ghent – also the authors of this article – started showing up at Queen of the South in 2011, it was not because of Raymaekers’ reputation; it was merely to include Queen of the South on Opalis’s database, a roster of salvage dealers covering much of north‑western Europe. We only realised the extent and importance of his work after several years and at least three visits. Raymaekers had refused all interviews since his bankruptcy, but after some persuasion, a meeting was scheduled in the courtyard on a grey winter day. Triggered by newspaper cuttings, his own limited archive of photographs and strolls through the stock, a picture emerged of the rich reuse ecosystem in which he was active in his glory days. It is this ecosystem, along with the remarkable and necessary fluidity of Raymaekers’ practice with old building materials, that was critical to his success. Belgium was blessed in the postwar period with a remarkably robust network of demolition contractors who were also salvage dealers, antiques dealers who were also designers, industrial scrapyards willing to let architects pick through their mountains of waste. The landscape was ripe for reuse. So was the legislative field. Raymaekers’ oeuvre could be mistaken, at a cursory glance, for just more Ugly Belgian Houses (several of them have indeed appeared on Hannes Coudenys’ infamous blog). His houses appear to be kitsch, chaotic, brazen, overstuffed with mixed metaphors. But they are much more than that. They are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams. They are bracing, never boring. And though they are wildly out‑of‑step with today’s tastes, the houses – and moreover, the kind of innovative practice that built them – have a lot to teach spatial practitioners about reusing architectural materials and circularity in the construction industry. And as with any of those so‑called ‘ugly’ Belgian houses, the label is a trivialisation (and an elitist one) of something systemic and generative. What makes possible such expressionistic and characterful suburban houses in Belgium – whatever one thinks of their quality – is government policy since the postwar era. While other European countries went all in on standardised social housing, in Belgium, the 1948 De Taeye Law offered construction grants and a state guarantee on mortgages, triggering families to initiate, help design and sometimes even execute the construction of their own homes, tapping into a rural tradition of self‑reliance. Raymaekers worked at a time when modernisation – and the demolition it demanded – was churning out a constant flow of antique materials. It was also a time when the merger and exchange of roles in the architectural process – from material procurement, to design and collaboration live on site – was still possible. Material reuse today is much harder. It must work precisely against the linear flows of extraction, capital, efficiency and predictability – all supercharged by the digital and its requirement of an almost omniscient predictability, and by increasingly demanding rules around compliance and liability. But to explore the wild potential of material reuse – not just to reduce embodied carbon, but to unleash new design potential and a richer culture around material (heritage) and practice – it must be possible to imagine ways in which material procurement, construction sites and the architects’ role can change fundamentally again.  Illustration: Laslo Antal for The Architectural Review. Read more about the process of making this portrait here 2025-05-15 Justinien Tribillon Share AR May 2025CircularityBuy Now

Table of Contents Table of Contents Why does it matter? What else is on the platter? If you’ve ever felt like dining at only the crème de la crème of food establishments in your neighborhood, Apple Maps just built the right system for you. And to go with it, if you’re in the mood for some calorie burnout through golf, the service got you covered on that front, too. Apple has inked a deal with MICHELIN Guide and The Infatuation that will let users find and get insights about Michelin-starred restaurants on the mapping and navigation platform. “Users can now view and search for MICHELIN-starred, Green Star, and Bib Gourmand restaurants — along with MICHELIN Key hotels — starting in the U.S,” says the company. Recommended Videos In case you aren’t familiar, a Michelin star is a rating system that is awarded to restaurants and chefs for their culinary excellence. A similar system is in place for hotels that serve a top-tier hospitality experience. Most of these establishments are pretty expensive, but there are Michelin-starred food outlets that cater to the masses with affordable food, as well. Related Thanks to the partnership, when you look up a Michelin-rated outlet, the details page will show cards about its rankings, images, and recommendations about the food options sourced from professional gourmands and connoisseurs. After all, if you’re splurging on a decadent experience, you might as well hear what an expert has to say, even before you get moving toward your destination.  Apple To get the best out of the new features, users can pick the appropriate filter in Apple Maps and find the spot that best suits their taste palette. And if they feel like digging deeper into what a Michelin-starred outlet is all about, they will find all the details in the attached curated guides. For a handful of establishments, users will even be able to make bookings directly from within Apple Maps and book a reservation for themselves. In the coming months, Apple Maps will also add tailored content sourced from The Infatuation and Golf Digest, followed by more expert-curated content. If you are looking up hotels on Apple Maps, you will now see a new search filter named “Michelin Distinctions.” When you select any of the options appearing on the map view, you will see a summary alongside a brief highlight and, more importantly, the number of Michelin stars received by a restaurant. Just like food establishments, Apple Maps users will be able to book tee times directly, thanks to a partnership with Supreme Golf. The latest additions to Apple Maps are currently limited to the US region, and there is no word on their global rollout yet.

