Texas grocery giant H-E-B has announced a formal agreement with San Francisco-based Instacart — a grocery delivery service whose personal shoppers hand-pick and deliver items from local stores — in Austin and Houston.
Instacart already provides service from H-E-B under an informal partnership, but the new agreement solidifies the arrangement and gives users the ability to shop for virtually any product offered at the store, according to the Houston Business Journal.
"Don't have time to come to H-E-B? No problem. We'll bring H-E-B to you with Instacart," said Scott McClelland, president of H-E-B Houston Division, in a press release. "Instacart's ability to deliver on-demand clearly matches our focus of making our customers' lives better. We are excited to offer a larger assortment of H-E-B items to customers in Austin and Houston."
Instacart initially launched in Austin May 2014. The service, which can be accessed through a phone app or online, promises items to be delivered in as little as an hour.
New customers can open an account online and receive free delivery and $10 off their first order using promo code HEBLOVE through September 30. Instacart also offers Instacart Express — an annual membership that eliminates delivery fees for all orders of $35 or more — for $99 per year.
To help ensure his career is “alright, alright, alright” in the AI era, Oscar-winning movie star Matthew McConaughey has trademarked two of his greatest assets: his face and voice.
Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued eight trademarks designed to prevent AI users from mimicking McConaughey’s likeness or voice without authorization. Applications for the trademarks, known as “motion marks” and “sound marks,” include:
A 7-second video of him seated near a fireplace and Christmas tree in his living room.
A 7-second video of him standing on a porch
A brief audio clip of him saying, “Just keep livin’, right?” J.K. Livin Brands, which owns McConaughey’s Just Keep Livin apparel business, controls the trademarks.
A brief audio clip of him uttering his iconic “Alright, alright, alright” catchphrase from the 1993 cult classic film Dazed and Confused.
“My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it,” McConaughey, a Uvalde native and longtime Austin resident, told The Wall Street Journal. “We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.”
As AI continues to infiltrate the entertainment business, McConaughey and other Hollywood A-listers are pursuing trademarks to stop AI-driven misuse of their faces and voices. However, everyday actors with limited resources may be unable to afford going through the trademark process and defending a trademark violation.
“Some actors fear a possible future in which studios will pressure them to sign away their likeness,” Scientific American reported in 2023, “and their digital double will take work away from them.”
The Wall Street Journal notes that various actors and singers have grappled with AI-created fake videos, audio, and images on the internet, including Tom Hanks and Taylor Swift. A study released in 2024 by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers predicted AI-generated content could cause music creators to lose 24 percent of their revenue by 2028, and could lead to screenwriters and directors losing 15-20 percent of their revenue.
The threat of AI stealing work from actors became a sticking point in 2023 negotiations between entertainment studios and striking members of SAG-AFTRA, a labor union representing performers, recording artists, and broadcasters.
Kevin Yorn, founder and managing partner of Southern California law firm Yorn Levine, which handled the trademark applications for McConaughey, says that while the actor and his attorneys support the evolution of AI, legal boundaries must be put in place.
“Protecting individual voice, image, and intellectual property is essential to building a future that works for everyone,” Yorn says in a statement provided to CultureMap. “Along with Matthew, we are forward-looking, engaged in the possibilities of AI, and thoughtful about how everyone’s creative identity is represented and protected.”
