BofA Spends Big on GLP-1s & AI Invents a Virus Not Found in Nature For First Time

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to The Intelligence Shift, Morning Brew's new podcast with PwC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guests to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR, and more. Listen to The Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts.

**Neal Freyman** (0:29)
Good Morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:32)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:33)
Today, Bank of America's astonishing bill for weight loss drugs.

**Toby Howell** (0:37)
Then AI just designed a virus that's never before existed in nature. It's Friday, August 7th. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:55)
If you missed the treasure hunt of finding movies at Blockbuster, we found the next best thing, Binge Buster. It's a new website that recreates Blockbuster, but for the streaming era. When you head to bingebuster.net, you'll enter a digital video store where you can browse titles from HBO Max, Netflix, and other streaming services perched on shelves like it's the 90s again. And the best part, no teenage employees judging your movie picks. Toby, wandering around Binge Buster reminded me just how many bad movies have been made. It's glorious.

**Toby Howell** (1:24)
I won't lie. Great idea, but awful experience. Very difficult to navigate. The movie titles aren't too small. It's hard to turn around in this virtual store, but just seeing the movies piled up on the virtual racks did make me yearn for a simpler time. And Christopher Nolan has been beating the drum of physical discs for a long time. He wants you to buy more physical media like Blu-ray. So discs are so back, but it made me think of a business idea too. People like physical media, but buying a Blu-ray disc is very expensive. What if we launched a business that did that for you, buys them, aggregates them, you can come into a store and browse around, rent it for a short period, then give it back. I don't see how it fails, honestly.

**Neal Freyman** (2:06)
I thought you were gonna say, okay, why don't we rent out discs? And I was like, you know what? That is actually a pretty good business. That is my idea. I'm talking about Netflix.

**Toby Howell** (2:15)
You put them on a block, actually. So it's a physical store. I'd call it, I don't have a name for it yet. Someone else come up with a name for it.

**Neal Freyman** (2:22)
All right, so head to Binge Buster on it if you wanna see what we're talking about and browse some titles. It also just made me think, I know the passwords to absolutely zero of my streaming services, so it gave me a lot of anxiety.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:35)
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**SPEAKER_5** (3:01)
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**Neal Freyman** (3:04)
Here is a little pop quiz for you on a Friday morning. How much would you guess Bank of America spends covering GLP-1 weight loss drugs for its employees? The answer is $250 million, and it says it might be the best quarter bill it's ever spent. This week, CEO Brian Moynihan revealed the figure in an interview with CNBC.
We spent about $250 million or more on GLPs, he said, and that's up from zero four or five years ago. He added, we see a great impact on the employees. It also has a great impact on its budget. These medications account for about 13% of Bank of America's total health care spending of $2 billion.
Still, Moynihan believes it's the right thing to do. He said the company has set up health coaching to help employees on the drugs monitor weight loss and rejigger their lifestyle. He's bullish on GLP-1s for long-term health, but also mentioned short-term benefits as well, like lowering the risk of cardiovascular issues. The two leading GLP-1 companies, Nova Nordisk and Eli Lilly, have got to love what they're hearing. They've been pleading with companies to cover these drugs for their employees, but have only achieved modest success so far. Just over one-third of global employers offer coverage of GLP-1s for their workforce, according to a survey released in July. Toby, that's a hefty bill.