options aplenty OpenAI adds GPT-4.1 to ChatGPT amid complaints over confusing model lineup Two new AI models join 7 others, leaving some paid users wondering which one is best. Benj Edwards – May 14, 2025 6:16 pm | 18 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT users now have access to GPT-4.1, an AI language model previously available only through the company's API since its launch one month ago. The update brings what OpenAI describes as improved coding and web development capabilities to paid ChatGPT subscribers, with wider enterprise rollout planned in the coming weeks. GPT-4.1 and 4.1 mini to ChatGPT adds to an already complex model selection that includes GPT-4o, various specialized GPT-4o versions, o1-pro, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high models. There are technically nine AI models available for ChatGPT Pro subscribers. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick recently publicly lampooned the awkward situation on social media. As of May 14, 2025, ChatGPT Pro users have access to eight main AI models, plus Deep Research. Credit: Benj Edwards Deciding which AI model to use can be daunting for AI novices. Reddit users and OpenAI forum members alike commonly voice confusion about the available options. "I do not understand the reason behind having multiple models available for use," wrote one Reddit user in March. "Why would anyone use anything but the best one?" Another Redditor said they were "a bit lost" with the many ChatGPT models available after switching back from using Anthropic Claude. Reportedly better at coding So, what is actually different about GPT-4.1? Notably, it features a very large 1 million token context window that allows processing roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. The API launch included three versions: GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano. So far, only the full and mini versions are available in ChatGPT. The full GPT-4.1 model reportedly prioritizes instruction following and coding tasks, which the company positions as an alternative to its o3 and o4-mini simulated reasoning models for basic programming needs. For the smaller of the two models in ChatGPT, the company claims that GPT-4.1 mini performs better in instruction following, coding, and "overall intelligence" compared to GPT-4o mini. OpenAI is replacing GPT-4o mini with GPT-4.1 mini across all ChatGPT tiers, including free accounts. Free users will automatically switch to GPT-4.1 mini after reaching usage limits for GPT-4o. ChatGPT subscribers using Plus, Pro, or Team plans can access GPT-4.1 through a "more models" dropdown menu in the platform's model picker. The release comes just two weeks after OpenAI made GPT-4 unavailable in ChatGPT on April 30. That earlier model, which launched in March 2023, once sparked widespread hype about AI capabilities. Compared to that hyperbolic launch, GPT-4.1's rollout has been a fairly understated affair—probably because it's tricky to convey the subtle differences between all of the available OpenAI models. As if 4.1's launch wasn't confusing enough, the release also roughly coincides with OpenAI's July 2025 deadline for retiring the GPT-4.5 Preview from the API, a model one AI expert called a "lemon." Developers must migrate to other options, OpenAI says, although GPT-4.5 will remain available in ChatGPT for now. A confusing addition to OpenAI’s model lineup In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged his company's confusing AI model naming practices on X, writing, "We realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten." He promised that a forthcoming "GPT-5" model would consolidate the o-series and GPT-series models into a unified branding structure. But the addition of GPT-4.1 to ChatGPT appears to contradict that simplification goal. So, if you use ChatGPT, which model should you use? If you're a developer using the models through the API, the consideration is more of a trade-off between capability, speed, and cost. But in ChatGPT, your choice might be limited more by personal taste in behavioral style and what you'd like to accomplish. Some of the "more capable" models have lower usage limits as well because they cost more for OpenAI to run. For now, OpenAI is keeping GPT-4o as the default ChatGPT model, likely due to its general versatility, balance between speed and capability, and personable style (conditioned using reinforcement learning and a specialized system prompt). The simulated reasoning models like 03 and 04-mini-high are slower to execute but can consider analytical-style problems more systematically and perform comprehensive web research that sometimes feels genuinely useful when it surfaces relevant (non-confabulated) web links. Compared to those, OpenAI is largely positioning GPT-4.1 as a speedier AI model for coding assistance. Just remember that all of the AI models are prone to confabulations, meaning that they tend to make up authoritative-sounding information when they encounter gaps in their trained "knowledge." So you'll need to double-check all of the outputs with other sources of information if you're hoping to use these AI models to assist with an important task. Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 18 Comments

Three compounds in peppers appear to lessen their perceived spiciness. Credit: Deposit Photos / David Kadlec Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Hot peppers aren’t for everyone, but that’s where the Scoville scale comes in handy. The scale is named after American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, who developed the pepper spiciness test in 1912. To determine a rating, an exact amount of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract its capsaicinoids, the group of compounds responsible for all that heat. This solution is then diluted with sugar water and assessed by a trained panel of specialists. To get a sense of the spectrum, bell peppers rank around a 0 on Scoville Heat Units (SHUs), while notorious hybrids like the Carolina reaper measure as much as 2,500,000 SHUs. But even the Carolina reaper pales in comparison to Pepper X, the Guinness World Record holder for hottest hot pepper, ranking in at a bear spray-like 2,693,000 SHUs. As you may have already worried, even a trained human taste tester can offer subjective assessments, making the Scoville scale more of an approximation than a science. Sometimes a highly rated pepper feels like a dud, or what should be a moderate jalapeno results in gulping down multiple glasses of milk. But even modern methodologies based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can rate peppers in ways that confound a sweating hot sauce enthusiast. If the capsaicinoids—particularly capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin—are tallied accurately, then why the varying perceived heat levels? That’s what a team of researchers recently set out to determine. Their conclusions, published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, identifies a trio of separate compounds that can essentially function as an “anti-spice” weapon. And the ramifications go far beyond the palette. To get to the bottom of the spice mystery, experts at The Ohio State University collected powdered samples from 10 pepper varieties including serrano, Scotch bonnet, and Chile de árbol. They then measured each fruit’s capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin levels using a process known as liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. A trained group of taste testers next tried each pepper powder after mixing them into tomato juice. Don’t worry—no volunteers were harmed during the experiment. Instead, the concoctions featured just enough of each respective powder to bring the heat up to 800 SHU. That’s around the spice of a Cuban pepper, but less than a poblano. While each sample contained the same levels of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, participants reported a significantly wide range of perceived heat across the 10 peppers. Their hot takes (sorry) implied more than just the capsaicinoids were at play. Researchers then ran multiple more chemical composition analyses including nuclear magnetic resonance imaging to ultimately pinpoint another five naturally occurring compounds suspected of influencing each pepper’s perceived spice level. The team next asked another group of taste testers to judge whether those compounds altered capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin pungency, either on their own or in combination with one another. Scientists ultimately determined that while three of those compounds—capsianoside I, roseoside, and gingerglycolipid A—reduced intensity, they didn’t do so in combination with one another. Notably, none of them also offered a discernible flavor when mixed into water. According to study corresponding author Devin Peterson, these newly identified compounds can serve as key additives to fine-tune everyday cuisine. “These advancements could enable the customization of desirable spicy flavor profiles or lead to the creation of a household ingredient designed to tone down excessive heat in dishes—the anti-spice,” Peterson said in an accompanying statement. The possibilities extend far beyond the kitchen. Aside from food customization, pharmaceutical designers may soon turn to capsianoside I, roseoside, and gingerglycolipid A while creating new medications and treatments. Peterson suggests “significant medical potential” could come by leveraging these compounds’ ability to reduce perceived discomfort into novel non-opioid analgesic agents for managing pain In the meantime, the new study serves as a good reminder to always take Scoville levels with a grain of salt—not that sodium would help ease unintended pepper pains, of course.

amara Member Nov 23, 2021 5,483 Dynasty Warriors Origins’ gay undertones were kind of an accident, series producer admits - AUTOMATON WEST According to Dynasty Warriors Origins producer Tomohiko Sho, the game's homoerotic lines weren't entirely intentional. automaton-media.com If you found yourself thinking "Were musou games always so homoerotic?" or "Why does Lu Bu want to make me his?" while playing the franchise's latest AAA entry Dynasty Warriors Origins – you're probably not alone. In fact, even the game's producer himself, Omega Force's Sho Tomohiko, admits to being caught off guard by how fruity some of the lines in there ended up. He recently addressed the topic in an unusual three-way discussion with Denfaminicogamer and 4chan founder Hiroyuki Nishimura. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Denfaminicogamer interview said: Sho: That BL vibe was… not something I intended at all. Honestly, I'd say, "Sorry, I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on things." Hiroyuki: So you're saying that if you're not watching carefully, things just naturally veer off into BL? (laughs) Sho: I'm not saying the team did anything wrong, of course, but honestly speaking – yeah, that's kind of what happened. I came up with the core outline and worldbuilding for the game, and we were aligned on major points. However, I left the actual scenario to the writing team. (via Denfaminicogamer) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Sho mentions having a "Wait, what? moment when playing Dynasty Warriors Origins voiced for the first time (after recording was completed), as the BL fanservice was "beyond his expectations." However, he clarifies that Omega Force's team didn't make these choices on a whim, but after considering what longtime musou fans would like – and they were on the mark it seems, as Sho mentions that there were plenty of fans who loved it. On the other hand, given that things went a bit overboard for his taste, Sho says that Origins' potential sequel will tone down the gay undertones. "If we do a sequel, I think I'll personally check all the text. Although the team will probably hate that (laughs)." Click to expand... Click to shrink...   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 132,520 I'm gonna be honest, it made the game better. I hope they don't swing hard in the other direction for the next game out of embarrassment.   Lord Vatek Avenger Jan 18, 2018 24,670 Cowards. If you tap into the BL fanbase, you own that shit.   LordGorchnik Member Oct 30, 2017 3,656 DO THEY NOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF THE BL FANBASE? I am not one of them but those folks throw hard $$$$ at anything with it haha.  Fodder Aplenty Member Sep 10, 2018 305 I thought Moot was the 4chan founder? And why would he do an interview with a person like that anyway?   Pai Pai Master Member Oct 25, 2017 37,121 Atlanta GA wait this game is kinda gay? now i really need to play it   pronk Member Oct 26, 2017 2,019 Yeah it made the game way better, if anything they should go harder on it   Linus815 Member Oct 29, 2017 23,977 Fodder Aplenty said: I thought Moot was the 4chan founder? And why would he do an interview with a person like that anyway? Click to expand... Click to shrink... 4chan is just a side gig for hiro really   SirKai Member Dec 28, 2017 10,122 Washington Them making a conscious effort to avoid queer subtext and tone in future entries is coward shit. So fucking lame.   Primus Member Oct 25, 2017 4,558 "However, he clarifies that Omega Force's team didn't make these choices on a whim, but after considering what longtime musou fans would like – and they were on the mark it seems, as Sho mentions that there were plenty of fans who loved it." Click to expand... Click to shrink... There we go, see, you get it. People were super thrilled by the more overt BL in Origins, well done! "On the other hand, given that things went a bit overboard for his taste, Sho says that Origins' potential sequel will tone down the gay undertones. "If we do a sequel, I think I'll personally check all the text. Although the team will probably hate that (laughs)." Click to expand... Click to shrink... And now you've just thrown it all away! Well done! justintimberlakesideeye.gif  Starphanluke ▲ Legend ▲ Member Nov 15, 2017 8,478 The way this kind of makes me want to play the game. Annoying that they're backing down, though.   Renteka-Bond Chicken Chaser Member Dec 28, 2017 6,012 Clearwater, Florida Pai Pai Master said: wait this game is kinda gay? now i really need to play it Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's super gay. Like "if you replaced every character with a girl, it'd be a harem anime" gay. It's the best part lol Edit: Sad to see he's a huge coward though. "Everyone liked it, but fuck that, because reasons!"  cursed knowledge Member Mar 15, 2019 3,588 Brazil what is BL exactly?   nded Member Nov 14, 2017 11,793 So the producer wasn't expecting it but it sounds like the writing team knew exactly what they were doing.   Greywaren Member Jul 16, 2019 13,008 Spain Most of my interest in this game comes from the fact that I've been told there are gay undertones, so I think this worked out for them.   HStallion Member Oct 25, 2017 69,538 Don't pursue Lu Bu. He's going to pursue you   Fodder Aplenty Member Sep 10, 2018 305 Linus815 said: 4chan is just a side gig for hiro really Click to expand... Click to shrink... But he owns it, and has owned it for 10 years. He's responsible for it. I don't think we can just hand wave his connection here.  Callibretto Member Oct 25, 2017 10,344 Indonesia cursed knowledge said: what is BL exactly? Click to expand... Click to shrink... boy love or yaoi   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 132,520 Pai Pai Master said: wait this game is kinda gay? now i really need to play it Click to expand... Click to shrink... Your entire social link with Lu Bu is basically him actively being like "YOU ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO BEAT ME BUT YOU ARE ALMOST STRONG ENOUGH AND THAT MEANS WE ARE MARRIED".  SirKai Member Dec 28, 2017 10,122 Washington cursed knowledge said: what is BL exactly? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Boy Love, a romantic sub-genre of manga.  AuthenticM Son Altesse Sérénissime The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 35,087 On the other hand, given that things went a bit overboard for his taste, Sho says that Origins' potential sequel will tone down the gay undertones Click to expand... Click to shrink... boooooo   Valcrist Tic-Tac-Toe Champion Member Oct 25, 2017 10,824 PlanetSmasher said: I'm gonna be honest, it made the game better. I hope they don't swing hard in the other direction for the next game out of embarrassment. Click to expand... Click to shrink... On the other hand, given that things went a bit overboard for his taste, Sho says that Origins' potential sequel will tone down the gay undertones. "If we do a sequel, I think I'll personally check all the text. Although the team will probably hate that (laughs)." Click to expand... Click to shrink... If that's the case they should just not make a sequel tbh.  Cantaim Member Oct 25, 2017 35,047 The Stussining cursed knowledge said: what is BL exactly? Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's usually male on male relationships written for women.   CrazyHal Member Nov 1, 2017 1,811 Pai Pai Master said: wait this game is kinda gay? now i really need to play it Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's not "kinda" gay. It's SUPER gay.  zoodoo Member Oct 26, 2017 14,520 Montreal Cantaim said: It's usually male on male relationships written for women. Click to expand... Click to shrink... That's a thing?   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 132,520 zoodoo said: That's a thing? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Are you surprised? It's a massive, massive slice of the fanfic sphere.  Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 25,967 North Carolina No don't fuckin tone it down you fuckin coward what???   kubev Member Oct 25, 2017 8,130 California Lord Vatek said: Cowards. If you tap into the BL fanbase, you own that shit. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I have to say, seeing people bitch about playing as a woman in GTA6 had me thinking how funny it'd be if Rockstar gave people a choice to replace Lucia with a guy named Luke or something and with no other changes to the game but also no further explanation prior to launch, with the characters being in a relationship either way.   DyCy Member Oct 25, 2017 558 cursed knowledge said: what is BL exactly? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Bu Lu  Renteka-Bond Chicken Chaser Member Dec 28, 2017 6,012 Clearwater, Florida cursed knowledge said: what is BL exactly? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Boy kissing baby~ zoodoo said: That's a thing? Click to expand... Click to shrink... 95% of Gacha games is written with super blatant girlkisser bait and "Yuri undertones" for men. This is like that, except unintentional on their part. In the anime community, any popular anime that likely has majority men and useless women characters probably has a big BL community of artists under its belt, both because it's an underserved market but also because, most often, the relationships between men are written infinitely better than whatever female character the protag has as a love interest.  L Thammy Spacenoid Member Oct 25, 2017 54,753 It's probably accurate to the period, honestly.   L Thammy Spacenoid Member Oct 25, 2017 54,753 Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu used to all sleep in the same bed.   delete12345 One Winged Slayer Member Nov 17, 2017 21,892 Boston, MA DyCy said: For context: 呂布 is pronounced as Lü Bu, one of the strongest and mightiest warriors in the Romance of the Three Kingdom.   Silvergun-Blue Member Oct 26, 2017 10,887 Flame Flamey Member Feb 8, 2018 5,316 Just saying that Rise of the Ronin has actual implied gay sex scenes, since anyone can do every romance option.   thetrin Member Oct 26, 2017 10,578 Grand Junction, CO zoodoo said: That's a thing? Click to expand... Click to shrink... I mean, everything under the sun "is a thing". It's a massively successful subgenre.  texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,308 Indonesia What, so it was a mistake and will be fixed in the sequel? lol   Atom Member Jul 25, 2021 15,257 Don't course correct just give the player a character creator next time ffs. Dial up the self insert stuff and you'll probs get even more positive buzz.   Magister Xehanort Member Sep 5, 2021 4,094 Pai Pai Master said: wait this game is kinda gay? now i really need to play it Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes, all the characters seem obsessed with the protagonist in Dynasty Warriors Origins.   Lord Vatek Avenger Jan 18, 2018 24,670 Magister Xehanort said: Yes, all the characters seem obsessed with the protagonist in Dynasty Warriors Origins. Click to expand... Click to shrink... "Accident" my ass.   GravaGravity Member Oct 27, 2017 4,687 Brother you stumbled into the bisexual motherload you can't bury the mine now   JJD Member Oct 25, 2017 5,226 Hahaha as someone who is not used to musou games I loved it! It was just fun  Dinoegg_96 Avenger Nov 26, 2017 2,802 Honestly, that tends to happen a lot in anime.   MidasTouch Member Dec 29, 2023 1,328 Pretty weak for them to consider toning it down or removing it in future entries. Part of DW's charm is just how absurdly campy and gay it is. They especially can't walk away from this very easily when they make most every male character a prettyboy in some fashion.  Tagyhag Member Oct 27, 2017 15,103 Magister Xehanort said: Yes, all the characters seem obsessed with the protagonist in Dynasty Warriors Origins. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Lmfao, they knew exactly what they were doing, I love it. Also, if anyone knows the national DW Community, this is not surprising and I'm sure they're loving it.  Mental Atrophy Member Oct 30, 2017 1,196 I'm so oblivious that I didn't even notice while playing the game. Guan Yu certainly is dreamy, though. He can be my god of war any time.  

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.Finally, AI is being put to good use, without taking anyone's job (I think?). The Soundcore Rave 3S uses a unique AI feature to turn any regular song you play over Bluetooth into a karaoke track by digitally removing the vocals. I praised it highly in my review, and I've had a lot of fun making it a centerpiece at my parties this year. Right now, the speaker has gotten its first significant discount—you can pick one up for $299.99, $50 of the usual price. Soundcore Rave 3S Power: 200W, Features: AI Vocal Removal, Battery: 12H Playtime, Includes: 2 Wireless Microphones. $349.99 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $349.99 at Amazon If you've ever experienced that feeling of disappointment when looking for a specific karaoke song on YouTube and coming up empty-handed, this speaker is for you. It has happened to me plenty, mainly because my taste in music is fairly niche. If the songs you're searching for are easily found on YouTube and you'd prefer a smaller, more portable speaker, I recommend getting the Ikarao Shell S1 portable speaker instead.Otherwise, the Soundcore Rave 3S is pretty sweet. The AI vocal remover works well. You can trigger it by pressing a button on one of the two Bluetooth microphones or through the companion app. You can also choose the degree to which you want the vocals to be removed. The companion app is intuitive and useful and includes fun Vocal Enhancer features that change the sound of the mic (with options for neutral, warm, presence, and bright). The EQ options are also very detailed and change in real time. The battery will give you up to 12 hours of juice, so you can take the party outdoors (it's splashproof, with an IPX4 rating).

Piri piri or African bird’s eye chilli peppersSteidi/Alamy Accidentally made your food too spicy? One day, you might be able to reach for an “anti-spice” condiment to tame the heat of a dish, thanks to the discovery of chemicals found in chilli peppers that counteract their spicy sensation. A chilli’s heat comes from compounds called capsaicinoids, which bind to receptors on nerve fibres within your mouth, sending impulses to the brain that create a burning sensation similar to those caused by a fire’s heat or a sting. Advertisement Chilli aficionados compare the heat of different strains using the Scoville scale, which is based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, yet some varieties aren’t quite as hot as their Scoville rating suggests they should be. To investigate, Devin Peterson at the Ohio State University and his colleagues used an analytical method known as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine how much of two capsaicinoids – capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin – were in powdered samples of 10 types of peppers, including chile de árbol, African bird’s eye and Scotch bonnet. Then they gave samples of tomato juice containing powder from the different chillis to a panel of tasters. Each contained the same amount of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin – which should have been enough to give all the samples a relatively mild kick of 800 Scoville units. But the tasters perceived the heat from the 10 peppers as different, so Peterson and his colleagues performed additional chemical analyses. This identified three compounds in the chilli powder – capsianoside I, roseoside and gingerglycolipid A – that were present in high quantities in the chillies that weren’t as intense as they should have been according to the Scoville scale. All three compounds are glucosides, molecules that contain the sugar glucose. The latest science news delivered to your inbox, every day. Sign up to newsletter A group of 37 tasters then tested two samples at once, one containing these suspected spice-killing compounds and one without, placed on either side of their tongue to stop an enflamed tongue affecting a second taste test. Their feedback revealed that the compounds decreased the chilli intensity by between 0.7 and 1.2 points on a 15-point scale, on average. “They are effectively anti-spice compounds,” says Peterson. He isn’t yet sure how they work, but says they could be altering receptors on nerve fibres in the mouth in a way that results in a reduction in their burning signals. Knowing about these anti-spice chemicals could allow growers to breed or genetically modify plants so they lack them to create valuable, even hotter chillis, or breed very mild fruit with higher amounts of anti-spice, says Peterson. Using the compounds could also enable the creation of a household ingredient to tone down excessive heat in dishes, he says, or they could work as relievers for severe pain by blocking pain signals. “Sometimes when I’ve ordered food with my kids and it’s too spicy, that’s a no-go,” says Peterson. “So, the idea of having some kind of a natural compound to dial it back may be appealing.” “The way the study was done using the half tongue was very clever,” says Barry Smith at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, adding that it shows the Scoville scale isn’t a very precise instrument for describing how hot a chilli is. Smith also wonders if the perceived intensity of menthol or mint, which cause a cooling sensation in a similar way to how capsaicinoids cause a burning one, could also be muted by these kinds of compounds. Journal reference:Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5c01448 Topics:food and drink

As Brian Chesky tells it, the reinvention of Airbnb started with the coup at OpenAI. On November 17, 2023, the board of OpenAI fired company CEO Sam Altman. His friend Chesky leapt into action—publicly defending his pal on X, getting on the phone with Microsoft’s CEO, and throwing himself into the thick of Altman’s battle to retake OpenAI. Five days later Altman prevailed, and Chesky—“I was so jacked up,” he says—turned his buzzing mind to his own company, Airbnb.Thanksgiving weekend was beginning. The Chesky extended family had already held their turkey get-together a week earlier, and the Airbnb CEO had no holiday plan. He was completely alone in his sprawling San Francisco apartment except for Sophie, his golden retriever.Still wired out of his mind from the cathartic corporate rescue, Chesky began to write. He wanted to bust the company he’d cofounded out of its pigeonhole of short-term home rentals. Amazon, he was fond of pointing out, was first an online bookstore before it became the everything store. Chesky had long believed that Airbnb should expand in a similar way. But things kept getting in the way—dealing with safety issues, fighting regulation, coping with the existential crisis of a global pandemic. The company was in danger of being tagged with the word that ambitious entrepreneurs dread like the plague: mature.Now Chesky was emboldened to lay out his vision. Home rentals are simply a service, so why stop there? Airbnb could be the platform for booking all sorts of services. While other apps cover specific sectors—food delivery, home maintenance, car rides—Chesky figured that Airbnb’s experience in attractively displaying homes, vetting hosts, and responding to crises could make it more trustworthy than competitors and therefore the go-to option for virtually anything.In a frantic typing spree at the dining room table, on the couch, the bed, and at times in his office, Chesky specced out how he would redesign the Airbnb app. Its users—now at 2 billion—would open up the app not only at vacation time but whenever they needed to find a portrait photographer, a personal trainer, or someone to cook their meals. Chesky reasoned that Airbnb would need to significantly strengthen its identity verification. He even thought he could get people to use the app as a credential, something as respected as a government-issued ID. If he could transform Airbnb into a storefront for real-world services, Chesky thought, he’d catapult his company from a nearly $10-billion-a-year business into one that boasted membership in tech’s pantheon.Over the next few days, Chesky spilled these thoughts into an Evernote document. “I was basically going from room to room just pouring out this stream-of-consciousness manifesto, like Jack Kerouac writing On the Road,” he says, referring to the frenetically produced single roll of teletype paper that catalyzed the beat movement. “I dusted off all my ideas from 2012 to 2016,” Chesky tells me. “I basically said, ‘We’re not just a vacation app—we’re going to be a platform, a community.’” By Friday he had around 10,000 words, “incomprehensible to anyone but me.” He began to refine it, and by the time the weekend was over, Chesky had distilled his document down to 1,500 words.PHOTOGRAPH: GABRIELA HASBUNAfter the holiday, Chesky gathered his leadership team into a conference room. He handed the team copies of his memo à la Jeff Bezos and waited as his direct reports took it in. “Usually when I share ideas, people aren’t bought in,” he says. “But this time, there wasn’t a lot of feedback. People were really excited. And two years later, that document will now be executed with an exacting detail to what I wrote.”This month, Airbnb will launch the first stage of its more than $200 million reinvention: a panoply of more than 10,000 vendors peddling a swath of services in 260 cities in 30 countries. It is also revitalizing an unsuccessful experiment the company began in 2016: offering bespoke local activities, or what it calls “experiences.” The next stage, launch date unspecified, involves making your profile on Airbnb so robust that it’s “almost like a passport,” as Chesky puts it. After that comes a deep immersion into AI: Inspired by his relationship with Altman, Chesky hopes to build the ultimate agent, a super-concierge who starts off handling customer service and eventually knows you well enough to plan your travel and maybe the rest of your life.“Brian’s been badly underrated as a tech CEO,” Altman says of his friend. “He's not usually mentioned in the same breath as Larry Page or Bill Gates, but I think he is on a path to build as big of a company.”That’s a stretch—Airbnb is nowhere near the size of those oligarchic powers. But Chesky was feeling the need for big changes; While impressive, Airbnb’s growth rate doesn’t suggest that the company will soon reach the trillion-dollar heights of Google and Microsoft. “I’m 43 and at a crossroads, where I can either be almost done or just getting started,” he tells me. “There's a scenario where I'm basically done. Airbnb is very profitable. We've kind of, mostly, nailed vacation rentals. But we can do more.”In early April, I visited Chesky at the company’s lavish San Francisco headquarters. The relaunch was five weeks away. The second floor—where signs warn employees not to bring visitors—had become a sprawling eyes-only command center. The walls were covered with dozens of large poster boards, each one featuring a city, that read as if a group of McKinsey consultants had tackled a fourth-grade geography assignment. Austin, Texas, was written up as “a funky come-as-you-are kind of place” with a handful of “first principles,” one of which was “Outlaw of Texas,” with pointers to food trucks and vintage markets. Another so-called principle was “Live and Alive,” referring to music venues and bat watching; a third was “Dam Lakes,” referring to various water sports. Other blindingly obvious notations included barbeque, tacos, and the two-step. The Paris poster painted a “revolutionary” city marked by slow living and enduring culture.Chesky strode up and greeted me enthusiastically. Dressed in a slim T-shirt that exposed his swole physique, he bounced on his heels with a jittery energy that reminded me of the first time I met him, in January 2009. He had just joined Y Combinator’s famous program for startups, and he and his classmates were at a party at the home of YC cofounder Paul Graham. (Graham told me then that he thought Airbnb’s business plan was crazy but was impressed by their determination.) I mentioned to Chesky that I was headed to Washington, DC, for Barack Obama’s inauguration, and he and his cofounders immediately tried to convince me to use their service to sleep on someone’s couch. I declined, but somehow over the next 15 years they managed to sell the idea to 2 billion people, including me, and now the company has a market cap worth more than Marriott.Chesky ushers me into a conference room to get a preview of the new Airbnb app. His engineers and designers have rebuilt the app from scratch, and he waves around a stick of lip balm as a talisman as he talks me through the redesign. Also in the room is his product marketing head, Jud Coplan, while his vice president of design, Teo Connor, Zooms in from London. While customers likely think of Airbnb as a travel company, its leaders view the operation as an achievement in design. Which makes sense; both Chesky and his cofounder Joe Gebbia were students at the Rhode Island School of Design.Airbnb's new user interface featuring experiences and services.COURTESY OF AIRBNBChesky explains that historically, people used Airbnb only once or twice a year, so its design had to be exceptionally simple. Now the company is retooling for more frequent access. Open the app, and you see a trio of icons that act as gateways to the expanded functions. Within minutes Chesky and his lieutenants are applauding the cheery, retro style of the icons—a house for traditional rentals, a hotel bell for services, and a Jules Verne-ish hot-air balloon representing activities. “We really thought deeply about the metaphor—what was the right visual to express an experience?” says Connor. Once they decided on the balloon, they drilled into how much fire should belch from the basket. The icons were drawn by a former Apple designer whose name Chesky would not divulge. “He’s a bit of a secret weapon,” he says.A less-secret weapon is Chesky’s collaboration with the iconic, also ex-Apple, industrial designer Jony Ive. Chesky’s north star, it should be said, is Apple. “Steve Jobs, to me, is like Michelangelo or da Vinci,” he says. Despite never meeting Jobs, “I feel like I know him deeply, professionally, in a way that few people ever did, in a way that you only possibly could by starting a tech company as a creative person and going on a rocket ship,” Chesky says. By hiring Ive’s LoveFrom company and working with Jobs’ key collaborator, Chesky gets a taste of the famous Jobs/Ive dynamic. Ive himself doesn’t make that comparison, but he does praise Chesky’s design chops. “There are certain tactical things where I hope that sometimes I'm of use to Brian, just as as a fellow designer,” Ive says. “But the majority of our work has been around ideas and the way we frame problems and understand opportunities.”Another key part of the app is the profile page. “You need trust,” Chesky says—meaning a verifiable identity. Airbnb has been vetting the new vendors, which it calls “service hosts.” For months, Chesky says, an army of background researchers has been scrutinizing the résumés, licenses, and recommendations of chefs, photographers, manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, makeup artists, personal trainers, and aestheticians who provide spa treatments such as facials and microdermabrasions. They’re all being professionally photographed.Airbnb's new guest profile interface.COURTESY OF AIRBNBFor the next phase—turning Airbnb’s user profiles into a primary internet ID—Connor and her team have engaged in some far-out experimentation. She rattles off a list of technologies they’ve been exploring, including biometrics, holograms, and the reactive inks used to deter counterfeiting on official ID cards. But it’s far from easy to become a private identity utility (hello, Facebook), and even Chesky notes that getting governments to accept an Airbnb credential to verify identity is “a stretch goal.”Now that a whole slew of people will have new reasons to chat with each other and coordinate plans, Airbnb has also enhanced its messaging functions. Fellow travelers who share experiences can form communities, stay in touch, even share videos and photos. “I don’t know if I want to call it a social network, because of the stigma associated with it,” says Ari Balogh, Airbnb’s CTO. So they employ a fuzzier term. “We think of it as a connection platform,” he says. “You’re going to see us build a lot more stuff on top of it, although we’re not an advertising system, thank goodness.” (My own observation is that any for-profit company that can host advertising will, but whatever.)This brings us to the services—the heart and soul of this reinvention. Those now on offer seem designed to augment an Airbnb stay with all the stuff that drives up your bill at a luxury resort, like a DIY White Lotus. It will be interesting to see how the company handles the inevitable cases of food poisoning or bad haircuts (and skeezy customers), but Airbnb can draw on its 17 years of experience with dirty sheets, all-night discos on the ground floor, or a host who is literally terrorizing you. Eventually, Chesky says, Airbnb will offer “hundreds” of services, perhaps as far-ranging as plumbing, cleaning, car repair, guitar lessons, and tutoring, and then take its 15 percent fee.Crafted cuts by Bryan, Chicago, IllinoisCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; LYNDON FRENCHTrain with Steve Jordan, Trainer to the Stars, Los Angeles, CaliforniaCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; JACKIE BEALEThe other key feature of the company’s reinvention, of course, is Experiences. If the idea sounds familiar, that’s because Airbnb launched a service by that name almost a decade ago, with pretty much the same pitch: special activities for travelers, like architects leading tours of buildings or chefs showing people how to fold dumplings.It flopped, although Airbnb never formally pulled the plug. Chesky’s excuses include tactical errors: After a big initial splash, the company didn’t follow up with more marketing, and it didn’t establish a strong flow of new experiences. But the big reason, he says, was that it was too early. Now the company has five times as many customers and an ecosystem to support the effort. “It was like our Newton,” says Chesky, referring to Apple’s handheld device that predated the iPhone. (Another Apple reference, for those keeping score.)Chesky’s crew has arranged for more than 22,000 experiences in 650 cities, including a smattering of so-called “originals,” with people at the top of their field—star athletes, Michelin chefs, famous celebrities. In the pipeline is Conan O’Brien selling a perch behind a mic in his podcast studio. (Don’t expect it to air.) Taking a lesson from his earlier flop, Chesky has planned a steady cadence of these short-term promotional stunts, which, of course, is what the Conan experience ultimately is. “We’re going to have thousands of originals and maybe one day hundreds of thousands—a regular drumbeat of some of the biggest iconic celebrities,” Chesky says.He shows me how someone could take a trip to, say, Mexico City and book experiences instantly. “Fun fact—I’ve always dreamed of being a professional wrestler in Mexico. I want to be a luchador!” he tells me, then immediately regrets it. Regardless: In an Airbnb experience, he says, you can meet a real luchador, get in the ring with him, and learn some moves. Can you keep the mask?“Probably,” says Chesky. In any case, you’d share the photos with others in your group. (But don’t call it a social network.)Megan Thee Stallion in Los Angeles, CaliforniaCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; ADRIENNE RAQUELHorseback riding through four hidden temples of the Inkas, Cusco, PeruCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; PAZ OLIVARES-DROGUETTAirbnb’s planned transformation tracks with another reinvention: that of its leader.Chesky had originally taken the title of CEO over his two pretty-much equal cofounders because his personality was more forward facing—it wasn’t even formalized until 2010. But then, in 2011, the company had its first real crisis when a host publicly shared a horror story about how an Airbnb guest from deep, deep hell pillaged and trashed her home. What wasn’t stolen—the customer broke into a locked closet to grab a passport, cash, and heirloom jewelry—was ravaged and burned in the fireplace. “The death-like smell from the bathroom was frightening,” wrote the host. The story threatened to destroy the cheerful person-to-person vibe the company had cultivated. It didn’t help that Airbnb’s initial response was clueless and weak.Chesky stepped up to become the face of the company and instituted overdue safety protocols. Over the next few years, Chesky cemented his alpha status. In 2018 his cofounder Joe Gebbia stepped down from daily duties, though he still sits on the board. (Recently Gebbia has been in the news for his very public participation in DOGE’s remaking of the US government. When asked about it at a Q and A session with employees, Chesky said that Gebbia was free to have his own opinions, but they are not the company’s. Chesky did not attend Trump’s inauguration.) The third cofounder, Nathan Blecharczyk, is still with the company, though it’s notable that as I sat in meetings with over a dozen executives, the only time his name came up was when I mentioned it.Chesky was totally in charge during the pandemic, when Airbnb lost 80 percent of its business in eight weeks. He laid off a quarter of the staff. Now that bookings surpass pre-2020 levels, he thinks the company is stronger. And he learned a big lesson: “The pandemic was the turning point of the company,” he says. “My first principle became ‘Don’t apologize for how you want to run your company.’ Most of all you should not apologize for being in the details. The number one thing people want to do is keep you out of the details.”When Chesky shared some of these views at a Y Combinator event in 2024, Paul Graham was inspired to write an essay called “Founder Mode.” Graham used Chesky’s story to argue that only the person who created a company knows what is best, and the worst mistake is to listen to management types who haven’t built their own. The essay struck a nerve; people were stopping Chesky on the street and yelling “Founder mode!” Someone dropped off a baseball hat for him with those words; it now sits on a shelf in his conference room.Chesky, meanwhile, has been deep in the details, especially on this reinvention, itself kind of a classic founder move. “I did review work before the pandemic, but people kind of hated it. There were negative associations to a CEO reviewing everything; it’s considered micromanaging.” Also, his idol Steve Jobs was famous—infamous?—for his unsparing criticism. Chesky contends that once he went all-in on dishing out criticism, with no sheepishness, people seemed happier. But even if they weren’t, he’d do it anyway. Curious to see how this worked, I arranged to attend a Chesky review.Gathered in a conference room, the design and engineering teams presented near-final app tweaks affecting how hosts set up their services. Chesky seemed fairly pleased with what he was seeing—so much so that he apologized to me afterward that I didn’t get to see him go animal with his underlings. Nonetheless, even during this lovefest of a product review, Chesky babbled a constant stream of minor corrections. The cursor is oddly centered … Those visual cues are a little confusing … We need a subtle drop shadow here … The next line doesn’t seem centered vertically … That address input is pretty awkward … That button looks oddly short, is it supposed to be that short? … That shimmer, do we think we need it? Get rid of it … That top module doesn’t make sense … We need to rewrite all the copy on this page … I think we need a better empty state … That title’s not clear …The group shuffles out satisfied and a bit stunned that they got away so easy. But when I meet Chesky a day later to sum things up, he tells me that I’d just missed a spicier product review. Then he gets serious, explaining what the reinvention means to him. “I felt a little bit like the vacation rental guy,” he says. “Like we as a company are a little underestimated.” He brings up Apple again, saying that both companies embody the idea that a business relationship can generate emotion. “My ambition is kind of like the ambition of an artist and designer,” he says.At that point Chesky gets a little woo. “Magic, in hindsight, is not technology,” he says as he reflects on Apple’s wizardry. What he’s realized is that magic lies in forging connections with those who offer you a bed, a microdermabrasion, a sparring match in a lucha libre ring. “The magic that is timeless is, like, the stuff you remember at the end of your life.”He lets that sit for a minute. Then he puts a cap on that insight, sounding less like a CEO than a life coach. “I’ve never had a dream with a device in it,” he says. Leave it to the subconscious to highlight what matters. That said, his day dreams certainly involve a new kind of device. In his off hours he’s helping with a secret project headed by his friends Altman and Ive to create a device that Altman says is the next step beyond computers. (“This is not theoretical memo-swapping,” Altman tells me. “We’re hard at work on it, prototyping.”)But that’s somewhere off in the future. In the realm of products that actually exist in the world, Chesky will have to face competition from dozens of domain leaders including Yelp, Instacart, DoorDash, Ticketmaster, Hotels.com, Tinder, OpenTable, and Craigslist, to name but a few. You can probably add Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, since Chesky wants Airbnb to be a universal credential and what certainly looks like a social network. Even Steve Jobs might have blinked at taking on that crowd all at once.Images styled by Jillian Knox.Featuring: Liv Skinner, Liv Well and Francesca Lopez, Zinnia Wildflower BakehouseLet us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com or comment below.